5 Indispensable Web Sites

Web surfing is becoming a lost art. With Google and Facebook owning the web between them you probably spend most of your internet hours looking at farm requests and pictures of things Google and your Facebook friends want you too see. It doesn’t leave you much time for discovering excellence. That’s where The Backgrinder steps in, and steps up, with 5 must have favorites for the discerning web connoisseur.

5) Cracked.com

Cracked.com is, surprisingly, one of the most intelligent sites on the net. Most of us remember Cracked as the half rate rip-off of Mad Magazine from back in the day when people printed the internet on pieces of paper and sold them in stapled together bundles. Now the site publishes funny and insightful commentary, usually in an easy to digest list format. A must have follow on Facebook and a premium add to your favorites bar.

Great Features:
The 10 Most Important Things They Didn’t Teach You In School
6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person

4)Scouting NY

What do you get when you combine a movie location scout with an encyclopedic knowledge of movies shot in New York, a camera, and a great eye for detail? Scouting NY is a photo journal alternating between “where are they now” type articles researching scenes from famous movies shot in NYC with articles on amazing locations that would make great scenes in new movies. The author invests a lot of time researching the city for amazing street corners, back alleys and buildings and the site is uniformly interesting.

Great Features:
The Abandoned Palace At 5 Beekman Street
The Film Locations of Ghostbusters

3)MLBTradeRumors

If you are a guy, you like baseball. Maybe you aren’t heavy into sports so you just sort of like it. Maybe you like football or basketball better but think baseball is OK. Maybe you are a nerdy guy whose best baseball memories were played out on a console game. Maybe you are a lib-guy who can’t allow yourself to enjoy baseball without first offering an annoying lecture on why Babe Ruth’s records are tainted by not playing black guys or the importance of a team supporting openly gay athletes. Whatever. The fact is, if you are a guy, you like baseball. That part is genetic. The thing is, there are more trades in baseball than in football basketball and hockey combined, and when they happen they can completely change the course of your teams season. With 10 rumors for each actual trade discussion it’s virtually impossible to follow accurately. MLBTradeRumors.com curates every single trade and signing rumor from every baseball writer in the country, updating several times a day. If you want to know what baseball GM’s are doing, thinking about doing, or being speculated about this is the place. You can also track free agent lists for the current and upcoming seasons and set it up to follow your favorite team.

Great Features:
Free Agency Tracker
Detroit Tigers Rumors

2)Coolhunter

If you like looking at great pictures from the world of cutting edge design the somewhat pretentiously named The Cool Hunter is a must see site. With sections on architecture, transportation, industrial design, you name it the site is packed with amazing eye candy.

Great Features:
Transportation
Architecture

1)Atari Arcade

Classic Atari Games? Check. Updated modern graphics? Check. Available to play on your computer with no console, set up or fees? Check. Atari Arcade has your back here. If you need 10 minutes of me time a quick visit to this site for a little simplistic, worry free old school gaming will hit the spot. The site is already well stocked with classic Atari experiences, and with a massive back catalog of games and a section for developers who want to add their own games the site looks prime for expansion.

Great Features:
Missile Command
Centipede

Check out all of these sites. Put them in your favorites. Friend them on Facebook. Follow them and they will present you with something worth checking out, and worth sharing on with your friends.