I'm nosy. I always have been. I just like to *know* things. It doesn't really matter what; I've yet to meet the knowledge I don't like. There's lots of stuff I know that may seem useless... but I'm an engineer; it's my job to find uses for things! Anyhow, there are lots of places I've found that are useful for finding information.
Google: Other search engines come and go, but Google is forever. ;-) Still my favorite. As a general tidbit: don't forget, boys and girls, how useful quotation marks are. Seventh+warrior isn't nearly as useful as "Seventh Warrior." I try to start with literal string searches, and only do "AND" searches after I've exhausted the former.
The Ultimate White Pages: The most useful White Pages online I've ever seen. This doesn't search itself, but rather links to several other online white pages. The trick is that it will automatically fill in information to all of them when you enter info into one box, which I find useful and neat. It also allows reverse searches on addresses and phone numbers, last time I checked.
The Ultimate Yellow Pages: I don't use this nearly as often as their white pages, but it's still pretty cool.
MapQuest: The google of maps.... well, until Google Maps came along.
I've done my fair share of traveling. I've been to a majority of the US states, though I've somehow managed to never leave the country. In those travels, I've come across several nifty places. I'll skip the more famous ones and cover the places that I think not many people know about, much less go to.
Location: Northeast corner of Virginia Beach, VA
Probably my favorite camping place in the whole world. In late spring, spanish moss will hang from the trees so thick that you can find hills where it looks like giant spider webs all around you. I also find the fact that parts of the trails flood out in spring neat in a roughing-it sort of way.
Location: Southwest corner of Virginia Beach, VA
My second favorite camping venue, False Cape rests on the border between Virginia Beach and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I've been tempted on several occasions to take a two week vacation where I park my car in Va Beach, walk through False Cape down to a rented beach house in Duck or Kitty Hawk, stay there for a week or so, then eventually walk back up. (This reminds me of a rant I need to have about the silly age limits most rental places have... which is related to a larger age rant.)
Location: Washington, DC
A fairly nice venue in the DC area to go catch a show. It's not a standout, but it gets the job done. (Has anyone else noticed how many theatres seem to have almost identical floor plans? Is it intentional, or is there only one theatre floor plan in the world or what?)
Location: Charlottesville, VA
Starr Hill is a venue Carbon Leaf went to soon after they won their American Music Award. I was really impressed with the place. They keep speakers around the room to allow you to get a good sound no matter where you're standing. The stage is relatively far away from the bar, which at least cuts down on how much bar noise ends up traveling to you if you managed to get a good standing point in front. It's a relatively large venue, with room for over 300. All in all, I'd love to go back, and suggest that if you have a band you like that shows up there sometime, go see them. (Of course, if Carbon Leaf shows up there again, you should go no matter what!)
Location: Blacksburg, VA
A cute little restored theatre, the Lyric often has quality problems with its movies, but the stage productions and dance productions it books are pretty good, and it often gets artsy flicks you can't find on the big screen anywhere else. Until this year, it was also the site of the biannual showing of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."
In case you missed it before, I play lots of games. I try not to discriminate too much, though I do have a preference for strategy/war games rather than simpler games. If I refer to "game", I usually mean something played not on the computer; if I mean something that requires computers, I'll generally say "computer game."
Looney Labs: A cool gaming company run by cool people. Their games are often a little less strategic than I really prefer, but they had the wonderful idea of creating a game tool (namely, Icehouse sets) and then creating games around them. Since many of the games made therein *are* cool strategic ones, I stay pretty happy. Just don't ask me to play Fluxx, please. \
Cheapass Games: Another cool gaming company, with a cute play-competition with Looney Labs. Also run by cool people. I like to believe that all gaming companies are like Looney Labs and Cheapass: a bunch of people who enjoy each other's company get together, play games together, and then sit around and go, "how can we make this better?" or "this gives me a great idea for a game." Anyhow, Cheapass is known for making relatively low cost games by using low cost parts... quality of game over cool parts, a concept I really like, even if they have been getting more expensive recently.
The Diplomatic Pouch: Diplomacy is an interesting game with an emphasis on playing people rather than playing strategy. It's been around for decades, and people still play it. With the internet age, like lots of games, Diplomacy has moved on to become an email game. You can find information about all forms of Diplomacy here.
RPG Sheets: A useful little site that keeps scans of character et al sheets for various RPGs, plus a lot of useful Excel worksheets and stuff. As expected, the quantity of stuff is related to the popularity of the game, which means that you'll probably find more D20 crap than you want and less of anything else than you'd like, but them the breaks, kid.
Unofficial SFB Homepage: Star Fleet Battles is probably one of my favorite tactical combat system. I think it's a better game if you ignore the fact that it's supposed to be based in the Star Trek universe. It's complexity makes it daunting to learn, and it screams for a computer implementation. (Which do exist, in a more arcade form, with the Starfleet Command series of games) This page has all sorts of useful information on SFB in general, and links to other places, including the *Official* homepage.
Games Workshop: Games Workshop has been making rules and miniatures for games for close to two decades now, and I think the quality that experience gives them shows in their work. If you like panting little things, and you've never heard of GW or Citadel Miniatures, you should take a look at their stuff
The War Store: This has become my favorite first stop for shopping for gaming stuff. This place is run by a guy named Neal, and he really is concerned with his buyer's happiness. He automatically sends you an email when your shipments go out, and wants to hear from you to make sure they get to you in one piece. Plus, he gives a 20% off standard retail on GW stuff (the maximum discount GW will allow him to give), and gives free shipping for orders of $50 or more. I haven't been able to find deals that beat him without going to E-Bay.
Shrapnel Games: I love computer game companies that self-publish. Failing that, I like companies that go to small publishing companies rather than the big conglomerates that exist. Shrapnel games is a publisher in that second category. They exist exclusively online. They have a tendency to price as if you were buying off-the-shelf of your local computer game store, which bothers me, since I think part of the point should be to reduce the cost to the consumer. However, several of their games are high quality (by which I mean quality game content, not visual content... hmmm, *makes another rant note to himself*)
It's often hard for me as a programmer to find the information I'm looking for when I want it. As a result, it's become really useful to me to have places other than the MSDN library to go search for answers to my programming questions. Here are some of the places that have been of the most use to me.
The Game AI Page: A nifty page I've been trying to read over. Back in my NRL days, I actually did some research on neural nets and such in the hopes that eventually, if I ever did land a job with a gaming company, having the background would help. But I digress: if you're interested in learning how to deal with making game AI's, take a look.
Cetus Links: A long page of links to various coding references. Way too large to explain.
MSDN: Sometimes, if you can't beat 'em you gotta join 'em. It's not always the solution you want as a programmer, but Microsoft does know things about its products and ideas other people don't. So, if you're looking for something on VC++, or VB, or .NET, or C#, and you can't find it elsewhere, try here; and good luck!