This edition of Friday Fun Links is continuing the week’s look at great Back to School websites for college students. In this list you’ll find links to some of the sites I really liked but just didn’t have time to write a full review on.

In fact, in putting this list together I realized how many great college sites there are and for that reason have decided to leave this as an open list, where I’ll be continually adding new sites. As always if you have any recommendations please leave them in the comments below.

Books

ecampus.com – buy and sell textbooks, supplies and more.

TextbooksRus.com – buy new and used books for cheap.

CampusBooks4Less.com – price comparison shopping for textbooks, finds the best prices online.

Chegg.com – save money by renting your textbooks and they’ll plant a tree for each book you rent.

School Loans

FAFSA – the official federal student aid website.

Finaid.org – loan information, applications, tools and forms all in one place.

SchoolLoans.com – compare all types of loans to find the right one for you.

School Loans Consolidation Guide – important information on consolidating your student loans.

Blogs

CollegeCandy.com – a college-aged blog aimed mostly at the girls.

Keg of Wisdom – humorous thoughts about life and college.

Kill Jill Goes to College – an interesting look at handling college life.

Pimp Dorm – how pimp is your dorm?

Surviving College Life – a guide to surviving college.

Online Magazines

College Humor – funny videos, funny pictures, funny links!

Miscellaneous

Campusfood.com – order food online and wait while it’s delivered from your favorite local restaurant directly to your dorm room.

Dormgear.net – dorm room accessories, decorations and party supplies.

Dorm-Life.com – an internet television show about life in the dorms.

Rate My Professors – write and read reviews of professors at your college.

Rentometer.com – check how your rent compares to other similar places nearby.

Lists from Other Sites

Campus Grotto Textbook Links – a dozen or so top places to shop for textbooks.

10 College Websites from DormDelicious.com – a general list of must use sites for the college student.

50 Notetaking Tools – a great collection of applications to help you take and organize class notes.

50 Mind Mapping Tools – a huge selection of brainstorming tools that can be useful for non-students as well.

Lifehacker Back to School Series – an awesome series of back to school posts on an awesome website for getting things done.

I’ll continue adding to this site as I find great additions. As always the comments are open for suggestions.

You’ve probably heard of the website PostSecret. It’s been around for a while now and has developed almost a cult-like following which has spawned books, events and media attention. A regular little business empire.

What’s not always immediately noticed is the business model it follows, which is right in line with social giants Facebook and Myspace. Basically it follows a simple principle that lets it grow exponentially:

Let the users create the content.

Think about this simple math for a minute. Let’s say the average person can create one page of content per day. Theoretically, working every single day one person can create 365 pages in a year. Now, using that same estimate of one page per day think about how many pages can be created if 10 people are generating content. How about 1,000? One million?

You get the point. Even though there are other contributing factors, this one principle is what’s allowed Facebook and Myspace to blow up. Facillitate more, create less. It’s brilliant, really. So brilliant, in fact, that many others are starting to follow the model. Some on the scale of the social networking kings and others narrowing their niche a la PostSecret. Those are the sites I’m focusing on today.

*Today’s collection of links are sites that have found focused niches on the humor surrounding the English language. There are loads of them, in fact (which is surprising and not at the same time), but this edition of Friday Fun Links is only going to list a few of my favorites. I encourage you to comment on some of your favorites I may have missed.

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks

If you appreciate tongue-in-cheek type humor, you’ll love this site. The Blog of Unnecessary Quotation Marks is a collection of reader submitted photos and images where quotes were completely misused and/or unnecessary.

The commentary by Brittany, the webmaster, is terrific and the submissions seem to be neverending, which is great news for Brittany and not-so-great news for the future of mankind. There’s something about misguided attempts at intelligence that is both funny and extremely sad at the same time. I can talk about it all day, but until you actually see for your self the site can not be done justice.

On the sidebar you’ll see a list of links to other similar sites, some of which made my list, and others that are really good too, but didn’t fit my theme. They’re all worth a look.

Engrish.com

The next site is Engrish.com. This blog has “politically incorrect” written all over it, especially in its title. And even though part of me does think it’s racially insensitive, it’s so humorous it’s hard not to laugh. I don’t get the impression that it’s intended to be mean spirited, so I gave myself the okay to enjoy it.

The concept is simple: take a sign or package that is written in an Asian language and then translated to English and laugh about how the intended message gets twisted. Going a step further (and this is where it toes the PC line) a moderate amount of fun is poked at the way those with an Asian accent speak English. There are a variety of puns and wisecracks that present themselves during this process and the site does an excellent job of delivering the content.

Passive Aggressive Notes

PassiveAggressiveNotes.com showcases notes from people who have perfected the ability to yell at you without you even realizing you’re being yelled at. If you don’t think that’s a talent, you’re wrong. Covering things from moms leaving letters in their child’s apartment “nicely” telling them they live in filth and to clean it up to calling out the Hot Pocket thief, this site is absolutely hilarious…and scary.

