Monday, January 14, 2008

Fun Monday - Websites That Changed My Life (or at least a few hours of it)

Ann over at For The Long Run is this week's hostess for Fun Monday, and she wants to hear about a web site, and not just about any old web site... no, she wants to hear about a web site that's changed your life! A web site that you can't live without. A web site whose inventor you'd like to see win a McArthur Genius Grant....

Well, OK Ann, but that's going to take some thinking. I mean sure we can all say 'what in the world would we do without Google?' But that's just the point, we can all say that... We're doing this so we can learn something new - so we can find the link to some hidden e-fountain of youth, or secret to untold i-treasures! Well, I don't have the links to either of those things, but I took a look at my Favorites list and while no one website on that list has actually changed my life, I'm pretty sure a few of them affected significant alterations. I also have a terrible time limiting myself to just one anything, so here are a few websites I frequent that may not actually change your life, but could be useful:

Susan Miller's Forecasts at Astrology Zone. Ok, this is going to sound all "woo woo" and maybe last year was a case of a 'self fulfilling prophecy' but Susan's two page free monthly horoscopes, for me anyway, have been eerily right on. She explained in January 2007, that for Saggitarians, the alignment of the planets would be extremely fortuitous, and if we Sags played our cards right we would get just about anything we asked for. Any by golly, if she wasn't right, for me anyway.

Ancestry.com, along with Downtown Dad's membership there and his patient genealogical tutoring, helped me track down some elusive relatives on my paternal grandmother's side of the family. Tracing the women in your family is infinitely harder than the men, since their names tend to change, and they don't always read or write, and sometimes they have secrets they don't want told....

The first Blog I ever read "This Fish Needs A Bicycle" and this beautiful entry inspired me to start my own blog, and to write every day in hopes of coming up with something close. I haven't made it yet, but I keep trying.

If you are looking for something that will suck up hours of your time, go to Wordlab. I'm not sure I have that many things in my life need naming so badly, but if you need a word, or a group of words for something, you can find it there. They also have a quirky intelligent voice in their writing style, with links to all things linguistic. Plus, they have a blogroll to die for that opens up links to more languagey sites, with more blogrolls that link to more wordish people, who link to more, and so on and so on.

Like I said, hours of your time....

23 comments:

kitten said...

Great post! I'm gonna have to go check out Wordlab. Thanks!

Sandy said...

oooh, wordlab. Thanks, I think.

Great post!

Aoj and The Lurchers said...

Wordlab looks brilliant..I can see me wasting many hours there!

Liz Hinds said...

That is a lovely post on Girl, woman

Gattina said...

This Fish needs a bicycle (what a title, lol) has changed your life because you started a blog ! much more then the other sites you list ! My life changed because of Egyptian Cat godesses !

Joy T. said...

Holy crap I just spent far too long over at the Astrology site! I must be woo woo because I love stuff like this :o) So I just came back to say thanks for the great site!

Kim said...

Great post. I am gonna have to go check out Wordlab.

Anonymous said...

Wordlab sounds interesting :-)

Michelle said...

I have heard of ancestry but not the other ones. Thanks for the list!!

Tiggerlane said...

Holy cow! I spent SO much time on that astrology site - it is awesome! And yeah, I am kinda "woo woo," so I know how it is. Thanks for the great link!

-Ann said...

oh-uh, anything called Wordlab is going to suck me right in! Thanks for participating. (Funny enough, google never occurred to me when I thought of the topic- Google's become like water or oxygen - necessary, but just automatically there)

ChrisB said...

I enjoyed the first post you ever read. I've had a little look at wordlab and am saving the link for future use.

Kacey said...

Hi Linda, Thanks for stopping by at my place. I did pick up "Feedjit" and am enjoying seeing where people come from. I popped in and out of here a dozen times and am going to Wordlab now. I find new favorite blogs every day and my "bookmarks" runneth over. I'll be back, but now I know that you will know when I get here! lol

Faye said...

I can see why you admire the writing of TFNAB. She writes with a watercolor brush.

Grandy said...

I'm afraid of knowing what I was supposed to do in 2007. Is it possible to disappoint an astrologist??

Mrs. G. said...

Thanks for the great links. I think you've got this blogging thing down. Nice post...as always.

Anonymous said...

the bad thing about this assignment is that every post has brought me into and linked to yet another site making this evening's posts somewhat loner than usual. Your mention of the Ancestry site reminded me of my days when I did my family search. Back in High School, I used to think I was of royalty - somehow, somewhere - maybe switched at birth. No such luck. Maybe the technology is better now, and if I go back there might be that link that says I am more than a humble superhero. thanks! NLM

Anonymous said...

Wait. wait. wait. Me who knowest thou the mosteth, THIS is the website that changed your life forever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaMWgt_4jLA

Nora said...

Yes, yes, I could spend hours of my life at those sites. Good tips!

Mary Alice said...

Thanks for the great links. I am excited about Wordlab

Anonymous said...

Wordlab sounds interesting...what would we do without the google? We'd go back to yahoo, altavista, dogpile, etc.

Pamela said...

I bookmarked wordlab - always have one caught in my throat and need something to dislodge it.

"This Fish" must be a private blogging site.

Kerith Collins said...

like i don't have enough to check out and get hopelessly sucked into and never hope of getting out...did you hear...i am now addicted to twitter...now i have to check out word lab...thanks...thanks alot...LOL
kerith