A few of my favorite things…

I got to thinking about how I have some really cool stuff and wander the web to (what I consider to be) really cool places.   Thought I’d share a few of those with you – in no particular order.

First, Bookmooch!  This site is a voracious reader’s delight.  The site is free – you just register, add an inventory of books that you’d no longer like to keep and then go out and use your points to mooch books from other people.  You earn a tenth of a point for each book you list for others to mooch, so list ten books and you now have a point to request a book from someone else!  The only cost involved is shipping the book to its new home.  I have found USPS Media Mail to be relatively inexpensive – and I earned a new book for each one I sent, so $2 in postage is pretty cheap compared to buying a new book.  This site, while it fulfills my reading appetite, also appeals to my nature to recycle. 

I’m into Single Serve Coffee.  It’s just me and Charmed making the morning java, and we really, REALLY shouldn’t be allowed to drink an entire 12-cup pot between us.  When Charmed decided to cut back on his coffee consumption a couple years ago, I purchased a Senseo.  Ooooh!  Fun!  You want decaf and your partner wants French Vanilla?  Done!  Our Senseo was not happy with some of the larger pods we were forcing it to brew, so we upgraded our coffeemaker recently to the Grindmaster OPOD. 

 

This is a commercial-grade machine (you can even plumb it into your water line) and it makes hotter brew than the Senseo did.  So far, we’z frendz….

“We’z frendz” makes me think of one of my favorite guilty pleasure websites, ICanHasCheezburger.com  This site consists of funny animal photos (mostly cats) that are captioned.  I have spent many an evening going through the archives of this site and laughing until I cried.  For those of you familiar with Office Space, here’s a sample….

Then there’s Netflix.  Ahh….the lazy man’s video store.  We love being able to set up a list of films, trade off “his and hers” and send them back when we’re ready.  I’ve heard that Blockbuster’s offering is even cooler due to the ability to return to the store, but I have no Blockbuster along my regular path, so I just leave it in the hands of my mail carrier. 

Postsecret.com is an art project gone awry.  Apparently this man requested secrets on postcards for an art project several years ago.  However, the postcards haven’t stopped coming.  He’s compiled three books and is working on the fourth due in October.  This is interesting voyeurism at its best.  Every Sunday you will be treated to another handful of new secrets – some of which will shock and others you can look at and go, “Yep, that could’ve been mine.” 

So, for those of you wondering what it is that I do when I’m on and offline, I’m basically reading books and postcards, drinking coffee, watching movies and laughing at cats.