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Many of us are familiar with the panoramic photo that you can tilt and pan 360º on your screen. Well now I am even more impressed with Immersive Media where you can do the same thing with the moving video. There are several demo videos—try the one taken from inside a car driving down a busy street in New York City—it’s quite amazing! You can watch the stores passing by, even turn around and see who’s following. Just click and drag. (Kim Komando) Yet another list from Forbes for your amusement: The Celebrity 100. These are the folks who command the entertainment headlines, beginning with Oprah, Madonna and the Rolling Stones. There’s a slide show where each is accompanied by a decent sized photo that takes a while to load—that’s OK, you can read the story while waiting for the next photo. Or you can go directly to your favorite, or view by category such as Chefs, Talking Heads – and Drop Offs like JLo, Tom Brady and DiCaprio. (St Petersburg Times) So you think there’s too much trash on TV? Or that your favorite trash is not on right now when you need it? Well, there’s quite a lot of ways these days to watch it on your computer, for example at Hulu where you’ll find some of your favorites, including classics, either as clips or full shows. You can also find many full length movies such as Planet of the Apes and Some Like it Hot. (Kim Komando) Remember the kids’ game of Concentration, or Memory, where you have to match up pairs of cards that are facing down? Well now there is a grownup version that requires you to remember not cards, but photos of celebrities; it’s called Celebrity Concentration. Since this is part of the People magazine site, the photos are of rock stars, actors and others who appear in the gossip columns. You don’t have to know such faces to play the game. (Kim Komando) The Darwin Awards are here again, this time for 2007. Just to give you a foretaste, here’s one that amused me: James Burns, 34, (a mechanic) of Alamo, MI. was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police describe as a 'farm -type truck'. Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the source of a troubling noise. Burns clothes caught on something however, and the other man found Burns 'wrapped in the drive shaft'. (David Henry) One of the more entertaining features of the British Parliamentary system of government is the weekly Prime Minister’s Question Time. Every Wednesday, MPs grill the PM for half an hour on affairs of the day and the poor chap has to make his replies sound as convincing as possible. The roars of approval from his supporters and the howls of derision from the opposition only add to the generally festive air. Visit CSpan.org and click the link on the left to view the live Prime Minister’s Questions at . (David Henry) If you’ve tried planning a party or family reunion lately, you’ll know the process can be a hassle. Once you’ve picked a date and sent out a bunch of invitations, can you keep track of who can and who can’t make it, who is bringing whom and what kind of food if any? Tracking these and similar details can become tough for a large event – but fear not! My Punchbowl will come to the rescue and take care of the details for you. (Kim Komando) Are you an Idol Fanatic? I had a sinking feeling that the 50-question quiz promoted by Parade to test my expertise with American Idol was going to be a disaster. And so it was, but if you are a true fan, you might do very well. Give it a try. (Parade) If you have relied on the International Movie Data Base (IMDB) for information and reviews of movies, actors, directors and so on, there is now an alternative called Rotten Tomatoes. As you may surmise it is a bit splashier and rather less formal than IMDB, but appears to be just as thorough. The title relates to a “tomato meter” that rates movies on a scale of 0 to 100 based on the average of many reviewers’ opinions. (Kim Komando) Jazz fans will appreciate the comprehensive collection of traditional jazz available at Here Is Jazz Old Time Online . It’s Jelly Roll Morton through Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman to Miles Davis. You can play it all for free, but if you want to download tracks there is a three month subscription for $5. (Kim Komando) If the comings and goings of celebrities turn you on, you can either pick up a gossip rag at the supermarket checkout or visit Yahoo’s new The Buzz. It finds out the most read or watched stories and presents them to you on a list. On a recent day, you could get the latest stories on Britney, Paris, Hillary or Barack -- or newsy items like the price of oil, the latest act of terrorism, or global warming. (Kim Komando) They call it America’s favorite quiz show, and it is certainly mine. You can play it online for free at Jeopardy! If you conclude that you could win a ton of money by playing it on TV, find out how to become a contestant. (Kim Komando) When they are playing the national anthem, do you get stuck for the words after the first verse? How about America the Beautiful or God Bless America? You can find the words for these and a number of others at the Library of Congress Patriotic Melodies page. And if you are a bit hazy on the tunes, why, you can listen to them too, as performed by various artists. (Kim Komando) Two Thumbs Up! That snappy phrase, endlessly repeated in movie ads, was the signal offered by the late Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert (later, Ebert and Richard Roeper) that this was a movie worth watching. Video clips of thousands of their reviews are now available at The Balcony Archive where you can search for them by actor, director or title. You can also check out their reviews of movies currently in theaters. (Yahoo News) BBC Worldwide now uses a channel of YouTube as a means of widely distributing video clips of the best of British TV. There are hundreds of animation, comedy, science, history and travel clips plus celebrity interviews with the likes of Russell Crowe, Clint Eastwood and Hugh Laurie. You need to register on YouTube (free) and have the latest version of Adobe Flash installed. There’s also a BBC World News channel. (Union Jack Blab) There’s this cute little terrier (or is it a sheltie?) that does doggie tricks at your command at I Do Dog Tricks. Just type in your commands, such as sit, roll over, shake, speak, stand, sing, down, play dead, dance, fetch and so forth—and the dog obeys! If he doesn't understand, he'll let you know that too. And for your last request, type kiss. You’ll need Flash installed to make this work. (Steve Reed) When Line Rider first appeared, it quickly spread worldwide (how does that happen?) and has acquired a huge following of dedicated enthusiasts. “It’s Etch-a-Sketch for the YouTube generation!” Click the Movies button to see what others have done with this creative tool, and then click Play to try your own hand at it. You’ll love the central character that is totally endearing. (Smart Computing) If you are a fan of the comics, you’ll have a field day at Comics. Your favorites are all here, including Dilbert, Andy Capp, Snoopy, Pickles, The Wizard of Id, Opus, Arlo & Janis and dozens of others. Plus you can sign up for a monthly comics newsletter or send e-cards with illustrations of your favorite characters. (George Lott) I was minding my business surfing the ‘Net when I came across something called Tennis Grand Slam and found myself in the middle of Miniclip.com “the largest online games site where you can play free games, sports games, massive multiplayer games, action games, puzzle games, flash games and more.” At a rough estimate there are 350 games on this site, so there surely is something there for everyone. (Union Jack Blab) If you have seen one of the animation music video clips played between shows on PBS, you will know how amazing is Animusic. Only a computer program plays these wonderfully imaginative new instruments, and the sound is in perfect synchronism with the images. Hurry along to this site for some tempting previews of the first DVDs displaying this highly creative new art form. (PBS) How many of our kids know what a 45-rpm record is like? There’s a wonderful collection of them you can play—even in the background while you continue working—at Playa Cofi Jukebox, “the best of the top 100 from the golden years of popular music” (1950 to 1984). All the main genres are well represented here, and the artist list goes from Aaron Neville and ABBA to The Zombies and ZZ Top. (Gary Stanley) What was Billboard’s #1 song on the day you were born? When you graduated? When you were married? Find out the answers at THE #1 SONG ON THIS DATE IN HISTORY. What’s more you can listen to most of them if you have the free iTunes installed; it’s available from the iTunes link in the site’s FAQs . (Bob Capellini) Remember those 25¢ jukeboxes next to your table in the drugstore fountain? Take a look at the Briarcliff Manor High School Class of 1960 Reunion Jukebox that has 450 tunes from the years 1956 to 1960 – and it won’t even cost you a nickel to listen to your favorites. (Myron Thorner) Wouldn't you love to learn about the Taxonomy of Biscuits? or What is a Desk Duck? or The Wisdom of Supermodels? Those, plus much more, in a Pythonesque style (Monty, that is) can be found at a pretty wacky site called nicecupofteaandasitdown. I clicked on its Mission Statement and it came up with "Well I think we should all sit down and have a nice cup of tea, and some biscuits, nice ones mind you. Oh and some cake would be nice as well. Lovely." British, of course. (Netsurfer Digest) That was what I wrote a few years ago in my Entertainment archive. So, Surprise! Surprise! This is what Reuters said in 9/2006: “The British Library may have raised academic eyebrows when it decided that a Web site with this mission statement should be archived among those that may be of social significance, stamping it a modern classic of British popular culture.” So, time to click the link and see what this is all about; after all, it’s now getting some 60,000 hits a week. Reminder: This is classic British low-key humor, so don’t be too surprised if you don’t get it. “Video sites are among the best things to happen to the Internet. . . . I don't spend a lot of time hunting down videos. Instead, I let them come to me. I use the free Democracy player. It's really something else! You can subscribe to channels and have videos downloaded directly to your computer. Then, watch them at your leisure. The channels come from all over the Internet. You're bound to find at least a few that you like. You can search by category. That should help you narrow your choices.” (Kim Komando) The Dunmow Flitch is one of those peculiar British institutions whose origins are lost in history but which continues to provide amusement in the small town of Dunmow once every four years. A flitch, or side of bacon, is awarded to the couple who can swear they “ne’er made nuptual [sic] transgression…in bed or at board…in deed or in word or in a twelve months time and a day…” It’s open to couples from “anywhere.” Be sure to read its history. (David Henry) The content-rich site AOL Video has current TV shows you can view for a fee. There is also much free content such as cartoons originally produced for TV at AOL Television. Yabba-dabba-doo! You may have to put up with an ad or two. Also use the search box to find professionally produced karaoke, music videos, comedy and many other free categories. Download and install the Hi-Q viewer to see most of this in full screen. (Kim Komando) What do you want to do with your life? That simple question leads to thousands of answers at 43Things, where anyone can submit any number of things they would like to try. Lose weight, get out of debt, learn sign language, laugh more…each brief “headline” leads to a more extended story. Reading about what others want may give you a few bright ideas yourself, but in any case these can be pretty entertaining. (Netsurfer Digest) Gorillaz is perhaps the weirdest site I ever visited, and that not only because it’s a Webby Artist of the Year winner. I really can’t tell you what it’s about, but your grandchildren probably can, by demonstrating their willingness to explore. By that I mean they will click all over the screen, seemingly at random, resulting in amazing effects. Why not give it a try yourself, just for fun? (Webby 2005)
Employee #1: I
