| March 6 - March 12 | A skateboarding bulldog? There's wierder things on the Net. I just wish we would have gotten Hannibal into some of this stuff when he was young enough to make us money! | |
| February 27 - March 5 | As the owners of a senior dog, we realize how rewarding and difficult caring for such dogs can be. However, senior dogs, if picked up and put in shelters, will often not get a home. So help make some dog's golden years special. | |
| February 20 - February 26 | Despite the name of the page, this website highlights people "whose eccentricity forced them to stray from the path of normal humans and follow their own twisted visions. They are the freaks, the geeks and the cult icons of pop entertainment." | |
| February 13 - February 19 | This doesn't do much but present time in a different way. | |
| February 6 - February 12 | I bet you've always wanted to slap these stickers on someone's car. You know, someone who has made it impossible for you to extricate yourself from a parking spot without a can opener! | |
| January 30 - February 5 | Allegedly written by John Cleese, this piece of e-mail gives the reasons why Britain is revoking America's independence. There is really a fascinating history behind this piece of spam which has entered inboxes worldwide -- and none of the history actually involves John Cleese! | |
| January 23 - 29 | CounterCurrents.org | This site from India proclaims "We bring out what the mainstream media fails to tell you, or hides from you. These are the things that really matter. The things which may determine the fate of planet earth! The future of our children! In a word, the survival of the species!" It has some good, provocative articles. |
| January 16 - 22 | Springfield is for Gay Lovers of Marriage | Somehow, even though it has the Fox logo on it, I don't think the Fox network would approve of this "Simpsons" site. Don't worry, it has no overtly sexual content except for the theme. |
| January 9 -15 | All About Jazz | Nice website with reviews of jazz CDs and previews of new releases. |
| January 2 - 8 | Monterey Jazz Festival | Probably the best known jazz festival on the planet |
| December 26 - January 1 | Elevator Moods | A cool bit of interactive web. A series of short films set in an elevator! |
| December 19 - 25 | The Forbidden Library | This site keeps tabs on books that have been banned in various localities and states. Nice to see what is considered "dangerous" in our day and age so that you can be sure to run out and read it all! |
| December 12 - 18 | Django Reinhardt | A site devoted to the life and work of the god of guitar jazz, Django Reinhardt! Django was loosely portrayed by Sean Penn in the movie Sweet and Lowdown, and the child of Nana Visitor (Major Kira on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) and Siddig El-Fadil (Dr. Bashir on the same show) is named Django! We're not nerds, we read about it in the paper. |
| December 5 - 11 | PressDisplay | Displays a number of papers from around the world in graphics that make it look like you are really reading a newspaper. Registration appears to be completely free! |
| November 28 - December 4 | Microsuck | This site is devoted to the shortcomings of Microsoft. Megan fully agrees, as she's been working Macs for a long time, but we have a MS platform computer at home. |
| November 21 - 27 | Smoke Kills | This is a cute little Shockwave film from Russia on how smoking cigarettes kills. If you are still sensitive about 9/11, be warned that there are images reminiscent of that day in this. |
| November 14 - 20 | The White House | Don't be fooled. This is not the official White House site. This is Whitehouse.org -- a site that skewers and lampoons the current administration. We think it's wickedly funny and sometimes blurs the lines of good taste. The old time posters are really funny. |
| November 7 - 13 | The Death Clock | A nice little morbid one for just after Halloween! Have you ever wondered when you might die? Simply input some information into the Death Clock and it will give you the predicted date you can expect to meet your maker. |
| October 31 - November 6 | Propaganda Critic | Has six, count 'em, six old propaganda films that you can view. Remember the old school duck and cover film? How about where the revolutionary war hero time travels to save a college campus from those evil radical anti-war organizers? Check 'em out! |
| October 24 - 30 | Mr. Picassohead | Fun little diversion. Just move the Picassoesque elements around to create your own Picassoesque face! Upload to the gallery. View other people's creations. Ought to waste at least 5 minutes of your time. |
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August 22 - 28 |
Have you ever wondered how to get rid of some of the older books on your shelves. Don't have time to take them to the used book store for the pitiful amount you'll get? Release them into the wild! BookCrossing shows you how to set your books free so that others may find them, read them, and set them free again. Track the books you release online! Remember, if you love something, set it free! |
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John is Mike's friend from Fort Bragg. Nothing on his page yet except an e-mail address, but something should be coming sometime. |
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EB was Megan's co-journalist at New Orleans Citybusiness. Originally from Arkansas, she is trying out life in New York City. This links to her MySpace page. |
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Tom teaches at St. Norbert College in Wisconsin. We knew him and his wife Megan when we lived in San Antonio. |
