Japan
- General
- Japundit: a well-established group blog offering acute commentary on Japanese society and culture (and funny Engrish sightings)
- Megan’s Adventures: chronicling the life of a fellow artist from Wisconsin living here in Kitakyushu
- Fukuoka Now: a free monthly digest focused on Fukuoka and vicinity, offering local news, bar and restaurant reviews, and an event calendar
- Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC: with a number of convenient translation tools, including the almighty multiradical kanji search engine
- Food
- Delicious Coma: an interesting and insightful blog on Japanese food featuring some rather beautiful photography
- Ramen Kyushu: the reason I came to Japan
- Tokyo Food Page: not just for Tokyo anymore!
- World Ramen: hands-down the most passionate and informative site on ramen out there
- Art, History, and Culture
- Artificialia: documenting the brilliant scholarship of Dr. Morgan Pitelka
- Displaying Japan: a group blog organized by Pitelka-sensei critiquing the exhibition of Japanese culture
- Frog in a Well: Japan: another group blog with contributions from Japan scholars across the United States
- The Pavilion for Japanese Art at LACMA: featuring a very comprehensive online collection
- Music
- Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra: the other reason I came to Japan
- Waiwai Club Kokura Gion Taiko: my taiko group!
Food
- General
- The Food Programme: reporting on a new topic each week
- The Food Timeline: a compendium of online articles on the world history of cuisine
- eGullet: the food forum to end all food forums
- Asia Food: features, reference information, and recipes from the Asia Society
- Gastronomica: the only journal of food studies you’ll ever really need
- Recipes
- Epicurious: consistently delicious recipes compiled from Gourmet and Bon Appétit magazines
- All Recipes: pretty much lives up to its name
- Food Network: with recipes, instructional videos, and a very useful encyclopedia
- Beer Cook: for cooking and eating with beer
- Drink
- Beer Advocate: the world’s best online craft beer resource site
- Craft Beer Radio: broadcasting shameless beer geekery across cyberspace
- Beer Judge Certification Program: a comprehensive style guide
- Cocktail.com: a.k.a. Encyclopedia Mixologica
- Wine Spectator: an informational website on wine that’s neither pretentious nor condescending nor pandering
Art and Entertainment
- Humor
- Tiny Sepuku: hilariously illustrated love advice
- The Grumpy Professor: “the historico-metaphysical preditermination of my subjectivity creates problematic intentionalities”
- Cagle.com: with an extensive database of political cartoonists, including several from around the world
- Elephantitis of the Mind: pop-cultural satire for the Trapper Keeper generation
- The Onion: “Clinton Escapes Through Air Vent”
- The Brick Testament: I probably wouldn’t have defected from the Catholic church if it had been presented to me like this
- Art
- Obey Giant: the unparalleled graphic design of Shepard Fairey
- Illwaukee: ska- and punk-flavored designs by Mike Krol (who, incidentally, kind of looks like a cross between me and my designer friend Ben Nyberg)
- Shag: the art of Josh Agle, my hero
- Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries: multilingual Murakami-esque jazz-based Flash-animated web art
- La Luz de Jesus Gallery: hub of the pop surrealist movement
- Tim Anderson: the regurgitated influences of an obsessive-compulsive bourgeois materialist
- Music
- Club Par Avion: the world’s finest in global indie clubpop
- Overclocked Remix: remixes and covers of all your favorite video game scores
- Ska Summit: ska news, forums, local scene reports, and information on the history of ska
- Miscellaneous
- Memory Alpha: the Star Trek wiki
- Rotten Tomatoes: lots and lots of movie reviews
- A.V. Club: quirky reviews of all things pop culture from the publishers of The Onion
- LA Weekly: always a good read, even if you don’t live there
