More About My Interests

Interests, Hobbies, Links, etc.

• Keeper of Lists -- The Canonical Smiley (extra info about it, also an award winner), Abbreviation/Acronym (award winner), and Astronomical Abbrev/Acro lists (recognized as canonical by the Wrecked Humor Collection, site gone), as well as a list of professor quotes and 50 Fun Things to Do to Annoy Your Physics Professor. (P.S. -- These are all also listed on my index page.) I have also put up a page containing links to some astronomy programs that I've written, as well as a few other amusing programs thrown in for fun. For more things along the lines of my smiley list, check out pages on ASCII art. I know this isn't an exact fit, but I also enjoy reading for fun when I have time (which usually isn't as often as I'd like) and one of the best places to get plain text copies of no longer copyrighted works on the web is Project Gutenberg.
  Warning: Some files (Smileys and Abbrev/Acro in particular) may contain material that is inappropriate for some readers (particularly younger ones) -- caution and discretion is advised!

• Parakeets/Budgies -- My family had a parakeet when I was a child, and now I have one of my own that I got from my brother. His two parakeets had babies, and he offered me one of them. I got a cute, hand-raised, sky blue budgie with a yellow face that I named Ruffles. :) For a bit more about him, take a look at Ruffles' profile on BirdChannel.com and give him a vote if you like what you see. If he gets enough votes, he might win an award like Bird of the Week. I've been reading up on these birds to help me prepare for having my own pet again. A more accurate name for them is budgies, from budgerigar, but whatever you call them, they're cute animals and generally easy to care for. A few web sites that I thought had good information are Parakeet Training and Care, The Budgie and Parakeet Place, TheParakeetPlace, and my favorite place for chat, the Talk Budgies Forum. Registering for Talk Budgies is free and will remove that nag block at the top of every page, so I'd recommend doing it. You can also try BirdChannel.com's Forum for chat about birds in general, not just budgies.

• Ballroom Dancing -- I've decided to create my own web page with info and stuff about this, the one style of dancing that I really enjoy. So I've taken out the info from here and put it all on My Ballroom Dancing Page. I'll keep the link to the Ballroom At Maryland club here though, because I use it a lot. :)

• Music -- very important to me. I play trombone and used to play for all the school bands at Villanova (concert, marching/scramble, pep, jazz), but I'm out of practice now. Check out the Bass Wailage home page for low brass fun! Now I mainly play piano for fun at home (real or electronic, depending on what's available). I've tried learning to play the harmonica, basically to play blues, but haven't gotten very far. I love listening to music of a variety of genres, preferably jazz, blues, or big band, and any ballroom dancing type music (like latin music), but I enjoy some other styles, too, including Japanese anime music and popular music or J-pop (I like the Jpopmusic.com forums for chat about this); modern/alternative rock; electronic styles like trance, dance, house, techno, etc., however they classify them (Digitally Imported has a lot of streams). And I can at least tolerate almost anything. If you want song lyrics, try Lyrics.com, A-Z Lyrics Universe, or Music Song Lyrics; they all seem pretty good. There are a lot of artists that I like in big band and jazz music, but my favorite artist has got to be Harry Connick, Jr. (here's a good fan site) -- I've got all his albums. :) I also write music for fun when I'm inspired and have got a bunch of tunes put together and some phrases and things that I like but haven't worked into full songs yet. Some of them have been added to the Original Jazz Charts page so you can get the sheet music for them from there. I have written some additional songs that aren't on that page, though. If anyone's curious, I made a simple music CD wish list of some of the more expensive CDs I'd like to get (mostly Japanese pop and anime music).

• Science -- astronomy and physics in particular, since those are my major fields (more of that in my school info section). But if you want a nice page about the constellations with maps, basic descriptions, mythology, and history, try The Constellations. I'm sure you can find lots of other pages if you look, but this seems to be one of the best all-around pages for basic info. I've also used the Peterson Field Guide: Stars and Planets for years; a great general information book with lots of star charts and stuff. Another good site, Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy page is devoted to "airing out myths and misconceptions in astronomy and related topics". It's a good place to get the facts and the truth about sometimes misunderstood topics (e.g., balancing eggs at vernal equinox, Apollo Moon landings, other Moon topics, some movies). You might also like to check out the Intellectual Icebergs podcast for some interesting science and geek-oriented material. Here's something else that's interesting -- the Clear Sky Clock for U. Maryland Observatory which can help you tell when the skies will be clear enough for astronomical observing. Many cities/locations have one, so check out the site for one near you if you like it. If you'd like to get a green laser pointer for pointing to stars and such, try Wicked Lasers -- I have their 5mW CORE model (which I recommend, BTW) because it satisfies my needs, but they also sell more powerful lasers than that. Also check out Sam's Laser FAQ for a lot of good information on laser safety, types, etc.

