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The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter #224 12/12/02 |
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Welcome to the 224th 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: - Alter
Ego ~~~~~ Cool Tricks and Trinkets is made possible by~~~~~~ A1 Discount Hotels (an affiliate of Hotels.com) offer discount rooms in over 20,000 hotels worldwide with choices from budget to 5 star hotels. Bookmark our site for you next trip. We also offer group and corporate travel services. If appropriate, please contact me personally. http://www.a1-discount-hotels.com Visit us online or call our operators at 888-511-5743 <Editor's Note> A1 Discount Hotels is our primary business and source of income. You can support Tricks and Trinkets, by checking us out the next time you're planning a trip. For personal travel needs, write me at info@a1-discount-hotels.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Alter Ego Made way too many mistakes in life? Start over again at Alter Ego, the site that lets visitors begin from square one - at birth - and make different choices. Answer a few simple questions, like what sex you are and whether or not you tell white lies, then get born again. Your life is saved unless you decide to start over or choose to skip a life stage if, say, you fail miserably as a toddler. If you just need to talk it all out, join an Alter Ego chat group to get support when your fiancé leaves you standing at the altar, suggest new vignettes or report bugs. Artist at Large Open your eyes and explore culture from Berkeley to Berlin at Artist-at-Large.com, a monthly guide to worldwide exhibitions and festivals, inspired by the artist's sense of curiosity and a view of travel as a creative process. From an interview with artist Susan Matthews in her loft above the produce market in Oakland, California, to postcards from Barcelona, the site also offers Food for Thought, with opinions about the nature of art; Open Studio, telling where visitors may see art in the environment in which it was created; With Eyes Open, inviting visitors to share experiences; World Café, a forum for site users; and Karma center, encouraging donations to groups that make the world a brighter place to visit. http://www.artist-at-large.com GangRule Tony Soprano may entertain us, but he's no Vito Cascioferro. See the real deal at Gang Rule.com, a comprehensive database on the emergence of organized crime since 1890, where visitors can find gang members, families, histories, gangland events and more. The database is searchable by individual, family or event: Cascioferro, for example, was a boss of the Morello family and extortionist for the Black Hand before dying of heart failure in a Palermo prison. A search by "position" leads visitors to the consiglieri and enforcers, and The Gallery offers rare photos, articles and interviews, all offered without opinion or commentary and culled from crime historians, court records and news accounts. SHORT
TAKES Peep the Bird, Simon the Hippo and Silly Billy the Zebra populate Hippoworks.com, where cheerful "cartoonlets" offer a fresh, fun place for kids and parents to learn and laugh a little on a site pledged to uphold pro-social, eco-friendly values to make the world a better place. http://www.hippoworks.com/show/libCartoon/99 <><><><> BotSpot Bots are the software tools that constantly mine the Internet for data. All the time. Everywhere. They crawl from server to server compiling those enormous lists of URLs that are the heart of search engines. Some track, some shop, some go to auctions, others to investment sites. At Bot Spot.com, it's all about bots. <><><><> Spamming the Spammer Revenge can be sweet. Bulk e-mail king Alan Ralsky, allegedly "the world's biggest sender of Internet spam," is getting spammed big time -- inundated with ads, catalogs and brochures after posts by spam haters led to a plot to turn the tables. Read about the scheme and Ralsky's reaction in Mike Wendland's column in the Detroit Free Press at Freep.com. http://www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend6_20021206.htm Enjoy
the newsletter? Tell your friends to subscribe by sending an email to: Record Check With everyone savoring the slides and scratches of original turntable sound, Turntable Lab.com's online guide spotlighting favorite records, hidden gems, funky 45s and weird vinyls is a wonder. The rules are few. Since 1998, the site's Record Check has covered original vinyl presses only. Browse through 45 past issues of Record Check, each reviewing a dozen or so vinyls, naming the record, the artist and the label and offering straight-talk on an eclectic mix, just as it should be, from Lyn Collin's 1972 "Think About It," ("the track that kept us working late at night") to The Beach Boys' 1966 "Pet Sounds." http://www.turntablelab.com/features/record_check/rcmain/rc-main.html Seamless City Show an out-of-towner San Francisco via artist Michael Koller's work-in-progress, an ambitious project to create a continuous image of a 30-mile meandering walk through a cross-section of the diverse neighborhoods and environments of the City by the Bay. From the Embarcadero and Dogpatch, The Castro and North Beach, working waterfronts and tony neighborhoods, the digital project combines print and electronic media and will be printed in a limited edition as a folio of 300 to 400 pages. Start looking now at images from Bernal Heights and the Sunset district, each one visually connected to the next, read about the artist, see maps of the route or inquire about purchasing portions of the project or the entire package. Cinemorgue Has Julia Roberts, Gwyneth Paltrow or Karla Tamburrelli every played a death scene? That's the slightly morbid premise of DeMan's Cinemorgue.com, answering the question: "Has Actress X ever done a death scene?" Julia has once, Gwyneth has a lot and the lesser known Karla was machine-gunned as Sister Ruth in the 1997 film "Plump Fiction." Actresses famous and obscure are covered on the site, searchable via an alphabetical index. Click on the name and read the list of movies in which she died, a description of the death scene, and a list of her credits. If you don't like to know how a movie ends, be forewarned: The site is an admitted major spoiler. Death is, after all, often the end - even in Hollywood. **********Advertisement************** THE COOLEST COLOR BUSINESS CARDS These cards will make you proud to have a business. Create, personalize, edit, print and order a unique one of a kind business card. http://www.ebusiness-cards.com
The Sun King The life, art, history, loves and fame of the Sun King are fully explored at Louis XIV, dedicated to the politics, castles, women, art, family, court, wars, even afterlife of the royal monarch who ruled France absolutely for 72 years and transformed it into Europe's premier center of refinement for centuries to come. Politics, wars and religion are given their due, but so too is the cultural revolution of Louis XIV, from the glories of Versailles to hairstyles, jewelry, even fashionable wines of the day. Download MP3 files of the era's music, find screen shots and links to a game of court intrigue, read about films depicting the period, see paintings of his many women or download Louis XIV screen savers. City Stories Every city has a story - maybe thousands. At City Stories.com, storytelling is part personal journal, part city guide and the city is the main character, all linked in a network of 25 or so city-story sites from Dublin to Portland, Miami to Rotterdam, with 30 more set to join in. Read about a first longboard surfing trip in San Diego or a tale of love, sorrow and irony in the Eternal City. Volunteers add their tales to their own city's site, giving visitors a highly personal experience as they roam the network. Each site features stories, a posting area where anyone can contribute in real time, and other treasures the authors choose to post. 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 ~Paper Moon Stationers - Affordable Gifts for the Discriminating Reader.
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~TAO
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