50 Coolest Websites on the Internet 2012

KEEPIN IT FRESH!! This post has been updated for 2012! Here's the updated list of 50 coolest websites on the net for 2012.

Who knows - you may find something here that you've never seen but always yearned for.
I have whittled it down to a mere 50 Best Websites. So maybe you'll find something here that's new to you or you'll have a few new bookmarks. But these, in my opinion, or 50 of the best websites on the net, and shouldn't be overlooked. They aren't in any order by rank.

Oh, and sites like Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Youtube, etc. are no brainers, and so they don't really merit the type of fresh charm we're looking for in our coolest websites.

If you so happened to have seen this list before, then here's some replay value for ya, as many of the entries have changed for this 2012 edition. Enjoy!

Snopes - http://www.snopes.com/
Brilliant people debunking myths, unearthing urban legends and the latest odd news.

Woot - http://www.woot.com/
Newly renovated, One Deal, One Day, Except when all hell breaks loose during 'Woot-Off'

Break - http://www.break.com/
Take a break and enjoy a full array of multimedia net candy

Flickriver - http://www.flickriver.com
BEST picture / image site on the web. Careful, copycats - Getty'll getcha.

Desktoppr.co - http://www.desktoppr.co
Amazing spam-free gallery of top-notch desktop background images. Best on the web.

Spotify - http://www.spotify.com
If client-based music on the web got any better, we'd probably be dreaming.

Fluther - http://www.fluther.com/
Top Notch Q & A site with an intelligent community (Yahoo Answers, eat your heart out)

Quick Meme - http://www.quickmeme.com
Huge Meme database, meme creator/generator and conveniently linked with Reddit

LMGTFY - www.lmgtfy.com (Let me google that for you)
You won't think it's a stupid acronym when your friend lazily asks you something he could Google himself.

The Straight Dope - http://www.straightdope.com/
Browse tons of great perplexing questions, submit your own, and read expert answers.

Reddit- http://www.reddit.com
Y U NO try Reddit? It's the front page of the internet, what more do you want? 

RefDesk - http://www.refdesk.com/
ANY research or reference tasks on the web should always start right here.

Empire Avenue - http://www.empireavenue.com
You and your social networks are a commodity. How much is your stock worth?

Open Directory Project - http://www.dmoz.org/
Quietly developing an internet database behemoth. Google is watching.

Yelp - http://www.yelp.com
The best and biggest consumer review and ratings site on the web.

Gizmodo - http://www.gizmodo.com/
Pseudo-blog for gadgets, gizmos, tech stuff and plenty of opinions.

Engadget - http://www.engadget.com/
Another great techie gadget site.

WidgetBox - http://www.widgetbox.com/
Widgets, widgets and more widgets - single source for your blog upgrades

The Onion - http://www.theonion.com/
If you've never been here...stop...click now, and read some stuff at the onion. Priceless.

Lifehacker - http://www.lifehacker.com/
Quite possibly the best DIY resource on the web, among other things.

Googlefight - http://www.googlefight.com/
Who would win in a googlefight? Superman or Batman? Heidi or Spencer?

Think Geek - http://www.thinkgeek.com/
There's no better resource for cool fun stuff for the geek in all of us.

BoardGame Geek - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/
Like board games? Looking for a game? Looking for reviews? It's all right here.

BuzzFeed - www.buzzfeed.com
It rose from a spot where embracing coolness meant shedding annoying, spammy crap. Good job, BF.

IMDB - http://www.imdb.com/
The awesomely amazing Internet Movie DataBase

Pinterest - http://www.pinterest.com
Relatively new, very cool and super-addictive pic sharing site. This is gonna be huge.

Dorkly - http://www.dorkly.com
Every 8-bit generation gamer is wishing they'd thought of it.

Kickstarter - http://www.kickstarter.com/
Crowd-sourcing investments and fundraising for start-ups and indie projects

How Stuff Works - http://www.howstuffworks.com/
Pretty self-explanatory. This site has grown to include a vast array of "stuff"

Urban Dictionary - http://www.urbandictionary.com/
Someone called you a WHAT??? Find out the origin of that strange insult here.

Flickr - http://www.flicker.com/
One of the best image hosting sites on the web, super easy to use (and free).

Deviant Art - http://www.deviantart.com/
Wonderful, delightful (and deviant) gallery and art community here.

Despair - http://www.despair.com/
Hilarious posters, pics, shirts and other fare representing their signature "Demotivators"

I Am 8 Bit - http://www.iam8bit.com/
Old school video games represented in cool eccentric, talented artwork

Linked In - http://www.linkedin.com/
Professional-style community semi-social site, used strictly for business networking.

GameFAQ's - http://www.gamefaqs.com/
Every gamer's number one resource (or should be).

