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Welcome to the 161st issue of the Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter offering weekly insights into new, cool, useful, fun, unusual and interesting sites on the Internet.
In this issue:
- Homestar Runner
- Car Facts
- GramoFile
- Short Takes
- Have a Chortle
- Girls Write
- Iron Chef Compendium
- Acoustics and Vibration Animations
- Nostalgia TV
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Homestar Runner
This animated cartoon series features Homestar Runner and pals Pom-Pom, Marzipan, and, of course, the villainous Strong Bad, all looking like computerized Color Forms - mostly angles and circles. The story lines and songs are simple and goofy, with an addictive charm that could appeal to either preschoolers or really Xtreme geeks.
Created by Mike and Matt Chapman from a 1996 children's story, Homestar was also developed into a primitive SNES game using Mario Paint. Part of the charm: the creators walk you through Homestar's evolution via the Museum, stored in an old filing cabinet. With 'toons, games, downloads and a store where you can buy tee-shirts, stickers and other iconography to feed your habit.
http://www.homestarrunner.com/
Car Facts
The engine driving Carfax is its Vehicle History Reports, which reveal hidden problems in any vehicle's past that could affect its safety and resale value: accidents, odometer rollbacks, "lemon" histories, emission results - even flood damage.
Enter the VIN, and Carfax searches its nationwide database, in seconds delivering a detailed report. (Cost for a single search is $14.99; for unlimited reports, $19.99.) Bonus for sellers: If your used car passes, it's a nice document for potential buyers. Find a Dealer and Find a Car features help match your needs with current inventories of local Carfax Certified dealers: certified autos carry Carfax's $5,000 Clean Title Guarantee.
http://www.carfax.com/
GramoFile
Gramofile offers classical music fans more than 25,000 classical music reviews from the world's most respected reviewers, from March 1983 to the present. The Web site is the online version of the internationally acclaimed Gramophone Magazine, which reviews more than 120 new recordings every month, and is a vast archive of that magazine's best work.
Besides reviews, the site has interviews and scheduled chats with the world's leading classical music artists, an extensive international music news service, highlights of the current edition, including Editor's Choice recordings and a comprehensive, updated links section - all to give gramophiles access to the best classical music on the Internet.
http://www.gramophone.co.uk/reviews/
SHORT TAKES:
Acronym Finder
An acronym is a kind of abbreviation, a pronounceable word formed from each of the first letters of a descriptive phrase. With more than 207,000 acronyms in its database, this site lets you type in any series of letters, set the search option and decipher --- ASAP --- whatever acronym has you stumped.
http://www.acronymfinder.com/
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Monitor Camera
What an amazing feat! Monitor Camera uses the newest in digital media, including "gigatron technology," to let any user stare into his or her monitor, click the Take Picture button and get an online self-portrait. But warning: "Monitor camera is not responsible for problems with your picture."
http://www.monitorcamera.com/
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Bozo Criminal of the day
We've all read about the misadventures of stupid criminals who can't help but get caught. The "Bozo Criminal of the Day" site features stories from the AP wire and other news sources about banditos not playing with full decks.
http://www.electricferret.com/bozo/
Have a Chortle
If you're finding laughs hard to come by these days, go to Chortler to snigger or guffaw at the gently barbed satire, most of it aimed at topical "gnus," like a letter from Gill Bates to his employees at MicroBore, or a poke at the Little League World Series that has the ancient Throm Sturmond booted out of his state's legislative softball team on account of age.
And if you've missed making fun of President Bush, here are the "Flubya" Files, the ongoing presidential "Letter from YURP" and the Department of Domestic Levity fearing massive job cuts when George W. leaves office. With back issues dating to early March, there's plenty of comedic reading for your funny bone.
http://www.chortler.com/
Girls Write
Do you know any girl - of any age - who hasn't kept a diary or journal at one time? It's true: Girls do write, and Girls Write makes the personal public, offering an online space for teens, housewives and busy professionals to publish their prose, poetry, commentary and more.
Whether therapy or just good writing, the site reminds women not to neglect their written words, but to cherish, cultivate and share them. The spirit of its content and simplicity of its design make the site a virtual room of one's own for scribblers. "My writing is my spirit materialized," says editor Julie Stamper. The authors here are definitely material girls.
http://www.girlswrite.com/
Iron Chef Compendium
Iron Chef Compendium is the unofficial fan site for Iron Chef, the popular Japanese-produced slugfest -- part Julia Child, part WWF -- where master chefs of various culinary styles are pitted against challengers. Contestants get one hour to create a multi-course menu using a theme ingredient. Judges taste, comment and vote, commentators provide "color," and instant replays catch the coolest culinary maneuvers.
Read complete Episode Guides; bios on the chefs, judges and cast; info on the soundtracks and tie-in merchandise; or visit the Kitchen Stadium and read gossip about Iron Chef-related sightings. Mostly text, the site has no sound or video files but plenty of links to other sources that do.
http://www.ironchef.com/
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Acoustics and Vibration Animations
Physicist and acoustics scholar Daniel Russell, a professor at Kettering University, has a scientist's passion for acoustics and shares it on this site of animated GIFs and MPEG mini-movies created to help students visualize the behavior of sound waves.
The animations, accompanied by equations that are probably beyond the comprehension of Joe User, clearly illustrate the mechanics of sound waves in visual and audio presentations. Russell explains the change in pitch of a car horn as a car passes by, the reverberation of a hand clap in an empty and in a carpeted room and illustrates his own research explaining guitar acoustics and piano hammers.
http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/demos.html
Nostalgia TV
"Hopelessly lost in the past" is the theme of TV Party, where all the gossip, scandal, song & dance, action and drama of television from the 40s to the 80s elevates nostalgia to boob tube bliss.
The site covers everything from televised cigarette ads to Saturday morning commercials, Superman to Maude. Selected as one of Yahoo Internet Life's 100 Best Sites for 2001, TV Party goes into the vaults to show 21st century couch potatoes such classics as Cal Worthington and his dog Spot and "Lost Kid Shows" like the 70s Zoom. With all the video and audio clips visitors could want, plus terrific books, video, DVD and CD collections.
http://www.tvparty.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
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Tis better to be Silent and thought a Fool,
than to SPEAK and remove all doubt.
-Zen Saying
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Have a great weekend.
Charles Kessler
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