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The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter #226 12/26/02 |
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Welcome to the 226th 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: - World
Stats ~~~~~ 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. Group and Corporate Travel Services (contact info@a1-discount-hotels.com ) 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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ World Stats How much a nation spends on its military and how long its people live don't necessarily correlate. That's the kind of quick and easy info found at Aneki.com, a ready source of world rankings in many categories: economic, social, technological, academic - where visitors learn the richest, cleanest, most polluted, even most wired countries from facts gathered from UN agencies and the CIA's own World Fact Book. What nation has the longest life expectancy? Not the US, which doesn't even make the top 20. On the other hand, the US is the hands-down winner in military spending, beating out first runner-up Japan by more than $233 billion. To live long, try Andorra, but not to prosper - guess you can't have everything. Ghost Town Gallery Desolate streets, forlorn warehouses, doors slamming in the wind … another abandoned dot.com paradise? Nope, Ghost Town Gallery.com features the long-deserted former boomtowns of the California Gold Rush, with names like Ragtown and Goldroad, the ones you see dotting the desert roads from Las Vegas to LA. More than 1,300 images of 170 ghost towns in 8 states are here, all snapped by two Swiss tourists who got seriously hooked on one inspiring vacation to California. Find them by index or by a clickable map to guide those who want to seek out the real thing -even a Manhattan, Nevada, and a South Park, Colorado. Send virtual postcards, purchase photos and read about the boom-and-bust history that turned these cities to dust. http://www.ghosttowngallery.com/ Older Version Those longing for the good old days of MSN Messenger 3.6 or Acrobat Reader 2 will find the classics at Old Version.com, where upgrading isn't always considered a blessing. Whatever the cause, whether your computer isn't compatible with a new version or the new version is a bloated monster, you might prefer the old. Find it here. The site archives old versions of many software programs, from AOL to Eudora, acquired from individual contributors who feel your pain, with 297 versions of 39 different programs. But they only do Windows and only freeware and shareware. Still, most visitors will find what they seek and, if not, the site creators will try to locate it for you. SHORT TAKES Worldwide Newspaper Index Find weekly community newspapers from The Idyllwild Town Crier to The Oman Daily Observer at Online Newspapers.com, where you can graze on the world's small town gazettes - literally hundreds of them from every continent - from the comfort of your own home office. http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/ <><><><> The North Pole Times When the kids get Santa withdrawal after December 25th, send them to the North Pole Times.com for the inside scoop on the merry old elf and his weight problem, to check Santa's List for their own naughty or nice status so they can start cleaning up their acts for next year, to do crafts in the Work Shoppe, or pick up recipes in Mrs. Claus' kitchen. <><><><> Master Dream Kit If Santa didn't bring you what you've always dreamed of, build your own drum set at Pearl Drum.com's Master Dream Kit, where you choose the shell, components, bass drums, snare drums, toms, cymbals and every pretty piece of hardware, then try it out online, modify it and see how much the dream will cost you. http://www.pearldrum.com/dreamkit/ Enjoy the newsletter? Tell your friends to subscribe by sending an email to: cool-tricks-join-request@list.adventive.com Stars on TV Desperate for another glimpse of Alan Thicke, a sitcom with Agnes Moorehead, or a scene staged by David Lynch? At TV Now.com, track upcoming TV appearances of more than 4,100 stars via an index of actors, actresses and directors. The online television guide offers monthly schedules by category so visitors who are in the mood for a good film noir or World War II flick can easily search out where and when the genre is playing on the small screen. Monthly schedules are listed for sci-fi, horror, G-rated, film noir, detective, World War II, silent and foreign films, plus 30s and 40s westerns, comedies and mysteries. With daily Hollywood News, entertainment columns and Prime Time picks. http://www.tv-now.com/stars/stars.html When They Were Young Childhood is as fleeting as it is lovely, so what luck to have it captured at When They Were Young, an exhibition of images from the collections of the Library of Congress. From Steichen's "Mother and Child in Sunlight" to a hand-tinted "ambrotype" of a nursemaid with her charge caught by an unknown photographer in 1855, children peer out from generations past and worlds apart. Don't expect a Hallmark view of kids at play: a Civil War image glorifies a boy's role in war and early 20th century portraits show Native American children at the edge of extinction. In this exhibit launching a book by the same name, with quotes by Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Coles. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/young/ Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet What did Muhammad, prophet of Islam, really have to say about women, Jews, America, violence and Jihad? Experience the 1,400 year-old story of Mohammed, the Muslim prophet, at PBS' Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet, explaining the roots, rituals and rules of Islam, a religion with 1.2 billion followers worldwide. Join a virtual Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that every Muslim strives to perform and that 2 million people make today from every corner of the world, read full transcripts of the film, follow a timeline of the life of Muhammad and study up through learning tools like scholarly essays and personal portraits designed for teachers, students and the inquiring public. **********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
Non Photography When is a photo not photography? When it not only breaks the rules but has none at No Rules Street Photography, where f-stops, apertures and composition are tossed out the window and point-and-shoot takes to the streets. The images here ignore "the usual photography routines" like focus to zero in on life on the streets at its own pace, using only enthusiasm, creativity, a Minolta SRT 101 and a simple digital camera. The Gallery offers spontaneous photos taken indoors, outdoors, in cities, at night, with music, in color and in black and white. One rule it hasn't tossed out: the online store. Most photos may be purchased in high resolution digital file format. http://www.skylightweb.com/imagine/ Film Wise Film trivia buffs seeking a challenge will find dozens at Filmwise.com, featuring "invisibles," familiar film screenshots with the players missing - their beautiful heads and gorgeous bodies absent from the scene - where you're challenged to name the film in the current Invisibles Quiz. Dozens of other film IQ tests, some quite complex, are here. Some rely on visuals, like "From Above," in which the viewer is the fly on the ceiling, looking down on a famous film scene. Others are text quizzes, like "In Other Words," where movie titles are paraphrased. Visitors can make their guess, e-mail their answer and join other film quizzers for online chats. http://www.filmwise.com/invisibles/index.shtml 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 ~S T A R D U S T E R - The world without reflects the world within. ~Singing Sunflower from the Joy Luck Club. ~John Stoller, CPA - Making IRS problems disappear. ~Freya Creative Floral Design - The wonderful art of Freya Prowe.
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~Gangaji
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