The holiday season is upon us.  Yes, you’re still working, but I’m betting that your brain is still curled up in bed (visions of sugar plums optional).  The weather outside is frightful and cabin fever may be setting in.  It’s time for MeanLaura’s 2010 roundup of interesting and/or bizarre sites you may have missed this year.  DISCLAIMER:  There is probably no educational or CE value in this post anywhere.  Enjoy.

• Screaming Beans:  Definitely NOT in the holiday spirit.  You’ll need to have a Flash-enabled device and make sure your speakers are on.  Crushing little baked beans is surprisingly satisfying.  Don’t tell Santa.
• The Jellio Store:  I don’t know of anyone who works in libraries who has enough cash to buy much of anything from this site.  Nonetheless, I suspect many of us enjoy looking at furniture that looks like ice cream sandwiches, a table-sized xylophone or giant gummi bear lamps.
• Lullatone Raindrops:  Feeling musical?  Make your own melodies with these one-note raindrops.  Metronome included.  (Yes, you’ll need Flash for this one, too.)
• Balldroppings: Game, or musical instrument?  You decide.  Balls fall, you direct them by drawing lines.  The balls make music.  Kind of addicting, really.
• IS Parade:  The larger your Twitter following, the more interesting this is.  The site creates a virtual parade of all your Twitter followers, using their Twitter avatars.  It includes sound effects, music and live tweets as the parade progresses.  This is definitely one of those things where it’s better to try it out than for me to attempt to explain it.
• 88 Visual Phenomena & Optical Illusions:  Pretty much what it sounds like.  If you’re a fan of these things, you’re going to have a virtual field day.
• Someecards.com:  “When you care enough to hit send.”  Not always politically correct, but more funny than not.  Cards for occasions you hadn’t even thought of.  Totally free.

Lastly, I leave you with this video, which showcases a band made up entirely of musicians using i-Devices.  Three holiday tunes full of impressive tech gadgetry and arrangement, and a lot of fun to boot:

North Point’s iBand from North Point Web on Vimeo.

What does this mean to me, Laura?

Probably not much, unless I’ve left your favorite out.  Let us know what fun and cool sites you found this year in the comments!