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Dean was a colleague of Mike's at the University of New Orleans. He now lives in San Francisco. |
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Matt Tucker, DVM is a friend of Mike's from Santa Clara. He and his wife took over this veterinary hospital in Marysville, California. |
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Patrick was Mike's colleague at the University of New Orleans. This links to his MySpace page. |
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Maya is a friend we met in New Orleans, who is living in her hometown of Milwaukee at present. |
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Mike's sister. This links to her MySpace page. |
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Megan's sister Kathleen is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Iowa. |
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Megan's sister Maureen is a fiber artist and weaves silk scarves, shawls, wall hangings and religious textiles. |
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April is Megan's former college roommate, and Ken is her husband. They make up 2/5ths of a public radio essay team on a show called The Michiana Chronicles. Go here to read and/or hear their essays. |
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Fritz Esker, our friend from New Orleans, reviews movies from this site. |
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Mike's alternative blog site -- all of his recent essays on our website are also on this site. |
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Denise Trowbridge created and coordinates this site which offers articles by and for women. Denise worked with Megan at New Orleans Citybusiness, but has since struck out into the world of freelance. |
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A blog site that reviews current music. Our friend Elizabeth Butler (EB) writes for this blog under the name Earworm. |
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Out of Austin, Texas, this band can play old time jazz, blues and more. Sort of like the Squirrel Nut Zippers, but wackier. |
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If Billy comes to your area, you MUST see him. He will captivate you, challenge you, make you question your beliefs and assumptions, provoke you, and make you promise you'll never make fun of mimes again. |
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From Denton, Texas. Nuclear polka at its finest. Featured on The Simpsons. Plays the best Hokey Pokey around, and the fastest Chicken Dance you can imagine. |
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Megan and I were in a bad mood in New Orleans one night. We went to see her and she hit all the right notes. She also happens to be Harry Shearer's wife. |
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Absolutely the best guitar player we have heard in a long time. Is he country, rock and roll, surf music, or blues? Hard to tell...he plays 'em all and plays 'em well. |
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Need lyrics? This site has a whole bunch of them. |
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The premiere music event in New Orleans. Major national acts perform here, as well as local groups from the New Orleans scene. Held on the last weekend in April and the first weekend in May. Makes New Orleans worth a visit at another time other than Mardi Gras. |
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| The Nigerian Spam Scam Scam | You know you've gotten them -- those e-mails from somebody in Nigeria that has a whole pile of money that needs to be moved to a safe location right away. You will share in this vast fortune if you make it possible to get the money safely out of Nigeria by sharing your bank account numbers with the sender. Yeah right. Dean Cameron, actor, began an 11 month correspondence with the scammers, which resulted in this play which is often hilarious. While you're at it, cruise on over to the results of the 3rd Annual Nigerian E-mail Conference. |
| Putumayo Music | We have about 8 of these CD's, and we love them all. Mike especially likes the Brazilian Groove CD. You can find them everywhere, including specialty stores and coffeehouses. Or, you can find them here. |
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A Texas girl, Terri is a great musician who puts on an awesome show. Heck, her mandolin player is the father of a Dixie Chick, so she must be good! |
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From New Orleans, she is a Swede with a mean violin, a nice voice, and can rock with the best of them. |
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The best radio in America. News, human interest and more. Be sure to listen to our friend Neda Ulaby's reports on literature and the arts. |
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Megan's current employer. You can find her latest articles here. Also connects you with other Bizjournals papers around the country. |
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Features the front pages of nearly 500 daily newspapers from around the world.. |
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Links to articles about Northern Ireland. |
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Registration is free, and they will send you an e-mail, if you want it, with links to the latest headlines. |
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America's finest news source. If you haven't read The Onion, you haven't lived! |
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Allows you to connect with 6000 papers from around the U.S. and the world. |
