Interesting article on The 2006 Best of Web 2.0. ("Web 2.0" is just a buzzword, guaranteed to make most techies retch, for a supposed new paradigm shift in the internet.) But basically it's just a bunch of links to new sites that are proving to be particularly useful. I clued into it because I was already using a full 7 of the 10 sites. So, take my word for it, there will be something useful here for you. Here's a rundown of their picks, with my comments:

Flickr - essential for photo sharing.

Vimeo - basically, Flickr for video. Seems like it might be useful but I don't do a lot of video. Don't know how it compares to YouTube or Google video.

Del.icio.us - for tagging and sharing of bookmarks. I'm enjoying this more the more I use it.

Digg - essential for techie news. I check it more often even than SlashDot these days.

Bloglines - for aggregating feeds from blogs, news, or anything else with an RSS feed. Dare I use the word "essential" again?

Netvibes - slickly lets you build a page made up of all your favorite services, blogs, and other info. I just signed on, and this one is really, really cool. For amusement, add a Flickr content panel that searches on the keyword "drunk".

Writeboard - lets you create a document that's editable by people all over the net. I can't think of a use for this right now but I could see it being useful at some point.

Google maps - great, but would be more useful if there were better Australia map data.

Google local - again, this is probably more useful for those of you in the States.

Meebo - combines your AOL, MSN, Google, and Yahoo instant messengers into a web page. Only useful in getting around a workplace ban on IM chatting, as far as I can see.

We're planning on moving to another part of the city, where we could pay less rent, and Marjorie would have a shorter commute to work. We've been house-hunting in a half-assed manner on the weekends: we like where we're at now, and are not in a big hurry to leave. Luckily, we're month-to-month at our current place, so we have the luxury of being able to wait for the right situation.

This may sound strange, but our dream house is a duplex. We each want our own space. We can't afford that right now, of course, but we're quite serious about doing it eventually. It's not that we despise living together so much; it would just be nice to each have our own sanctuary that's all ours. As it is, now, we only sleep in the same bed two or three nights a week.

When we mention that sort of thing to some couples, they look at us like we're nuts. Others, you can see the wheels start to turn in their heads.

Yesterday we went on our second annual Grape Grazing tour. No striptease from the bus in front of us this year, unfortunately. In fact, the whole thing seemed to fly by. But it was still good fun.