Fun Stuff: Sketching Online

Do you like to sketch or doodle?  Do you like to share them with others?    Check out sketchcast.com.

According to their About page:

Sketchcasting is a new way to communicate something online by recording a sketch, optionally with your voice speaking. Any sketch can then be embedded on your blog/ homepage for people to play-back, and you can also point people to your sketchcast channel here (or let them subscribe to your sketchcast RSS feed).
Sketchcasting is new but it's based on an old principle: the whiteboard (or the napkin in a bar) on which you sketch something to get a concept across... or to just have some fun.

Self Assesment Tools: Burnout Test

Are you burned out?  Are you not sure?  Try taking the burnout self test at mindtools.com. It's a 15 question test taht is supposed to be able to give you an idea on whether you are burned out, close to it or doing OK.  this is an informal test and they refer you to something more specifc if you prefer rigorously validated tests.

Note:
This tool uses an informal approach to assessing burnout. While it is intuitively useful, it has not been validated through controlled scientific tests and must therefore not be used as a diagnostic technique. Please, therefore, interpret the results with common sense. Also, make allowances for any recent events that may have a disproportionate influence on your mood at the time you take the test!

If you prefer rigorously validated tests, then the Maslach Burnout Inventory may be useful. This was developed by Christina Maslach, one of the leading researchers in the field of burnout. Copies can be purchased at the following site: https://www.cpp.com/en/detailprod.aspx?pc=35.

Mindtools.com itself is an online management and leadership training site.  According to thier website:

"Learn hundreds of essential management skills, free of charge... and develop yourself on an ongoing basis..."

This looks like a useful resource.

Gift Card Discounts - Get Restaurent.com cards for $2

When purchasing gift certificate at Restaurants.com use the coupon code 'savor' at check out to pay only $2 for each certificate.

Website of the Weird - Poorly Dressed People

Just ran across this website that is a collection of poorly dressed people at http://poorlydressed.com/.

Some are funny, some are weird and some are downright scary.

Optical Illusions

Check out '86 Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena' at http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/.  This is a fun website with lots of things to do and play with.  According to Michael Bach himself at the top of the page:

These pages demonstrate visual phenomena, and »optical« or »visual illusions«. The latter is more appropriate, because most effects have their basis in the visual pathway, not in the optics of the eye. When I find the time I will expand the explanations, to the degree that these phenomena are really understood; any nice and thoughtful comment welcome.

Here's a list of the categories the phenomena are separated into:

• Motion & Time

• Luminance & Contrast

• Colour

• Geometric- & Angle Illusions

• Space, 3D & Size Constancy

• Cognitive- / Gestalt Effects

• Specialties with faces

  

Some History / What’s new

2010-01-03	Shaded diamonds
2009-12-30	Checker Bulge
2009-09-17	SAM
2009-06-08	Breathing Square
2009-04-13	Colour mixing
2009-02-13	Darwin Illusion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

String 3D Drawing

Make a figure based on a line drawing that is copied by rotation. 

 

 

Make Your Own Search Puzzle

Make your own search puzzle at this site.  You can print to html or print to pdf and your puzzle will be available on the site for two months.  You fill in a screen and a half of information and then click the 'make puzzle' button.

Trial JLR

JLR

Blog trail puzzle

g u b n t r a i l s h j r r j h r l s u g o a u f l a f i s n y i u t b r f l c i g n i t i r w l i h y k a e u q s y p s s e n i p p a h o o m d a c t i v e t j s b l o g s r w g t t l a h c a l t v
active blogs brain friends fun happiness JLR joshing joy meatball silly squeaky topics trails writing

Flip Your Writing

Ever have a need to flip your text so it runs upside down?  If you ever do, here's the website to help you.

type your text into the top box and it will show up transformed into the lower box.

ɹlɾ

'sɹnoʎ

˙uʍop ǝpısdn ʇxǝʇ ɹnoʎ ƃuıddılɟ ʇnoqɐ ʇsod sıɥʇ ɥʇıʍ unɟ ǝʌɐɥ noʎ ǝdoɥ

'ollǝɥ

Fun Stuff: South Park Yourself... Again

Here's another South Park Yourself site.  You can create an avatar at South Park Studios.

Fun Stuff: DoppelMe

Want to make a great graphical likeness of yourself?  An avatar?  Check out doppelme.com and create one for yourself or someone you know.  You can create without registration but if you want to save your avatar you do need to register.

Fun Stuff: Funny Faces With Photo Manipulation

Create a funny face of your own!

According to thier website:

This site is designed for fun. We get a kick out of making "chimeric faces", or, " face flips" as we call them, and have automated the process so we don't have to use  Adobe® Photoshop® to do the image manipulations every time. 

Fun Stuff: Animate Yourself

Need a character or 'out there' avatar?  Check out Gizmoz Animate Yourself.  Just upload a photo and get going.

Fun Stuff: Fun With Anagrams

Acording to Dictionary.com, the definition(s) of Anagram are:

an·a·gram /ˈænəˌgræm/ Show Spelled [an-uh-gram]  noun, verb,-grammed, -gram·ming.

–noun

1. a word, phrase, or sentence formed from another by rearranging its letters: “Angel” is an anagram of “glean.” 
2. anagrams, (used with a singular verb) a game in which the players build words by transposing and, often, adding letters.

–verb (used with object)

1. to form (the letters of a text) into a secret message by rearranging them.
2. to rearrange (the letters of a text) so as to discover a secret message.

Origin:
1580–90; prob. < MF anagramme < NL anagramma.

 

Have fun making or playing with anagrams at www.wordsmith.org/anagram/index.html.  This site is free and will make several screens worth of anagrmas from whatever word, name or phrase you type in.  There is also an advanced search function where you can specify the number of responses, the maximum number of words, a specific word to be included and even the maximum number of letters in words.

 

There is a great section of anagram trivia called Odds n' Ends.  Here's a sample:

• The word "anagrams" is an anagram of "ars magna", Latin for "great art".
• The word stifle is an anagram of itself.
• Japan's former capital city (Kyoto, A.D. 794-1868) and present capital city (Tokyo) names are anagrams of each other.

 

This is a fun website and I enjoyed spending way too much time trying it out.

 

 

 

Phrase of the Day

"He missed an opportunity to keep his mouth shut"


This phrase could be used so much more often than it really is. 


Thanks to Janet Reid for the "of the Day" pick me up.  You can check out her blog here.

Free Photo Books, Free Shipping,

Hotprints.com.  has added partners to their stable of item sponsors allowing them to offer you one free photo hotbook a month... free book and free shipping.  This means there are ads in the books but they are removable full page inserts and won't be mixed in with the photos. A hotbook is a 16-page, hardcover photo book that you design on their system with no downloads required.


This offer is currently only available to US, UK and Canada.