Links

Music and Events - Kalamazoo

• Bell's Eccentric Cafe
• DITKalamazoo
• Louie's Trophy House
• Old Dog Tavern (Facebook)
• Papa Pete's
• Rupert's Brew House
• Shakespeare's Pub / Lower Level
• Trivia at The Green Top

Music and Events - Chicago

• Chicago Tribune: Things to Do
• Chicago Reader: Event Search

News and Politics

• AlterNet
• Daily Kos
• Electoral-vote.com
• FiveThirtyEight.com
• Huffington Post
• News Hounds
• Political Wire
• Slashdot

Local - Southwest Michigan

• Indian Trails - regional bus service
• Kalamazoo Gazette - has local event info for the Kalamazoo area
• Niles Daily Star - from my home town
• SW Michigan Dining - guide to eating out in southwest Michigan
• Terry's Blog - dining and drinking in southwest Michigan

Local - Chicago

• Chicagoist - news, food, and events in Chicago
• Chicago "L".org - huge collection of information about the "L"
• CTA Bus Tracker - find out where your bus is
• CTA Train Tracker - find out where your train is
• Eater Chicago - Chicago restaurant blog
• Enterprise CarShare - hourly car-sharing
• RedEye Chicago - covers local news, events, pop culture
• Serious Eats Chicago - news and commentary for Chicago foodies
• South Shore Line - commuter train service between South Bend and Chicago
• TimeOut Chicago - entertainment, culture, and things to do in Chicago

Entertainment

• Hulu - watch back episodes of TV shows for free
• NTN Buzztime - an extremely addictive bar trivia game (check out PEDRO's stats)
• Rate Your Music - full of trivia and reviews
• Top 500 Rock and Roll Songs - when you need some download ideas
• Short of the Week - A great place to find innovative, independent short films
• Twin Galaxies - "official" scorekeeper for all video games

Food and Drink

• Michael Jackson: The Beer Hunter - archive of work by the late author of the The World Guide To Beer

Literature

• Carrie McGath - poet and arts & entertainment writer
• Margaret Atwood - author of Oryx and Crake
• Dan Brown - author of Deception Point, Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code
• David Moody - author of Autumn and Hater series
• John Grisham - author of legal suspense thrillers
• Philip K. Dick - science fiction and alternate history author

Urban/Suburban Exploration and History

• Bearings - urban exploration blog
• Forbidden Places - urban exploration database
• Forgotten Chicago - urban history and exploration in Chicago
• Forgotten Ohio - Ohio exploration and hauntings
• Illicit Ohio - Ohio exploration
• Silent Buildings - Detroit urban exploration
• Vanished from Kalamazoo County - photos of Kalamazoo County's past

Travel

Flights

• Airtreks - cheap multi-city international flights
• Kayak Explore - flight finder finds deals to wherever
• MichaelBluejay.com - how to find the cheapest airfares

Trains

• Amtrak Status Maps - find out where your train is

Hostels / Hotels

I've stayed at all of these and can personally recommend them:

• Ca' dei Fuseri, Venice, Italy - cozy bed & breakfast on a quiet street
• Dome Pearl Hostel, Riga, Latvia - cheap rooms and a great location
• LITiNTERP Guesthouse, Vilnius, Lithuania - affordable bed & breakfast near Cathedral Square
• Loki Backpacker Hostel, Cusco, Peru - has a great view
• Magic Bean, Quito, Ecuador - located in the middle of Quito's trendy neighborhood
• Nathan's Villa, Krakow, Poland - inexpensive, fun atmosphere, great location
• Sawasdee Sukhumvit Inn, Bangkok, Thailand - great value, nice rooms with A/C and television

Other

• CIA World Factbook - an impressive collection of data about every nation on Earth
• In Your Pocket - European city guides for travelers
• MyWorld66 - neat tools for making maps of places you've visited
• Thorn Tree Travel Forum - lots of good travel info here
• Wikitravel - free worldwide travel wiki
• Working Nomad - one man traveling while earning money from the Internet

Computers

Web Browsing and E-Mail

• Google Chrome - a fast, secure web browser
  • Go Up - Enables upwards navigation with a button click
  • HTTPS Everywhere - Encrypts your communications with many major websites
  • Search the Current Site - Adds a button to search the current site
• Mozilla Firefox - a fast, feature rich, standards-compliant web browser
  • Adblock Plus - Add-on that blocks ads from selected sites
  • Better Privacy - Add-on that blocks Flash cookies
  • HttpFox - Add-on that monitors and analyzes HTTP traffic
  • HTTPS Everywhere - Add-on that encrypts your communications with many major websites
  • LinkChecker - Add-on that checks the validity of the links on a page
  • Video DownloadHelper - Add-on that downloads and converts web-based videos
  • Search Site - Add-on that adds a button to the toolbar to search the current site
• Mozilla Thunderbird - this e-mail client is the best free alternative to MS Outlook
  • Mozilla Lightning - a calendar client that can run stand-alone or as an add-on to Thunderbird
  • Mozilla Thunderbird: Profiles - includes instructions for backing up and restoring your profile in Thunderbird

Web Development

• Ajaxload - free loading indicator generator
• Favicon Editor - convert your image into a valid favicon.ico file
• STG Thumb - thumbnail generator with HTML wizard

Video Game Development

• Tile Studio - free map and sprite editor

Multimedia

• Audacity - open source sound recorder and editor
• CDBurnerXP - freeware CD/DVD/Blu-ray authoring software for Windows
• DVD Flick - simple and powerful open source DVD authoring tool
• Open Font Library - free fonts for your projects
• Partners In Rhyme - royalty-free music and sound effects at reasonable prices
• SUPER - free and simple tool for converting multimedia files
• VirtualDub - free video capture and processing utility
• VirtualDubMod - fork of VirtualDub that includes MPEG-2 support
• VLC Media Player - open source media player that plays DVDs and most types of media files

System Tools

• Duplicate Cleaner - find and remove duplicate files on your hard drive
• Process Explorer - an enhanced task manager tool
• WinDirStat (Windows Directory Statistics) - disk usage analysis tool

Security

• Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - malware detection and removal tool

Utilities

• 7-zip - free ZIP file archiver and extractor
• FileZilla - free FTP client
• Orzeszek Timer - countdown timer app
• WinMerge - free file and folder comparison tool

Data

• Kevin's Word List Page - useful resource if you need a word list for a project