just don't understand the point of Martin Luther King Day. Remember Charlie Chaplin in “Modern Times”? That was the image that came to mind when I first came across Le Ciel Est Bleu, the wild image and sounds of a factory production line gone mad. Try pulling a lever or pressing a red button—the result is quite unpredictable. Your four-year-old grandchild is going to love this crazy site. (Netsurfer Digest) Walt Handelsman is an editorial cartoonist for Newsday. Recently he has also applied his wickedly acerbic talents to the animated cartoon genre, and you can see some of the hilarious results at The Crazy Bunch on the Newsday website. Since one of the key functions of the press in a free society is to criticize the government, don’t be surprised if he mainly pursues the elephants; he also pokes fun at the donkeys. (Nancy Sjoberg) I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to click on a name like Where The Hell Is Matt? I found a self-proclaimed deadbeat from Connecticut who is dancing his way around the world. Really. He dances (?) in Dubai, Easter Island, Petra, Machu Picchu, etc. and the resulting video gives you a quick tour of dozens of famous places. This dancer is no threat to Fred Astaire, but as a result he has found fame of a sort. (Kim Komando) Just for the heck of it, why not have a go at the 365 Days Project? Listen to a different MP3 every day for a year, and you can be pretty sure most of them will be new to you, all by unknown artists or groups. High school bands, church music, beer drinking songs, they seem to be mainly from the 1970s and have a distinctly amateur flavor, albeit delivered with great enthusiasm. Then click on the UbuWeb link to “a completely independent resource dedicated to all strains of the avant-garde, ethnopoetics, and outsider arts.” (Netsurfer Digest) Only a dyed-in-the-wool Beatles fan could possibly be interested in the unexpected and mysterious sounds on some of their recordings collected at What Goes On – The Beatles Anomalies List. For example, click on Alpha Index and scroll to Strawberry Fields where you can find the definitive truth: Did John Lennon really say, "I buried Paul" at the end of "Strawberry Fields Forever"? (Netsurfer Digest) It’s called the Music Genome Project, which may sound a bit intimidating, but the website name Pandora.com really is intriguing. The idea is you enter an artist’s name or a song title and Pandora searches its collections for a “similar piece” and plays it for you. If you don’t like it, it is rejected; but if you do, it’s added to your album, or station as they call it. Ask for more, and eventually you evolve a station that contains your preferred selections for that genre. Build as many stations as you like. (Dick Evans) Those of us who listen to National Public Radio can find some useful resources at the NPR website. If you missed a recent broadcast, for example All Things Considered, you can listen to the complete show plus related extra items and photos. You can even listen to earlier editions (I went back seven days, but the archives go all the way back to 1996). If you liked a tune played between items, listen to it by clicking the Musical Interludes View link. Find out what's coming up today. What's going on in a distant city? Just click Stations where you can find a link to a remote NPR station and its website, and perhaps listen to their local news. (David Henry) Before the days of heavy artillery, back in the Middle Ages in fact, the guided missile du jour was a rock heaved at the enemy fortifications by a trebuchet, a massive throwing machine. To do any good, you had to know how to tweak the variables to at least hit, and hopefully demolish, the objective. We have such a gadget available to test your skill as an artilleryman at Trebuchet Challenge, where you can compete for accuracy, range and power by modifying variables such as the mass and height of the counterweight and mass of the projectile. It's not rocket science, nor even high school physics, just plain common sense really. (Netsurfer Digest) This site is all about the appearance of a "celeb" caught by an amateur camera with a non-celeb. Much as they are used to being photographed, these Hollywood types sometimes take a truly awful snap. Celeb Safari is where you can decide who looks great and who looks lousy, because you can add your vote here. Is it Ray Charles, Arnie, Vanna, Regis or La Toya? Before you get too critical, send in your own photo of yourself with a celeb, add a note on the story behind the photo and see what John Q. Public thinks of you. You get rewarded with a rating and the number of times you have been viewed (Netsurfer Digest) If you happen to be homebound, or even if not, you can enjoy a great collection of sound cuts, including nature, animal, people and miscellaneous sounds at Get Relaxed. When a sound starts to play, a mini slide show appears illustrating that sound, a nice idea. It distracts you from noticing that the sound is in a loop that keeps repeating itself. (bored.com) Everybody knows the overloaded hype about The Oscars, but how many have come across their nemesis The Razzies, or the awards for the worst pictures, actors, actresses etc. of the year? This hilarious site supports The Golden Raspberry Award Foundation that claims to have been in existence for 25 years. Suspicious at first, I now believe it is quite genuine, judging by their very active message boards. “And the Worst Picture is…” (Netsurfer Digest) Let’s assume you don’t take the NY Times as your regular newspaper; you can still read a free daily online edition with some of the news that’s fit to print. Another part you can get for free is their NY Times video pages covering such areas as Movie Minutes, sports items, medicine, technology etc. It may be all you need. However, there’s much content that will cost you a subscription to Times Select, including their fine columnists, editorials and access to the archives. (NY Times) Thank you, dapatchy, for your excellent personal site Passions of Patchy with its rich collection of prose, poetry, songs and music to be savored and enjoyed. The musical content is eclectic—old smoothies, blues, gospel, country, rock ‘n roll, -- and will surely appeal to seniors of all ages. I was pleased to find Tranquil Chambers as a great means of relaxing. I wish I could produce a technically sophisticated and graphically beautiful site like this! (Marianne B.) Just for the heck of it, I entered "whooping cough" into the search box at Old Superstitions and came up with five, yes five, entries claiming cures for that ailment, including inhaling horse's breath and tying a dead beetle round the neck. Ugh, and ugh. It's funny but when I entered feng shui, nothing came up, and there's a superstition if ever there was one. If life's giving you a hard time, why not check out the good luck entries--I counted at least thirty-five simple things you can do to improve matters. (Netsurfer Digest) Two so-called entertainment categories I'm less than enthusiastic about are horror movies and science fiction ditto. So let me refer fans to a pair of good-looking websites: Classic Horror and SciFi Movies (click the UK/US flag), with some 400 and 700 movies reviewed, respectively, and I'll say no more. (Netsurfer Digest) For a real treasure house of online radio entertainment, look no further than BBC Radio 4. Listen to dozens of recent program(me)s in a wide range of genres; but American listeners might well pass up politics, comedy, sport and current affairs (you may become confused). Instead, I suggest you try programs