Aaron's Shrine to Procrastination

krusty.gif (5344 bytes)I often find that my friends say to me, "Aaron, I always seem to have time on my hands at work, and a nice speedy T-1 line. But I just don't know where I can go to waste my time." Well, wonder no longer. There are all kinds of fun things out there on the web for you to view. While search engines just give you a list of sites, I have made it my life's work to bring you the most interesting and useless sites on the web. Soon to be a major motion picture.

(July 2004 note: Sorry I haven't updated this page in a while... hope to get to it soon.)

Sports and Politics

  • I gave all those links their own page.

Movies, TV, and Music

  • The All-Music Guide - an exhaustive encyclopedia of every musician ever, with reviews of almost every album ever put out. Of course every entry links to tons of other entries, allowing you to play Six Degrees of Everything.
  • Every musician ever not enough for you?  How about every made-up musician ever in movies, TV, and literature with the Rocklopedia Fakebandica (takes a while to load).  And how about drilling down really deep with every sample from every rap record at the Encylopedia Breakannica.
  • Prindle's Record Reviews - in which a very hyper music fans goes through a number of artist's catalogs and tells you which albums are good and which ones suck, and which ones you should buy.  Pretty entertaining and pretty useful, sort of a more cavalier companion to the All-Music Guide.  Look for older stuff, because at this point he's reviewing a lot of really esoteric independent records.
  • Teevee.org features really funny writing about what else - TV.  For fun, go into the archives and read the "Dead Pool" articles, a contest they run each year to determine the first shows to get cancelled.
  • Upcoming Movies - features rumors and casting decisions on movies from movies opening soon (X-Men 2) to those filming (Harry Potter 3, 4, ad nauseum) to those just rumored (Tron 2.0, eek).  They write about non-sequels too.
  • Nothing But Trouble made it, but where the heck is Magnolia on this list of the 100 Worst Movies Ever Made?
  • The best TV show of all time was Homicide: Life on the Street.  I have every episode on tape.

Nostalgia Whips a Llama's Ass

  • Yesterland, a visit to the Disneyland of the past. Fascinating review of Disneyland rides and stores that no longer exist, like "Adventure through Inner Space" (torn down to make Star Tours) and an explanation of that whole E ticket thing.
  • Dave's Lego List, a look at every single Lego set, ever.  Allows you to visit sets by year, sets by genre, even sets that never were.  Brings back many memories of sitting on the living room floor surrounded by little bricks.  Also, check out the fun Lego Tarot.
  • The Classic Video Games Nexus - Links to all sorts of video game nostalgia.  (Closed June 2001, but the links still work.)  Like may people these days, I feel that the games of the past were much more fun the boring polygon shoot-em-ups and martial arts wars of today that swallow four quarters at a pop.  I own the "Intellivision Lives" CD which allows me to play classic Intellivision games on my PC, and Intellivision's designers have an amazing site which describes the whole history of the game, from the battles against Atari to the great 1984 video game crash.  Plus, when you click to the site it says "Hello Commander, computer reporting" from Space Spartans!   If you were an Atari person, you probably would want to visit here.
  • The greatest video game ever is Ms. Pac-Man, and anyone who feels otherwise is clearly a communist.  Check out this animated video of Ms. Pac-Man singing the song "MAME," a tribute to the great arcade machine emulator program.
  • Remember the ABA - memories of the league which brought us the slam dunk contest, the 3 point shot, the San Antonio Spurs, and afros afros afros! Also links to the USFL page and pages for other various defunct sports leagues.
  • And, if you like defunct sports leagues, you will love The Helmet Project, which attempts to catalog and show every helmet ever worn in football since 1950, in any league college or pro.  WLAF fever!
  • Wait, it gets better... with the Logo Server, containing current and historical logos for sports teams, major league and minor league, in everything from baseball, basketball, and football to rugby and lacrosse.
  • The history of the great children's show of my youth, You Can't Do That On Television.  I think Moose was my first crush.  Now if I could only find a really good guide to Tomorrow People...
  • For further childhood nostalgia check out The Ten Strangest Masters of the Universe Characters Ever and this History of Superfriends page.  Form of... a bucket of water!
  • Speaking of water, freeze it and add some artificial color and flavor and you get Otter Pops.
  • 8-Track Heaven, your guide to the world of collectable 8-track tapes.  I don't collect 8-tracks myself, but I find it fascinating that someone produced an 8-Track of Sonic Youth's "Dirty."  Learn how 8-tracks work, about rare 8-tracks (Beastie Boys' "Licensed to Ill!"), and about 8-track porn.  Yes, porn.  In the middle of the orgasm, it goes "click" and switches to the next program.
  • Superheroes meet Star Wars characters meet small marshmallow Peeps at Action Figure Theater.
  • When Tom Ridge raises the Terror Alert level to "Burnt Umber," you can find out what he's talking about with this History of Crayola Colors.  Flesh, anyone?
  • I know they didn't contain any actual tape -- but if they did, what kind of music would have been recorded on those Decepticon Cassettes?  Since it was the 1980's, probably Night Ranger.
  • No whammies, no whammies, no whammies, Stop!
  • The Best Picture Ever.
  • Many of the links on this page were discovered through Pop Culture Junk Mail.