Metacritic - http://www.metacritic.com/
No need to read countless reviews on other sites - they're all right here anyway. Fantastic.

Ted- http://www.ted.com/
The cream of the crop in cutting edge tech. Worth Spreading.

Google Labs - http://www.googlelabs.com/
Sure you know Google... but how often do you browse the goodies at Google Labs?

Technorati - http://www.technorati.com/
"If Google is the Internet's Library, Technorati is the Coffee House" - Time Magazine

Listal - http://www.listal.com/
Like to make lists? Or read them? It's an amazing List of Lists.

Kaboodle - http://www.kaboodle.com/
Awesome free online share-able wish list, easy to use and integrated with Amazon.

Dave's Daily - http://www.davesdaily.com/
Huge conglomoration of daily diversions, web links and interesting internet fare.

Freecycle - http://www.freecycle.org/
Give stuff away, get stuff for free and save the environment in your community.

Rotten Tomatoes - http://www.rottentomatoes.com/
A must-bookmark site for any movie buff or film fanatic.

Fact Check - http://www.factcheck.org/
Fight the fallacy and cross reference, double-check and triple-check.

The Smoking Gun - http://www.thesmokinggun.com/
You can't find this stuff anywhere else. Exclusivity on the internet? Impressive.

Alcohol Contents - http://www.alcoholcontents.com/
If only I was a 'researcher' for the vast amount of data on this site...

Freelance Writing - http://www.freelancewriting.com/
Love writing? Aspire to authorship? Wanna make a few bucks? Bookmark this one.

Fat Wallet - http://www.fatwallet.com/
One of the best frugal shopping websites on the net. Keep your wallet fat.

That's it for the main list. But wait! There's more! For the 2011 update, i'm including a short-list of sites that I think rise above the ranks in certain small niches that relate to my particular interests. So if you have some of the same hobbies or affinities, you might wanna check them out too... Stay tuned for that list coming soon!

Hi everyone, I've assimilated my old and unkempt blog with Google+ so now it's really me writing! Plenty of stuff coming soon...

Numero Uno

Wow I stayed away from this blog for several months, and I just randomly try to find it.

And it wasn't too tough because this very blog, this tiny, free, blog in the shade is actually ranked number ONE in Google organics today, for the term "Coolest Websites".

I just had to pat myself on the back. There, that is all. This could very well be the encouraging epiphany I needed to get back on track with this thing.



Guess it's a good thing I'm working in the SEO arena.

W.W.C.N.D.

Okay it's been a little while since our last post here at IRBB. I'm sure my devoted fans are really missing the posts.......all two of them. Speaking of which, go ahead and subscribe. Add this blog to your list, click that "Follow" button.

Ahem... now then... well in the news, Ed McMahon died today at 86. Very sad. But you gotta look on the bright side. This is a man living out his later years in debt and financial 'turmoil', while giving out multimillion dollar checks to giddy, unsuspecting lucky bastards. Rest in peace, Ed.

Anywho, on to other stuff. Of course, the most important story is The Conduit (Wii). Having waited long and patiently since the very first snippet of a preview... we will finally be able to get our hands on the first 'true FPS' for the Wii.

With less than 24 hours remaining before launch, we are enjoying one more teasing taste in the form of the "Monumental" Trailer, now on YouTube and everywhere else in gaming webspace.
Here's the link to that trailer, in case you're interested, or you like pretty colors or you have no idea what we're talking about at this point - enjoy: The Conduit Monumental Trailer

I only hope that Wii owners and gamers all over the nation recognize and take this opportunity to embrace those developers going out into wild frontiers for us. We hardcore gamers who have to sort through all the shovelware on the Wii shelves are finally being granted our boon. We have to respond accordingly.

Support the Conduit. Buy the game, play the campaign, play it online, join the community, play some deathmatches, whoop some ass, take some ass whoopings, and help bring teabagging to a family console (hopefully crouching is possible, and it'd be awesome if it was motion-based) along with everything else about the so-called 'hardcore' genre.

It may not be Halo 3.... but it looks like they've pushed the Wii to its limits and merited respect for their loyalty to the ambition. And besides... with our encouragement, support, and the projected revenue statistics we can provide will mean better and better games of this kind.

I've said my piece, so that's where I'll leave it for now. I'll have a critical and opinionated review for everyone after I play the game.

And in closing, I just have one more thing to say. Please friggin' STOP with the Perez Hilton CRAP. So tired of hearing about it. Don't get sucked in. Just ask yourself the one easy question that solves everything: What Would Chuck Norris Do? Oh, you really want to know now huh, you've opened yourself up for a Chuck Norris joke. Okay fine. When Chuck Norris jumps in a river, he doesn't get wet.......... the water gets Chuck Norris. Ciao!

