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[] Hello again, and welcome to yet another issue of The HITG Report.
First of all, we'd like to apologize for the delay...we know, we know, we promised you a newsletter every two weeks and it's actually been a little longer than that since the last one. But once you hear the reasons for the delay, we're sure you'll forgive us :-)
[] HITG got it's name in the local papers this week, for the first time ever -- no less prestigious a paper than Bombay Times gave us a mention in 'The Buzz' on October 6th, 1998. 'The Buzz' is a column penned by one of Bombay's hottest young scribes, who writes under the pseudonym Wonderkid. We would like to thank him for his support and kind words, and we wish him every success. Keep rockin', dude !
[] If you would like to contact him, his email address is wonderkid@bigfoot.com
[] If you would like to read the article, it's archived at http://geocities.datacellar.net/SoHo/Museum/3621/bt060998.html
[] And in keeping with the theme of this week's article, we have a little surprise for you...but you'll have to read the entire thing to find out more :-)
Q. How many Sicilians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. Two. One to screw it in, and one to kill the witnesses.
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OK, cut the sermon...let's get on with the show !
[] It shouldn’t take an overactive imagination to figure out what this week's report deals with -- digital postcards, sent via email and viewed through a web browser. For the confirmed mouse potato, the lonely Casanova and the bored housewife, these electronic postcards are both a means of entertainment and a form of communication, enabling people to express themselves effectively over long distances...and, more often than not, indulge in a little harmless flirtation [we know...we’ve been there !]
So we thought that, this week, we’d point you to the best e-postcard sites on the Web so that the next time you need to send someone a postcard, you can find the perfect card [and prove, once and for all, that you’re a geek] without having to make the arduous trip to the local gift store !
And for those of you who quiver with shame at the thought of being called a geek, hey...we have two words for you : Bill Gates - the guy who proved, quite conclusively, that being a geek *does* pay. So welcome to the club, you big geek, you !
The only function of economic forecasting is to make
astrology look respectable. -John Kenneth Galbraith
<>------------------- u n q u o t e ----------------------<>
1. Log in to desired website through your favorite browser, using our handy list.
2. Select category and card.
3. Enter your email address together with the email address of the desired recipient.
4. Enter an optional message.
5. Confirm that things are as they should be, and all is right with the world.
6. Hit the brightly-labeled and prominently-placed SEND button.
There...we told you it was pretty complicated. Pop quiz later, children !
When the footage of President Clinton's grand jury
testimony was released, hits on the CNN web site rose to
350,000 per minute.
<>--------------------- s t a t s ------------------------<>
[] http://www.studentadvantage.com/qpid/kisses/
This one is so well-designed we had to put it at the top of the list. It lets you send someone a kiss, complete with sound effects. Check out the alien kiss, the teenage kiss and our all-time favorite, the French kiss. The interface, artwork and overall design are superb...and the sound effects...ahhh, the memories they bring back ;-)
[] http://www.bluemountain.com
The granddaddy of e-card sites, this one has a massive collection of cards for all occassions...and they're all very well-designed. You can choose for a wide variety of categories like birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, romance ad nauseum ad infinitum, and the service will even send you notification when your card has been picked up. And if you don't like the cards they have available, you can even contribute your own !
Who’s your favorite celebrity ? Tom Cruise, Mariah Carey or that miracle of modern science, Pamela Anderson herself ? You’ll find them all here, gift-wrapped and ready to mail as an e-card !
This one’s for all the gluttons out there ! Send pictures of your favorite food items to your loved ones and watch them salivate. Choices include soups, appetizers, meat, fish and vegetables. Whoever said that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach certainly knew what they were talking about !
cabal (kuh-BAL) noun
1. A conspiratorial group of plotters or intriguers: "Espionage is quite precisely it-a cabal of powerful men, working secretly" (Frank Conroy).
2. A secret scheme or plot.
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Ominously titled "Postcards From The Grave", this site lets you send pictures of archaeological monuments, stone carvings and other sinister objects. One of the things we liked about this site was the ability to completely customize your card, from the color and style of the border to the image and the music. For example, you can use any image or any sound file from anywhere on the Web, simply by providing the exact URL ! Not many sites allow this degree of customization; we thought it was pretty cool !
Toons...cute, cuddly and funny ! How could anyone resist ? This site allows you to send cartoon postcards tailored for different situations : work, annoying neighbors, computers, long flights on airlines and the eternal quest to cut down on nicotine intake - you’ll find them all here !