A Hell-Bus Ride Though Some Random Interests

  • My latest obsession is poker.  I've become a Hold 'Em junkie, either Texas or Omaha Hi-Lo.  Homepoker provides a ton of different variations for your home game.  Also check out the Poker FAQ and this page of low limit Hold 'Em strategies.  And the Wizard of Odds breaks down all those other casino games I don't play, like Blackjack, Let It Ride, Carribean Stud, and more.
  • NewsAskew, the guide to the wonderful world of Kevin Smith movies (he made Chasing Amy, Clerks, and Dogma.  He also cowrote Coyote Ugly, and did not receive a writing credit, for which I assume he is forever thankful.  If you like Smith, you want to check out this page describing a sitcom version of Clerks that Miramax put together in 1995 without consulting Smith at all.  The thing never reached air and sounds awful.
  • I love Folkmanis Puppets.  Once in a store I was playing with this little mouse puppet and this woman came over with her baby boy and I must have played with that kid for twenty minutes with the puppet on my hand.  She ended up buying the puppet and the store offered me a job.  Folkmanis rules because they do such interesting puppets you wouldn't expect - a manta ray, a cobra, or a giant labrador puppy.
  • One day back in 1996 I was walking though the Caldor's Going Out of Business sale when we saw this strange doll of a banana wearing blue-and-white striped pajamas and Converse All-Stars.  It sang a little song.  We thought it was the strangest thing we had ever seen.  The first ever children's TV show thought up by weird Australians on crack, Bananas in Pajamas are two strangely homoerotic bananas (like Matt Groening's Akbar and Jeff, but with potassium) who live on Cuddles Ave. and hang out with three teddy bears and a rat in a hat.  I now own four different Bananas in Pajamas figures and a "Pass the Nuts" game.  Say that again to yourself.  "Pass the Nuts."

Fun Stuff to Read

  • FametrackerFametracker, the "Farmer's Almanac of Celebrity Worth."  Features "Fame Audits" (does a star deserve his/her fame?), "Hey It's That Guy!" (reviews of character actors like Kevin Pollock as they hope to graduate to William H. Macy status), and "2 Stars, 1 Slot" which asks questions like "Does the world really need both Jamie Kennedy and Seth Green?"
  • The Urban Legends Reference Pages - information on all kinds of urban legends, like "Marisa Tomei won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1992 because Oscar presenter Jack Palance read the wrong name by mistake" (False) or "A Tootsie Pop with a picture of an Indian shooting an arrow at a star can be redeemed with Tootsie Roll Industries for a free bag of candy" (also False) or "Jackie Chan was going to film a movie on top of the World Trade Center on September 11, but had his schedule changed" (True).  Many of these legends involve sex, always a plus.
  • No matter what your country, you can feel patriotic with this website that plays 192 different National Anthems.  Or, see how your favorite nation stands up on this page that grades all of the world's flags.  Gambia is rated at the top, Northern Mariana Islands at the bottom.  Israel gets an A, the U.S. a C+.
  • Track the popularity of any name over time with the Parenting.com Name-O-Meter.  Believe it or not, "Irving" made a comeback for the 90's.