Literally, A Web Log

I’ve subconsciously been terribly annoyed with the rising use and subsequent misuse of the word “literally” (quotes OK there Brittany?). It’s like, um, like totally the new Valley girl term and now that I’ve found this site I’m completely aware of how much I hate it. The site I’m talking about is called Literally, A Web Log.

I included it on my list even though I can’t decide whether I like it or love to punish myself. Either way, I get lost reading through some of the ridiculousness and before I know it an hour has passed…literally. I’ve got more important things that I should be doing like organizing my desktop recycling bin into folders before I empty it and other fun stuff, so I shouldn’t spend so much time agonizing over how other people’s attempts at smart end up making them look stupid, but I just can’t help myself sometimes.

That’s Punny!

I’m a sucker for puns. I appreciate the wit involved in coming up with them and think it’s proof that humans have evolved, despite some of the content on Literally, A Web Log. It gives me hope, I think. Over at That’s Punny! you’ll find a great collection of puns found on signs, storefronts and products. The titles are equally punny and enjoyable as well.

One of the most refreshing parts of this blog, and many others of this sort do the same thing, is the blogroll on the right sidebar that lists “Other Geeky Blogs We Love”. Links to a couple other pun blogs can be found in that list, too. A nice gesture by the site owners to share some link love.

Acronyms Sometimes Suck

The sister site of That’s Punny, Acronyms Sometimes Suck is a collection of unfortunate marketing situations faced by a number of non-profits and specialty organizations. The common scenario, I’m assuming, is the association comes up with a name that sounds really good and covers their main objectives, has the legal paperwork filed making them official, and brings the concept to a marketing firm for logo design. Probably sometime around then they realize that the four letter acronym formed by their official name would make Andrew Dice Clay blush.

Oops.

Rather than spend the money and effort to rebrand their club they decide to tough it out, hoping it won’t be made into a huge issue. Sometimes they may even fly under the radar of most people, but not A.S.S. (that’s an acronym, too!). They find it, and post it on their site for the enjoyment of everyone but the poor company and a bunch of old people. Good stuff.

lowercase L

One of the world’s great mysteries, yet it happens all the time. People love to capitalize all the letters in a word or sentence, but for some bizarre reason, the ‘L’ stays small. Of course the lowercase ‘L’ can easily be confused with an uppercase ‘I’, especially when all the other letters are capitalized. Despite the confusion this causes, people still continue to do it. I’m not sure why, but it fascinates me. And apparently others are intrigued as well because there is a steady flow of content to the lowercase l blog.

That’s all I have for today, but those should keep you pretty busy. There are plenty of laughs in the archives of those sites, too, so be sure to dig around a bit. Oh yeah, don’t forget to add some of your favorite links in the comments below. I know there are other great ones I missed.

With the release of my first Tutorial Series product taking up much of my time last week, and the day job bearing down a bit this week, putting together a collection of quality (quality is key) links hasn’t been easy. In fact, I missed the Links post last week; which doesn’t do well for my attempts to start a tradition my readers can count on.

Which leads me to my revised plan for Friday Fun Links. I will continue to make Fun Links posts and they will be on Fridays, but not necessarily every one. At this point, I just don’t have enough time to make any guarantees. I’m still shooting for every week, but I know distractions will come and until this site pays the bills (not there yet!) I can’t overlook responsibilities. I’m sure you understand.

Anyway, this week’s Friday Fun Links Post is centered around Twitter in the news. I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of Twitter articles lately, and there’s many more I’m sure that you haven’t seen before. I gathered some of my recent favorites and you can read about them below. Then be sure to follow SiteRoast on Twitter.

Twittering Cat Boasts 500k Followers – Sockington is becoming a very famous cat now that he’s got a Twitter account. His antics are chronicled in a first-person tone and are so entertaining he’s being billed as the Garfield of the 21st century!

6 Steps to Alienating Everyone on Twitter – A tongue in cheek look at the wrong way to use Twitter. It’s funny because I see some I follow doing these exact steps and it bothers me a bit. Maybe this article is on to something.

Twitter, Working to Make Money, Won’t Use Ads – Everybody knows it. Twitter founders are sitting on a gold-mine. However, they have yet to capitalize on it. This article explains their thought process and how they eventually intend to cash in on the microblogging site’s extreme popularity.

Can Twitter Save ‘My Name is Earl’? – Probably not. But the response from the Twitter community regarding the cancellation of this (apparently) popular show is pretty impressive. Read the article to find out how you can join the campaign.

Twitter Dating? – This way you only have to listen to 140 characters worth of your dates boring interests. Now that I think about it, they might be on to something here!

Chick Flicks Summarized on Twitter – Genius! Save hours of your life! Instead of spending two hours watching that boring romantic comedy, read the Twitter version and move on with your life.

I Found My Job on Twitter – Further proof that Twitter is useful for so many things beyond the typical ‘What are you doing’ commentary.