• Cartoons and Anime -- Like most people, I watched cartoons as a kid while growing up. I still enjoy watching them now and I still watch Saturday morning cartoons, just taped for later viewing. :) My favorite Saturday morning shows are on Kids' WB, but 4Kids TV (previously FOX Box) has a few good ones I try to catch (if I'm awake early enough). Of course I also watch Cartoon Network (CN) for a variety of other shows including more Japanese animated shows, often just called anime here. Their Toonami programs often have some anime shows, but it was their Adult Swim action shows that sparked my interest in the subject. It pointed out that cartoons don't all have to have children as the main target audience and cartoons aimed towards adults can be quite interesting. There's a new Toonami Jet Stream site that has some anime episodes you can watch online, and some haven't been on TV in the US before. It looks like they'll have a few episodes of each series up at once, but for a limited time (it looks like about 5 weeks right now). However, the site is IE-only right now, which gives it one strike in my book. AdultSwim Video also has some anime you can watch online, but most of it is non-anime comedy. Still, free streaming anime is a good deal. They also have Cartoon Network Videos with a bunch of other cartoons, no anime though. G4 TV also has an anime block, Anime Unleashed, but they don't send me e-mail newsletters like I asked them to, so I have no idea of what they're showing, if anything, anymore. I also started buying some anime and if anyone's interested, here's a simple sort of combined anime inventory and wish list file. I also bought and built some small G Gundam models if you'd like to take a look at them. I also found a nice web board for anime discussions at AnimeBoards.com; many shows have their own individual forums. Toon Zone also has a nice set of forums. You can use Anime on TV to help you find out when and where anime shows are airing in the US and Canada. BTW, when I want to find brief episode guides for shows I've seen, epguides.com usually has them and Anime Lyrics is a good place to find anime song lyrics. Anime Web Turnpike is a pretty good portal providing links to many sites on all sorts of topics and AnimeOnDVD.com has a lot of useful information as well. The Anime News Network is a pretty good site for all sorts of anime related news and AnimeNfo.Com is a pretty good place to look up basic information on various titles. And be sure to check out the Pirate Anime FAQ for details about how to spot illegal anime merchandise of all types. It's way too common, so please support the creators of the shows you like by buying the official releases. I'll also toss in a quick note that I enjoy reading manga, too, and subscribe to Shonen Jump (the US version). Pocky seems to be a rather popular snack among anime fans.

• Sumo -- the traditional Japanese style of wrestling. The competitors tend to be very heavy since there's no weight limit. Though the matches are usually over in a matter of seconds, they can still be quite exciting to watch. The Nihon Sumo Kyokai hosts the official grand sumo home page. Some nice tournament reports can be found at SumoNow.net, a good news site is Da Kine Sumo E-zine, and if you want to see some actual matches from the Japanese tournaments, visit the movie pages at Banzuke.com. Here's another Sumo Page with a few movies. Here is the newest version of the Sumo FAQ; I even helped make some of the updates. The archives of the Sumo Mailing List among other things is at Banzuke.com and a list of sumo related games can be found at BenchSumo.net. An alternative to the mailing list is the web board at SumoForum.net. Stats and results from the highest two divisions, makuuchi or makunouchi and juryo, along with other related info are available at many web sites including Stefan Gelow's Sumo Page, Masumiriki's Sumo Site, Sumo Information (including customizable results and search page for *all* divisions), Bandey's Sumo Site, and Toshiharu's Sumo Page, and a site with the full third division, makushita results in English for those interested (here's that site's main page), and detailed results of the basho which contains all the results for all divisions.

• Professional Wrestling -- My brother got me into this some years ago when he started getting into it. And yes, I know the basic deal behind it, but it's still entertaining which is why I watch it. It's also popular in Japan and Mexico in somewhat different forms/styles, but I don't know all that much about it in either place. I do have a few tapes of foreign events and would like to get some more; here a simple wrestling tape inventory and wish list file. The biggest US federation is World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), previously known as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), but the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) now has their Total Nonstop Action Impact program on SpikeTV (which also carries some UFC related programming). The WWE has also brought back Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), which focuses on hardcore wrestling. I'm sure there are some other smaller, more independent groups. Some good sites for news, information, show reports, etc. include A1 Wrestling with links to headlines at a number of other sites, Pro Wrestling Torch, 411mania.com Wrestling, and the Wrestling Information Archive. Some other nice sites include The Big, Big, Book of Wrestling Moves and I like this site for Pro-Wrestling Title Histories. Here's Yahoo's link to amateur wrestling if you prefer that.

• Martial Arts -- I have a sort of general interest in martial arts, but never really studied any until recently. Until my school/work load dramatically increased, I was taking a class in northern Shaolin long fist kung fu with the Chinese Martial Arts Club on campus. I also learned some tai chi now, a Yang style long form. I tried learning some on my own, after doing the same with yoga first, but I'm glad I am now getting real instruction from a good teacher. Some of the websites I've found with good information include Cloud Hands: Taijiquan and Qigong, TheTaiChiSite with its wealth of links, Erle Montaigue's Taijiworld has good information and a number of free downloads (on another site now), Reinhard's Tai Chi Collection and the Tai Chi Archives at Key Arts Media both contain some good articles. Taiji.de (in English) has a bunch of forms in videos and pictures, and Inside Wudang has some videos as well. For something cute, take a look at the Yang form as ASCII art. A nice, general message board is MartialTalk.com and one specifically for kung fu is Kung Fu Magazine's board. The CyberKwoon.com board isn't bad either. I also copied out a lot of various tai chi forms from the books I own with a little bit of information about each. If you're looking for a list of posture names for a form, take a look and see if I have it in one of my books. On a related note, MMA has some TV coverage now including the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) on SpikeTV, World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) and the striking-only World Combat League (WCL) created by Chuck Norris on Versus, and the International Fight League (IFL) on MyNetworkTV.

