Merry Christmas! This year I’m giving you the gift of human curation. Hopefully there’s at least one on this list you haven’t seen yet. Enjoy!

Best of r/BirdBuddy via @pixouls on Mastodon - this was a pure delight to browse through. It’s a combinations of stills and videos from people’s Bird Buddys - a small bird feeder with a camera in it that alerts people to when they have bird (and other visitors). Looks like there are also hummingbird feeders, bird bath, and nesting box versions now too. The posts really run the gambit from classic bird selfies to some truly unexpected visitors. I usually steer clear of reddit but it was well worth the dip back in to enjoy all the lovely birds (and other wildlife) people had captured. Very “moment of zen”.

Rainy Mood Anyone remember StumbleUpon (RIP)? It was this website where you could tab through a bunch of other websites in categories that you picked. Some were clearly trying to sell you something but a lot of them were just random personal sites that were weird and wonderful. One of my favorite sites I ever found with StumblrUpon was RainyMood. I found it sophomore year of college 1.0 and it was a godsend. I was living with some real shit roommates and I found that just listening to this site calmed me down. Sometimes I’d add in some music, other times it was just me and the rain. I still come back to it. There are other sites that give you more control over your rain loop but I love the simplicity of this site. There’s no getting bogged down in choices and perfecting it. You just hit play and you go. Nature sounds more generally have been found to help with nervous system regulation - so give yourself the gift of peace today.

Cornell Feederwatch Live Cams I figure most people know about these but hey maybe you’re one of today’s lucky 10,000 and I get to introduce you to one of the most chill livestreams on the internet. Cornell University maintains several live bird cams all over the world though most are based in the US. They’re just such a chill and pleasant way to pass some time in a given day. Especially if you’re not in a place where you can set up your own bird feeder, these live feeds let you check out some very active feeders throughout the day. Birds tend to come in waves so it’ll be dead and then like 12 of them show up and since you never know when it’s gonna happen, it’s an extra delight.

RailCowGirl - The Best of Norway’s Railway Winter Cab Views A few years ago, for a few glorious months, Netflix had “Slow TV: Train Ride Bergen to Oslo” which was a NRK TV channel special from 2009 that was exactly what it says on the tin - a complete almost 8 hour train ride from Bergen to Oslo. Intrigued, my qpp and I watched several hours of it, completely delighted. I went to finish it later and was bummed to see it was gone. Now we don’t have Netflix at all. So it set me down the weird rabbit hole to find anything like it. Cue RailCowGirl who has provided the internet with some of the most beautiful complete Norwegian train ride videos one could ever hope for. There’s a vast library of them at this point. The live feed I linked to cycles through several of the most beautiful winter rides she’s ever captured. It is quite calming to throw one of these one and just watch it, they often put me to sleep.

Struthless - A chaotic guide to making stuff instead of doomscrolling This video came out a little while ago but I think I’ll be singing it’s praises for a while to come. There’s loads of videos preaching the virtue of getting off your device but very few that say “hey go do this specific thing instead”. This video gives 10 creative prompts that can be responded to across several mediums and he even includes examples of his own responses to get your gears turning. I really like how straight forward the prompts are. They don’t take a lot of brain power to figure out. And I appreciate how the tone is not one of moralistic signalling like a lot of other videos on the topic are, but just straight up “I think making stuff is good for you - let’s go!”

the internet archive #1 fan blog This blog might not be visible to people who don’t have a tumblr log in which is a damn shame but I’m sharing it here just in case. This blog posts little random gems the owner finds as they crawl through the Internet Archive. It’s fascinating to see what someone else has run into while they browse there. A lot of it is historical in nature but there’s fun detours into more modern stuff on occasion. I really appreciate the pinned post at the top that talks about how to watch films and TV shows on the Internet Archive - something I didn’t really know was possible until I found this blog. It’s sparked my curiosity and I’ve been poking around over there more and more lately.

Wikiroulette So why this over hitting random page on wikipedia itself? Mostly because I find the arrow keys very handy for continuing on. I stumbled onto this from a neocities webpage and spent…entirely too long just tabbing through pages and reading up on completely random topics I’d never thought to look up. Like now I know that the average train ride from Warsaw to Prague is about 8 hours. What am I going to do with that information? Likely nothing. But I learned that fact in a context that was neutral and not trying to make my angry for engagement and so I will admit I’m a little more fond of that fact than I am some others.

WordLibs A small collection of online “mad libs” style games. Wikiroulette inspired me to go looking for some old school mad libs and use what I found on it for the words I put into the Mad Lib and I gotta tell you it was way funnier than whatever I would have cooked up with just my own little brain. Not super useful, I know but it was just a fun way to spend a little time on the internet. I think you can print some out here if you prefer playing by hand.

Crosswords Arena Crosswords Arena is my favorite alternative to Words with Friends. It’s not as easy to play asynchronously, but if you’re both online at the same time it’s perfect. They also have lots of bots that are pretty fun to play with and several different languages to pick from including, perhaps most puzzlingly, Latin. My qpp and I play this pretty regularly. It’s great on nights when I need to be in bed and somewhat solo for my health but I still want to do an activity with her. The biggest pro in my opinion is that you do not need to give an email address or create an account to use it. You love to see it.

Cary the Snail - Social Media in Real Life I’m shocked this video doesn’t have more views honestly because it’s great. The basic premise is Cary the Snail puts up posters around Portland to ask for movie, music, and food recs and then actually tries some. It really captures what a lot of the old school internet was - just sharing a neat thing you liked with a total stranger. There were some really cool finds on the whole and it was kind of heartening to see so many total strangers play along. It’s those little moments of just unpretentious human sharing that just really get me.