A handful of reference websites

This entry is dedicated to the sheer joy of lookin’ shit up:

Bible Gateway: Sixteen different English translations of the Bible, with word search, as well as the capability to view the same passage in multiple translations on the same page.

The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible only has one translation (King James), but it highlights all of the interesting bits, including weird turns of phrase like “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart” (Deut 10:16).

Silva Rhetoricae means “the forest of rhetoric”, and it’s the place to look if you want to know your antimetabole from your anadiplosis.

The Handprint watercolor pages tell you everything you could want to know about painting with watercolor, from how to lay a wash to technical information about pigments.

Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary and Thesaurus: Nuff said.

Glossarist: Glossaries and dictionaries from a variety of fields. Great if you need to look up terms from political economics or body-piercing terminology or the names of obscure citrus fruits.

Thomas: One of the few good things Newt Gingrich did for America! Look up past or pending congressional legislation, searching by phrase or bill number.

Who makes these shoddy quizzes anyway?

Hey, just one darn minute here...


You are an Old School Geek. You most likely owned
an atari. You spent your allowance at the
arcade. A fun weekend would be playing D&D
while talking about your sweet new Apple IIe.


What child of the 80's are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

...look at that book cover on the upper right portion of that image. Does that look like an eighties-vintage copy of The Players Handbook to you? It sure as hell doesn’t to me! That’s the current version; they didn’t get the right century, much less the right decade! This one here is the one I remember from my ill-spent teenage days.

Games Club

Three games last night:

Puerto Rico, of course. I came in last. I was trying out a diversification strategy, and unfortunately one of the other players went the same route, and did it better (got all five productions, got a Factory before I did). I still haven’t figured out the trick of getting regular income in this game. Just like life, I guess.

A whole bunch of games of Falling, a few of which I even won.

Something new: Titan: The Arena. Didn’t do well in this either, partly due to bad rules explanation. Good game, though.