Good things on the web

It's an amazing thing, the internet.. eh? I've often wondered how different my life would have been if I had lived in a time completely devoid of internet (ahem, 15 years ago...). I still recall doing book reports with nothing but the library card catalog system, but honestly I am a child of the world wide web. I can't imagine what college would have been like without my friends Google and Blackboard. Maybe one of the coolest hang out spots at Clemson, the Robert Muldrow Cooper Library, would have made more sense to me.... I mean, I always wondered what all of those shelves full of bound papers were all about. Sometimes they got in the way of all of my friends sitting at one table with our laptops and coffees.

But anyway, this is the first time I've kept a blog and I must say that the most surprising thing I've found is that people I don't know have read it. I write posts with the assumption that those reading the blog know me, so they know my sense of humor and my outlook on the world and life. They know that my ramblings are merely observations made after 4 years of studying Chinese culture, history, and anthropology and almost a [collective] year of living in China. A lot of things written are meant to be taken with a grain of Steve/Jaclyn salt, which is difficult to do if you don't know us. So if you're out there reading this and have no idea who Steve and Jaclyn Spangler are....well I don't know how to tell you about us in just a sentence or two. Hopefully you won't judge us too harshly....

But honestly, what amazes me is how others even find the blog! I've run google searches and have never hit on SpanglersinChina.blogspot.com. Fascinating... just goes to show you how powerful the internet can be. Of course, I understand reading blogs with which you have no personal association. I do it too! Sometimes they provide answers to google queries, sometimes I link to them through friends' sites or recommendations, and other times I just stumble upon them. It really is interesting to gain a glimpse of someone else's perspective on life and thereby understand your own outlook just a little bit better.

One reason I'm surprised that others read our blog is that I'm bad at surfing the web. Steve can spend all day on the computer finding interesting things, reading reviews and specs on various products, and going from site to site, but I just check my e-mail and occasionally peruse facebook. If I have any questions about life or the universe and '42' just doesn't seem to answer them, I'll run a search. Every once in a while I'll stumble upon some other sites or get sent a link from family/friends. So here are some websites I've been reading lately. Some are blogs and some are official news sites. In case you're web-surfing impaired like me, maybe you'll find these interesting.

A guy doing some good with coffee:
Company website- http://www.DrinkCoffeeDoGood.com
Personal blog- http://jonathangolden.typepad.com/

Woody Harrelson's zombie qualms:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/04/10/woody.harrelson.zombie/index.html

A place to get a good ol' fashioned Amurrrican name:
http://rumandmonkey.com/widgets/toys/namegen/12054/

A blog entitled 'Simple Bliss' written by a girl who wonders why she has migraines:
http://vanessa.hoozh.net/


And although I want to post more links, I am out of ideas...