on nature, arts and drama, books, science, medicine, history and, for the particularly adventurous, quizzes. This is but one of the many radio and TV channels available on the BBC's rich websites. (Click TV at the top of the page to see clips of what they are watching on the other side of the pond.) (David Henry) Wakey, wakey, and say three times quickly: "Red Buick, Blue Buick." When you've mastered that one, find several hundred more at the 1st International Collection of Tongue Twisters. Some of them are "manufactured" and not very clever; others are brilliant and really tough. Plus if you are good at another language, you can find Spanish, French, German and many other foreign tongue twisters here; just take a look at some of the Arabic ones (just kidding!). This collection has been assembled by a German firm of translators, which probably explains its thoroughness and completeness. (Netsurfer Digest) I suppose everyone has at least one deep, dark secret they never told anybody and that consequently has weighed on their conscience ever since, maybe for years. For example, I. . . (on second thought, I think I'll keep it to myself). An alternative is to offer it up anonymously on the Web at PostSecret, where you can unload your burden by sending in a postcard, preferably illustrated, that may get added to this intriguing site. Some of them are quite moving, such as "everyone who knew me before 9/11 believes I'm dead," and "2 ½ years after we broke up, and I still wear a pair of his boxers." (NPR) There's a truly miscellaneous site at Dr. Odd. It's full of sports trivia, weird photos, the Doctor's personal thoughts and on and on; it’s like a kid playing in a sandbox. For example, if you are a Seinfeld fan, you can get hold of the script of every show they did, by clicking Entertainment, then Seinfeld. I don't know how these scripts were "acquired" but they sound genuine enough. (Netsurfer Digest) In the year 2000, NPR decided to commemorate the millennium by doing a series on the 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century. The list covered a wide range of musical genres--classical, jazz, rock 'n 'roll, country, R&B, musical theater and film scores. To give you the flavor, the first few are Adagio for Strings (Barber), Ain't that a Shame (Fats Domino), Alexander's Ragtime Band (Irving Berlin), All or Nothing At All (Sinatra) and Appalachian Spring (Copland). The NPR 100 lets you hear the actual broadcasts playing and discussing each piece. Be sure to listen to the segment describing how the selections were made and why some songs didn't make the cut. (Netsurfer Digest) Well, Daily Confession just about says it all. In the anonymity of the Internet, you confess your sin(s) for all the world to see, and then amateur counselors offer their advice to you in a talkback mode. You select which of the Ten Commandments your sin is connected with and then pour out your heart in that section. Obscene, violent and racist confessions are not allowed. Now I'm not so naive as to believe all of these thousands of confessions are genuine, but they are sure as heck entertaining. (Netsurfer Digest) Cin-O-Matic is all things to all movie and video watchers. In a format that is a masterpiece of compactness, you can find out what you need to know about any movie or video: average critic rating, release date (for the past year) and type, box-office earnings, genre, MPAA rating, length, and individual critic ratings. Clicking the link to the IMDB for each one leads you to all the detail and reviews you might need. You can also sign up for a watch list; an email is sent to you whenever any movie you are interested in is to be shown near you. (Netsurfer Digest) Most of us remember with affection that delightful childhood story Alice in Wonderland, but how many know that its precursor was Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures under Ground? The entire handwritten book, with Tenniel's marvelous illustrations, has been scanned into Bedtime Story Classic for your pleasure. If I weren't so busy with David's Links, I'd very much like to read it through in its original form. You can find an online printed version, along with many other children’s books, in the free library at The Rosetta Project. (Netsurfer Digest) There's a lot of TV available on this planet, much more than you can get from your local broadcast and cable systems, and you can watch much of it live on your PC. WebTV List claims to offer "the most comprehensive list of all TV stations broadcasting on the Net." First, choose a channel on the left. The brief description of each station also tells you the country it comes from (including the USA) and the language of the channel, followed by a Click here to watch it button. (You may have to click again to bring up the video). The sound is adequate on a broadband connection, but the picture is small and not very clear so you won't watch a channel for very long. Bring on the Internet 2; that should make this a much more satisfactory experience. (Roger Preslar) If you are a Disney fan, the number 05-05-05 may mean something to you. After all, that's the date Disney chose to launch their eighteen-month celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif. (The actual opening was in July of 1955, but who cares?) At MouseInfo.com you can get a friendly taste of the ceremonies of "The Happiest Homecoming on Earth" by viewing videos conveniently divided into five separate clips. Be warned that even with a broadband connection, these files take some time to download. Did you know Disney now has thirteen theme parks around the world? Mouse Info has lots more interesting stuff for the avid Disney enthusiast. (Tourbus) If you enjoy satirists who poke fun at politicians, overpaid sportsmen, movie, and media celebs, then you'll enjoy the Onion, a satirical weekly 'zine that calls itself America's Finest News Source. A recent item headed "New Social Security Plan Allows Workers to put Portion of Social Security Earnings on Favorite Team" gives you the flavor. You'll have to put up with the occasional ad, or else you can subscribe if you want ad-free content. (Netsurfer Digest) Suppose your mom named you Priscilla Maria Veronica White but you wanted to become a pop singer. What to do? Invent a stage name like Cilla Black, of course, silly. You'll find The Stars' Real Names at Classic Bands, aimed at those who love the boomers' music from, say, 1956 to 1980. There are the top forty lists for each year, the 100 best selling records, and lengthy biographies of the principal bands of the era. For me, the most interesting items are in Classic Rock's Fascinating Facts, like "Paul Anka's