My Understanding of the Web

Websites I ought to be visiting (but usually aren’t)

www.forbes.com – an exhaustive source of everything business related, where I could gain savvy and really come to understand how to operate in the business world – if I ever had the patience to read the articles.  Not that they aren’t interesting, but for some reason it’s tough to sit down and learn.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ - The ultimate encyclopedia of articles on anything and everything science.  If a budding scientist read every research article on his topic on PubMed, he would be a leader in the field.  And yet, the soul-crushing density of the papers repels me like lipid bubbles repel macromolecular proteins from entry. 

www.wsj.com – The Wall Street Journal is a reliable and informative news source.  Yet somehow, its dry tone makes me certain that half of one article about controlling my home via my iPad is all the news I need.

www.gq.com – The upscale guide to men’s style, GQ makes me wish I could look better, wearing nicer clothing than my jeans and free tee shirt from Welcome Week.  Then I remember that I’m poor and can’t afford to fill my closet with $500 sport jackets.

Websites I sometimes visit (and feel good about)

www.cnn.com – News is always good, and while CNN may have a bit of bias, it’s often great to check up on for trending topics.  If only I didn’t get bogged down by human interest pieces.  Look, a teenager shot up his family in Alabama!  What a totally unexpected surprise!

www.mademan.com – An awesome guide to everything manly, ranging from style to health to tech to good general advice to live by.  Whenever I read up on these articles I feel secure and strong in my gender.  If only I remembered to visit this site more often.

www.newsmap.jp – An interactive map that shows what’s trending in news, presented in beautiful colors that make me forget how horrible the world is.

www.uncrate.com – The ultimate guide to cool man’s stuff, which makes me realize how much money I will need to truly be happy.  Just kidding!  But a couple hundred grand to drop on a luxury car and some fine whiskey wouldn’t go amiss.  Just sayin’.

Websites I often visit (and am ambivalent about)

www.imgur.com – A massive conglomeration of beautiful pictures, insightful observations, hilarious captions, and cute cat and dog pictures, I can waste hours browsing picture after picture.  Thank goodness I have plenty of bandwidth, or I would burn through it all in minutes on this site.  I’m glad I don’t live in Canada!

www.fmylife.com – Sometimes, it’s nice to remember how good I have it.  While reading FMLs can become tiresome, they always remind me that, even though my stubbed toe is aching, at least my parents haven’t stolen my college fund and I’m not being fired from McDonald’s.

www.notalwaysright.com – While Imgur gives me my chuckles in picture form, Not Always Right lets me get my literary jollies on, with (thankfully punctuation-corrected) stories about the dark side of retail.  This also teaches me what I should NOT yell at the waiter on my next restaurant visit.

www.hulu.com – Being able to watch all the TV I miss is amazing, until I realize that I’ve spent the entire afternoon doing nothing but watching television on my computer.

Websites I occasionally visit (and feel really bad about)

www.facebook.com – Seriously, it feels like everyone on here is doing better than me – moving to fantastic places?  Getting married?  Having children?  I’m going back to FML.

www.icanhascheezburger.com – a time-wasting cesspool of memes and bad Facebook statuses, as well as awkwardly captioned cat pictures.  I can be sucked in for hours, but always emerge with the feeling that I need a shower.

www.youtube.com – Unless I’m listening to music, I try to stay away from YouTube.  Most videos aren’t worth the time it takes to sit through them, and the comments appear to be typed by monkeys addicted to methamphetamines.