Made in the U.S.A. Inspected by 27

About the Site

I've been making sites since 1999 and consider myself a master web designer wannabe. Sometimes I come up with really crazy ideas and put them on web pages. In fact, many of them have never made it past the drawing board, or even my head. At one time I had several pages consisting of weird and boring stuff, and no site was connected with another. The Dvorak Keyboard and You was its own site, flipacoin.net (since spun off) was its own site, and Make Your Own Spam Bait (since removed) was still another site by itself. I figured I needed a single place to store my madness. So, in April 2003, I created The World of Stuff as a common link. The name demonstrates my charming sense of humor and the randomness of all the different pages thrown together.

In July of that year, the site moved from Angelfire to NearlyFreeSpeech.NET. The World of Stuff moved to its present home at theworldofstuff.com (worldofstuff.com was taken, and I wouldn't settle for anything less than a .com). Around July and August 2003 I started blogging regularly in order to keep you, the visitor, coming back to what would otherwise be a boring, seldom-updated home page. (Now it's just a boring home page.)

I've always enjoyed entertaining people. Since the blog's beginning, I've tried to make it lighthearted, continually updated, and easy to follow. Informational links are often embedded to aid those unfamiliar with the topic at hand. I always link to a previous post when referring to it, even if the post was just from the day before. I try to inject some humor into even the most mediocre subjects, like school or my family. (For example, my sister always reads the blog to see if I've mentioned her, so it's become a running joke for me not to mention her by name.) I don't often pour out my soul into bits and bytes, although sometimes I'd like to. I don't think you, the reader, really care about stuff like that. And of course, most entries come with a hearty serving of interesting, informative, or just plain weird links.

I'm trying to improve TWoS all the time. And, well, other rubbish I don't feel like writing yet goes here. Now here comes the part many people tell me they like, the FAQ.

Site FAQ

Whose fault is this?

Jordon Kalilich, guilty. Read my cheesy bio.

What was your first web site?

My first web site was a Pokémon fan site. I maintained it from July 1999 to October 2000.

Ewww, you liked Pokémon?

You can leave at any time, you know.

What happen?

Somebody set up us the bomb.

What the heck, was that an "All your base are belong to us" joke?

Yes. I wrote that one in, like, 2003 or something. (I know: after AYBABTU was popular.)

Help! I'm a lazy American who refuses to use the metric system, and you use metric on your pages. I don't know how long a kilometer is or how many milliliters are in a liter! But then again, I don't know how many fluid ounces are in a cup, either.

Don't worry; I'm also a lazy American, but I'm trying to use the metric system more. And some visitors to The World of Stuff are from metric countries (which are just about all countries except the US). That's why the metric system - the international standard system of weights and measures - is used here at The World of Stuff. When you see a metric measurement with a dashed blue underline, hold your mouse pointer over it to get the US/Imperial/Customary/English/Inch-pound equivalent, rounded to two decimal places if necessary. For example:

Give him 2.54 cm and he'll take 1.61 km.

I think it makes text look less cluttered and makes for easier reading than:

Give him 2.54 cm (1 in.) and he'll take 1.61 km (1 mi.).

Sometimes I may quote someone who mentions US/Imperial/Customary/English/Inch-pound measurements. In that case, I'll display the quote as is, and you'll be able to hold your cursor over those measurements to get the metric equivalents. For example:

"A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck." -James A. Garfield

Just a quick note: To go with the whole metric thing, I will use metric number style (such as 1 000 000 or 3.141 593) instead of American (such as 1,000,000 and 3.141593). But I do use American spellings ("meter" as opposed to "metre," etc.).

How many fluid ounces are in a cup?

8.

Did you really make all these pages yourself, or do you have a bunch of monkeys pounding on keyboards?

What's the difference?

Has The World of Stuff received any press?

Indeed. My site and I were featured in the article "Blog Stars" in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel on September 16, 2003, and in "Meet the Bloggers" in City Link Magazine's April 14, 2004, issue.

Can I ask you a question?

You just did.

Well, can I e-mail you a question?

Sure. My e-mail address is at the bottom of the page. Use PGP encryption if possible.

How come I can't click on your e-mail address to e-mail you?

Because if it was a clickable link, or even regular text, the software used by spammers could easily pick it up. However, e-mail address harvesting software can't read images, so that's why my e-mail address is in an image.

This is stupid. Why do you even have a FAQ? What's the point?

I don't know.