first 45 sold just 300 copies. The follow-up, 'Diana', sold nine million." Finally, don't miss the brief obits in Died and Gone to Rock & Roll Heaven. (Netsurfer Digest) What on earth do ladies carry around in their handbags? If you want to find out, take a look at Bag Ladies, a Dutch site that displays photos of the contents of ladies' handbags (called purses in the USA). I can't imagine how (or why) they manage to get all that stuff in there, especially as we have to assume that any incriminating items have been removed before the photo was taken. You can submit your own photo that will only be identified by your first name (some of those European names are really cute!). There's even a section for men's bags, too. (Netsurfer Digest) By 2004, the American Film Institute had been around for one hundred years, and to celebrate the occasion they came up with several top 100 lists--movies, stars, laughs, etc. Another list is the top 100 movie songs of all time with "Over the Rainbow" as the winner. Each item includes the movie, year, performer(s), lyricist, and composer, but alas, no audio clip. You may disagree with the selections, but you can't fight 'em--the judges remain anonymous. You can download any list directly from the site. (Netsurfer Digest) If you're one who likes to be up-to-the-minute with what's going on in the entertainment world, you can't do much better than Welcome to the Celebrity Cafe. There are gossipy pieces and interviews on your favorite celebs, plus movie, CD, book, and cool product reviews. The whole site is searchable by name, so it's easy to find what you are looking for. There's something for everyone here. (Al Hopper/Lumm's List ) Are you a Scrabble addict? Do you enjoy crosswords? How about solving anagrams and cryptograms? If a solution appears to be within your grasp, but not quite, you can turn for help to Interactive Word Games for a variety of puzzle solving tools. Most of these aids are now available in Spanish and five other languages. The site also has a searchable dictionary, as well as some word puzzles of its own, all for free. (Tourbus) What about Twenty Questions? Well, a computer has now been programmed with artificial intelligence to play this game at 20Q, and does it quite well, I think. You think of something and say whether it is animal, vegetable, or mineral, and then you reply to a series of computer-generated yes/no questions. It guessed a glider in 18, a clown in 22, and the Northern Lights in 28 - yes it keeps on going after 20. Your answers update its database and help it to get smarter. (Tourbus) I guess most visitors to this site recall with affection their old 78 rpm disks. You now have the opportunity to hear some old time, pre WW2 favorites at Honking Duck. The music was originally recorded in the '20s, 30s and '40s and includes country music, string bands, skits, ballads, and much more. The sound quality is surprisingly good, and you can browse the collection by title, artist, year and even by subject. You need Real Audio and can choose the streaming format. (Netsurfer Digest) Would you like to know what Google thinks of you? All you have to do is plug your name into the box at Googlism and you'll find out. If you have an unusual name, try it by itself; if not, enter both names. The results may amuse or irritate you, but can surely pass the time of day in wondering what this is all about. Of course, there may be other folks with the same name as you, so don't get too offended -- or puffed up! (St Petersburg Times) Marie Curie was the first person ever to win two Nobel Prizes--in Physics and Chemistry. So what did she do with the money? She used part of it to change the wallpaper and to put a modern bathroom into her Paris home. This, and hundreds of other trivia, can be found at the Useless Information site - stuff that you never needed to know, but your life would be incomplete without. (Tourbus) Is it music, or what? Try it for yourself at WinNoise, where a mad programmer shows you exactly how each note of a tune (?) is synthesized using standard Windows facilities. Turn up your speakers and have a blast! (John Hallgren) How good are you at guessing people's ages? You can test yourself at Age Project, where you enter your best guess at a person's age based on their photo (the parlor game) or you can go into slideshow mode and just see their ages next to their picture. The only age I guessed right was a 68 years old geezer, but I was all over the place with the younger folks. You can submit your own photo if you like, and add What I Have Learned, a sentence or two of your homespun philosophy. (Yahoo!) When you are totally bored out of your mind, you have one last chance to find something to do, and that's to visit Bored.com, a portal full of links guaranteed to perk you up. I mean, how about Hundreds of Jigsaw Puzzles you can do online, or you can Watch a Funny Video of George Bush Dancing, or If You Like Popping Real Bubble Wrap, try this online version. See what I mean? (Betty Lucas) "Put another nickel in", "On a slow boat to China", "Take me out to the ballgame" and hundreds of other hit tunes of the forties and fifties can be found at Rienzi Hills. You'll read the lyrics and hear the audio so you can sing right along. The parent site is run by a Scotsman and may be of interest to genealogists as well as lovers of the Scottish songs that can be played here. There are also many Christmas songs, as well as a collection of patriotic American songs. (Shirley Miller) The stupid videos that have been collected at Stupid Videos vary from the sublime to the ridiculous, but surely demonstrate the infinite creativity of many of those let loose with a video camera and a PC to upload their masterful clip to this hugely popular site. To avoid the merely ridiculous, click on the Top Rated tab and look at Ping Pong, Maestro, and In The Jungle. Many of these pieces have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. (Netsurfer Digest) One of the most popular TV shows is "The Price Is Right". I'm mortified to realize I never watched one of these, so I had no idea about Switcheroo, Five Price Tags, Clock Game and more than eighty others. You can read all about them at The Complete Pricing Game Directory where each game has its own page with the game's history, rules, and pictures of the game play. (Netsurfer Digest)
The trouble with the Internet is there is
so much fascinating stuff out there, but you don't have the time to view
more than a tiny fraction of it. Take for example
Around the States in
Eighty Days, "being an irregular and erratic account by the Greedy
Bastard himself as he sets out to traverse America on a comedy tour".
