Lego Resources Courtesy of the Interwebs

I've decided to compile some of the best Lego resources that I've found online. 

http://www.brickset.com/ - Brickset is a good starting point for anyone that wants to manage their collection.  All of the sets are there, and it's constantly updated.  You can also tag items as Wanted, and then it will total up the cost of your wanted items.  I found that the cost of my wanted items is roughly 10x the cost of my current collection.  No surprise there.  The only thing it's missing (or that I can't find) is a way to add loose parts.

http://www.peeron.com/
Peeron is a comprehensive database of parts and sets.  The site interface is deceptively simple.  Behind the scenes, there's a fantastic well of Lego data.  Plug in a set or a part and prepare to be overwhelmed (in the best way) with information about that item.  A neat feature is that you can link it with your LUGNET inventory.  I don't have one of these yet, because I'm still waiting on the human-reviewed application to go through.  Oh, humans. 

http://www.bricklink.com/ - Warning, this site can be highly addictive.  Foremost, it's a site for buying bricks.  The most ingenious feature is the ability to create wanted lists based on existing sets, and then search for sellers based on those lists.  I plan to do a more in-depth guide to Bricklink in the future.

http://rebrickable.com/ - This site lets you upload your collection, then view all of the sets you could potentially make.  It will tell you by percentage how many of the pcs you have for a given set, and even list the parts you don't own.  Then, you can smoothly take that list and upload it to the devious Bricklink site and start shopping.  The interface for viewing set contents is also pretty slick. 

What I'm still looking for is a good forum of fellow Lego fanatics.  If you know of any, please leave me a comment.  For that matter, if you know of any other good resources, please leave them in the comments below.

Japanese Links

This is a list of my favorite Japanese learning related links.

Tae Kim's Grammar guide
Instructional videos with cute girls
iKnow at smart.fm
Great for motivation
Reviewing the Kanji
Look up words and kanji
A very comprehensive dictionary

Textfugu

I found this site that I'm considering using to study. The free lessons that I can access are all interesting and well written.

http://www.textfugu.com/

The other "study" sites I use are:

Reviewing the Kanji
Smart.fm

I also have a laundry list of reference sites that I visit regularly.

Beatty, 05APR10 by geekly at Garmin Connect - Details

One loop at Francis Beatty. We're getting a little faster.

Beatty, 05APR10 by geekly at Garmin Connect - Details

Some consolidation

I've merged my wordpress blog with this one in effort to consolidate and remove my dependence on the Geeklythings hosting.  This saves money, which I understand is a virtuous endeavor.

Podcasts

I've run across a few podcasts that I found interesting.

Japanesepod101.com - This is the best one-stop source of Japanese study material that I've found. Since it went live in 2007, it's gradually become more commercialized, but on the plus side, the production quality has gone up as well. JP101 is a great tool for studying Japanese.

Along with the daily audio, there are complimentary PDF's available for download as well. You have a lot to choose from depending on your skill level from early beginner up to some advanced intermediate lessons. There are several different feeds you can subscribe to or you can create a custom feed. It's really a nice setup.

The Apocolypse Dowell Show

Finding Japan

WTF

This past weekend, Jen and I went to the beach. While there, we visited Brookgreen Gardens. It's essentially an outdoor sculpture museum with plenty of stone and bronze boobs.

There's also what's billed as a Low Country Zoo (as in the Low Country of SC). Part of that exhibit contains something out of a nightmare. No, 1000's of things out of a nightmare. Imagine if you will a 10 ft by 10 ft barn stall completely filled with cob webs. Why so many cob webs? BECAUSE OF ALL THE FUCKING SPIDERS. The spider below was one of thousands, each one about the size of your fist. Just waiting, waiting for the perfect chance to jump in your hair and get tangled there. Fortunately, this did not happen to us, but I feel that it very well could have. It freaked me the hell out.

I balled up a piece of leaf and tossed it in one of the webs. The legged thing bolted over and grab the leaf and started nomming on it, it's little fangs twitching. Eventually it decided that the leaf wasn't food and let it fall to the ground. These things are killing machines!

Nara

We rented bicycles in Nara and had a blast. The eastern part of town has a park referred to as "Deer parK" I'm assuming due to the abundance of 'wild' deer that roam around. There are vendors that sell crackers solely for the deer. If a herd of deer spot you with some, they'll rush you as a herd.

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