If you haven't read Part 1 and 2 of this article yet, please scroll down and read it first. This post is a continuation of Amir: the Internet Addict Files, Part 2.
I'm not a geek. You might think of me as that after reading my previous two posts. Computers are not the only thing I'm interested in reading from the 'Net. In this post, I'll be telling you about the "other" part of my Internet sessions.
Geeks don't like sports. I like sports, and most of my interest lies in football/soccer and basketball, though I regularly take note of what's going on in the world of tennis and golf. For the best news in sports, there's none other than ESPN and its specialized football-only website, ESPN Soccernet (www.espn.com and www.soccernet.comrespectively). It has news on results, general commentaries, updates on scandals (drugs & bribes, not sex), interviews, and even humor, in the Page 2 section. Its coverage is extremely good, and news is updated almost constantly. In my opinion, the NBA section is better than the official NBA website (www.nba.com) and the ESPN Soccernet England Section is better than the official EPL website (www.epl.com). In the main ESPN website, expect it to be American-oriented; front page news consists primarily of American football, baseball, ice hockey, etc. instead of the more "rest of the world" football, Formula One (who watches Daytona?), and many others. But other than that, this website's very good; it's impossible to please everyone.
The ESPN Soccernet web page has news on only one thing: football. It's divided mainly into the front page, England, Europe, US, the European Champions League, and many others, including International. This website is primarily designed for the Brits, not baseball-crazy America. It provides news on the most important aspects of the game: results, transfers, media statements by clubs, general news, everything that football fanatics can't live without. The reporting by Soccernet is so good that I usually decide to not spend watching a match for 90 minutes and instead just log on to Soccernet simply to read the match reports. Sweet. In fact, with selected matches the site hosts live telecasts, telling you live as to what's going on the field. Best football site there is.
Next up: Yahoo! Sports (www.yahoo.com). This is similar in structure to ESPN.com, but with less visual appeal. However, they do have some respectable people to give commentaries, for example Steve Kerr in the NBA section who has won NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls and the San Antonio Spurs. The best way to understand this site is that it is like how PC World is to PC Mag (refer to my previous post).
For international matters, I go to the Economist (www.economist.com). This is the premier site for major international news and analysis. It has news on (here we go) the US, UK, North America and all of the other continents, business, politics, sports, technology, society & arts, and even an obituary. The magazine itself usually reaches more than 70 pages (!) in small fonts (I'm not sure, but it's probably 10 or less). At least in the website you see only the major articles, which are usually posted around 1 week after the printed version (it's business). The magazine tries not to be biased, but it can't be helped; everyone is. It even has a special section in the website where it posts information on practically all countries including demographics, economic, and political profiles. It has a special section akin to a glossary for business, political and legal terms. There are probably a few more sections which I haven't explored yet. Basically, this is the best weekly news site there is. And it's run by Jews; hey, they do have the best business acumen.
Next up are my favorite daily comic strips: Preteena and Brenda Starr (look them up under Google). These 2 comics are published in the Star, but there's a catch: Brenda Starr is posted in the paper like a month before it's posted online, and Preetena is only published on Wednesday and Sunday in the paper. So I go online to keep up to date with this comic. And this is my advice: if you like comic strips, you should be able to search for them online.
After comics, community websites. The first community website I go to is the Sains Selangor 98-02 batch site (www.groups.msn.com/smss9802). To my batch mates who haven't gone here: do come! The next community website is the Motomodders forum (I just look up Motomodders under Google). This website is for those who like to mod (slang for modify) their Motorola handphones. It's got discussion boards, download sections, and every resource you need if you're interested in changing the looks, feel, and even the software inside your Motorola phone.
These are the most common sites I go to everyday. There are many others, which I will just mention here: go to Version Tracker (www.versiontracker.com) for free software / updates to programs on your Mac/PC/Linux; go to How Stuff Works (www.howstuffworks.com) for information on all things we take for granted (like how your OS works, how to pick locks, and many others).
Basically, I've been advertising websites which I recommend for you guys to visit, depending on your interest. I hope that you will find at least one of these websites to be useful (I'm betting the PC websites). But overall I'm sure that from these sites you'll learn something new other than the typical stuff you learn from your studies. In my next post I'll be explaining to the phenomenon basically missed by all Malaysians: podcasts.
Glossary of terms for the economically impaired:
Difficult term: stocks - the shares of a particular company / type of company / industry. Shares are the equal parts into one company's capitol is divided. Only one holding stock can gain a proportion of a company's profits.
Moderately difficult term: invest - expending money in hope of achieving profit.
Easy, simplistic, almost-impossible-not-to-know term: money - what you give to the police, religious authorities and humiliated neighbors when you decide to jog naked from the Indonesian embassy all the way to KLCC and then to Berjaya Times Square. And a lot of it.
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