[] http://www.bizshoppe.com/balloon/cardrack.html
This is a nice twist on an old idea. Send that special someone e-balloons – essentially pictures of different types of balloons with mushy messages on them. Not really our cup of tea...but there’s no accounting for taste !
[] http://www.virtualpresents.com
Remember that cherry-red Ferrari you’ve always lusted after ? Well, here’s the closest you’re going to get to it in this lifetime, buster ;-) And after you’ve cheered yourself up by mailing that present to yourself, check out your other options : furniture, pets, flowers, diamond rings and vacations in the Caribbean — they're all here !
In response to our last report on streaming audio, Mr. G Kamath
wrote to us all the way from London, England to tell us about a
cool website at http://www.veronica.nl/top100, which provides
full-length RealAudio clips of the top 100 tracks on the music
charts. We checked it out and came away impressed...so we're
passing it on to you. Do what you will with it ;)
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Musical greeting cards ? Old idea, right ? Wrong ! Check this site out - they allow you to add music to your e-card together with a customized image. And if you don’t like their music; hey, just upload your own !
[] http://www.corbis.com
[] http://postcards.www.media.mit.edu/Postcards/cardrack.html
And for all those who like classy and elegant postcards, these are the sites to hit ! The first one is the world-famous Corbis collection, now owned by Micro$oft, and the second, an experiment by MIT’s Media Labs. Corbis offers, among other things, stunning photographs of natural phenomena, wildlife and landscapes; and the Electric Postcard Rack offers paintings by da Vinci, Vermeer and Van Gogh among others, photography by Allan Ginsberg and Robert Altman, moody pictures of cities in the rain, of war and children, and contemporary art by digital artists. In a word, breathtaking !
[] http://www.garfield.com
[] http://www.disney.com
[] http://www.snoopy.com
And for those of us still hung up on comic strip characters, these are the sites to hit ! Incidentally, we love Gary Larson's 'The Far Side'...and if any of you webmonkeys could direct us to a site which has 'Far Side' postcards, you will have earned our eternal gratitude :-)
[] http://www.nj.com/yucky/ecards
We had to mention this one...IOHO, it’s quite unique. Here’s why : it lets you send disgusting cards to all those people you love to hate ! Just the right place to visit when you want to tell that special someone exactly what you think of them ! Be warned, though...you need a strong stomach and a warped sense of humor to truly enjoy this site...needless to say, we loved it ! :-)
Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong.
-John G. Diefenbaker
<>------------------- u n q u o t e ----------------------<>
http://www.pe.net/~chrystal/cyber.htm
[] And if you find a site which tickles your fancy, remember to tell us about it...our operators are standing by !
[] Now for the surprise...you'll find it at http://www.bluemountain.com/cards/box3635a/yih9ygfvdbzzccf.htm. And if you're really, really smart, you won't need to rip the paper off to figure out just what this mystery gift is ! :-)
Till next time, stay healthy !
- V & H
Two fifty foot ropes are suspended from a forty foot ceiling, about twenty feet apart. Armed with only a knife, how much of the rope can you steal?
Write in and tell us what *you* think the solution is. We will provide you with a correct solution in our next issue, together with the names of everyone who got it right. When you write in, do tell us how much information you would like us to disclose about you.
And the solution to last time's puzzle :
Use both condoms on the first woman. Take off the outer condom (turning it inside-out in the process) and set it aside. Use the inner condom alone on the second woman. Put the outer condom back on. Use it on the third woman.
First man uses both condoms. Take off the outer condom (do NOT reverse it) and have second man use it. First man takes off the inner condom (turning it inside-out). Third man puts on this condom, followed by second man's condom.
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Our primary email address for all communication is hitg@usa.net. However, on rainy days, it may not work :-)...in such a situation, you could also contact us at hitg@psynet.net
Archives of previous issues are available at http://geocities.datacellar.net/SoHo/Museum/3621/archive.html
The content in this newsletter is copyright Vikram Vaswani and Harish Kamath, collectively knows as HITG, Inc. !
All trademarks are copyright their respective owners.
For WordPlay, we thank http://www.wordsmith.org
For netStats, we thank http://www.emergeonline.com
Logic puzzles, quotes, and other goodies are freely available off the Internet.
And a very special thank you to SM [you know who you are] for her assistance in getting the BT article online. What can we say but thank you...you are the *best* ! :-)
© 1998 HITG Inc.
By all means, let's not confuse ourselves with the facts!
