Revealed! True Out-of-Body Travel on Your Computer!*

*The above title bears no relation to the following content and is in fact a complete lie.

...And in their silence spring gave its sound...

Ghostland - Progressive Rock: Sadly, Dan Barret has let his previous site slide in favor of his live music series (which you should still check out), but Ghostland is a very up-to-date, if not complete resource.
Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock: The ancient Gibraltar discussion list, now a web 'zine, was my only source of prog rock information for a long while, before most of it moved over to the flamefest that is usenet. The encyclopedia has almost everything you could ever want to know about prog rock and associated issues.
ELP - Emerson, Lake & Palmer: The only deity I officially recognize is Keith Emerson.
Gentle Giant Home Page: Why do they deserve their own link? They're unique and underappreciated, that's why.
The Echolyn Home Page: This is one of the two best American progressive rock bands.
Ars Nova: An all-female Japanese band who sound a bit like ELP, but really pissed off and in a dark mood. Highly recommended, and the site is a tour de force of web tech.
ProgDay is done!: This was a fantastic Progressive Rock festival. I saw the first ProgDay, and it was truly amazing. I, my brother, and a friend had an incredible time at ProgDay '96. My brother and I returned in '98. Go see the site with pictures of the event and see the giant hands!
Alamaailman Vasarat (consisting of former HÖYRY-KONE members): Don't think you like prog? Try to find a back copy of HÖYRY-KONE. They were an incredibly eclectic band from Finland, whom I saw live in Sweden. One of their many styles will please you, unless you're just a die-hard conventionalist. Now several of their members have formed a new band, Alamaailman Vasarat, which I basically describe as Acid Klezmer.

Input! Input!!

I like media.

Atomic Cinema of the Nuclear Age: No matter how bad a movie might be, it can do one thing and make my list of must-see movies: have the audacity to explode a fission or fusion atomic bomb. For the discriminating viewer, my brother has compiled a list. How many REMs do you like on your movie?
The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5: The most intelligent and well-produced science fiction on television today.
Century Magazine: One more former glory of American culture. A literary, thoughtful, genre-crossing magazine of speculative fiction. Very high quality writers and story selection in an artistic format. Surprisingly little straight science fiction for a favorite of mine.
CNN Interactive: So it's junk food news! Besides, thoughtful "analysis" pieces usually give me unsupported opinion as fact and keep me in the dark as to what is actually happening. I'm the one with the Master's in IR, so just you feed me raw data and leave the processing to the guy with the Rosco, journalist-boy. Failing that, forget depth, entertain me!!
Libertarian Futurist Society: Publishers of the Prometheus Awards and associated magazine of Libertarian science fiction.
Strange Interactions (now John Jacobsen's Art): Physicists have this strange attraction to the humanities--but when they do it well, they do it really well. Now just under the moniker of the artist, who has gone into an interesting semi-surrealist landscape collage thing.
5points art+science home page: Yet again with the physics and humanities stuff! I found this by accident; it has nothing to do with the watering hole section of Columbia, SC. Some wild images, sometimes, when they get their act together. I've rarely seen sites get less content over time...
Tank Girl: The best movie of 1995, and completely misunderstood by critics. But then you have to be hip to the real culture of the 90's to appreciate it, not the effete bastardization thereof in The New Yorker.

Serious Business

(i.e., a smattering of IR-related sites related to the stuff I used to do)

ISN - International Relations and Security Network: Meta-index of IR and security sources on the web.
Central European News Links: A good collection of online news from Central Europe. Predominantly now in English.
NATO Website: North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for those living under a rock. Pretty much self-explanatory. Good store of NATO-produced documents and links to other sources of information.
Armed forces of the world: Links to online information about various countries' militaries.
International Affairs - Index: Excellent guide to international relations sites in the USA and elsewhere.
Warsaw University, Institute for Social Studies home page: Some papers in English.
The Warsaw Voice: (Very) selected news from Poland--in English!
CIA Website: The concept of the CIA having a web page used to be cool enough by itself (before everybody and his dog got a site), let alone the fact that this used to be a deep and entertaining site. It's now releasing as much information as is needed to try to preserve phat Congressional moolah.
Central and East European Legal, Political, Business and Economics WWW Resources: Yet another metaindex.
Transitions Online: Formerly the Open Media Research Institute (OMRI). Free, unbiased information was so valuable, that when Clinton, that guardian of freedom and big government, decided to cut the program, the Czechs gave them a new home and they are funded by a mixture of sources.
Polish Business: Polish. Business. Do I have to explain? Not too much for the researcher here, other than contacts.
Foreign Affairs: The trial balloon rag of choice for policy wonks with lax academic standards. Mind you, that's not necessarily a bad thing, academic standards being what they are these days.
World Trade Organisation: The home page of one of the international organizations that runs the black helicopters. Ha! Just seeing if you were paying attention.

Dramatis Personae

My friends are too strange for fiction.

Julie Putnam: She plays D&D in the hope of making everyone's day just a little more surreal.
The New Sounds OUT POST: a New music Home page: My friend Hayden Porter masters this website, and OUT POST is his brainchild. He's a composer and promoter of new, adventurous music in Ohio. He's also involved in Sonify.org for those of you creating web-based sonic content, and his company is Aviarts.

Miss Elaineous

(OK, best I could do on short notice)

The Barney Fun Page!: Feeling stressed? Out of sorts with society? Feeling like joining a violent organization such as the Black Panthers, a militia, the Freemen, or the Postal Service? Relax instead and take it out on the latest propagandistic government-sponsored corporate craze to insure a lack of intellect in succeeding generations! This is history, it went up October 14, 1994. Do the math.
Feminist Science Fiction: While a tad obscure, this is THE comprehensive source about it, proving once again that Science Fiction is THE philosophical literature of this and coming centuries. I just thought I'd put THE word THE in here a couple more times.
Libertarian Party: While the phrase "Libertarians, Unite!" is only slightly less ironic than saying it to anarchists, you may have guessed that despite their seriously flawed foreign policy, I like them better than Tweedle Duh and Tweedle Dumb--or the Red/Green party, who ran the man single-handedly responsible for most of the needless packaging you see as their candiate for President.
MAD SCIENCE LIVES!!!!: Sick and twisted people feverishly slaving in their dank labs, doing dark, unspeakable things--twisting God's work! Unholy experiments on helpless, live Twinkies...
SETI League: Do you want to say something witty to ET before you kick his ass? Find out how you can talk to ET and hear his side of the story. Especially useful for Pat Buchanan supporters who want to explain to any space aliens our new, rigid immigration policy. Oh, and be sure to check out their filking music.
Students for the Awareness and Development of Space: Again, some things are necessarily good because they look cool to me and therefore deserve your funding. Hey, at least I'm honest.
Friends of Tuva: Physicists and their interests continue to haunt me. But with a capital with a name like Kyzyl, it's got to be gelatinized mashed-fruit product with sugar. Or something.