One of the stranger stories on the Internet is at Mission: Hang it up, that was seen on ABC and BBC and was a 1999 nominee for the Wacky Cool Site of the Year. It seems this guy got hold of the number of a phone booth in the middle of the Mojave desert, miles from anywhere, and called it but always found it busy. Just for the hell of it, he and a pal went to investigate... And I thought it was mainly the British who were supposed to be eccentric! (Zargon) You can view many of the latest syndicated comics at UComics, including two animated ones - Mr. Man and Bruce Hammond. You can sign up to have one or more strips sent to you regularly by e-mail. Other sections of the site offer you editorial cartoons from Doonesbury to Skaysal and columnists from Mary McGrory to William F. Buckley, Jr. There are diversions like Dear Abby, Horoscopes and News of the Weird. Certain puzzles like crosswords and jigsaws are on subscription. (Seann Alderking) If you're looking for something just to pass the time of day, mosey on over to Bored, home of hundreds of more or less amusing ways of wasting time. Strictly speaking, these are actually links to sites that will help you waste time in a huge variety of ways; create your own virtual fireworks show or your own rock band, crazy thoughts, online pranks and view concert videos of your favorite bands. (Betty Lucas) There's some real nostalgia to be enjoyed at RadioLovers, where you can listen to hundreds of old time radio shows online for free: Superman, Abbott and Costello, Sherlock Holmes, Groucho Marx, Buck Rogers, The Avenger, Gunsmoke, and many others. Personally I enjoy the replays of Benny Goodman's band playing in the background while I'm working on David's Links. (Betty Lucas)
Are you headed for New York and its Great White Way? If you intend to take in a show, check in with Broadway Box first for discounts in the range from 25% off to 50% off. These are usually shows with seats that may go unsold, either because it's midweek or the show is coming to an end of its run. Or sign up for e-mail notification of upcoming discounts. Works for off-Broadway, too. (Smart Computing) Fans of weird machines should visit the official Rube Goldberg website, where many of the master's drawings and cartoons can be found in the Gallery, although the detail is hard to follow since the images are a bit on the small side. Fortunately, the tortuous path through the machine is explained in an accompanying key. Click also on the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest where you can watch videos of high school students' efforts to build a weird contraption in an annual contest. (St Petersburg Times) "Odd pictures of the strange, weird and bizarre" can be found at Anomalies Unlimited that indeed displays some highly unusual photos, most being coupled with a story, some not. Try McChickenhead, Photo of a Sonic Boom, or The Bound Feet of Chinese Women. While there, hop over to the parent site. You'll find many stories like Who Killed Kurt Cobain?, Underground Military Bases, and Michael Jackson's Poor Damn Face. The website needs tidying up, but the content quality is fascinating, mostly. Watch your mouse pointer. (Chuck Runkle) There are two awards series for the best websites of 2002: the Webby Awards and Peoples Voice. In a rare agreement, both gave their Best Radio Website award to BBC Radio Four. It offers a broad perspective on Current Affairs, Arts and Drama, Science, Comedy and Quizzes, History and Religion/Ethics. It will appeal to anyone with a wide range of interests. You can also hear current programming, or the latest edition of many programs at Listen Again. (David Henry) For an excellent example of skilful website design, take a look at CBS's Crime Scene Investigation. Visually compelling and highly interactive, it sets a brooding atmosphere well suited to this top rated TV show. The Cases, Personnel, Handbook and Crime Lab buttons will help you with the information and tools needed to understand the work involved in helping to solve the heinous crimes investigated in this series. You can also click the Choose a CBS Show drop down list to visit other shows. (Webby Awards, Peoples Voice Winner) TV's Discovery Channel is just one asset of Discovery.com that provides links to several other TV channels it owns: Animal Planet, BBC America, The Learning Channel, The Travel Channel and The Science Channel, among others. Their websites are not merely program guides, but they also include some very interesting content in their own right, including interactive education, quizzes and surveys. If you don't have a broadband connection, click on Discovery.com's Low Speed Homepage. (Duke of URL) Pantomime is a theatrical form that is scarcely known in the USA, more's the pity. Combining song, dance, comic dialogue, local jokes and audience participation, its origins can be traced back nearly 200 years. Aladdin, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk and many others play for weeks around Christmas throughout the UK and are delightful entertainment for the whole family. You can get a feel for "the panto" at It's Behind You; be sure to click the links for Cinderella and Hello from America! (Good Show) What on earth is Zed? Apart from the last letter of the English alphabet, that is? It could possibly be the source of an explosion of new talent on TV as it is a venue for programming by the people, for the people. Creative folks submit their video shorts, plot outlines, storyboards and the like to the Zed page of CBC-TV, where producers and others sort out the good stuff and consider developing it for real TV broadcast. Less good stuff still has a life on the website, where discussion boards debate its merits. (Netsurfer Digest) This site claims to be a repository of Useless Information on