It's funny ... almost the entire WWW, and certainly most people's homepages, used to be nothing but stuff like this -- a collection of links. For a while I thought that the Web actually had no real content, but only lots of lists of links to lots of other lists of other links.

The web is still 95% crap (well, okay, maybe a little less crappy), but I've doggedly maintained my "hotlist" (remember that term?) from the olden days, and added to it links that I found personally interesting, enlightening, amusing, useful or just merely nifty in an admittedly feeble effort to help wade through all the crap. Here 'tis. I may hot have updated it in centuries. Your mileage may vary.

For an exploration of individual pieces of writing that interest me, rather than entire sites as below, check out Looka!, my personal weblog. Food and music are big with me, so they get their own pages, linked above.

 

The Arts and Crafts Movement

This is my favorite style of architecture and design (encompassing Craftsman, Mission and Prairie styles); I read a lot about it, am slowly collecting decorative arts and furniture in the styles as I can afford it, and one day dream of owning a Craftsman bungalow. Here are some of the niftier links with which I've been occupying my time of late.

• American Bungalow magazine online
• The Arts and Crafts Movement in America: 1895-1902
• The Arts and Crafts Society
• The Broadacre All-Wright Site: a collection of links and articles about Frank Lloyd Wright
• Craftsman Perspective: History, Aesthetics and Architecture of the Arts and Crafts Style
• Greene and Greene: two of the preeminent architects of the Arts and Crafts movement, whose works include the monumental Gamble House in Pasadena, CA
• Style: 1900, the quarterly journal of the Arts and Crafts Movement
• The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Home Page

Cinema and television

• The Food Network: My favorite cable channel. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I am forced, because of the neighborhood in which I live, to subscribe to the extremely lame Continental Cablevision, I can't get his channel at home. Luckily, I get it at work, where it runs almost constantly on the monitor in my office ...
• Frameline Online
• The Independent Film Channel. Another marvelous channel I can't get at home. The VCR at work picks up the slack, though. I look forward to getting a DSS receiver, so I can thumb my nose at rotten cable companies forever. (A guy I know recently said that one of the greatest pleasures of his life of late was to tell his cable company to fuck off ... but I digress.)
• The The Internet Movie Database
• Mystery Science Theatre 3000: The Web Site of Love!
• Strand Releasing
• The 2001 Internet Resource Archive. Lots of pictures and sounds, etc., from one of my favorite films. Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?

City and Nation Guides, and Travel

Most of these links relate to either places I've been, or places I want to go.

• Bosnia and Hercegovina
• The Czech Information Center. I love Prague. I could live there. You should go there, and see the rest of the country too. Here's some general Czech info and tips for travellers to the Czech Republic.
• Foreign Languages for Travelers
• The Town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwlllantysiliogogogoch, Wales
• Madagasikara: Information on Madagascar, and Malagasy culture and music. I want to go here, too.
• The City of San Diego
• Slovenia: A virtual guide to a marvelous place, "the new country on the sunny side of the Alps."
• St. Petersburg Web in St. Petersburg, Russia

Father Ted!

I have become a HUGE fan of the Irish television comedy series "Father Ted". (Okay, technically it's made by a British production company, but the writers, directors, cast and locations are all Irish, so there.) It's only shown on BBC America in the States, but the entire series is now available on DVD. It's worth the effort and expense -- this is the funniest show I've seen since "Fawlty Towers", and quite possibly the funniest show ever.

"I swear, that money was just resting in my account!" -- Fr. Ted Crilly

"What? You mean that fella we met livin' in the art gallery in Rome? That was the Pope? Sure, you'd think he'd be taller ..." -- Fr. Dougal McGuire

"Feck! Nuns! REVERSE, REVERSE!!!" -- Fr. Jack Hackett

• 
  A most excellent gazette and guide to the residents of Craggy Island's Parochial House. Read The Examiner for everything you need to know.
• Father Jack's Poetry Corner, for fans of himself. "DRINK! DRINK DRINK DRINK DRINK! FECK OFF!"
• ThinkToy, where you can get song mixes featuring dialogue from the programme (they're hilarious)

Order "Father Ted" videos!