• Computers and the Internet -- I recently ordered a Dell Inspiron E1505 notebook to replace my Inspiron 8000 notebook. I've previously owned both a desktop and a notebook by Compaq (merged into Hewlett-Packard). When I was a kid I had a Commodore 64, possibly one of the best computers of the '80s, and you can still play all those classic games available at sites like C64.com, C64 Internet Archive, C64 Unlimited, and Lemon 64 thanks to emulators (check those sites for links). I think my family still has that old C64 and accessories (remember tape drives?), but I kind of doubt it actually works anymore. I was surprised to find that the Commodore company lasted until 1994, for 40 years -- here's a sort of obituary with notes about all their innovations in the computer industry, mostly forgotten now which is why I linked it up. The Commodore was cool. :) My current handheld computer or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) is a smartphone by Palm, the Centro using Sprint as the wireless provider. It's a great device and can do just about everything -- phone, PDA organizing, photos, videos, music, e-mail, web browsing, instant messaging, text messaging, etc. The monthly plan I have is a bit expensive compared to a landline phone, but it also provides far more features, so it kind of balances out. I also have a Palm Zire 72 which is actually under the name "palmOne", which is now serving as my backup device. I used to own a PDA HandEra, the HandEra 330, which had quite a few features that IMO made it really stand out. Some of those features are just now starting to appear in newer models, years after HandEra introduced them, and at least one feature (two industry standard expansion slots -- CF and SD/MMC) has yet to appear on another model. A couple of nice Palm web sites include FreewarePalm.com and Freeware PalmOS. On a somewhat related topic, here's where to find the latest version of the Jargon File which contains lots of definitions of terms and slang used in the computing world. Also of interest might be The Abandonware Ring for links to sites with older computer games that have basically been abandoned by the companies that made them. Home of the Underdogs is a great site and even has some gamebooks. Make sure you read a FAQ on abandonware first though so you know how it works. I'm also tossing in a link to the Myst Worlds site because I really like this set of games. Myst, Riven, Exile, Revelation, and End of Ages are the main line, but there are also realMYST (original Myst remade in full 3D) and Uru which takes place off the main line of the others. Here's a pretty good Myst discussion board. A general computer note -- you should always protect your system with antivirus software (pick your favorite), but beware of hoaxes. Make sure a virus is real by checking sites like Vmyths.com or HoaxBusters before e-mailing everyone you know about it. Semi-related, check out snopes.com and/or TruthOrFiction.com for the truth behind some of the urban legends and other tales being spread around the internet.

• Calculators -- I enjoy playing with my calculator now and again and it serves me well. I've got a TI-89, one of Texas Instruments' most powerful graphing calculators. My parents gave it to me as a Christmas present; I wanted it because it has lots of advanced math functions including symbolic calculations that are useful in the work I do. I'm thinking about upgrading to the new Voyage 200 or new 89+ (I think it is), mainly for the much bigger memory, but I haven't really decided yet. You can find tons of programs of all types and other stuff related to TI calculators at TICalc.org and Calc.org (includes HP stuff as well).

• Role Playing Games -- Specifically Dungeons & Dragons, a game I started playing way back in grade school and that has fascinated me for quite a long time since then. I really enjoy it and unfortunately I haven't played in a long time, but I still like it all the same. My favorite world is probably DragonLance even though I haven't played it, because I've read some of the novels based on the DragonLance world and really enjoyed them. At one point I was looking into play by e-mail games but the action was too slow and I couldn't follow it. If you like paper and pencil RPGs, there lists of free RPGs at John Kim's Free RPGs on the Web and The Free RPG Compendium. Playing on MUDs falls into this category as well, so I have to mention my favorite MUD -- Realms of Despair; you can find me as Dronak there (and anywhere else a nickname is used, but watch out for imposters; some people managed to register that name at some places before I could). I usually only visit now and then to read notes and see what's happening. I contributed a number of pages to the Official Guild Of Mages web site. If you're looking for other MUDs, try Top MUD Sites for rankings of the most popular MUDs. There's also a set of games refered to as Rogue-like games after the original game of this style. These are sort of a single player, roam the dungeon type RPG, normally in a text or low-graphics interface. They're kind of fun, so you might like to check these out, too. Angband and NetHack are two of the most popular games. Here's a great List of NetHack Spoilers because you pretty much have to read spoilers to survive. I also kind of like ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery) because it's not all dungeon; here's a rather comprehensive ADOM Guidebook (includes spoilers). For fun, here's a link to ComicHack, a comic based on Nethack.

• Interactive Fiction (IF) also known as text adventures -- those classic games where everything is text and you have to use your imagination to visualize the world you're in while going around trying to solve the game and overcoming all the obstacles and other puzzles that stand in your way. I think these can be a lot of fun and the community is still alive with plenty of new free games being produced all the time. Interested, but don't know where to start? Try this Beginner's Guide to Playing IF which is sort of a quick-start guide going from "what is IF?" to helping you download games and the software needed to play them. For more general information and news, try Brass Lantern. The biggest site for downloading games is the Interactive Fiction Archive with its FTP-like interface or Baf's Guide to the Interactive Fiction Archive which gives reviews, etc. and provides links to the games at the archive site. This Recommended Playing List organizes games by especially notable features and the IF Rating Stats page is a great source for getting ratings and rankings of lots of games. If you want to play some games on line, try the iFiction site. One of the biggest companies to produce interactive fiction was Infocom, now owned by Activision. Peter Scheyen's Infocom page is a great starting point (download the classic Zork trilogy for free), somes scans of the original materials are on The Infocom Gallery, and The Infocom Documentation Project is trying to collect copies of all the original docs. Info about Scott Adams' games can be found at Scott Adams Grand Adventures and IF-Legends.Org hosts a number of other nice sites. You might also like to check out the newsletters from the Society for the Promotion of Adventure Games (SPAG) or XYZZYnews, both of which contain game reviews, or the Usenet newsgroup rec.games.int-fiction for general discussion. BTW, the readers of that newsgroup have sponsored an annual IF competition each fall since 1995; it's practically the focus of the IF community now, when many new games are released and lots of discussion and feedback is offered (something the authors love to see/get). I also have my own page of IF mini-reviews with some of my thoughts and notes on some games I've played. Some older games came with "feelies", small items such as a coin, flyer, picture, etc. that related to the game and were nice souvenirs. This practice isn't completely dead though as feelies.org sells items for some of the games you can download from the IF Archive.