the Internet, or stuff you never needed to know but your life would be incomplete without. Read about Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese officer who was never told WWII was over, or Mike the Headless Chicken (really!), or David Rice Atchison, President of the United States for a day. My favorite however, is Sir Alfred who still resides in France's CDG airport after ten years of bureaucratic nightmare - or does he? (Tourbus) I had a good guffaw at the clever spoof of a typical corporate website found at AndyCo. The corporate motto is Bringing you Today's Technology, Tomorrow. Be sure to read the Andyco News, with a hilarious letter to shareholders from Andy V, CEO, explaining how "Andyco weathers challenging fiscal 2001". Also amusing are the Andyco Kids Klub, WACO Web Radio and Andy Mart: The low prices you'd expect - the low quality you'd expect, too! (Neat Net Tricks) What do you suppose is the Worst Car of the Millenium? Not yours, Virginia, but... why not look at the list of the worst ten cars and decide if you agree. Click and Clack, hosts of NPR's Saturday morning Car Talk show, have distilled the pithiest, most acidic comments from thousands received in their contest and displayed them alongside the offending vehicles. Also view Ultimate Guy/Chick Cars, Name your Heap, bulletin boards, the weekly mailbag, and register for a newsletter. (Netsurfer Digest) Can anybody go one better than TV Guide? Certainly, it's the free TV Guide Online. Not only does it list all the programs of its venerable print counterpart, its listings go all the way up to channel 399. Plus, there are all the usual articles, commentaries, soaps, gossip, movie guide, fun and games. If you are truly addicted, you can even sign up for the TV Guide Online Daily Newsletter. (Parade) Wouldn't you love to learn about the Taxonomy of Biscuits? or What is a Desk Duck? or The Wisdom of Supermodels? Those, plus much more in a Pythonesque style (Monty, that is) can be found at a pretty wacky site called nicecupofteaandasitdown. I clicked on Mission Statement and it came up with "Well I think we should all sit down and have a nice cup of tea, and some biscuits, nice ones mind you. Oh and some cake would be nice as well. Lovely." British, of course. (Netsurfer Digest) I often wonder what young people do when they are supposed to be at work. This one seems to have a remarkable mastery of strange and arcane websites, such as Orisinal, where there are many neat games you can play. Hint: Toggle F11 to get a bigger screen so you can see all the controls. Some players make enormous scores and must play for hours and hours! While there, don't forget to scroll down and try some of the interesting Experiments based on Flash technology. (Dominic Henry) A
(mad?) scientist has launched a search for the world's funniest
joke. By logging on to http://www.laughlab.co.uk/,
people will be able to submit their favorite joke, and rate those
already on the site, using something called a laughometer. Maybe
this is your chance to vote down some of those obscure British
jokes. (BBC News) If you find it amusing to read about other people's slipups, by all means visit Slip Ups. You'll find them grouped into Movies: Mistakes on the Big screen; TV: Mistakes on the Small Screen; Books: Funny Mistakes in Books and Quotes: Goofs by Famous People in Speeches or Statements. Don't forget to add any you are aware of. (Net Surfer Digest) I realized it was virtual reality when
I set up to Nuke
the Hamptons, but the simulation is so convincing, and the
technology so realistic that after Launch I tried backing out by
punching the Abort button. Aaargh,
I had already Disengaged the Safety Lock! And I was sweating as the
countdown went on! Scary.
(Netsurfer Digest) There are movie buffs who make a
fetish out of discovering anachronisms and other mistakes in movies.
The results can be found at Movie
Mistakes where we learn the most mistaken movies are Titanic, The
Matrix and Gladiator with 123, 121 and 98 mistakes respectively - all
described in embarrassing detail. Don't
forget the list of "The 20 worst movie mistakes of all time".
(Tourbus) If you know about Lake Wobegone,
Garrison Keillor and A Prairie
Home Companion you'll probably appreciate the official website of
Minnesota Public Radio's flagship program.
Hear recorded broadcasts, chat with Garrison, read about the
characters and musical performers - and listen to those incomparable
stories of his! (Netsurfer
Digest) Remember The Twilight Zone, Father
Knows Best and The Hitchcock Hour, plus all of the other TV shows we
watched in the 50's and 60's? If
memory is a bit hazy, visit Baby
Boomers HQ for photos, cast lists, a brief description and - in many
cases - a sound clip of the theme tune.
There is also an archive of boomer music and a chance to vote for
your favorite tunes; essays contributed on what it means to be a boomer
and even a boomer fashion segment.
(Netsurfer Digest) Do
you occasionally get volunteered to take the grandchildren to Disney
World, or Busch Gardens, or some other theme park? Do yourself a favor and check out what's in store for you at ThemeParkInsider
before you go. For example,
the top attraction at Tampa's Busch Gardens as rated by visitors to this
site is Montu, some kind of roller-coaster, I hear. (Netsurfer Digest) King
Features site contains current and archived versions of its 61 comic
strips ranging from Prince Valiant to Sally Forth to the new Edge City.
The site makes finding and viewing any strip simple. The columns cover
everything from Dr. Ruth to some pretty extreme political opinions. The
editorial cartoonists range over the entire political spectrum. Three
different sets of crosswords are also offered along with many popular
newspaper word games, a bridge quiz and some children's games.