The Game That Has Astounded Thousands!

Yes, my list of procrastination links is not incomplete without a link to the infamous Gay or Eurotrash quiz!  When you are done with that, try the even more difficult Lesbian or German Lady quiz.  The word of these quizzes has spread like wildfire since I first discovered them, and now you too can test your gaydar.  Strangely enough, my gaydar is almost perfect, but my "lesbo-dar" is pathetic, which is not really the situation I would hope for since I am hitting on women and not men.

The Game That Has Astounded Billions!

If those billions are Chinese that is, or visiting China, or Japan, or Korea.  If you think can tell the different Asian nationalities apart, check out All Look Same.

I Regress to My Teenage Years

My mom asked me to get rid of my old comic books, which were filling up a closet at home.  I took them out and lo and behold found myself enjoying them.  I decided to keep some (mostly DC) and sell others (mostly X-Men related).  Then I went on eBay to sell the ones I didn't want and discovered that the bottom dropped out of the comic book back issue market a few years ago.  The good part of this is that now I could collect again, only for far less money.  So now I'm collecting again, combining older runs with more recent titles, whatever I can get for a low price.  The only title I buy new is Kurt Busiek's Astro City.

My favorite character, both now and in high school, is DC's The Question.  The Question has no superpowers and he wears no costume, only a faceless mask to hide his identity.  Both The Question and my other favorite hero of fiction, Homicide detective Meldrick Lewis, wear cool hats.  Unlike most comic book heroes, who are driven by a sense of justice, The Question is driven by a sense of curiosity and his personal struggle with the great philosophical questions of life, but he often finds himself fighting for justice at the same time.  Written by the legendary Batman writer Dennis O'Neil, drawn by the unique Denys Cowan, The Question lasted only 36 issues in the late 80's and since then has popped up only occasionally.  Since O'Neil edits the Batman line, his appearances are usually in Batman-related titles.

And yes, my other favorite hero is the legendary Batman.  Batman, The Question, and Green Arrow too -- can you tell I like the guys without superpowers?  Since returning to comics, I've put together a collection of all the "post-Crisis" Bat-titles.  Unfortunately, there is no good central Batman site on the Web.  This is the closest, but it mostly a database of Batman issues, without things like the history of the character or bios of his allies and enemies.

Other favorite comics include The Tick, JLA, The Hulk (both the Peter David and Bruce Jones runs), and anything written by Alan Moore.  That JLA site is really good for DC fans. 

Here are some other interesting comic sites on the Web:

  • Even if you have no interest in reading comics, Mitchell Brown's 100 Greatest Comics of the 20th Century is a valuable trip through the industry's history, from the Sunday funnies to superhero milestones, with Archie, Disney, Japanese manga, and MAD Magazine tossed in for fun.
  • Brown also runs The Unofficial Comics Crossover Index, which will help fans understand all those massive storylines that span 20 different titles.
  • I'm not a huge Superman fan but he is the most important comic book character of all time and this exhaustive site has a ton of information on his history in comics, radio, television, and movies.
  • Michael Hutchinson's great article on how to save the comics industry, and why kids don't buy comics today.
  • The visuals are all gone, but the legendary Silver Age tribute site by Cheeks the Toy Wonder still has all its text up, and has so much content it will take you two weeks to read it all.
  • Unfortunately this site hasn't been updated in a year, but Quarter Bin has some really interesting articles about various comic book issues, from essays on great talents, to discussions on why comic book companies can't just keep dead characters dead, to descriptions of how new comics recycle the ideas of old comics.
  • If you want to know about animated characters from throughout history, many from newspaper strips and mostly non-superheroes, check out Don Markstein's Toonopedia.
  • Memories of youth: comic book heroes shill for Hostess products!