• Gamebooks -- These were basically single player, RPG type games much like IF but in book form, popular mainly around the 1980s. The story is broken up into small pieces, numbered paragraphs, and at some you get to make a choice that takes you to another numbered paragraph elsewhere in the book. You keep reading and flipping pages like this until you reach an endpoint, good or bad. Not all series were heavy on the RPG aspects though; some like the Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) series were more like interactive stories where you simply made decisions, no battles, equipment, inventory, etc. I believe the rise of computer games kind of pushed gamebooks out of the market which is too bad because they're different things, both enjoyable for what they are, and computer gamers do still read, don't they? Anyway, until fairly recently I had forgotten how many books and series I read and enjoyed over the years. I've also added some more titles to my little collection of gamebooks and will keep an eye out for others I might like to own. If anyone's interested, here's a simple sort of combined gamebook inventory and wish list file. A few of my favorite series are Be An Interplanetary Spy (various authors), Sorcery! by Steve Jackson (some reviews and walkthroughs) which is set in the same world as the Fighting Fantasy series, and Lone Wolf by Joe Dever. Project Aon is producing full, legal copies of the Lone Wolf books and FabledLands.com should do the same for the Fabled Lands series (eventually). One good sites with FF information is Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks. These books are now being reprinted and I'm buying them from the UK and Canada because the US printings are slow in coming (shipping costs a bit, but oh well). If you want to know some more about gamebooks, Demian's Gamebook Web Page is a very comprehensive source of information on the subject with a huge checklist and lots of book/series reviews, and thus an excellent place to start. While smaller, Aaron Thorne's Gamebook Page is another good place to visit. BTW, if you want a taste of what some books are like, maybe to see if you'd be interested in getting them, I typed up some back of the book blurbs from the Lone Wolf books, World of Lone Wolf books, Fighting Fantasy reprints, scans I found of the Fabled Lands covers, Be an Interplanetary Spy, and Cretan Chronicles. I might add more later.

• Collectible Card Games -- Magic: The Gathering (MTG) by Wizards of the Coast is the original collectible/trading card game (CCG or TCG) in case you didn't already know. Its introduction in 1993 started the whole genre of games where you collect cards of different types and rarities to create your own unique deck to play with. I started playing about a year after it came out and I've been following it ever since, mostly on a casual level. Here's my inventory of Magic cards for anyone interested, possibly for trading purposes. Anyway, it's a great game of both strategy and luck with lots of different sets of cards, a number of stand-alone sets that can be played without the basic set, many ways to play, interesting game mechanics, and so much more that I won't try to talk about it all here. You can find more information on the links at Yahoo's Magic page and can discuss it at the Wizards.COMmunity Board for Magic. You can find news and rumors about the game at MTGNews.com and more good information like rules and card rulings at Crystal Keep. One of the semi-standard price lists for Magic cards can be found at MagicTraders.com; it's essentially the old Cloister lists but the original manager retired and someone else took over. A few other games I've tried include Pokemon, WWE Raw Deal, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and a Monty Python game, but none of them really hooked me like Magic did, so I've basically quit on them. I have thought about buying starters of various other CCGs/TCGs, just to test them out and see what they're like, but haven't really pursued that yet. P.S. -- I finally got the Magic pin I've always wanted, one with the pentagon of colors; using mana symbols was a bonus.

• Old Time Radio -- Many years ago the radio reigned supreme in home entertainment and there were some really great programs broadcast back then. There were tons, just like TV now, but a few of my favorites include Suspense, Escape, X Minus One, Dimension X, Quiet Please, The Whistler, The Mysterious Traveler, Lights Out, and other mystery/drama type shows. There were great comedy shows, too, but they're not my first choice. To get a feel for the kinds of stories OTR told, try OTR Plot Spot's plot archives (mainly sci-fi, horror, and adventure) or OTR Plot Summaries (mainly "Detectives, Mystery, Vigilantes, and Westerns"). A variety of sites have programs but most don't have very many shows online. You might like to start by looking at OTR Shows in MP3 and Real Audio which has a list of sites offering at least some downloads or RealOTR.com which has a nice collection of shows available in streaming Real Audio, but you now need to register for an account (cost ~$1) to listen to them. Some OTR stations can be found on Live365 and ShoutCast; for example, OTRNow and Yesterday USA. My favorite place to buy OTR is OTRcat which has many series for sale in MP3 format on CDs for a great price. Most aren't complete, but if you don't count lost episodes some are as complete as you can get. Here's a little OTR inventory and wish list file if you're curious to see what I have and would still like to get. Oh, and they track references now so if you decide to order after hearing about the site from me, please say that James Marshall from College Park recommended you. Thanks. The Old Time Radio Vault also has a good selection of shows available for purchase; you can get custom made CDs from them, but I prefer OTRcat's premade CDs for series. If you're looking for program logs, Vintage Radio Logs has tons of them available. Naturally, you can use the links provided at these sites to get you to all sorts of other similar places, many of which will probably have more programs for you to listen to. :) Old time radio programs aren't only found on the web. There are a lot of radio stations rebroadcasting old time radio programs. Check out this list and you might find some you can listen to. WRVO is one that has programs every evening and can be heard on line.

