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If you are reading this post, we presume you are single and likely nervous about entering the world of online dating. To you we say: Go for it!
Think of it this way: If you were looking for a job, you’d conduct at least part of your search online, no? When shopping for a creative gift, checking out tomorrow’s weather forecast or looking for a used car you’d search online. So why not when looking for a boyfriend or girlfriend?
Meeting mates online is not going mainstream. It is mainstream. Of all the people who got married in the United States in the last year, 1 out of every 6 met online. More than twice as many marriages occurred between people who met on an online dating site than between those who met in bars, clubs and other social events combined.
So, go for it! And start by choosing the online dating site that will work best for you.
There are literally thousands of dating websites to choose from. They break down into roughly two groups: general dating websites, those joined by a relatively large and diverse cross section of people, and niche dating websites, geared towards a specific audience.
We’ll deal with nice dating websites in our next post. Here we’ll look at the general websites. Spot Cool Stuff has tried out dozens of them. Below is our description of the ones we like best. Check out the full reviews or, if you are the impatient sort, skip ahead to our conclusions:
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There are few better items to travel with than a tablet computer. A tablet can be your map, your guidebook and your reading library, your entertainment system, your photo storage and editing device and your means of communicating with friends back home—all in one highly portable package.
The qualities that make for a tablet good for travel are generally the same as those that make a tablet good for other purposes too. When you are on the road, though, weight and build-quality become especially important. Travelers tend to use their tablet for longer between charges and so there’s a premium on battery life. Camera quality is important, partly for taking photos mostly for making Skype video calls. Other qualities to consider in your tablet travel companion include the availability of expansion ports, the quality of the screen (especially for use in direct sunlight), the selection of travel apps and, of course, the price.
With that, here’s Spot Cool Stuff’s take on the best tablet computer to take traveling. Read on, your click on the category that most interests you:
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Is chocolate good for you? Researchers, conducting highly scientific studies, have found chocolate beneficial in preventing a plethora of ailments including cancer, stroke and heart disease. But Spot Cool Stuff has a more simple theory:
If it makes you smile, it’s health food.
In honor of National Smile Month—and to the dismay of dentists everywhere—here’s our look at 12 wonderful chocolate shops. We hesitate calling them the “best” chocolate shops given how there are easily 60 or more stores that we could have included on this list. All the shops we did include are superlative in some one.
Note that this overview is a companion piece to our equally dentist-horrifying review of the world’s best candy shops.
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With sufficient LEGO pieces and a healthy imagination you can build pretend versions of anything. The popular line of plastic building blocks have also inspired the design of many real products. Here’s a look at 12 of them:
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If you like to be under the sea—or at least like your movie plots to take place there—you’ve got several dozens of submarine-oriented flicks to choose from. There’s something compelling about the submarine genre of movies: the close quarters, the life-and-death nature of it, the mystery of what’s out there in the dark and vast ocean depths.
Here’s a rundown of our personal favorite ten submarine movies:
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If there’s one product outside of the computer and portable electronics markets we wish Apple would design, it’s a car.
Spot Cool Stuff is a big fan of nearly everything Apple. Yes, their products aren’t inexpensive. But they are almost universally well designed, well built and user friendly—not to mention cool-looking. If Apple were to bring their prowess an automobile design . . . well, we can only imagine.
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Kids crawl into the enormous play net—and parents wonder whether they'll ever see them again
Spot Cool Stuff’s inner child is still very active. Readers have probably noticed that from all our reviews of cool toys and family travel destinations that may appeal equally to adults and kids. So no wonder that we are also fans of playgrounds.
The world is, thankfully, full of creative, well-conceived plays for kids to safely play. Here’s a look at seven of our favorites:
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A joke we overheard in a coffee shop in Italy:
Question: What’s the difference between yogurt and the United States of America?
Answer: Yogurt has culture.
Okay, maybe that’s a little funny. The problem is, it isn’t true. The United States is full of culture. It isn’t as gourmet as, say, Italy. Nor is it as old as China or as all-encompassing as say, India, or as snobby as France. But it most certainly is there. American culture is diverse and interesting; we’d argue it is one of the most fun national cultures on the planet.
Want proof? Below is our recommendation for five distinctly American cultural experiences that you are unlikely to find written up in any guidebook. For this post we only considered experiences that are available across the country. Anything that’s specific to a specific ethnic group or region—attending Burning Man in Nevada or eating gumbo in New Orleans or getting yelled at by a taxi driver in New York City, for instance, were disqualified. We also nixed holiday events, like the 4th of July American Independence Day.
While this post was written with non-American travelers in mind, those from the United States may also gain some travel tips by reading on . . .
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Everyone has had awkward family moments (and many of us still do). Not everyone has had their awkward family moments photographed, posted online, published in a book and mocked in a board game. You’ll find the lucky (or unlucky) few who have on the humorous website Awkward Family Photos.
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Bangkok is a city full of luxury hotels offering a high level of personalized service. Among them all, one luxurious hotel with a high level of personalize service rises above the rest, literally: The Tower Club at lebua.
The Tower Club suites occupy the top floors of the State Tower, the tallest hotel and third tallest building of any sort in the whole of Thailand. But is higher better? The Tower Club at lebua invited Spot Cool Stuff to stay in one of their suites for two nights. Here’s what we found:
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