Twitter Causes Brain Damage? – This is just what I’ve been waiting for – a little Twitter controversy. You know you’re relevant when people argue about you.

Twitter has definitely taken the world by storm. It’ll be interesting to see how long it lasts. I don’t see it ending anytime soon, though.

Their response? Everyday is Kid’s Day.

I thought it was a cop out answer, and I was right. But so were they.

Kids are spoiled, mostly by their grandparents, but mothers get a close second. Because Sunday is Mother’s Day, and most mothers go 364 days without being properly recognized I’m making the first ever SiteRoast Friday Fun Links post all about Mother’s Day.

I’m all about giving credit where credit is due, and most moms are terrific human beings. Every once in a while though, one comes along that proves me wrong. Even still, I stand by my belief that mothers are by nature the most loving, selfless beings and deserve our respect not just once a year, but all year long.

We all know that won’t happen, though, because then it would start interfering with Kid’s Day.

So alas, we’re left with the second Sunday in May each year to celebrate Mom. Despite Mother’s Day only being once a year, many websites exist which pay yearlong tribute. I’ve gathered those, and some other mom-related sites for this week’s Friday Fun Links collection. Enjoy.

Mother’s Day Gift Ideas

I’m putting these first because if you’re like me you still haven’t bought your mom anything, and with two days to spare you’re starting to get nervous. Below you’ll find some gift ideas, as well as some links to ideas other sites have put together.

1-800-FLOWERS.COM – If you’re in a pinch, flowers are the good old standby when it comes to women. Send your mom an arrangement from this site and you’ll be in her good graces till next May.

GourmetGiftBaskets.com – Send your mom a beautiful gourmet gift basket. For 10% off your order use coupon code LoveMom10. For $5 off use LoveMom5.

Open Heart Necklace – Jane Seymour’s design will give you and your mom a warm and fuzzy feeling for sure. To understand what I mean, read more about what the neckace means.

20 Gift Ideas Under $20 – This list is courtesy of MSN. If you’re looking for more ideas from them visit their Mother’s Day Shop.

Mother’s Day Books From Amazon – Amazon has the widest selection of books on the web. There’s something for every mom here.

Books from Buy.com – a page of book ideas just for moms.

Free Gift Ideas

Broke? Cheap? Either way, it doesn’t matter to me. I won’t judge. Your mom won’t either. She loves you for who you are, right? Yeah, keep telling yourself that. Still, you might be looking for the perfect compliment to go with the flowers or gift basket you bought, so I give you some Mother’s Day gift ideas that won’t cost you a dime.

Mother’s Day Poems – 50+ poems to show Mom you care but aren’t creative enough to write your own. They’re free though.

Chore Coupons- Right about the time when I was old enough to know I should get my parents a Christmas present and still without any money to buy something I discovered Chore Coupons. For about six straight years I capitalized on them for all gift giving occasions – birthdays, Christmases and yes, Mother’s Day.

Make Gifts on Your Own- For young children, maybe with some help from dad, these ideas are great. They do require a little bit of money for supplies, but if you are resourceful and a bit mischievous you can get around that problem.

More Mother’s Day Sites

The following sites are all mom related. Some are directly focused on Mother’s Day, others are blogs written by moms or with them in mind. Either way, these next links are all to sites that will make you appreciate the things your mom has done for you.

Dooce.com – Written by Heather B. Armstrong, this blog is absolutely hilarious. There are currently almost 7,000 posts on Dooce.com covering pretty much anything Heather feels like writing about. About the only thing this blog has to do with Mother’s Day is that she’s a mother (a stay at home mom, actually – but you need to read her about page to see how she refers to herself). Still, I thought it was worth sharing if only for her entertaining, sarcastic writing style. Be warned, she sometimes has a trucker mouth.

Mom Blog Network – A extensive collection of mom blogs. Some are good, with helpful content for other moms, and others are shrines for their kids. There is enough variety here for everyone to find something they like.

5 Minutes for Mom – This all about moms website has a list of other mom-run websites. Many of them are focused on moms helping other moms. The list is pretty long and worth looking at.

Day For Mothers – This website centers entirely around Mother’s Day. Loaded with content, it’s very easy to lose track of time poking around on here.

Everything Mother’s Day – Exactly what the name says, this site covers all Mother’s Day bases. I especially liked the Top 10 Page.

Mother’s Day History – An explanation of the history of Mother’s Day, how it originated and how it evolved. The rest of the site has some excellent Mother’s Day related content as well. This Mother’s Day Planning Checklist is a bit overkill but interesting nontheless.

Postcards From Yo Momma – User submitted content consists of hilarious conversations they’ve had with their mothers. Sometimes, between lectures and disapproval, motherly wit becomes lost on us. Thanks to this site, that no longer needs to happen. Check out the highest rated page for some quick laughs.

Alright, I think that’s all I have for you on this first Friday Fun Links post. I hope all you moms out there have a great day on Sunday.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. If anyone wants a good Mother’s Day laugh, take a look at this oldie-but-goodie…