• Shortwave Radio -- I bought a shortwave radio back in 1999 so that I could listen to radio broadcasts from all around the world. It's interesting to hear what's happening in other areas of the world and sometimes you'll get a new perspective on the same news you get on the TV and radio. I selected the Radio Shack DX-398 a.k.a. Sangean ATS-909 and I'm quite happy with it. Here's a FAQ about this radio and there's a Yahoo group for it, too. It has pages of memory that allow you to store up to 261 shortwave frequencies in memory (if you're curious, here are my memory presets; I haven't changed them in a long time) and it's also able to receive Radio Data System (RDS) signals/information. RDS is a very cool system if used to its fullest extent, but it hasn't caught on here in the US like it has in Europe. More FM stations in the US should use it. :) A few good sites with lots of various information about amateur and shortwave radio include: DXing.com, a great radio review list by Radio Netherlands, and AC6V.com. For program listings there are a number of things out there like The WWW Shortwave Listening Guide (the web version of the book), but probably the best way to get this info is to buy a book like the Passport to World Band Radio or the World Radio TV Handbook. If you want links to web sites for many of the international shortwave broadcasters, try this Shortwave stations page; the government page would be a good place to start. Other interesting pages include WHAMLOG with files for both AM/MW and FM and the DX-midAMerica pages. One little note for anyone interested -- the BBC has pulled direct shortwave service to North America and the Pacific as of July 1, 2001 thus abandoning over 1.2 million listeners. They basically set the standard for all news type broadcasts and this is a big setback. For more info take a look at SaveBBC.org.

• Radio Scanning -- After realizing that I was still missing out on a lot of radio action by not covering the frequencies above shortwave, I decided to purchase a scanner. In 2000 (I think) I chose to go with the Sony ICF-SC1 Wavehawk because it was discontinued and I got it on sale at nearly 75% off. Here's a pretty good review of this scanner. Here is the Yahoo group for it; there were two, but they merged into this one. This now lets me check out a large variety of local radio broadcasts including police, aircraft, fire, EMS, weather, marine, military, government, FM radio, TV audio, utility companies, schools, colleges, stores, malls, hotels, trains, taxis, and probably more. Even cooler, it's possible to get (semi-weak) coverage of shortwave frequencies via a specific keypress sequence detailed in the group above. It's also got nearly continuous coverage; lots of scanners drop some frequency bands, mainly TV and military air, but I don't like holes in my coverage. It doesn't cover the cellular phone region because the US government made it illegal to listen to that and no new scanners made here have those bands. I won't get into the arguments against this, not like I care *that* much (though my feeling is they're right, all this legislating is the wrong way to do things), but you should be able to find a bit of discussion about it at the NF2G's Scannist Pages (click the Laws & Regs link). Here are a few sites I found helpful: Scanning Reference and the Links to Scanning-Related Pages can get you to a lot of useful information. Strong Signals has some good info, too, and cityfreq lists frequencies by city (not always huge lists, but still not bad). Stupid Scanner Tricks looks like it has some fun stuff. There are some federal and state laws regarding scanners, so I'd suggest you start reading up on the topic at this page about scanner laws in the US.

• Australian Rules Football -- personally, I enjoy this more than American football (aka gridiron). There's a lot more action because the rules of the game are designed to keep play going; there are no time outs or huddles or anything like that. It's very athletic and pretty exciting with the occasional spectacular play. Despite its sometimes chaotic appearance, there are indeed rules :) and the basic concept of the game isn't all that hard to understand. To paraphrase an older commercial, it's got a little bit of basketball, football, soccer, and a whole lot of action. ;) They have a section called AFL Explained with some interesting information, as well as the full laws of the game. You might prefer to read this FAQ on the game instead though. Oh yeah, AFL = Australian Football League here. Aussie rules is also catching on in other countries and good sources of information on it in the US are the Australian Football Association of North America (AFANA) and the United States Australian Football League (USAFL) web sites; my local area club is the Baltimore Washington Eagles. A few other web sites I found useful include William's AFL Footy Page, Dag's Footy Site, RealFooty, and Footy Forecaster. You can find some interesting information and tipping comps at Monash University's Probabilistic Footy Tipping Competition web site. If you're into tipping competitions, they're pretty easy to find. Try looking at some of the links on the pages above, or join the AFL site's competition (I do every year, but I never do that great). Here's the full fixture for 2008 that I use to track my tipping results. Minor changes were made to match the abbreviations and information posted on the AFL web site, which now has their own full fixture on 1 page (PDF) (that's what I used to make my copy). At 59 lines of 80 characters max, it prints out nicely on one page (8.5"x11" letter) for me which is why I like it. I think it used to print better in DOS though. Why not send me an e-mail if you like my version and use it? I'd like to know if others find it helpful. Thanks. Here in the US it's hard to get footy on TV. I used to see it on local public TV stations WNVC and WNVT until Comcast moved them to digital. :(