Can't Play on XBL? Just Go See Vanilla Ice

An event of monumental proportions occurred yesterday, when hundreds of thousands of typically couch-ridden people emerged from their homes and discovered the outside world.

The maintenance outage on June 16th, for Microsoft's Xbox Live service, kept the online gaming cyberspace dark for at least 24 hours. I suppose they might want to try and avoid another incident involving irate gamers attempting to sue Microsoft again.

But that's okay, we can put down the controller for a bit.........because anyone near East Texas will have something to do. Remember Vanilla Ice? He's back, and he's going to be in concert! Aren't we lucky? Yes, the hip-pop 'artist' will perform live in the bustling hot-spot in East Texas known as Gun Barrel City (this is no joke, people). The splat-in-the-road town has little hope of redemption at this point.

Tickets to the country saloon where he is set to perform are now on sale. I think I heard they're 10 bucks on the radio... but they will probably just go ahead and let their regular crowd in the door anyway.

A Tough Act to Follow

It's Marvelous Monday again folks, and there was some great gaming on this weekend that I'm just going to have to blog about here. The most notable of which is a bit of Halo 3 online that went down early Saturday morning.

I played as a guest on XBL with my buddy Jason (gamertag: Motorboater3000) and as we got the games going, we were unexpectedly joined by some friends we used to work with. Our old buddies at hcditrading.com (Jeremy, Dustin, Steven & Guy) jumped in and played with us through some crazy matches where my own performance was admittedly disappointingly marginal. Jeremy (jerpy69) made sure to show off his typical talents, raking in the majority of the kills most of the time. Either way, it was a nice workplace reunion on Halo 3 online.

While I started out crappy...it's okay.... I was just warming up. After a few games I picked up the pace and was proud of the results. But it was the final game of the night, a bout of Slayer on Rat's Nest, that represents the most notable of all. Jason and I hopped into a Warthog at the outset, and proceeded to unleash a fury of pwnage upon the poor little Red Team.


(Jason greases the wheels with red guys)

We can see in the above screenshot, as Jason titled "Trail of Dead", his driving talents were already racking up the frags, along with plenty 'wheelman' assists. At this point, with more than 10 minutes remaining, we were up 16 to 5, leaving dead red guys in our wake (see pic).

Jason only died once this game (a pretty cheap and unexpected one), drove the warthog almost the entire time, and still racked up 6 kills, earning a well-deserved Splatter Spree, and finished with 20 Assists!!!

My spot was on the Turret the entire game, and the one time Jason was killed, I took off running through the tunnel to the opposite side of the map, and when I reached the other side, Jason was already hopping into the driver seat of a new warthog, so that when i emerged from the tunnel, I headed straight for the gunner seat and we were on the rampage again as if there was no break in the action.

We met plenty of angry opposition in the form of Brute Shot-weilding enemies, opposing warthogs and plenty of 'nades tossed our way, yet we emerged victorious (albeit driving a pretty banged-up 'hog at the end). Thanks to jason's driving and my own desire to administer maximum pain to the red team, I ended the game with 19 kills, and zero deaths, earning the prestigious "PERFECTION!" award for the game, with 4 kills to spare for the achievement.

My tag was "Motorboater3000(G)" as I was but a lowly guest for these games, but you can check out those stats at the link above. This kinda stuff is the reason I play Halo.


Proof of Perfection

Now then, that I have exploited our bragging rights enough on Halo 3, here is the rest of the installment from last week on Wii Punch Out. You've already used the Super Macho Man guide to effectively destroy him, so now without fruther achoo, here is how to beat the crap out of Mr. Sandman:

Mr. Sandman has a variety of punishing attacks in his arsenal. Regardless, I'm going to focus here on the primary strategies for defeating him:

*After dodging a punch, you can light him up by hitting him in the face, followed by a series of body punches. If you hit him in the face twice, he'll just block and you've wasted your opportunity.

*Throw jabs to the face often. You'll usually head him off before he throws a punch. Beating him to the punch is also your primary method of gathering star punches. If you run out of hearts, DODGE!!!

*DO NOT 'spam' a bunch of jabs repeatedly, or you will pay.

*Watch out when he backs up and says "Afraid"... the triple lightning uppercuts are coming.

*If you accidentally dodge too early before his "Stand Still" hammer punch, throw a left hook immediately and you can usually prevent the pummelling.

*If you accidentally dodge too early before his mean"Night night" Left hook, throw a right hook immediately, and you can usually block his blow just in time.

One more hint for you: When Sandman backs up and prepares for his signature triple-punch, he will sometimes try to fake you out by saying "Boo!" (sometimes even more than once). In this case, it is okay to dodge at that point, and its also even okay to dodge at the second "boo" so long as you follow it up with an immediate dodge to avoid the punches. What you DON'T want to do is sit there expecting the "boo" and fail to doge in time if he chooses to come right at you with the uppercuts. You'll be eating canvas shortly if you're trying to be too cautious. Good luck!