Aaron's Frightening Obsession With the Interstate Highway System

Don't ask me why, but I have this strange obsession with the highway system.  Always have.  Four level highway interchanges give me goosebumps!  Driving on new highways I have never been on before is exhilirating.   I think it appeals to the mathematician in me.  "See, the odd numbers go north-south, and the even ones go east-west (pant! pant!) and they go in order (pant!)"  Sick, I know, but it turns out there is a whole group of us out there, and many other folks have websites devoted to these things.  I find them fascinating and perhaps you will too.

You'll want to start with The ZZYZX Interstate Highway list.   This gives you trivia about every single 2-digit Interstate. For example, why does 95 break in New Jersey (originally, it was supposed to go through central Jersey), why doesn't I-95 go through Boston (it originally was going to) and why is there a I-99 in Pennsylvania which is completely out of order from the normal numbering system?

Once you've learned about the 2-digit Interstates, you'll need to the Kurumi's 3-digit Interstate Page.  It is similar to Zyzzx's page, but much better formatted and it gives you info on 3-digit spur and loop interstates.  Of particular interest to my friends: the I-895 Providence loop which was never built, and the I-695 inner Boston loop which was also never built.  You'll find more about the cancelled I-695 and I-95 into Boston here.   The money which was to build I-695, by the way, eventually went to build the extention to the subway red line from Harvard out to Alewife - the stop right near Clay St.

If you still find all this stuff fascinating like me, this site is a list of all the highway pages on the net.  The best one is Steve Anderson's Roads of Metro New York.  You'll learn here about the history of every highway and bridge in New York, New Jersey, and Southern Connecticut that was either built or considered... like the possible bridges across Long Island Sound to continue the LIE (I-495) to Rhode Island!   Truly in-depth historical research here.  Steve now has a page for Boston Roads also, though not as in-depth as the New York page.

Hungry? Thirsty?

  • The Association for the Study of Meats - battled in an eternal battle with the Association for the Study of Milks that has lasted since the Torah.
  • BevNet.  They review beverages.  Need I say more?  Just in case you were curious what Bong Water and Jones Whoop Ass brand beverages taste like.
  • In a similar vein, send your friends a beer with the Virtual Beer Server. Just do me a favor. If you send me a beer, please don't make it a Schlitz. Yuck.
  • Or, you can send a beer to John. Normally when you meet someone this anal, you want to give him a beer so he can relax, but I wouldn't suggest that with John, as it would just encourage him.
  • The Belgian Endive home page - sure to bring back those Mike Dukakis memories from 1988.
  • Black Pudding Links - Mmmmm, congealed blood!
  • Yes, we have canned monkey meat.
  • Cheese Racing - Each player throws a slice of cheese onto the BBQ, and the player whose cheese fully inflates first wins.  Don't try it with brie.
  • Crazy Asian Drinks - These guys are a lot more negative than I would be.  But I actually I tried some of these drinks in my quest to try every food on earth, and man, that basil seed one is pretty damn horrid.
  • Hats of Meat - Annoy your vegetarian friends, and anyone else with a sense of smell.
  • The Iron Chef Compendium - Come on, you know you want to know every mystery ingredient from every episode of Iron Chef, ever.  They should have done an episode with Swedish Fish.
  • Japanese Pizza - I would say that this has to be seen to be believed, but actually it probably has to be tasted to be believed. I'm not volunteering, however.  If you like that, there is a second Japanese pizza page, and a cousin of these pages is the Japanese Ice Cream page.
  • McChicken Head
  • Name That Candybar - This website actually belongs to the University of Minnesota, which shows what kind of academic study goes on when you've elected a governor whose prefered dress includes a feather boa and spangly sunglasses.
  • The Nashville Doughnut Review - If Branson, Missouri is Las Vegas according to Ned Flanders, this is Las Vegas according to Homer Simpson.
  • 1974 Weight Watchers Recipe Cards - Two words: fish balls.  Dieting's come a long way, baby.

Total Silliness

The Ultimate Procrastination

Aaron's Shrine to Procrastination is brought to you by Crystal Clear Party Ice.  Have you ever been to a party without party ice?  How did that make you feel?  LIKE A LOSER!  Remember, it isn't a party without party ice, and isn't party ice unless it's CRYSTAL CLEAR PARTY ICE.  Meow.

 
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Last Modified: 07/13/04 08:33 PM