• Calligraphy -- the art of beautiful writing. This is something I do occasionally, usually for fun or to make something look a little more special. Calligraphied poems make nice gifts for special friends. I normally only use a Gothic style alphabet, but I can write just about any style if I have a copy of the alphabet in question in front of me. Semi-related is my interest in fountain pens. They're not as common now as they once were, but you do get a different feel writing with real liquid ink which tends to be more expressive and I like it. I currently own four fountain pens, in the order I got them -- a red fine point Waterman Phileas with the old color pattern, an original model blue medium point Namiki Vanishing Point, a silver/chrome medium point Pelikan Pharo, and a black with gold trim medium(?) point Cartier Diablo which my parents bought and engraved for me as a PhD graduation gift (which came with a matching ballpoint, also engraved, and two two-pen cases, wood and leather). I don't write enough to keep the ink in all of the pens flowing though, so I generally just use one (instead of rotating, the other option). That's the Cartier Diablo because it writes the best of the ones I have. For a little more information, here are some pen retailers and the Levenger web site, the store I've bought my pens from. Also recommended to me were Fountain Pen Hospital and Airline International's pens and here's a nice general discussion board from Penlovers.com. Some limited edition pens are way too expensive, but a lot of them sure are pretty.

• Mystery Science Theater 3000 -- or MST3K for short. It used to be on Comedy Central for a quite a while, but then found a new home on the Sci-Fi Channel and was shown there until it got cancelled after about ten seasons total. While not airing (AFAIK), you can get copies of almost all of the shows, except for commercial releases and such, from Access MST3K. You can also buy RiffTrax, MP3 audio files that sync up with DVDs to give you that MST3K experience with more recent movies. If you've never seen this show, the basic idea is that a guy and his robot buddies are trapped in a spaceship and forced to watch bad movies so their reactions can be monitored. The guys respond by continually mocking the movie and making fun of it to help maintain their sanity and that's what makes the whole thing funny. They get their jokes from tons of sources including other movies, classic literature, music, and much more. The range of joke references is tremendous. A great index page for MST3K things is Deus Ex Machina There's also an Internet version of the show, referred to as Mystery Usenet Theater 3000 (or MUT3K), where people make fun of Usenet postings in the style of MST3K. For info on this, check out Web Site #9. I'm a member of the fan club, too, MiSTie #71573. The club's newsletter is called the Satellite News and has lots of info.

• British comedies -- Some of my favorites include: 'Allo 'Allo, Are You Being Served?, Black Adder, Chef!, Fawlty Towers, Monty Python (I'm a member of The Spam Club, too), Mr. Bean, Red Dwarf, and Whose Line is it Anyway?. Another good place to look at is the HumorLinks.com British Comedy section which can connect you to info on lots of great shows. Other good sites for Monty Python stuff are PythOnline and Pythonland.

• Science fiction -- Some of my favorites here include Doctor Who and the aforementioned Red Dwarf. Also good is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, often abbreviated as HHGTTG or HHGG. Check out Project Galactic Guide for a real life version of the famous guide. I have a scarf like the one Tom Baker wore during his time as The Doctor that my mother knit for me (thanks, Mom!). OK, so the colors aren't *exactly* right, but it's easily recognizable to anyone who's seen the show. ;) I chose one of the patterns that I liked the best (one with 7 colors) out of this list of many scarf patterns and then did my best at finding the right colors. It's about 12 feet long which is on the short side considering that The Doctor has worn scarves up to 24 feet long, but it's long enough for me. :) More patterns and details can be found at Dr. Who Scarf which says it shows "how to create an exact replica". If you want a Doctor Who scarf but don't want to (or can't) knit one yourself, you can buy one from Custom Knitted Scarves. They have a variety of color patterns and sizes to choose from and the prices seem reasonable considering how long of a scarf you're getting. Bill Rudloff has put together a very nice unofficial scarf history with photos and lots of details about the changes to Tom Baker's scarf over the seasons. He also provided me with a brief scarf history if you just want the basics. Some good places to start looking for information are the Doctor Who Home Page and its Link Page.

• Sherlock Holmes -- the greatest detective ever. The link is actually for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but like all the links are for Holmes. :) Two of the best places to start are Sherlockian.Net by Chris Redmond and Sherlock Holmes International. If you're looking for the stories and novels online, try 221B Baker Street (missing the Case Book, but has some other neat things) or Sherlock Holmes Resources. The Hounds of the Internet is a good mailing list for discussing Sherlockian topics. They generally discuss one canonical story a week, but anything Sherlockian is welcome. The Sherlock Holmes Shoppe has some interesting items and Sherlocktron contains lots of info and links.

• Tea -- I greatly prefer tea over coffee, only very rarely (i.e., almost never) drinking the latter. You may also want to check out The Tea Page or Tea and Sympathy (which has a FAQ) as starting places for more information. Some good tea retailers, in alphabetical order, include Adagio Teas who offers $5 gift certificates to new customers (ask me for one or fill in this simple gift certificate request form; I also have a tea wish list there), Bigelow, Celestial Seasonings, Lipton, Republic of Tea, Special Teas, Stash Tea, The Tea Table, TeaFrog, Twinings, Upton Tea Imports; some will have better selections or rarer teas than others, so look around to find exactly what you want. I don't think I've tried all of them, but they all look pretty good to me, so I might eventually. As a tea fan, I enjoy trying variations on the basic theme. Chai tea, or more accurately, masala chai, has become a favorite of mine -- of Indian origin, it consists primarily of black tea (though others could be used), milk, and sugar or other sweetener, and a variety of spices (cardamom being a common one). The spices are the main characteristic of this tea, the exact blend playing an important role in creating the final flavor. I like Stash Tea's chai blend and the chocolate caramel chai and original chai blends by Celestial Seasonings. Many companies like the ones above have a chai tea blend and some companies like Oregon Chai and Pacific Chai basically specialize in chai. Bubble tea which goes by many other names including pearl tea, boba tea, and tapioca tea, is my latest find. Of Taiwanese origin, it's basically a strong tea, flavored and sweetened, with small balls (pearls) of tapioca added. The tapioca is the unique ingredient here, the soft, but chewy balls (like gummy candies) providing something to eat between sips. A straw wide enough to suck up the tapioca balls is used to drink the tea. It's pretty good, almost a drink and snack together. :) I normally get my bubble tea from the Ten Ren Tea store near me.