Here's a handy-dandy batch of links for you to order the first, second and third seasons of "Father Ted" on DVD -- every episode, plus the hour-long special "A Christmassy Ted", extras, commentaries and more. Enjoy! FECK!

IN MEMORIAM

Dermot Morgan, 1952-1998

Dermot Morgan, the Irish actor who played Father Ted, died suddenly on Sunday, March 1, 1998, after hosting a dinner party with the other cast members to celebrate the completion of the filming of the third series of the program. I'm glad to have gotten a chance to see his work, and will always be grateful for the enjoyment and laughter he and his fellow cast members gave to me.

Fun stuff

• All Things Thurl: The Thurl Ravenscroft Website. I'm a huge fan of this guy, one of the world's great voices and voice-over artists, the singer of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch", the voice of Tony the Tiger ("Theyyyyyy're GRRRREAT!") and much more ... but apparently not as much of a fan as the author of this site.
• Andy's Anagram Solver
• My EUROPa Page: part of an Expanding Useless Ring of Web Pages
• Get rid of Windows!  Turn your klunky Windows box into a Macintosh running OS 8 with one simple click.
• The GhostWatcher. Things have been going "bump" in June's basement ... so she ringed the place with web cameras. Help her keep an eye on things.
• Have a chat with HAL. He's not quite a 9000 model; more like a 900. But can he pass a Turing test? (He certainly won't open the pod bay doors ...)
• My former KCRW colleague Harry Shearer, who besides being a great fan of New Orleans is a couple of dozen "Simpsons" characters, host of the syndicated public radio program "Le Show", and lots more. Hit the site and have a look inside him ... no sigmoidoscope necessary.
• Internet Anagram Server, or, "I, Rearrangement Servant"
• See what's in Jeremy's Wallet
• The Landover Baptist Church Newsletter, a hilarous parody. Not quite as wicked in tone as The Onion, but funny indeed.
• The Magic 8-Ball
• The NEW Mirsky.com. Mirsky's Worst of the Web may be gone, but he's still around, and scheming. Check out the Mirsky Monthly too.
• Here Comes Mr. B Natural! From one of my very favorite episodes of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and perhaps the scariest one I've ever seen. Man? Woman? Decide for yourself! "Know your father, I did!"
• Read the Onion, which is perhaps my favorite newspaper. Smart, clever, usually mean-spirited, always funny as hell.
• Penn and Teller, two eccentric guys who've learned to do a lot of really cool things. Chuck (hearts) Penn and Teller
• "The Straight Dope": An archive of Cecil Adams' very informative and entertaining column ... "Fighting Ignorance Since 1973"
• "This Modern World": the terrific comic by Tom Tomorrow
• The Wall O'Shame: An attempt to characterize the erosion of our world by displaying true stories and tidbits ...
• ZOOM!: That's ZOOM! Zee-double-oh-emm! Box three-five-oh, Boston Mass .... OHH two ONEEE three FOURRRRR! ('Member? :^)

Irish WWW Sites; plus Gaelic Language, Celtic nations and related information

• Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann Page
• Dalkey Home Page, featuring history, photographs, and current events listings for Dalkey, Co. Dublin.
• Gaelic Languages Home Page
• The online edition of The Galway Advertiser, the premier free newspaper in the west of Ireland
• Ireland On-Line's WWW site in Galway, Ireland
• The Irish American Post Online Edition
• The online edition of The Irish Times
• Kennys Bookshop and Art Gallery in Galway, Ireland: Online catalogue
• -- a Web community based in Ireland, for locals as well as the 70-million strong Irish- and Irish-descended diaspora
• Manx Gaelic Home Page
• The North American Association for Celtic Language Teachers
• Cymdeithas Madog: The Welsh Language Institute In North America
• Welsh Language Page, including online language lessons

Language reference

• EGADS: Extensible Grammar and Dictionary Systems. An online dictionary, grammar and linguistic reference system for minority languages, a work-in-progress by Sean Burke and Jordan Lachler.
• The Endangered Language Fund
• Ethnologue, 13th edition, 1996. A catalogue of more than 6,700 languages spoken in 228 countries. Neat neat neat.
• The Foreign Languages and Literatures Home Page at California State University, Northridge
• Human Languages Home Page
• The Klingon Language Institute. Despite one's initial instinct to say, "Get a life," this is fascinating stuff, particularly to linguists.

