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In this issue:
- All the News That's Unfit
- A Veil in Time: Nepal
- John Lennon Remembered
- Short Takes
- Tons of 'Toons
- The Eisie Awards
- Budget Travel Online
- World Wide Words
- Ad Flip
- Subscribers' Sites
All the News That's Unfit
Burnt out on Chicken Soup for the Soul, angels and other pop-cheer? Take
a break at BB Spot, where you can drown yourself in ironic, cynical (and
often tawdry) satires that skewer everyone, from Apple to Microsoft, Eminem
to Jesus. Irreverent and often-crude top ten lists abound, like the relatively
tame one on "rejected top level domains," (annoyingflashanimation.com
was #5).
Organized like a conventional news site, with Top Stories, Technology/Business,
Entertainment and Sports, BB Spot has a fondness for web-focused "news"
articles. A headline story describes the tragedy of a kid who lost an
hour of his life as he tried to explain the difference between memory
and hard drive space to his mother.
http://www.bbspot.com/
A Veil in Time: Nepal
With photos, art, a travel journal and maps of a trek through Nepal, this
site of simple but beautiful charm is a portfolio piece from Zama Design,
online illustrators and web designers. Fans of Nepalese culture will find
much that pleases here.
Their online journal highlights each day of the trip with text and photos.
The art gallery displays five original works, the most interesting using
digital imaging to interpret traditional Hindu body art.
http://www.zama.com/aveilintime
John Lennon Remembered
This special section of Rollingstone.com coincides with the release of
The Beatles Anthology, the third entry in the mammoth chronicle of the
band's career, and RS' own re-release (with new material) of Jann Wenner's
Lennon Remembers, the 1970 Rolling Stone interviews.
The site trots out several old Lennon interviews, wrapping them with new
features: an interview with producer Phil Spector, "intimate" photos of
John and Yoko just weeks before his murder and testimonies from 34 musicians,
Keith Richards to Shirley Manson, about Lennon's impact and where they
were when they heard the news of his death.
http://www.rollingstone.com/sections/special/lennon/
SHORT TAKES:
Stock Shock
The Stock Market Psychic is one of hundreds of short animated films from
Atom Films. This one, has you dial in a stock symbol and "watch another
dotcom go dot-BOMB!"
http://www.atomfilms.com/default.asp?film_id=881
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Celebrating Sideburns
Badburns celebrates sideburns, those hairy facial things that get long,
short, fat or skinny with fashion and taste. The King of Bad Burns offers
photos scoured from the Internet, a celebrity gallery, burns news and
an earnest effort to inaugurate the Burns Street Museum.
http://badburns.bizland.com
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Calculate This
Need to convert area measures from one square unit to another, estimate
your body fat or calculate your annuity payments? Measure 4 Measure is
a collection of interactive sites that helps you measure, calculate, and
evaluate just about anything in science, math, health, finance and "everything
else."
http://www.wolinskyweb.com/measure.htm
Tons of 'Toons
Fans of web-based cartoon animations and Weird Al Yankovic must have
a lot in common: Most of the animations featured here take (well-deserved)
potshots at stars of pop culture, like "Britney Smears" and Star Wars.
So be cautioned: Yes, it's cartoons, zillions of them, but no, they're
probably not for your kids.
The online animated features aren't created here, but they are promoted,
organized, reviewed and previewed, with links to the actual features so
visitors can be entertained by everything from home-made to commercially
produced cartoons (like the "director's cut" of Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee 2000).
Where do they find this stuff!? Artists and animators are invited to submit
their work for free.
http://www.heypotato.com/
The Eisie Awards
Wow. If you like photos, your only complaint here is that they're too
small. The pioneering photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt inspired the
Eisie Awards for Magazine Photography, recognizing the work of 79 photographers
in categories ranging from Nature to Fashion.
The streaming media slide show of Eisenstaedt's work makes
Annie Leibovitz's "Cover of the Year" winner, a spooky Vanity Fair image
of Jim Carrey, look a bit soulless in comparison. But the site features
gorgeous shots from the 1999 and 2000 awards, and the digital category
shows intriguing work that goes way past the old snapshot. The awards
are presented by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
and LIFE.
http://www.lifemag.com/Life/eisies/
Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel Online
The cheapest places on earth, the world's best and worst budget hotel
chains, even a Civil-War themed 600-mile budget auto tour --- no one has
been getting there cheaper, longer, than Arthur Frommer. Today's tips
include how to e-mail while on the road, citing cybercafé outlays at $4
for 50 minutes in London and $1 per 15 minutes in Kusadasi, Turkey.
You can Ask Arthur specific questions here, as well as search destinations,
deals and vacation ideas. His Special Traveler section is truly exhaustive,
with targeted tips for such diverse traveling-types as the bereaved heading
back East for a sudden funeral, to intellectuals seeking a bargain destination
to study Dante and Homer.
http://www.frommers.com/
World Wide Words
Phrases like "rain check", "ballpark" and "touch the base", confuse the
British because they literally don't play the game. Michael Quinion, has
created a site devoted to investigations of the English language from
a British viewpoint.
While most American speakers may find some of this site irrelevant, language-junkies
may be fascinated by Quinion's essays on the origins of odd phrases, topical
words, older "lovely" words, and terms so new they haven't made it into
the dictionaries yet.
On the long list in the Weird Words index: "gazump," meaning to unfairly
acquire a property by bidding more than an offer that has already been
accepted. Is gazumping against the rules at online auction sites?
http://www.worldwidewords.org/
Ad Flip
Billing itself as the world's largest searchable database of classic print
ads, the creators of Ad Flip "love ads and pop culture," and there's ample
evidence here that the two are close kin. Search for ads by product type,
brand name, decade or year, or just click through the site's own top ten
oddball selections.
We tried searching for a 50-year-old defunct toothpaste and, sure enough,
Ipana popped up with its "Keep your mouth wholesome," slogan and June
1950 issue date. Most fun: sections on Ads as Art, Advocacy, Provocative,
Times Have Changed and Whatever Happened To, featuring such gone-and-forgotten
products as Beverly Peanut Butter ("Its fun to make a food that youngsters
think is swell…")
http://www.adflip.com/
SUBSCRIBERS' SITES - Many of our subscribers have fascinating
on-line projects. This weekly section will introduce you to some of these
sites. Please let me know about your project so that I might mention it
in this section. Write me at info@tricksandtrinkets.com
~Interactive
Haunted House
~New Funny - A website for people
who think they are funny.
~ Black Hills Explorer
- A virtual tour of the Black Hills of South
~ NetWits Magazine - Humor
columnists and cartoonists wrecking havoc
on our society.
~This is Bull - consumer complaint
forum, jokes, and the best
websites around
~Bar Bets
- A list of 30 different bets.
~Virtual Kiss -The Online Kissing
Resource!
~Tuffy Dog - Site dedicated to
the amazing animal kingdom
~Mrs.
Party Newsletter - The best party information delivered free
to your ebox monthly.
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OOo-(_)-oOOo--------
"The game's not over until it's over."
"You can observe a lot just by watching."
"A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore."
"You should always go to other people's funerals,
otherwise, they won't come to yours."
Lawrence Peter Berra (b. 1925)
[Yogi] American baseball player, manager
oooO--------( )----
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Have a great weekend.
Charles Kessler
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