Operation Artichoke July 22
Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at sites dealing with Urban Exploration - abandoned buildings such as old hospitals and asylums. I’m not sure why but that stuff is really interesting to me. These places are definitely more interesting when there is a story behind them. Take, for example, the stories behind Centralia, Love Canal, and Times Beach. Naturally, knowing the history of a place makes it more interesting, but in these cases it adds much more to it. I made it out to Centralia a week or so ago, and took some pictures. It was definitely worth the trip, I found the closed off section of Route 61 to be pretty interesting, with all the cracks in the ground with smoke pouring out of them. Anyway, I’m definitely interested in visiting more places like this. If you do a little searching you can find info on places all over the US with interesting stories behind them, and with a little bit of research you can find out how to get to most of them too. I’d definitely like to check out The Byberry Mental Hospital sometime soon. I’ll probably end up getting arrested. If any of you know of some cool places in or around PA/NJ area, don’t hesitate to share. While on the topic, here are some sites to check out: Xydexx’s Modern Ruins Page, Abandoned NJ, Urban Adventure, Unquiet Tomb, and The Urban Exploration Resource.RoadSideAmerica, although it doesn’t deal specifically with urban exploration, is a good site with a lot of info on interesting/odd places to visit all over the US.
This is amusing… Cannibal Corpse’s “Rancid Amputation”, done as a lounge music act. Check it out. I’m not gonna act like I knew this song before I heard this cover of it or anything… Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big metal fan, but never really got into Cannibal Corpse… Though “Stripped Raped & Strangled” is a beautiful song - Even Tori Amos loves it.
When I get bored… I create AOL accounts, just to see how easily I can cancel them.
If you’re a big fan of the Beatles, this might be of interest to you - “more than 500 tapes of the Beatles arguing, singing snatches of old tunes and jamming to unreleased tracks” have been recovered. Read more here.
Someone decided to do a series of “mash ups” of Gnarls Barkley and Notorious BIG - You can check the tracks out here. I listened to two of them and I’m not sure how I feel about them.
I’ve seen (and probably linked to) this video before, but I just happened to come across it today and I feel it’s worth linking to again. It’s some dude named Jake Shimabukuro playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on a ukulele. Awesome.
If you have access to your school’s printer (or don’t mind wasting your own paper/ink), and want to “get organized”, check out DIYPlanner.com for tons of printable templates for calendars and etc… Could be useful.
Want to download some new music? This site has links to tons of albums, new and old.
Looking for hosting? Netfirms is having their $10 deal again, ten bucks for a year of hosting and two free domain names, which is an awesome deal, check it out.
I’d assume most of you know about Slickdeals.net. Along with Woot.com, this is a site that I check almost every single day for deals/freebies. Not only the main page, there’s tons of great deals to be found in the forums as well. Anyway, if you’re interested in those type of sites, here are some more to check out: techbargains.com, The Deal Log, Best Web Auctions (find misspelled auctions on eBay), AntiRebate.com (deals that don’t require rebates), MightyGoods.com, DealCatcher.com, DealMouse.com, Ben’s Bargains, eDealinfo.com, Hot-Deals.org, and last but not least FatWallet.com. The sites are obviously of varying quality, but if you have some extra cash burning a hole in your pocket, that should keep you busy for a bit.
Free Stuff? Optical mouse, Schick razor, subscription to Spin magazine. That’s it for now.