I discovered the online image generator site, 
Well, here I am "Avatar-style", all ready for some warm weather vacation fun!!
MERLIN
I explored MERLIN today, checked out some of its' links and subscribed to the " Highlighted This Month" feed on the site. In addition, I subscribed to a technology blog on Washington Post.com. I also checked out Technorati.com and found it interesting and useful. I subscribed to the technology feed from this site, as well. Although, I tried to use Feedster.com to search for RSS feeds, the site was not working. I've enjoyed learning about RSS feeds but I still prefer my old "hunt and peck" method of locating sites of interest to me and just checking, periodically, for updates if I'm so inclined!
I, successfully, created my Bloglines newsreader account and subscribed to 10 newsfeeds. This was all new to me. I had seen the RSS icon on my computer but never knew its functionality so this was a beneficial "thing" for me to learn. Most of what I subscribed to were "news" sites. Although, it is definitely a time saver to have all of my favorite sites in one place for a quick update, I also enjoy a leisurely browse through web sites. I don't always need the "quickest" link to things. This, of course, is advantageous in a work setting but I tend to think that, at home, I'll continue to link from site to site as I always have.