Wii Like Punching Stuff

Alright let's see what we have in today's random Fabulous Friday grab-bag.
I suppose in the spirit of blogging, I shall share a bit of my personal interests which in this case is gaming. As a true through-and-through gamer at heart, I will occasionally include content here that relates to the beloved hobby.

And as it turns out, I spent an hour or so last night finishing the new Wii "Punch Out". So perhaps I'll share today a little section I like to call "How to Beat the Crap Out of Super Macho Man" and stay tuned for the next article for "How to Beat the Crap Out of Mr. Sandman".
If you're playing the game, and either having a tough time felling these beasts, or you're on your way to the top, I'll just cover these two proficient pugilists and hopefully make things go smoothly for your final pursuit to the WCC Belt. Enjoy

Beating the Crap Out of Super Macho Man

This guy is actually a pushover, and if you play your cards right you can easily smack him down for good in Round One.

Super Macho Man has two primary attacks at the outset: A left and right uppercut.
When he crouches to the left (your left) and says "Crunchin...", you will disappoint him by dodging immediately to the left, yielding a surprised look on his face accompanied with "DUDE!"
You will take the opportunity here to punch him a few times with Left-Right-Left alternating jabs to the face, but after the first few quick punches, his head will lean a bit further out of reach, and he'll block if you keep up punching quickly at that point. So you've got to change up your rhythm to get in those precious extra punches. After the first few quick punches, when his head rocks further to the side, wait a split second before throwing another punch, and you'll connect again. Follow it up with another couple alternating face jabs to the proper side of the face at the same, slightly slower rhythm. If you've timed it right, your final punch in the combo nets you a star. Hang on to it and don't get hit!

When Macho Man crouches to the right (your right), you'll need to wait just a split second before you dodge, as the uppercut is a bit delayed (while he knocks his gloves together).
If you manage to dodge this one, you could take this opportunity to land a few more face punches... OR you could just grab a quick free easy Star Punch out of it. Rather than just Punching him repeatedly in the face immediately after dodging this uppercut, you should wait just a split second longer before you connect. A good rule is to wait for him to finish saying "BOGUS!", and right after he says it, smack him with one good left jab to the face and if you've timed it right, you'll earn a Star on the spot.

One other opportunity for grabbing a star from Super Macho Man is when he poses for the cameras. He'll flash yellow for a second and say "Photo Op". You want to smack him in the face right when he says "Op", and you'll bank that star punch.

Considering the opportunities thus far, you should have no problem stacking up 3 stars, as well as putting a hurt on Macho Man through the process. As long as you can time your dodges properly and keep your stars, you should be able to launch a triple-star-punch after the next uppercut dodge following earning your third star, and he'll hit the canvas.

After knocking Macho Man down, he'll add the classic spin punch to his arsenal. Watch for his quick wind-up and immediately duck to avoid the spin punch (which will punish your health and hearts if it hits). After successfully dodging, you want to employ the alternating left-right face jabs as before (you'll get more punches in after the spin punch than you did from dodging regular uppercuts)... and remember to change up your rhythm to a slightly slower routine when his head rocks further out to the side (also noted by his groans being a bit more drawn out). If you connect with all your jabs and time it correctly, you can net another star out of the deal on the final punch.

Similar to the single spin punch is the patented and deadly Triple spin punch, which is foretold by quite a little show prior to the event. He will also prep up while saying "Super...Macho...Man", and then unleash a fast and furious spinning punch. You'll need to be quick about your ducking, three times in a row. If you managed dodge all three, great work, you can punish him in the same manner as with the single spin punch.

Again, stack up 3 star punches (or two if you feel like you're losing the stars too quickly before using them) and let him have it. Be warned, after you knock him down twice, Super Macho Man will become more aggressive and much quicker about the pain he intends to deliver upon you.
Perhaps the trickiest and most painful in Macho Man's arsenal is a super-quick right hook that often seems to come out of no where, and he's not afraid to string them together. Watch out for this one above all, as it is exactly the type of attack designed to throw you off and this bout can easily turn into a nightmare after knocking him down twice. Keep an eye out for that hook, dodge to the left and pummel him appropriately to stay on top.

Just use the proper techniques in the proper situations according to what he throws at you, and use your triple-star-punch as soon as you've got an open shot. Repeat that process and be quick to react when things get hairy. You'll see how fast you can rack up the stars and put this ego-freak down for good without even going to round two.

There you have it kids...that's how you beat the crap out of Super Macho Man.

A few tricks for you regarding Mr. Sandman, as a little preview for the guide next time....

*Be agressive and you're more likely to earn stars
*If he fakes you out and you dodge early, throw a hook
*Know the pattern: Face-Body-Body-Body-Body

See ya next time!