5 Best Sites for Wasting Time

I decided to make a list of sites that help me exploit one of my greatest talents: being lazy.  I love nothing more than sitting around doing nothing but drinking a cup of Starbucks and pushing the "Stumble!" button until my eyes go crossed.  As a result, I have bookmarked many a site that a person who wants to waste time would love.  For your enjoyment, I have narrowed it down to my five favorites:

1.  Listverse - I have spent wayyy too many  nights exploring this site with my eyes burning from exhaustion and a strong desire for sleep.  Here you will find the ultimate Top 10 lists, specializing in bizarre and intriguing content.  From the Top 10 Bizarre Medical Anomalies, to my personal favorite The Top 10 Unsolved Mysteries, you are guaranteed to waste more than a few hours here that you could spend doing something more productive.

2. Guidespot - Here you can find a guide for anything, and I don't just mean a travel guide.  They currently have almost 13,000 guides ranging from a guide about crazy celebrity tattoos and one about awkward family photos, and for the travelers out there they have the worst people to sit next to on an airplane.

3. Perpetual Kid - This site offers some of the strangest items for sale I have ever seen, but I still find it
entertaining.  Here is something for the manly bacon lover in all of us.

4.Oddee - Are you noticing a pattern yet?  I do enjoy the weird, strange and bizarre, especially if served up in list form.  Oddee offers it all, and then some.  If you are more Ripley's than the Louvre, then you should definitely check this out.  Feeling extra lazy?  Click here for a personal fave.

 5.  I am bored - The ultimate in funny, entertaining and of course, weird links, pictures, videos and games.  If you can't find something here to kill some time, then seriously, go to the library or something.  This site is updated constantly, so I won't bother providing links, find some yourself.

Is your blog getting spammed?

I found a great way to mess around with the spam bots. The little widget from officeofstrategicinfluence.com does the trick by rendering the spambots mailing lists virtually useless by causing them to enter an endless loop of nonexistent email addresses. Sounds a little confusing doesn't it? Go here for more info and to get your own spam killing widget.  
So, dear bots, please feel free to scan my page, in fact, I want you too.

Well atleast if I suck, you can't tell me about it!

Update: Nevermind, comments are now fixed, so your are free to tell me how much I suck, right here on this very blog!
P.S. I don't really need to know, k?


For some reason, the ol' comments function on this here blog is broken. Like the toy truck my son left in the driveway and my husband plowed over with our real truck and then our real boat kind of broken. As you can see, I have tried changing the layout back to one of Blogger's boring, everyone else has one, layouts. Meh. It didn't fix the issue, so I evidently broke it by typing in obscene things on one of my posts or something. Or maybe God is punishing me and wants me to feel like noone reads this thing or something.

Ok, I'll stop now, I'm really really tired, and rambling, evidently, too.

So for now, if ya really really need to tell me I suck, you're gonna have to email me people. Oh, and if u are really good at fixing things, like broken comment forms on blogs, you can email me too. Can't promise I'll pay you or anything, (just ask my credit card companies) but I will really appreciate it!!!

Samples keep filling up my mailbox because I'm addicted to signing up for free crap that I don't really need

Wow, after that title, I really don't even need to write anything here, but since I have trouble shutting my pie hole, you know that is never going to happen. As the aforementioned title says, I have a new addiction y'all. (Do I sound like Paula Deen when you read my posts, cuz I totally hear her voice in my head as I'm typing, which probably means that I have some type of psychological disorder that I should have looked at, or medicated, or cut out or something).

Anyhow, as I was saying before Paula Deen and her delicious, artery clogging, chef voice took over my keyboard, I have a new addiction obsession, and it is taking up wayyyy too much of my time. I keep signing up for samples, FREE samples, cause y'all know I love me some free stuff. Problem is, my mailbox is now overflowing with tiny rolls of extra-soft extra-absorbent toilet paper, and miniature bottles that contain a few drops of shampoo or some other bath product that is supposed to make me softer/darker/shinier/curlier/less smelly.

So what, you say? Free is awesome! Yes, it is, but try telling that to my mailbox emptying husband who must carry all of my complimentary loot from said mailbox to our home. I keep trying to explain to him that I am saving us money by signing up for all of this free stuff, and he should in turn be proud to have such a thrifty and frugal wife. Yeaahh, he's so not.

The other problem is I now have itty bitty little packets and bottles and blisterpacks all over my bathroom. I can't seem to stop myself, and everytime I shower, I can't decide which product to try, and I end up using everything all at once, warm vanilla scented shampoo and key lime conditioner, cinnamon apple bodywash and cherry surprise lotion, I top it all off with a perfume sample that some celebrity just came out with. I end up smelling like that french whore your grandma told you so much about.

But, if you are like me and enjoy petite rolls of Charmin and doll sized beauty products, here are my favorite sites for freebies: But don't say I didn't warn you!

Buxr
Blammo
Mygoodcents
Freeflys

Want to learn more?

For those of us who are always looking to learn a new skill or freshen up an old one, TeachStreet is a great site to do just that. They offer a very comprehensive listing of local classes on a variety of subjects, ranging from cooking to piano to computers (my fave!), so you are sure to find something you are interested in. These aren't just classes at your community college folks, these are classes that individual experts offer in their free time in addition to the regular classes offered by businesses and schools.

