Alfvaen's Hotlists

Google

Probably not a lot of people have heard of this yet, but this is a pretty decent search engine, and I thought I'd spread the word.

Online Movies database

I've used this more times than I can count. Good for trying to trace minor actors' careers, and just in general accumulating useless facts. And stable enough to last from my old hotlist. :-)

Neopets

When I first heard about it I thought it would be some kind of Tamagotchi site, but while you do have pets(of a variety of fictional species)that you can feed and play with, there are also flash games, puzzles, and numerous other pastimes. Hell of a time sink.

NationStates

A sort of political simulation game. You're in charge of one or more nations(I have nine, "Hergest Ridge" being the main one), and you get to make all of their policy decisions. In addition, you're sharing the game with 100,000 or so other nations, in 15,000 or so "regions", and there's online forums where some(not me, generally)can roleplay their nations. I prefer to try various strategies of government, as well as visiting different regions.

Livejournal

When my blog petered out, I found new inspiration on this journaling "hive site".

Wikipedia

The user-editable source of all knowledge and wisdom. While it has its flaws, it's fun to browse, and sometimes I even contribute.

Concordance and Characters

A Wiki which I founded(and am the major contributor to), where I am attempting to create an index of charaacters and terms from a variety of fantasy novels(particularly Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time", George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice And Fire", and "Harry Potter", among others)and other sources.

All-Music Guide

A site that is trying to be a complete reference to all the music ever recorded.

Cygwin

I like Unix a lot, but I got annoyed with trying to maintain Linux and Windows at the same time. At some point I stumbled upon Cygwin, which is a sort of Linux emulation layer running on top of Windows, and I find it extremely useful.

SETI@home

Help process data from the skies in your computer's free time. (If there are aliens out there, wouldn't you rather we found them before they found us?)

SF Canada

The association of Canadian speculative fiction writers to which I and my wife belong. Other neat stuff on this page as well.

N.M. Luiken

The homepage of my wife's writing.

NaNoWriMo

That's "National" Novel Writing Month, which challenges you to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. I did it unofficially in 2001, then signed up officially for the next three years. I skipped 2005, but I'm sure I'll do it again someday.

eMusic

When I decided to try buying MP3s on the Net, I ended up with this one, probably because they were offering a deal through Winamp. While it doesn't have everything I'm looking for, it has enough, and quite frankly it's cheaper than most of the other sites. (As in, closer to $0.25 a track than $0.99 a track.)

The Dead Pool

Just one of those sites where you get to pick ten people you think are going to die in the next year. Morbid? You bet!

Bob The Angry Flower

A really cool cartoon drawn by Edmonton's own Stephen Notley. Not always for the linearly-minded.

IAU Minor Planet Center

Everything you wanted to know about asteroids.

Last updated: 1/19/2006