Welcome to the 128th issue of Cool Tricks and Trinkets offering weekly insights into new, cool, useful, fun, unusual and interesting sites on the Internet.

In this issue:

- Like Television
- Tools for Extraordinary Living
- From Swastika to Jim Crow
- Short Takes
- Super Bowl Ads
- Untimely Advice
- Wild World of Weird
- B Minus Movie King
- Pseudo Dictionary
- Subscribers' Sites


Like Television

LikeTelevision.com is a virtual warehouse of footage containing films, music videos, television shows, documentaries and just about anything else you've ever seen on the boob tube.

Highlights include long forgotten TV game shows, a celebrity video calendar, and video postcards you can email to your friends. Be sure to check out "Nosferatu", the Max Shreck movie that inspired the recently released "Shadow of the Vampire" with Willem Defoe and John Malkovich.

To really appreciate this site you'll need a RealPlayer and a lot of spare time! It's getting harder and harder to choose between your TV and your PC.

Tools for Extraordinary Living

Founded by modern guru Deepak Chopra and friends, this site is an online sanctuary dedicated to enhancing the lives of all its visitors. With a world-class staff of doctors, experts and thinkers at your disposal, it is the perfect place to find information and inspiration relating to all matters of the mind, body and spirit.

On-line workshops, educational articles, medical advice and more are presented in a creative, forward-thinking environment to get you in tune with improving the quality of your life. This one definitely deserves a bookmark.

From Swastika to Jim Crow

When Hitler rose to power in the 1930's, Germany saw some of its most respected professors expelled from their homeland in the wave of anti-semitism. Many of them found work teaching at black colleges in the South, such as Howard University, where they faced a whole new form of social prejudice.

"From Swastika to Jim Crow" is a new PBS series that takes a deeper look into the lives of these men and women, their brutal transition from Nazi Germany to the American South, and some of the wonderful, life-affirming stories that emerged from their struggle.

The site contains an historical overview, a complete broadcast schedule, and some great interviews with survivors of this difficult time.

SHORT TAKES:

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all? Now, you can decide.

Oochie.com presents pictures of people trying to look attractive, and gives you the opportunity to rate them on a scale of 1-10 (no negatives please). You can also enter into the rating game by sending in a photo of yourself. It's a sticky voyeuristic cavalcade!

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Courting the Unabomber

This collection of letters, written by some of television's most well known reporters, gives us a peek into the process known as 'landing an interview'.

It's an absurd behind-the-scenes look at the personal letter writing of 'respected' media personalities in their attempt to grab a one-on-one interview with the Unabomber himself. The highly secretive criminal is courted, coddled and welcome to call Katie Couric collect anytime.

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Tongue-Tied

A great way to impress your international friends is with a funny saying from their native language. This website contains an impressive collection of nearly 2000 tongue twisters, replete with amusing translations. With twisters from over 77 languages, the site covers everything from Afrikaans to Zulu and back..

Super Bowl Ads

The only thing more fun to watch then the Super Bowl, is the ad game being played on your television throughout the game. We all love the anticipation of seeing the best, most expensive and elaborate commercials of the year.

Ad Critic has created a detailed archive to browse through the ads, which are listed by product, advertiser, and quarter in which they aired. You can even see the commercials that were banned by CBS as well as cast your vote for your favorite picks.

Untimely Advice

Once upon a time you could find helpful solutions to all of your problems in  ' advice books '. These books addressed a wide range of issues from how to court a girl that's caught your fancy to the importance of eating vegetables.

Fear not, Miss Abigail will quell all of your modern concerns about, etiquette, relationships, puberty, parenting, vegetables, etc. with good old-fashioned advice. Drawing from a library of nineteenth and twentieth century advice books, she is armed with some of the same sound wisdom that your grandparents grew up with.

Browse through a long list of topics, learn about the history of advice books or submit your own query directly to Abigail. Guaranteed to give you good manners and a sunny disposition.

Wild World of Weird

Missioncreep.com is a forum for artists of all types whose subject matter falls a little to the left of the traditional love poem or nature painting. Although most of the art at this site focuses on the macabre, there is a lot of creative work to be uncovered and enjoyed.

Short stories, essays, poems, paintings, wood carvings and a lot more provide for hours of often bizarre, interesting material. Of special interest is 'prodigies', a set of drawings of 'freaks' by James Mundie.

B Minus Movie King

At one time or another we've all found ourselves unable to sleep, engrossed in a ridiculous yet entertaining "B Movie". These horror, action, and 'blaxploitation' films are always badly acted, strung together with ridiculous plotlines and yet, they are very entertaining to watch.

This site is devoted entirely to the life and work of B movie prodigy William Girdler. The eye that envisioned such dubious creations as "Grizzly" and "Asylum of Satan" was known for his unwavering passion for filmmaking.

He died at the age of thirty in a helicopter crash while scouting locations for his next film, but his work lives on for all to enjoy. You can read through summaries of all of Girdler's films, check out the Poster Gallery, and buy videos of his movies.

Pseudo Dictionary

If the Oxford Dictionary is a little too stuffy for you, check out the only online 'pseudo-dictionary', a growing reference guide to everything slang. All the words and phrases we love to invent, use and sneak into our daily conversation now have a legitimate home.

Visitors to this site can submit their own creative entries, and will receive credit as well as a link to their website. It is especially great for all you "mouse potatoes" (pseudo-definition for people who spend too much time sitting in front of their computers).

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If you're interested in advertising in Cool Tricks and Trinkets, email
info@tricksandtrinkets.com
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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

~Dubya's Dayly Diary - The musings of Madeleine Begun Kane, Humor Columnist.

~Journey Into Miracles - Poetry, Inspiration, and Recovery/Survivor based
Links:

~Tocha's Home-Nest - with some favored nature links.

~The Holy Grove - Where Angels wait to heal you.

~McGraw Supply Inc - helping with your printing needs.

~Starting with Alpeh - Multimedia course for Hebrew reading and Jewish values.



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Deception occurs when you are divided,
Truth appears when you are whole.
Uniting male and female brings illumination,
The real master is a perfect light.

TAO

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Have a great weekend.

Charles Kessler