Enlightening ways to waste your time

If you want to waste time, but want to feel like you're not wasting time, here are some links that can help. Nothing like amateurish, transcandentalist learning to justify the desire to avoid "real world" work.

My self-professed heretic and blasphemer of a roommate Colton has a blog with three interesting entry-articles about synthetic diamonds versus blood diamonds, evolution and religion and the ridiculous doomsday prophecies from global warming activists.

PureZing is an interesting site I had to profile at work. It's basically an online resource and store for all things organic and, as they call it, "Eco-Chic." I haven't poked around it as much as I'd like, mostly because I'm wary of the organic fanatics out there, but it's interesting enough that one who is looking to be a little bit more natural in our processed and preservatives-laden world could glean something from it.

TreeHugger is a blog with a plethora of writers who report on the various comings and goings in the environmental world. One of their most recent stories at this time involves a small box that two people can carry which hold an entire bedroom of furniture. I want one of those.

The New York Times magazine recently ran a well written and researched story about the science of play - why it's evolutionary significant, the biological benefits and scientific studies done on it and whether we put too little, or more likely, too much nostalgic emphasis on playing.

At work, one of the fun parts of my job is reading the Amazon reviews of books. Here are two compliations by Matthew Baldwin of 1 star Amazon customer reviews of various works considered great classics. Some reviews are hilarious and justified - "It is the only book I can think of where the reader deserves more credit for finishing it than the author," concerning James Joyce's monsterous stream-of-consciousness novel Ulysses - to the stupid - "The fall of Communism has erased nearly every trace of relevance this book may once have had," concerning George Orwell's 1984.

My personal favorite is the "I-can't-formulate-articulate-and-tasteful-arguments-so-I'm-going-to-rely-on-opinionating-everything" argument/review:

Don’t listen to anyone who tries to distinguish between “serious” works of literature like this one and allegedly “lesser” novels. The distinction is entirely illusory, because no novels are “better” than any others, and the concept of a “great novel” is an intellectual hoax. This book isn’t as good as Harry Potter in MY opinion, and no one can refute me. Tastes are relative!