(Netsurfer Digest) You
might find this site interesting and a stress reliever, according to
Marilyn Hall. So I did, and
so it is. Go visit Love
this Site, I bet you'll enjoy it. Animated cartoons vary from the sublime to the
pathetic; you can separate the former from the latter at Happy
Kipper. It's a portal to the genre, letting you select a cartoon,
see a sort of thumbnail with a brief description of it and then
downloading and viewing only if it appeals. (Netsurfer Digest) If you love a good
joke,
you'll appreciate the JokeCenter
joke pages. This site is
dedicated to providing the Web with the best humor and letting the Web
community judge the best jokes. They
are listed in categories such as Beer, Blonde and Business jokes. (Judy
Unzicker) If you find the
International Movie Data Base a bit overwhelming in its comprehensiveness, you
might find the site at Cinema
Review easier to work with. It's
more interactive and rates movies based on viewers opinions. I usually know the
words
to the first line of a tune, but then get stuck and am reduced to
humming the rest. Help is
now at hand with Lyrics
World, a site that offers the lyrics of the top 40 tunes every year
from 1930 to 1999, identified by artist and composer. You can also click through to individual artist pages from here. Have you ever tried Karaoke - that is singing a
song to an accompaniment while the words are displayed on the screen in
front of you? Scary in
public, yes, but you can try it out in the privacy of your home at eatsleepmusic.
Dig around among the pop tunes of today and yesterday and maybe
you'll uncover your hidden talent. There's a
wonderful
site at Sheet Music Direct, where you can
download and view a piece of sheet music using Acrobat. You can listen to it and if you like it, pay for it then print
one or two copies. Prices appear to be very reasonable. (Carole
Wolfe). You
may not agree, but I think Dear
Abby belongs right here, in Entertainment. You can e-mail her from
this site for advice, or consult the archive of questions and answers.
Then again read about the woman behind this agony column. "Save
your quarters and punch up 200+ oldies-but-goodies at Back
to the Fifties to take a blast
to the past in RealAudio" (Neat Net Tricks) Whether
or not you are/were a Monty Python fan, you can enjoy some of their
typical codswallop at Pythonline.
Visit the Shopping page ("Blatant commercialism. Buy something or piss off"), the world famous Spam Club and
the Archive ("All the crap we couldn't fit anywhere else"). Want
to know what's happening anywhere? Look up, by state, the online edition of any USA newspaper, and
indeed of major newspapers
in practically any country in the world. Then back up to the parent page at refdesk.com
and you may well agree with its claim that it is the single best source
of facts on the net. This
is a spectacular portal site. Play
the Jerry Springer game, bash Bill Gates or watch the Monica and Linda
Striptease at Idleworm, a hangout
for Animation, Games and Parodies. The humor is rather juvenile, but fun for seniors all the same.
It needs Flash for animation, with a free download available at
the site. Sport
fans, follow your favorite NFL, NBA or MLB team on ESPN
Live Radio wherever they may be playing. The parent site has all the
latest sports news, of course. And if you're into all those baseball
statistics, firsts, records and awards, they're all available at The
Baseball Almanac along with
stadium histories, autographs and Hall of Fame information. Find
lots of TV nostalgia at TV
Party where there are Crazy
Commercials, Unforgettable Jingles, Beverly Hillbillies clips, Carol
Burnett shows, Shenanigans, Groucho, the Lost Lucy Themes and the Video
Vault with tons of rare clips... Yahoo!
has industriously compiled an extensive index to humor all across the
Web at the Yahoo!
humor site. They even have a category for Computers and Internet Humor,
with 589 jokes at last count. If
you've used a search engine you'll find MetaSpy
quite interesting and maybe a bit voyeuristic. It shows you a
continuously updated list of the actual search queries being submitted
right now to the Metacrawler search engine. Some of them are
strange, some straight and some pretty peculiar. Each list
entry is a link, so you can click to see the results of the query if you
like.
This
HampDance
site is guaranteed to raise a smile from even the most jaded web
watcher. Make sure your speakers are on...(Bob Grimes) Here
is a more complete collection of eggs
- those cute objects hidden in commercial software by mischievous but
creative programmers, presumably unbeknownst to their managers! It's
not just the Stuff, it's the Things that keep bringing you back to NetScrap.
It's a categorized collection of jokes and you can vote for your
favorites on a scale of 1 to 6. Thus the best jokes accumulate the
most votes and hence appear in the Top Ten Messages for the week.
Once you get past a slightly klunky interface at the Mega
Joke Reader you will find what seems to be the source for all those jokes you
find in your Inbox. Choose a category first, from Arts &
Entertainment, Battle of the Sexes, Computer, Holiday, Religion and
Politics, Sports and Tacky & Tasteless. Then try DuJour
for some light relief if you like a daily riddle, joke, trivia question,
puzzle, blackjack etc. - some for prizes. Whatever
you need to know about any movie can probably be found at the Internet
Movie Data Base. It's
comprehensive (150,000 titles) authoritative, opinionated and now much
easier to use. How
about that cowboy humorist, trick roper, Ziegfield Follies star, radio
commentator, movie star, author, philosopher and philanthropist.
Guess who? Yes, it's the great Will
Rogers, of course. Here's some chances to check out your system's audio capabilities. To play music, you need Real Audio, a program that can be downloaded from these sites. If you are a Beatles maniac, try the Fab Four site for hundreds of their songs and other paraphernalia. Then maybe you listen to National Public Radio? Ever catch the tail end of an interesting story and wish you had heard it all? Then tune in to NPR Programs where you can hear recent and archived NPR newscasts, interviews, magazine programs and so on. Fed
up with the gloom and doom on the nightly news and in the papers?
There's an antidote at Happy Press where you can read
positive stories culled from internet sites around the world. It has become very popular
very quickly. What's
playing on Broadway, regionally and abroad can be found at Playbill,
complete with reviews and features. |
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