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Need to work with sound? This free program allows sound recording and manipulation. For example, I recently had some sound files that I couldn't play on my Windows Media player nor on I-Tunes. I used Audacity to convert them to MP3's. Megan downloads sound from her mini-disc player to work with in Audacity. Easy to learn. |
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Has been described as the best free graphics program that you can get. Allows you to do basic and some intermediate and advanced manipulations of graphics and photos, create slideshows, and even do some captures of media files. |
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Google offers this free program on its website. Picasa is great for organizing your photos. Also allows some basic manipulations of photos. We like the tool that allows the creation of photo collages. |
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Jack Bauer seems to have one day a year where everything goes completely to hell. We've been hooked since the beginning...even though we wonder why. |
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We particularly like what used to be the Sunday night lineup -- Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Robot Chicken, Sealab 2021, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, The Brak Show, Tom Goes to the Mayor, Harvey Birdman, the Venture Brothers. Oh, these are cartoons. |
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When Mike was young, he used to watch the old cheesy Battlestar Galactica. This newer SciFi series was updated. Starbuck and Boomer are chicks, and Boomer is a hot cylon chick. Not only that, but the Cylons have evolved past their "toaster" status and look like us, including one that is a Victoria's Secret model. Damn, interstellar war never looked so good. With Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell and great guest stars. |
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While it is sad that most young people get their daily news from Jon Stewart and the Daily Show, it is a great program that skewers mostly the news reporting of our times. Also look at its companion show, The Colbert Report, which lampoons the news analysts of today like Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and others. |
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Should we be embarrassed we watch this? Should we?. |
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Mike's sister Pauline has turned us on to a few failed shows that were really good. This one is based on the life of Paul Feig, writer and producer. The music is great, the cast is good, the stories right out of your high school experience. This site is the fan site. |
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Another failed show from Pauline. Conceit: puppets and humans co-exist in the world. Greg the Bunny gets hired onto a kids television show with characters like the Count and Warren DeMontague (all puppets). Has a great cast, including Seth Green, Eugene Levy, Sarah Silverman and Bob Gunton. |
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Okay, this should make up for Desperate Housewives. Very good highbrow television, mostly imported from Britain. |
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Another failed show from Pauline. Very witty. Jaye Tyler is a disaffected 20 something who begins hearing inanimate objects that talk to her, and she listens to what they are trying to say despite thinking she's crazy. Set in Niagara Falls. |
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A free anti-adware program. Use in tandem with Spybot and Spyware Blaster for maximum protection. |
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While Google offers a free desktop search, I've heard the Copernic's is better. I use it and I agree that it is easy to use and pretty effective - much better than the Windows search tool. It even offers a quickview of the file. |
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We use this for most surfing instead of Internet Explorer. Supposedly, it is safer because it is not as prone to security attacks. We also like the tabbed browsing. Lots of add-ons and extensions as well. |
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Don't have virus protection, or concerned that your current protection has been compromised? Panda has a free virus scan online. It will identify viruses and remove them. It will also identify spyware, but won't remove it unless you pay. |
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Everyone wants to sell you spyware protection. But you shouldn't have to buy it. Spybot is free, and is a program that is often recommended by computer professionals and advice givers. Keep it updated and run it once a week to get rid of that pesky spyware. |
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Used in tandem with Spybot and Ad-Aware, provides ultimate protection. Uses the computer's internal switches to close the gates to spyware in a sort of prophylactic effect. |
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More a diversion than a tool, this site with free registration puts a toolbar in your browser. Then, whenever you hit the button "Stumble" it takes you to a website that has been suggested by another user. Neat way to find interesting websites. You pick the categories you are interested in, and get surprised when you stumble. You can pick your favorite sites, and even suggest some for others to StumbleUpon. |
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