Welcome to the 172nd 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:

- White House Holidays
- Collective Unconsciousness Project
- Body, Mind, Modem
- Short Takes
- Classical Composers
- Flash Thief
- Experience Thailand
- Astounding Space Thrills
- The Food Timeline
- Subscribers' Sites 


White House Holidays

Whether it snows or not, it's a white Christmas at the home of the First Family, as President and Mrs. Bush invite visitors to an online view of festivities at Home for the Holidays, the theme for this year's White House holiday season.

With the recent national tragedy still fresh and many military families separated, home and family take on special meaning to Americans this year. Understanding that familiar faces in familiar places is especially precious today, the White House staff designed, built and decorated replicas of the family homes of the nation's past Presidents. A 360-degree tour lets visitors scroll up and around the State Rooms of the People's House or take a more traditional look at photos of the decorations. 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/holiday/ 

Collective Unconsciousness Project

Dreams are fluid and exploratory. At The Collective Unconsciousness (TCUP) Project, visitors can travel into, around and through the dreams of others in an evolving database of reveries where dreamers record their sleeping fantasies so that others can join them in a collective experience.

Create a Dreamer Account and log your own dreams into the database, then trip from dream to dream linked by themes on an endless path that may end where it began. As more dreams are added, the paths become more defined, the connections more precise. The goal: not to draw conclusions but to explore the common spaces between uncommon realities.

http://tcup.currentform.com/ 

Body, Mind, Modem
A simple path to complex truths is the tempting offer at Body, Mind and Modem, where metaphysical pursuits are made accessible to the average spiritual traveler. Created by a Rochester, New York dojo, the site explains the principles of Aikido Kokikai, a martial art that helps you find inner peace, unify mind and body, relax and realize your full potential. 

Start with "Begin" to learn the four basic principles, then try a few Ki exercises to coordinate mind and body -- or skip over the metaphysical stuff and jump right to the Seven Samurai game for playtime. Then get superhuman at Cool Ki Tricks and try Finger Ring, an exercise that "super-glues" your thumb and finger together. Just concentrate.

http://www.bodymindandmodem.com 

SHORT TAKES:

Diagnose Car Problems

Smell rotten eggs when you start your car? Does your engine ping when driving uphill? Time to take a look at the Troubleshooting Guide by AutoSite to find both the symptoms and cures for those mysterious smells and sounds coming from your clunker.

http://www.autosite.com/garage/symptoms/trblsht.asp 

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Movie Ratings for Kids

Should your kids see the new Ocean's 11 movie? Parents are told to see movies first before sending the kids, but at $8 or more a pop, that's not realistic. Kids-In-Mind can give parents peace of mind, as viewers rate movies for sex, violence and profanity on a scale of 1 to 10, note questions kids might bring home to you after watching a movie, and summarize messages being conveyed.

http://www.kids-in-mind.com 

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Radio Locator

Whether you're looking for Christmas or Hanukah tunes, blues, talk or metal, Radio Locator is the fastest dial on the Internet. This comprehensive radio station locator spans over 10,000 station homepages and 2,500 audio streams in the US and abroad. Just fill out a simple form and become an instant radio head as you hook up to stations in the database that meet your criteria.

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/home 

Classical Composers

From Keiko Abe to Alexander Zemlinsky, GMN's Classical Composers gateway web site has got to be the most comprehensive listing imaginable for those seeking info about classical composers. 

Created by the GMN Arts Network, the site is straightforward and logical. Visitors just click on a composer's name and read what the Grove Concise Dictionary of Music has to say, listen to his or her music and link to more info about a specific work and its performances. The GMN channel also delivers the latest in classical music news worldwide and is a map to extensive online content: audio and video, MP3 downloads, interviews, features, radio, forums and shopping.

http://www.gmn.com/composers/ 

Flash Thief

Borrowing a line from an older generation: Steal this web site. A collection of cutting-edge media technologies targeted at Macromedia users, Flash Thief is a one-stop shop where users can learn, download and share ideas about web design.

Novice, intermediate and expert designers will find tutorials, codes, comprehensive reference lists, interaction with experts, branding concepts - all sorted by user level to help them survive what is a chaotic and painful learning curve if you try to go it alone. Screenshots of hot new web sites, designer award winners, free downloadable sound loops and Flash movies, plus discussions of marketing concepts light your creative fire without risk of burning out.

http://www.flashthief.com/ 

Experience Thailand

Experience Thailand is the official source for travel to this remarkable Southeast Asian country, which reveres its royal family, whose king was born in Cambridge and studied at Harvard, holds an annual umbrella celebration and a yachting regatta, where you can ride an elephant through the jungle or golf at a world-class course. Thailand's growth as a major travel destination should surprise no one.

"Leisure Travel" gives complete vacation info, and "M.I.C.E." offers meetings, incentives conventions and exhibits for business travelers. The Gallery lets you see what you'll get in the city, attractions, people and landscape, and the keyword or city search makes it easy to find your way around.

http://www.experiencethailand.com/ 

Astounding Space Thrills

Robots, ray guns and little green men populate Astounding Space Thrills: The Daily Adventures, the web's most popular adventure comic strip. Seen on more than 3,000 syndicating web pages, the strip claims more than one million viewings per month by fans of science fiction and comics.

Here you can view the daily comic, add AST daily strips to your own web site and read past strips, order posters, postcards and t-shirts of super hero Argosy Smith or space vixen Astra Nouveau. If you get hooked, you can also join AST space corps and chat with the rest of the space cadets to immerse yourself in the retro-meets-web culture of astounding space.

http://www.astoundingspacethrills.com/ 

The Food Timeline

Hard to believe that the advertising slogan "Life is Great When You Carbonate!" launched a mega-soft drink industry in 1956, but that's the kind of trivia visitors can pick up on the Food Timeline. 

Created by librarians, the site is a serious effort to put fun into social studies and is cross-referenced against such heavyweight volumes as the Oxford Companion to Food and the Cambridge World History of Food. What did Vikings eat when they set off on their explorations? How did Thomas Jefferson make ice cream? Who invented the potato chip, and why? With ancient recipes to make in a modern kitchen using ingredients bought at 21st century supermarkets, the site is a boon for teachers, parents and food buffs alike.

http://www.gti.net/mocolib1/kid/food.html

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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

~The Hollow Bones Retreat - Empowering men who have completed the New Warrior Training.

~The Story Behind Haleakala Ana 'Ole - A musical tribute by Pamela Polland.

~Sell Writing Online - Creating Worlds of Words

~Ultra flash -Biographies three sentences long and under 100 words.

~Christmas Projects

~Paula's Place in Cyberpace

~Personal page of Wallace Bradley Hale

~Thorndy's Things - An online marketplace.

~The Computer Help desk 4 U.


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Tis better to be Silent and thought a Fool,
than to SPEAK and remove all doubt.

Chinese Proverb

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Have a great weekend.

Charles Kessler