Interesting Finds on the Internet

Happy Saturday, World!
As a college student with an extremely low-maintenance job, I spend quite a bit of time on the Internet when I'm at work. To break up the monotony a bit, I decided to skip Things I Love Thursday and share my most interesting finds on the webernets. [Links are in blue, ctrl/click to open in a new tab so you don't leave my page!]

(1) Tumbleweed Houses - This company custom builds tiny homes for people trying to reduce their carbon footprint and simplfy their lives. How tiny? The smallest is only 65 sq ft! The smaller homes have to be built on wheels--they are too tiny for regular housing codes. The largest home on wheels is 130 sq ft. That is exactly how big my dorm room is. I cannot begin to imagine squeezing a bathroom, kitchen, and living room in with my bedroom furniture! They build homes with foundations too, but the largest one is only around 800 square feet. Here is the inside of one of the larger models. Tiny but adorable!

(2) Anthropologie Housewares - One day in Chicago I wandered into this store and nearly drowned in the whimsy and pure joy of it all. Unfortunately, Chicago is the closest location with a store. Whenever I'm having a really bad day, I check out the website and sigh with longing and happiness. Some far off day, when I get my own apartment and am making more than peanuts, I will outfit my life in Anthropologie.

<<--Flower-shaped measuring cups = domestic bliss

(3) Poladroid - I am in love with Polaroids. They are the ultimate in point-and-shoot. You can't change the aperture or shutter speed or adjust the focus. You can't even edit in post. It's snap, print, shake. Anyone can create amazing photos with a DSLR camera and Photoshop. But a good Polaroid is magic. I have been trying for a long time to buy a camera on ebay but I always get outbid at the last minute. In the meantime, this is free downloadable software that makes any photo look like a Polaroid. Fantastic!

(4) Readymade - This website and the print magazine it spawned from are chock-full of DIY projects for home and garden. They range from organizational tips to interior design ideas. Their lighting projects are especially inspiring. While most of them are irrelevant to my dorm lifestyle, there's a lot of cool projects to do that I would otherwise just buy in a store. I plan on doing this over spring break. Well, not all of it, but the creating my own duvet cover bit.

(5) SocialVibe - SocialVibe is an innovative website that is capitalizing on social networking and internet marketing and using both to promote charitable causes. By creating a profile and choosing a cause, you complete "activities" from the sponsors to earn points. The more activities you complete and share, the more points you win, and the more money (and awareness) you raise for your cause. I currently support Surfrider Foundation, an organization focused on protecting beaches and keeping the oceans clean. Click on the widget in the upper right to earn points for me!

(6) ThinkGeek - The Mecca for tech nerds. I can hardly be described as such, but items such has the USB LED Beverage Cooler and Grassy Lawn Charging Station fill me with 400 gigabytes of happy. Until Sam showed me this website, I never knew how much I needed a pocket-sized synthesizer.

(7) Blippy - I am definitely pro-sharing my life on the internet. Exhibits A-F: I have accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, SocialVibe, Photobucket, and YouTube, as well as three working email addresses. That doesn't even include the social networking sites I've used and abandoned (see: Hi5, Bebo, Myspace, and Xanga). But I draw the line at Blippy. Here, you enter in your credit card information and it publicly posts to your profile everytime you spend money on that card. It shows what, where, and how much you spend. Everything from movie rentals and where you ate for dinner, to how much money you spent on gas yesterday. I mean everything. I thought Mom was kidding when she told me about this website. Social networkers, in my opinion, fall into three categories. There's "Hey, here's a glimpse of me!" and then there's "Hey, here's my daily life!" and then there's "Hey, here's my filing cabinet, medicine chest, and underwear drawer. May I show you the attic?" Blippy is firmly in the third category, a place I hope to never reach.

Victory is mine! I have sufficiently passed almost an entire work shift writing this post. Hopefully all the links work. Aside from my blog (of course), where do you like to go?