MovieClips – The team behind MovieClips describes itself as “movie fans – no, we are movie freaks! We love movies. We love to see movies. We love to talk about movies. We love to discover, rediscover and relive movies. For this reason, we have created movieclips.com – to bottle that insane, enthusiastic energy and share it with the world. With over 12,000 movie clips, you can search, find, view, discuss and share scenes from your favorite movies.”
So now we know they are passionate about their endeavor, what do they do? Well, “the team at MovieClips has worked tirelessly to collect clips and make them completely searchable by actor, title, genre, occasion, action, mood, character, theme, setting, prop, and even dialogue. This makes it simple to find a scene fast.” So if you usually go to IMDB to search for information on a specific movie, why not give MovieClips a try? And if we are talking about movies, I encourage you to check our AMF Movies Minpage, which is absolutely the best one-stop place for the top movie related websites out there.
RainyMood – Many people find the sound of rain relaxing. It is even said to help troubled sleepers get a sounder sleep. But what can you do if precipitation is 0% in your area? You could always buy a Sound Machine (like the one in the Sex and The City, Perfect Present episode), or you could simply visit RainyMood.com. The latter offers a 15-min loop of high quality rain sounds. The website suggests that you play their rain sounds along with your favorite music for an enhanced effect. I followed their tip and here’s my conclusion: RainyMood is indeed an interesting and enjoyable experience. Try it out for yourself and if you you’re inclined to experiment, I recommend the below songs to play simultaneously with the sounds of falling rain (these are covers I used).
Chibi Knight – Three beasts have ravaged the kingdom of Oukoku. Legend has it there is a small warrior who will save the kingdom. Enjoy this action RPG with tons of fun and challenging boss battles! If you’re having fun with our games, join our I ♥ GAMES facebook fan page through your facebook account and get all the latest on new games, play online and experience loads more.
AMF Australia – Last week we launched a new All My Faves homepage for Australia. You can read the update about it on our new Updates page. Based on the premises that action speaks louder than words, I don’t think a lengthy description of the Australian page is in order. Instead, I would like to share with you some interesting facts I learned about Australia, facts which might be new to you as well. The information below was gathered from various sites, so click on the title of each to see what else the respective sites offer.
1. Eucalyptus – Eucalyptus is the world’s fastest growing tree. The Australian Eucalyptus can grow at a rate of 10 meters (33 feet) per year. There are over 700 species of Eucalyptus and most are native to Australia. Eucalyptus oil is so flammable, some trees of this family have even been known to explode.
2. The Largest Island – Australia is the smallest of the world’s seven continents, but also the largest island in the world and the only country to occupy an entire continent.
3. Compulsory Voting – All Australian citizens above 18 years old (except those of unsound mind or convicted of serious crimes) must be registered to vote and show up at the poll on Election Day. Australians who do not vote are subject to fines, although those who are ill or otherwise incapable of voting on Election Day can have their fines waived.
4. Convicts – It is estimated that by the time transportation of convicts ended in 1868, 40 per cent of Australia’s English-speaking population were criminals. In 2007, it was estimated that 22 per cent of living Australians had a convict ancestor.
5. The Capital City – The Capital City of Australia is Canberra because Sydney and Melbourne kept bickering over which city should be the capital. It was decided that neither will be capital and instead, a new capital would be built in the middle of them both.
6. The Driest Place – Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth. Its interior has one of the lowest rainfalls in the world and about three-quarters of the land is arid or semi-arid.
7. Over 7000 Beaches – Australia has the most beaches for any one nation and a total of over 34,000km of coastline.
8. Ayers Rock (see video below) – Ayers rock (Uluru) is one of the world’s largest monolith. It is a dedicated Aboriginal sacred site. It is located in the Northern Territory near the city of Alice Springs.
9. Waltzing Matilda (see video below) – “Waltzing Matilda” is Australia’s most widely known bush ballad, a country folk song, and has been referred to as the unofficial national anthem of Australia.
TubeRadio – I listen to music every day, mostly online through different websites such as blip.fm, playlistnow.fm and jelli.net (all of these are included in my personal faves – have a peep). Having that said, I am always eager to discover new ways to search for and consume great tunes.
TubeRadio is based on music from YouTube but so are many other web radio sites. Its uniqueness is manifested by the way you search for music, navigate the site and listen to selected tracks. In a nutshell, TubeRadio’s execution and appealing interface are what distinguishes this music site from the rest of the bunch. The greatest part about TubeRadio in my book is that you can look for and listen to complete albums of your favorite artists; the site will find for you all the album songs on YouTube, and organize them in the original order. That just blows me away.