• Wine -- I don't drink very much alcohol, and when I do, it's almost always wine. I'm far from an expert, but I'm trying to learn more. I'm sure that I'm missing a lot without having a trained nose, and I'm probably also missing out on taste components without much experience and knowledge of wines. But I do enjoy tasting different wines when I feel like it (and have the money), and I tend to prefer whites over reds just because that's what I'm used to drinking; beaujolais is a pretty good red though. While I've generally liked everything I've had, one of my favorite producers is Louis Jadot.

• High IQ Societies -- The most famous high IQ society is probably Mensa, and they accept people who place in the top 2% of the population. There are also a number of other societies, and you can find some information about them at this Polymath Systems page and the IQ World Review, which also links to tests. Many of the less exclusive societies will accept ACT, SAT, and GRE scores, which is rather convenient. Here is a sample of some of the societies that are free to join if you qualify for them: High Potentials Society and SocratIQ (98 percentile = top 2%), Colloquy (99.5 percentile = top 0.5%), Infinity International Society (99.63 percentile = top 0.37%), ePiq (99.8 percentile = top 0.2%), ISI-Society (99.93 percentile = top 0.07% for full membership). You can use the title link to Wikipedia's article to find out about more societies. There's also a World Intelligence Network (WIN), a society of high IQ societies. If you enjoy solving problems, you might find the Uncommonly Difficult IQ Tests page interesting; it has links to society web pages, too. And no, I haven't taken the tests they list. BTW, I don't care a lot about any of this because I can't do much about my own scores and there will always be better and worse people than myself. Besides, what you do with what you've got is more important than how well you score on some test. I do think it's nice to know at least roughly where I rank though, and taking tests and such can be good mental exercise and stimulation, so I list this stuff mainly as references for satisfying my own curiosity.

• Numbers -- A few specific numbers such as pi which I had memorized to 150 decimal places and thus earned a place in the Pi 100 Club (site gone). I don't practice it, so I'm not sure how many decimal places I remember any more. There's also a new site being created, the Pi World Ranking List, but I don't intend to join that (one, 100 or so digits won't place me very high and two, the rules are semi-strict, e.g., two witnesses both not related to you have to sign off on the performance). Don't forget to celebrate Pi Day (March 14 at 1:59) and/or Pi Approximation Day (July 22 = 22 July) and remember that 3:14 is pi-time! ;) Oh, for some interesting reading, I suggest you check out the Cadaeic Cadenza, it's really cool. The number e is also interesting, but doesn't have the same kind of following pi does. One number has a strong following as well as a mailing list for it; check out The 47 Society for more information including some stuff about all the 47s in Star Trek shows. And who can forget that famous number that is the Answer to the Great Question of Life, the Universe and Everything -- 42. This is, of course, from Douglas Adams' popular and famous Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and you can find information about 42 on Deep Thought, The 42 Page.

• Games/Puzzles -- Since people may not be familiar with some of these games, I'm linking a bunch of these to their Wikipedia entries since these will explain the games/puzzles and provide links to more info. These aren't always big on my list of things to do, but once in a while, I do enjoy playing or doing them. I tend to prefer games with strategy and puzzles with logic. One of the first strategy board games I learned was chess but I rarely play so I'm not very good. There are also some interesting chess variants like shogi (Japanese chess; also check out Shogi.net), xiangqi (Chinese chess; this looks like a good tutorial on tactics and such), and janggi (Korean chess, derived from Xiangqi). These three have entries at the ChessVariants.org site, where you can find even more variations. If you already know chess I'd suggest starting with this intro to shogi and this intro to xiangqi for info on those games. I haven't really learned any of these variants, but they are interesting, so maybe I'll learn the basics eventually. For fun, I have to mention Taikyoku shogi. The sheer size of this game is truly awesome -- each player gets 402 pieces of 208 different types and the board is 36x36. :) BTW, along the lines of taikyoku shogi being a huge version of shogi, check out this RPS-25, a version of the classic rock-paper-scissors game with 25 different gestures and 300 outcomes. For more about the classic version, try the World RPS Society. I started looking into go (also called igo, weiqi, or baduk) after starting to read the Hikaru no Go manga where this game is a focus of the story; Sensei's Library is a good place to get more information on the game and GoBase.org looks good, too. For puzzles, sometimes I enjoy doing various types of mathematical or logic puzzles such as logic puzzles of the Zebra puzzle type (I think we called them mindbenders in grade school), and many of the Japanese pencil puzzles like Nikoli's puzzles, which includes the very popular sudoku or number place. A number of web sites have games to play online (or print), with the number of games available varying by site. For some sites you can submit a free registration to get access to more games, but others require you to pay for a subscription to get more games. Here are some sites I found that looked interesting: Nikoli's Everbody's Page, Griddlers.net, Java and Puzzle World, Conceptis Logic Puzzles, Puzzle Laboratory (in Japanese; try the honkaku page or the honkaku graphical index), http://indi.s58.xrea.com/ (also in Japanese). A few other places that seem interesting are PuzzLinks.com which covers all sorts of puzzles, Zotmeister's blog posts with a "puzzle" tag, and glmathgrant's blog posts for the first 100 with a "puzzles" tag. I now have a total of 6 books from Nikoli that contain a variety of different puzzles, and these should keep me busy for a long time. The Nikoli Wikipedia article is also a good place to get information about the types of puzzles they create. If anyone reading this knows Japanese and could translate or explain the rules for some games to me, please let me know. Some books I have don't include English explanations, and I could use some help figuring out how to solve the puzzles in them. To help others, I've started to create my own page of Nikoli puzzle rules in English. Thanks. Also, I just started a puzzle book inventory and wish list for anyone who's interested.