Literature and literary reference

• Banned Books On-Line
• Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary
• The Emily Dickinson Home Page
• Online Reference Books -- Dictionaries, thesauri, etc.
• Project Gutenberg

Macintosh and Mac OS Computers

• Apple Computer
• MacInTouch Home Page
• The ULTIMATE Macintosh Page
• Macintosh Software at TUCOWS
• Macintosh OS.com

Personal Home Pages that I like a lot

• Stever's Page (Stever Robbins, proprietor). I have no idea how I managed to randomly surf into this page a while back, but there's a ton of interesting stuff here. This guy's quite a catch.
• yer screenful o' justin (Justin Hall, proprietor). I found this one after Justin was prominently featured in a documentary about the Web that we produced at work.

Politics, Civil Rights, Government

• The American Civil Liberties Union
• Amnesty International. Help save a life by writing a letter.
• Fight the Right Network
• Liberal Information Page: When you know that a right turn leads to a dead end ...
• Peacefire: Youth Alliance against Internet Censorship. Many of these so-called "babysitter" software programs that filter internet content, ostensibly to protect children from harm, also "protect" them from sites containing information on sex education, women's and gay rights, and organizations that the filtering software makers happen not to like. Read up on it.
• People For the American Way, your voice against intolerance.
• The Speedtrap Registry: When you're travelling, don't let the bastards get their revenue from you.
• THOMAS: U.S. Congress' legislative information on the Web.
• Organizations to Watch Very Closely: These radical right-wing religious organizations wish to legislate their extremist religious beliefs into the law of the land. The Founding Fathers of the United States mandated separation of church and state for good reason. I believe that these groups pose a significant threat to civil liberties. Keep an eye on them.
  • The American Family Association, an ultra-right-wing, rabidly homophobic organization that wants to impose their "values" on you.
  • The Christian Broadcasting Network, home of Pat Robertson and The 700 Club -- the main mouthpiece for the radical religious right-wing
  • The Christian Coalition
  • The so-called "Reverend" Fred Phelps' godhatesfags.com. These people are sick, evil and dangerous ... perhaps most dangerous because their extremism makes people like Falwell and Robertson seem moderate.

Publications online

• The Electronic Newsstand (tm)
• Mother Jones magazine
• The San Francisco Examiner
• The San Jose Mercury News
• Time magazine
• The Utne Reader, online edition
• Wired magazine

Scientific sites and museums

• Comet Shoemaker-Levy Home Page (Lots of cool images!)
• The Exploratorium in San Francisco
• NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Home Page (Lots of neat images!)

Search engines

• Google, my new favorite search engine
  
  
• AltaVista
• Deja News
• Whois lookup at InterNIC
• Yahoo!

Anti-SPAM sites -- Fight email and Usenet spam!

• Anti-SPAM: A good collection of links and tools for spam-fighting.
• CAUCE: The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email. Join this important organization!
• Stop Junk Email: An excellent, comprehensive site. Visit it today.
• Stop Spam

Useful Stuff

• What time is it? The exact time from the U. S. Naval Observatory Master Clock

Weblogs

See the list along the right-hand side of the page on Looka! (scroll down a bit).

Web Magazines

• Feed: Technology, Media + Culture, and community discussion thereof

Weird stuff

• The Church of the SubGenius
• News of the Weird

WWW, Usenet and Internet tools and reference

• Doctor HTML, a terrific HTML checker/validator. Checks everything. Highly recommended.
• An excellent site for HTML Documentation. Before there were the current myriad books on the topic, this site is where I learned to write HTML, back in the days before tables an d (t'ank Gawd) frames.
• LISTSERV Mailing Lists Information home page
• Lynx Home Page. The popular text-only WWW browser.
• Lynx View: Use this web utility to see what your homepage looks like with Lynx, or a browser with graphics turned off. If all you see is a little [LINK] or [ISMAP] in the middle of the screen ... naughty you! Not everybody surfs the web with images turned on.
• PGP -- Pretty Good Privacy. An envelope for your e-mail.
• PGP Public Key Server
• All the Usenet FAQ lists from news.answers

 
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Chuck Taggart   (e-mail chuck)