The overall experience is quite similar to that of iTunes, and to get a broader understanding of how it works click here. I sure will give this music site a chance, and maybe if I like it enough I will eventually add it to my personal faves. By the way, when I first tried out this service my first search was for Elton John, so as a tribute to the flashy Sir see the video below.
A Collection a Day – A Collection a Day, 2010 is brought to us by Lisa Congdon. Lisa is a talented artist and this project of hers combines her obsession of collections with the thing shes does best – art. At any rate this is my interpretation of A Collection a Day, although this is how Lisa presents it: “this is a blog documenting a project that will span exactly one year, from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010. On each of those 365 days, I will photograph or draw (and occasionally paint) one collection. Most of the collections are real and exist in my home or studio; those I will photograph. Some are imagined; those I will draw or (occasionally) paint. Since I was a young girl, I have been obsessed both with collecting and with arranging, organizing and displaying my collections. This is my attempt to document my collections, both the real and the imagined.”
Why do I love this project? Because I think each one of us can relate to it since everyone has some of the collecting bug in them. Lisa takes a simple concept and makes a wonderful and creative story out of it on a daily basis. Although the project has just begun, here are the collections I related to the most. Enjoy!
HeliCops – Take to the air in the meanest Helicopter brawl around. Deliver your own patented brand of justice to the criminals who have invaded the skies of your fair city. Well. Not on your watch. You are the best of the best, the bravest of the brave, you are a HeliCop. Do your duty!
Check back every Wednesday for the best games out there.
StillTasty – My mother is a postharvest researcher of fruit and vegetables, and as far as I’m concerned, this makes her the superior authority on all things produce. Whenever I would take out something from the fridge with a day or two past the Use Before date, I’d ask her for the final verdict on whether it was OK to eat it or not. As a child it always seemed odd to me that the printed date on products are rather inaccurate, but I never questioned my mom because you know as well as I do that mother knows best…
StillTasty eliminates any uncertainty regarding the freshness bar of all produce products; type in any food item or beverage and get solid answers on how long you can keep it in the fridge or freezer before it gets spoiled. The results are remarkable – I was surprised to see how these concurred on my mom’s estimations. I checked for example milk, cheese, chicken and Coca-Cola, and was shocked to see that in many of the cases I can keep these quite longer than their respective expiration date. While exploring StillTasty I also found these two interesting articles which I strongly recommend that you read: 3 Ways to Defrost Food Safely and Expiration Dates: Should You Pay Attention?
Ikea Hacker – Ikea has many advantages; it is affordable, doesn’t require a moving company as most products and assembly kits fit into a medium sized family car. In addition, the assembly itself is rather simple and often is also fun. It’s kind of like Lego for grownups. On the other hand, there is a big disadvantage to Ikea: what you see is what you get. You can’t request a different color, different size or different design.
Ikea Hacker refuses to come to terms with these restrictions and displays many examples of how people have modified what they bought from Ikea into something else that’s more creative and rewarding. Some of these DIY projects seem bizarre, I’ll admit, but for the most part, they are practical and inspiring. Below are before and after pictures of the hack that impressed me the most. For more hacks check out Ikea Hacker’s top picks for 2007, 2008 and 2009.
YesButNoButYes – From the YesButNoButYes twitter page I learned that it’s “the greatest pop culture blog on the planet. Or maybe not.” I like these kinds of definitions. My interpretation is this: they honestly believe they offer the best in pop culture, but that’s obviously open to interpretation. In order to make my own decision on the matter I first searched Wikipedia for the pop culture concept. With that little research under my belt, what’s my conclusion on the ‘greatness’ of YesButNoButYes? I’d say they aim to be the greatest but my acid test proved this to be merely an aspiration. What I can say with certainty however is that I enjoyed many of the posts of this blog, and to show my support I even joined their facebook fanpage. Two posts I especially enjoyed were A Tight Fit and Sarah Silverman Had a Dream, Too.
Vintage Ad Browser – I love all things vintage. They’re so cool. The word itself makes me feel like I’m in an old classic movie. Having established this love of mine, it is no surprise that I totally fell for Vintage Ad Browser, which “aims to collect vintage ads from a variety of sources, including comic books, CD-Roms, websites, APIs, your submissions, book, magazine & comic book scans, and more.” As of today, the site lists 123,311 ads in various categories such as Drinks, Toys, Electronics and even Got Milk (isn’t really vintage but includes cool ads from the 90s). Below is a glimpse of the ones I especially enjoyed. Help yourself.
Sand Castle – Sand Castle is a mix of strategy and shooting in this medieval defense game. Defend your city from the invading ships. Use different types of cannons and ammo to sink them! When I first saw the logo of this game I thought I was going to build a sand castle. Apparently names can be deceiving. At any rate you can be sure that our Weekly Games will never pull your leg. Every Wednesday we offer amazing new games, so stay tuned each week.
