Amusing
A Capella: a Skald's Tale - an interesting little online novel. Read past the beginning, the writing gets better as the writer progresses.
Albany Events - Events by the City of Albany, NY. Includes Alive at Five schedules during the summer
Aussie in America - this is a site I stumbled upon while looking for an image of a "green card" so that I could help a student who was having trouble filling out a SUNY application. It includes the story of her naturalization, as well as her impressions of American culture as an Australian immigrant.
Birthday Calculator - Interesting facts about your birthday
Common Errors in English - for some people this may be more educational than amusing!
Despair.com - "inspirational" merchandise
Fourth Kingdom - an online fantasy community that I joined but never really checked out
Halloween on the Web - name says it all
How Stuff Works - interesting details on how things work. My links brings you to the science section.
Kittenbreak - again, name says it all. Click on the link, get a picture of a cute lil kittie.
Mr. Beller's Neighborhood - a really neat interesting site full of stories
NYS OGS Events - Events by the OGS, mainly in the Albany area
Origami - neat origami site
Purity Test - 526 questions, sex only
Smithsonian Panda Cam - my mom is in love with Tai Shan, the baby panda!
Snopes.com - urban legends
SparkTests - quizzes, like IQ Quiz, Death Test, etc.
St. Ives Historical Society - "a California not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting an interest in the lifestyles, arts, and crafts of the Renaissance era..."
Where's George - United States currency tracking project
Zimdex - Invader Zim!
Artwork
Tanja Askani - awesome animal photos
Bakerloo Theatre Troupe - summer theatre group which perfoms at RPI
Jonathon Bowser - an absolutely fantastic artist, he does lots of nature-y paintings with beautiful, fancifully dressed and exquisitely painted women, including angels. If I were ever going to go out and spend a whole lot of money on a real print to hang on the wall then he'd be one of the artists whose works I'd seek out for that.
Ceredwyn Ealanta - interesting arwork, looked this artist up because I saw a neat poster by him or her once in a store
Jason Engle - fantasy artist (books, magazines, card games)
MC Escher Collection - online collection of works by MC Escher
Faery Gardens - neat window decals
Fantasy Graphics - neat fantasy artwork
Fractals - an index of fractal pictures that I think are kewl
Fractalus - fractal art and contests, doesn't looklike there has been a contest since 200 though.
Hung Liu - Chinese-America contemporary artist (LC's mom and an excellent artist!)
Idyll - a blog of idyllic photos from Flickr
Galeries de Lunamoon - someone in France has a nice collection of fantasy artwork, divided up into nice categories and whatnot too.
Mystical Unicorn - unicorn art
Picture.com - gallery of photos of various sorts. (Art is in the running for an award for one of his pics: "Showing Off")
Stephanie Pui-Mun Law - fantasy artist
Charles Urbach - fantasy artist
Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell - fantasy artists
Visions of Serenity - Foxy's Den - foxyshadis, some neat bits of artwork
Michael Whelan - one of my very favorite fantasy artists ever!
Authors
Piers Anthony - Fantasy. Wrote the Xanth novels, which are very popular with young adults. My favorite stuff he wrote was the "Incarnations of Immortality" series and also the "Blue Adept" series.
Terry Brooks - Fantasy. Wrote the "Sword of Shannara," the first non-"young adult" fantasy novel I ever read. 726 pages, I still remember that.
Orson Scott Card - author of "Ender's Game" and the "Alvin Maker" series. All excellent. I did find out recently that he is resolutely anti-homosexual, which is is rather a disappointment to me. But he doesn't really propagandize his view about that in his fantasy and sci-fi writing. Though marriage is prominently featured in the Alvin Maker stuff.
Terry Goodkind - Fantasy. Known for the Sword of Truth series. Excellent stuff! His characters are very likeable, and I enjoy his musings on morality, society, and good and evil. Read past the first book. I didn't think his stuff was all that gory really but people who didn't like Martin's stuff weren't too thrilled with Goodkind's stuff either. Sigh! To each his own I guess.
Tracy Hickman - Fantasy. Most well-known as half of the pair Weis & Hickman. Together they edit the Dragonlance stuff, and I love the Dragonlance Chronicles which they wrote. Most favorite of all their stuff for me though is the "Rose of the Prophet" trilogy. Guess which is my favorite character!
Mercedes Lackey - Fantasy. She wrote the Valdemar books. My favorite stuff of hers is the Oathbound stuff, and the Last Herald-Mage stuff. She does get a little gratuitous with the amount of sex and homosexuality she throws into her stories, a warning in case that stuff offends someone.
George R.R. Martin - EXCELLENT historical fantasy writer. His writing is always beautifully artfully worded. Rather dense reading, but well worth it. Warning to the faint of heart though: Gratuitous violence and sex, sometimes together! And don't get too attached to ANY character.
Anne Rice - Um... horror I guess? Maybe you could also say romance? She is best-known for her Vampire books ("Interview with the Vampire" is the first one) and I also like "The Witching Hour" but it and its sequel are very depressing. She gets a little sexy in her writing, and of course vampires can get gory, but pretty light on that stuff relatively.
J.K. Rowling - the author of the Harry Potter stuff. Excellent!
R.A. Salvatore - Fantasy. My very favorite Forgotten Realms author. Can't go wrong with the Icewind Dale or Dark Elf stuff, or Cleric Quintet. Stay away from "Crimson Shadow" and "Spearwielder's Tale." I don't know if he wrote them when he was younger or what.
Tad Williams - Fantasy. I loved his stuff featuring Simon Snowlock, that is what most people like best of his writing. I also enjoyed "Tailchaser's Song" and the Otherland novels.
Businesses
Betros.com - refurbished computers - IBM thinkpads
Books-to-Go - cheap books, often a good place to find textboks for college
CompUSA - used to work there, a pretty solid tech company
Dancing Dragon1 - one of my favorite fantasy catalogues (and yet I hardly ever order anything from them!)
Dancing Dragon2 - an affiliate site of Dancing Dragon
Dharma Rose - neat site, lots of interesting stuff, I originally shopped here to get my mom a card with angel artwork on it by Jonathon Bowser.
Ebay - gotta have this link!
Honda OwnerLink - really only useful if you own a Honda
Request - Art's company, they make and sell mp3 players for one's house
Shop4Tech - have nothing to say about this site because I can't recall why I added it to my links. It has some interesting stuff so I am keeping it on my list.
Styles Check Company - this is where I got my dragon checks from.
Dragons
Amber's Dragon Lair - dragon images, icons, etc.
Draconian - Dragon Images
Games
3D Logic - a game that Andy got me addicted to! Beware of popups!
ISketch - this is a fun online Pictionary-like game.
World Rock Paper Scissors Society - interesting mainly because of LARP, but I also find it amusing to know they are out there. :)
Goofy Stuff
1995 Young Scholars Program at RPI - one of the few places my name appears online when you google me.
Axiom Fusion - some band that had a kewl icon on their myspace page
BananaGuard - a protective carrying case for your bananas! Comes in many colors!
Useful
TNet - movie listings