Walski's Fab Five

Technorati tags: Meme, Favorite Websites, Knowledge, Cartoons, Film, Music

Walski isn't particularly thrilled with memes. The last one Walski obliged was probably about a year ago. So it takes a special something of a meme for him to do another one. Or a special someone. Well, it's a little bit of both, but more of the latter.

It so happens that one of Walski's favorite blog sweeties, The Boinq, tagged him to do this one - about 5 websites Walski considers his favorites. Yes, it was about a week ago - Walski took his own damn sweet time... so, without further delay (and while he's still in the mood), here goes... in no particular order.

We start with a site that Walski visits a lot, lot, lot... Wikipedia. It has information on just about anything imaginable, and is a priceless resource for Walski... it almost makes him smarter than he actually is. Almost. Yeah... Walski just loves Wikipedia!

The neatest thing about Wikipedia is that it takes knowledge sharing to a different level. Traditionally, encyclopedias, printed ones particularly, tend to get dated very fast. Wikipedia, being a peer edited encyclopedia has up-to-the-minute (literally) information at your fingertips.

But because of its very nature of being user-regulated, you do occasionally get idiots that insert the most hilarious entries, like this one Walski stumbled upon regarding Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Needless to say, it didn't stay on Wikipedia for very long...

Wikipedia is part of the larger Wikimedia Foundation, and has sister sites providing open source media, a quotation site, a repository of free books and manuals, among other things.
(more of Walski's 5 favorite sites, in the full post)

Life without humor, for Walski, is a life not worth living. Seriously. And because of that the next two sites are humor related - cartoon-related, to be exact.

One of the lesser-known online syndicated cartoons is Savage Chickens. Created by a guy named Doug Savage, these cartoons are drawn on yellow sticky note paper. Like this recent one, which Walski thought was very appropriate to include.

Chickens are not the only inhabitants of Doug Savage's sticky note paper cartoon world - you've got a cruel robot work supervisor (PROD3000), worms, and even the occassional Easter Bunny.

Another cartoonist that Walski admires is Scott Adams, the creative genius behind Dilbert. Yes, Walski is a Dilbert fan. But the site Walski wants you to know about is not the Dilbert comic strip site, but Scott Adam's blog - DILBERT.BLOG.

Walski really didn't want to include blogs in this listing of favorite sites, but he'll make this one exception. Scott Adams is simply one insightfully funny guy... if Walski had any less integrity than he does, he'd have ripped off every single joke, humorous innuendo, dry wit and sarcasm that Scott Adams regularly dishes out... Here's an example:

I know there is something wrong with me because I enjoy reading stories about frozen waste from airplane bathrooms that falls to Earth and almost kills people.

When I think of the ways I could die, almost all of them are better than being killed by flying poop. That’s the sort of thing that could erase a lifetime of accomplishment. I would instantly stop being the guy who created Dilbert and forever be known as the cartoonist whose head was crushed by a turd. If I die from frozen restroom waste, my friends and family would have trouble stifling a laugh. And who could blame them, really?

“How did he die?” someone might ask. “I guess you could say he got pissed off,” one of my ex-friends would reply, before laughing heartily.

It seems unlikely I would be killed by airplane waste, but it also seems unlikely a bird would crap exactly in the middle of my bald spot, and that happened. I don’t rule anything out. When I hear jet sounds, I stand under a doorway.

Imagine what would happen if I were doing a book signing, and the frozen waste from the plane missed me, but killed the guy standing in line waiting for my autograph. When telling the story later, would I be able to resist saying “The shit hit the fan”? I think not. And that is why I probably deserve to be killed by frozen poop.
(source: Dilbert.Blog)

Now, if you noticed, Walski could cop out and say that Dilbert and the Scott Adams blog are TWO sites... but no, Walski won't do that. Just thought he'd mention this to make sure you were paying attention.

Moving along, the FOURTH website Walski considers his favorite, being a movie buff of sorts, would have to be the Internet Movie DataBase, otherwise better known as IMDB. This site has an entry for just about any film ever made, or is in the progress of being made. Even Malaysian films. Like this entry for Hang Tuah, the 1955 film starring the legendary P. Ramlee (yes, he has an entry, too). Or the one for Amir Muhammad.

Okay, it may not be 100% comprehensive, but it's comes pretty damn close. This site is the perfect resource if you like, say, want to verify the rumor that there's going to be another Friday the 13th film sometime in the near future...

The fifth and last site Walski considers as his favorite has to do with his other great passion in life - music. And site in question, quite aptly, is Last.fm. Think about it as the music world version of IMDB and a social networking site, all rolled into one. What Walski likes about Last.fm is that it covers even the most obscure of music - with Walski's musical taste being as eclectic as it is, this becomes a very essential characteristic.

As a social networking site, you can find people of similar music tastes from the far reaches of the globe. Based on user profiles derived from the stuff you play, Last.fm automatically generates a list of users with similar music inclinations, calling them your neighbors. You can then choose to add them as friends.

Last.fm also comes with a downloadable player, with which you can select music (based on artist or genre) to stream. Sort of like internet radio whose content you can control. Another great feature of the Last.fm player is a function called "Audioscrobbling". Audioscrobbling essentially logs your music-playing profiles, either via the site's built-in player, the downloadable player, or via your PC-based music/media players. Some media players have built in Last.fm compatibility, while for others, like Windows Media Player, iTunes and Winamp, plug-ins are available. Scrobbling helps Last.fm model your music profile, and also uses the information to track who's hot, and who's not.

In addition to music by established artists, Last.fm is also a great platform for budding musicians to upload their music, for the world to listen to. This may sound similar to MySpace, but Walski thinks that Last.fm is better (but that's just Walski). One of the things Walski plans to do is to start a Walski of Sound profile page, once he manages to get more of the group's music into MP3 format. Yes, Walski's a musician, too... but some of you out there probably already knew that. Here's a taste, in case you're curious.

So there... done - Walski's Fab Five websites. And who will Walski tag? Well, as with other unfortunate memes in the past, this one ends here, as far as Walski is concerned. But hey - don't let that stop anyone of you from continuing it, if you so choose... you meme lover, you.

The buck meme, as they say, stops here.

Walski's Five-ain't-Enough honorable mention footnote: There are actually a whole bunch of other websites that could've made the list if the number had been greater than 5. But one other site that Walski wanted to mention is I Can Has CheezBurger. If you like funny pet pix, which come with even sillier captions, then this be the site for you...