Are you a teacher or expert looking to help others learn in your field? Then you can post on TeachStreet too. My only question is, why didn't someone think of this sooner? For more information, click on one of the links above, or go to www.teachstreet.com

Laziness IS SO a virtue! Oh, and Returnil rules!

OK, maybe laziness isn't exactly something to strive for, but I can still tell myself that to feel better, can't I? I have an excuse though- I recently began using Twitter, (I know, Baa, sheep, Baaaaa) even though I said I wouldn't, and guess what? It's addictive, so I have been neglecting the ol' blog lately. I do have a review I want to write about though, and I have been using this software for awhile, I love it.

Returnil in my opinion is the future of antivirus and security. It isn't an antivirus or spyware remover, it doesn't include frequent updates on signature files or any signature files, for that matter, and it doesn't even scan your system. So how can it keep me from getting infected, you say? Because if you use it all the time, you could even download virus payloads on purpose and it would do NO HARM to your system (as long as it is on!).

Returnil basically creates a "virtual" computer in your real computer, meaning it functions and looks just like your regular laptop/desktop, but it isn't. The easiest way to explain it is for you to go to their site and read about it for yourself, but in short anything you download, save, create, good or bad etc. is deleted and gone once you restart. But what about the stuff I want to keep you ask? Returnil also creates a "partition" on your computer, basically like another "C:" drive where you can save the stuff you actually do want to save.

I love this software, and the best part about it? It's FREE! Y'all know I love me some free stuff, especially if it is free stuff I actually need, and I think at the current state of the internets, we ALL need this free stuff! Returnil offers two versions of this great software, and the personal (free) edition is the one I am currently using. It feels so good to be able to visit the "dangerous" sites out there and know they can do nothing to harm my computer, even if I were to get something, I can just restart, and Voila! see ya spyware. No more worrying if my AV software got rid of all of an infection, or if it missed anything on its last scan.

I was worried I would need to be an expert in the IT field in order to use virtual system software, because some of the other offerings out there are very intimidating, but Returnil has been more than easy to use so far. I haven't even had any conflicts with any of the other stuff on my computer, and that to me is amazing.

There are other options out there, like Sandboxie, which works differently than Returnil, by isolating specific programs, like your internet browser, instead of the entire system. I have tried it, but for some reason, I find Returnil's product easier to understand. Lots of people use and LOVE Sandboxie, I just wasn't able to get into the groove of using it. If you would like to try either program, just click on the links above, and once you do, let me know if you decide to use either in the comments!

Online Armor my new FAVORITE firewall program

I switched from Zone Lab's firewall to Online Armor because as you know I am extremely lazy I like to try out different products. Also, the constant need to make decisions so Zone Alarm could "learn" was getting tiring. Online Armor makes a lot of those decisions for you, based on a list of "safe" programs they have compiled. They have a free version, but I am currently perusing the free trial of the paid version, which includes a Mail Shield, Web Shield, and Banking Mode. So far, I am very impressed. So much so that I am considering buying the full version once the trial runs out (something I would usually NEVER do).

Online Armor is more than a firewall, I would consider it to be more of a First and Last line of defense against all the nastiness out there. The Banking Mode alone is enough to have me wanting to pay money for it. We do most of our financial stuff online, so the more protection I can get for what little moolah we have, the better. Here's how it works:

When you want to do anything on the internet related to your bank, you just right click the little shield icon in your tool tray and select Banking Mode. This prevents your computer and any viruses or spyware in it from calling home to transmit your passwords and log in information, there by protecting your identity. It also prevents your computer from connecting to any websites that don't belong to your bank, protecting you from phishing and spoof sites that are designed to fool you into providing your personal info. I have yet to find any other firewalls or anti virus software that does this.

Online Armor also acts like a secondary line of defense to your anti virus and anti spyware programs. You can scan the files on your computer for signs of rogue programs, yet another bonus I haven't seen with any other firewall.

Keyloggers are something I am currently paranoid about, as they actually record everything you type including passwords and log in information and send it to their owners. These little nasties are hard to detect, and put your identity at extreme risk. Online Armor detects them, prevents them from running, and keeps your info safe.

There are currently 2 versions of the program available. From their website: "Online Armor Free is the only free firewall that offers 100% leak protection out of the box! Online Armor includes powerful "HIPS" functions, which give you the ability to stop all unrecognised programs from running on your computer unless you say so, making it possible to protect yourself against these new attacks." The free version also offers basic keylogger protection.

The paid version offers additional protections, like the previously mention Banking Mode, and an advanced mode that gives you more control over the settings. In addition, there is also advanced keylogger protection, email protection and a Web Shield, which filters web pages to remove potentially dangerous content, if it finds any, you will see a place holder where the content was. You can even choose to scan the files on your system at any time, to check for dangerous programs.
As you can see, this is more than your basic run of the mill firewall, which is why I recommend it, and am using it myself. If you would like to learn more about the Online Armor products, visit their site at www.tallemu.com .