Hot Shit of The Week - Cold, Wet, Dreary November 2009 Edition

With the holiday season fast approaching, it warrants note that for the most part HSOTW does not focus on commercialistic products. Sure, we will plug a really good deal from time to time, but "cheap/free" is one of our main criteria for hot shit.


Also, there won't (likely) be a HSOTW next weekend. I'll be at MACE, and you can bet at least one of the entries for the following week will be a board/card/non-electronic game of some kind.


A final note, we're going to drop one item from the weekly regiment. Five hot shits every week is just a little much considering all the disappointments out there. Some weeks will have an "Old School Shit" and others will have a "Moving Along" segment.

First Up: Library Thing

If you don't love books, there is something wrong with you. Sure, Kindles are fine. Ebooks... OK, but when it comes to books there is a clear distinction between the physical item and the electronic. Video media in its many forms illustrates this distinction quite well. It makes significantly less difference to many if they own the DVD, or get it through Netflix. If the content is available ownership often seems secondary. While it is sometimes the case that people will signify with their video collection, it is still quite a bit more common to see books performing this role.


Out of all of the options for online management of books, Library Thing has a number of features that put it a cut above the rest. It is highly portable and inter-operable, has tons of community features, and is the place-to-be for book lovers. The main reason one might pick a different locale to catalog their collections is the limitation on the free account. 200 titles is a bit of a show-stopper, but fortunately the site offers lifetime memberships and at really reasonable rates. 

Next Up: Picture Is Unrelated

Of all the blogs that I frequent, few pick-up or ruin my day quite as much as Picture Is Unrelated. This site regularly features irregular images ranging from mildly perturbing to majorly disturbing. There does seem to be a little less emphasis at this site on "genuine" images, meaning those that are un-photoshopped, but the vast majority are either sincere or well done enough that they allow for at least a few seconds of mental breakdown.


For the most part these are singular rips in space a time, but some can be tracked via other sources to actual real world phenomena, such as the "telephone sheep" of this past week. Quick, easy, and usually painless: it is sites like Picture Is Unrelated that truly embody the New Internet.


Moving Along: Rather Good Stuff

On the subject of WTF, there are a number of rather good YouTube videos out there by Rather Good Stuff. When I say "out there", I mean it literally. These are the folks you may remember from a few years back with the oddly irritating Quiznos Commercials. Really, many of their videos are hit or miss and the content appropriateness is also all over the radar. Still, there are a number of videos they have released that are cute and broadly age appropriate. There are also a number of very un-funny duds.


If you need a few random videos to round out a party playlist (as I did) then you might just find what you're looking for here.


Finally: EyeMaze

It should be no secret I like indie games. EyeMaze however takes this love to a whole new level, and in part because the designer was doing it way before it was "cool". The Grow series of games at this site has been a shining example of simple game design. Always a welcome distraction, it is a happy day when a new game is released at EyeMaze. Fun knows no barriers here, not even language. Perhaps game publishers could learn a thing or two and stop trying to artificially divide players into locked regions.