• Warlording -- Along lines similar to MUT3K, there are people who do almost the exact same thing to people's sigs. When they find a sig that is too long, meaning more than 4 x 80 (the McQuary or McQ limit), usually with characteristics that make it worth making fun of, they do just that, make fun of it and reduce it down to size, a process called warlording. Their work resides in the Usenet newsgroup alt.fan.warlord. I've seen some of the warlords by people who've been doing it for a while, including members of The Inner Circle, and thought they were pretty funny. (The site seems to go up and down for some reason.) I've even tried my hand at it now and I've done a few warlords myself. If you want to see them, you can check them out on my warlords page. If you can find the FAQ, you'll get all the important information you need to need to know regarding sigs, like the asterisk shortage, why you shouldn't put ASCII snails into your sigs, what does and doesn't belong in a sig, and all sorts of other useful information.

• Miscellaneous -- Here are some links to things that I didn't feel deserved their own section anymore, but I also didn't want to delete them completely: a huge list of various versions of Murphy's Laws; a general paper plane link because I enjoy making and flying them sometimes, and Ken Blackburn's Home Page (he holds the world record for time aloft with a paper airplane at 27.6 seconds); origami paper folding is fun, too, and models can be found at places like Origami.com, paperfolding.com (many links within), and Money Origami for a few models that can be made from dollar bills; flexagons are essentially polygons created by folding up paper in such a way that they can be "flexed", or basically turned inside-out, to reveal additional hidden faces, which are interesting mathematically as well as fun to play with, Flexagon Portal has templates and a forum, Scott Sherman's Flexagon site has templates for edge and point flexagons as well as a few interesting flexagon mazes, and here are some flexagon papers; here's a site with information about the theory of tie knots, the author developed a mathematical model to calculate and classify 85 tie knots, including four commonly used knots plus nine new aesthetic ones; the slide rule was the primary science/engineering calculator from the 1950s until the early 1970s when electronic scientific calculators took over (check out the links in this Wikipedia article for more information), I purchased a Pickett N600-ES new in box with case, manual, and guarantee card -- it's a 6" pocket sized model that was apparently used by astronauts on Apollo missions, here's a virtual Pickett N600-ES if you're interested in seeing what I have; a nice juggling site, and contact juggling includes pen spinning (or pencil spinning) which I've seen people do and have been trying to learn (see sites like Pentrix, an updated version of Pentix, or PenstudioZ for info); Parkour or free running is a kind of sport/art of moving in the most efficient and uninterrupted way possible, some moves have a gymnastics-like aspect to them, like vaults over obstacles; links to the official sites of a few of my favorite comic strips probably in the order I found out about them -- Calvin and Hobbes, Dilbert, Sluggy Freelance, Piled Higher and Deeper (go straight to the comics, their grad community forum, or see a preview of recent comics), Sinfest (warning! mature/adult themes), El Goonish Shive (semi-adult, mainly sexual preferences), User Friendly, xkcd, and for lots of other strips, try Comics.com or UComics.com; here's a link to the Jelly Belly site which makes great tasting jelly beans and M&M style chocolate candies (I have my own little Jelly Belly page now, too, mainly a collection of all the recipes I could find); links for fan pages about Iron Chef and Good Eats, two of my favorite Food Network shows; the W3C HTML Validation Service will make sure your HTML code meets standard specifications; there's some funny stuff at HomestarRunner.com (be sure to check out the Strong Bad e-mails) and the Homestar Runner Wiki has all sorts of info about Homestar and pals; my sister told me about this free virtual pet web site called Neopets which is pretty fun (it has lots of games); Yeti Sports has a few fun games to play; Flash Flash Revolution (FFR) is based on the Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) game and is essentially a sort of reflex/timing game, registering is optional, but it's free and lets you track your scores (here's FFR's main page and a link to the FFR forum); for more games, I think all Flash, check out AddictingGames.com, Miniclip.com, 2DPlay, or Armor Games (there are probably a lot more sites like these); here's a very large list of Free Online Games; here's the Mountain Dew web site, home of my favorite soda; I feel like I should have a link to Slashdot.org, the "news for nerds" page; I also like Digg.com which allows users to submit and rate news items to determine the order in which they appear; Lifehacker.com has some interesting articles and information on the computer/tech side of things.

• And probably bunches of other things that I can't think of right now. I like a lot of stuff and this list will probably change a little over time just to reflect current interests. Things I do more often will go in, things I don't do as much anymore will come off. That doesn't mean I don't like the things I've removed, just that my interests are placed elsewhere at the moment.

Closing Notes

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