August Top Three

#1: Blank Sheet of Paper. This is a great utility. I can't tell you how many times I've needed a blank sheet of paper and not had one. Now, i can just print one out from this site. Great!






















#2: The Mega Penny Project. This site helps one visualize what tens of thousands, even millions of pennies truly amounts to. Pennies are often taken for granted, as wastes of space, because their value is so low and it, thus, takes a real lot of them to add up to anything. Well if you had ten billion pennies you'd sure know it. It would take more pennies than that to pay for the space needed to store them I'm afraid. Like, i don't know to many people that own a football field.






































#3: P Michaud's Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow Torches page. It is featured on his site, that also has other stuff, but this is the best thing on here. It documents the destructive force that a Pop-Tart, if over heated, can be. The images are awesome.













































I guess, though, you really shouldn't try this at home, unless you're getting rid of your toaster anyway.

Mood Swings and Web Surfing

Yesterday I stumbled upon an interesting web page from the popular Getty Images that features images from the Getty gallery played in a slide show set to music, called Moodstream.





































The online user can adjust the settings to view images of a style and type and hear music of a corresponding category according to their mood, hence the name Moodstream. I don't know that it had the power to enhance or even adequately reflect my mood, and it didn't necessarily have the power to inspire, as was one of the categories, but it was fun to check out and play around with. And some of the images were very strange, which, of course, I always appreciate.


The idea of tailoring available content to mood is a popular one online, and thank god for that, because it is a concept that has driven the production of some pretty cool sites with some useful offerings. Take the Musicovery site, for example. This site allows the user to select music options based on a number of factors, mood being one important element.






















This is a great place to not only stream and listen to music you love and know you'll want to hear based on how you're feeling at the time, but also a great place to discover tracks and artists you were unfamiliar with.

Another great website that uses mood to determine what each user is offered is Wild Mood Swings. This is a fave site of mine, because it allows the user to select his or her mood from a long list of possible states of being and then whisks said user away to what it supposes to be a relevant web site. I love to surf the web, so naturally i have used this feature a lot and enjoyed hours of fun thanks to the creators of this great site for surfing.

Here's an example of a fun surfing session aided by Wild Mood Swings:

First, i picked "comfortably numb," just because it was at the top of the list...




















And i was transported to a page promoting a live CD from David Gilmour. I didin't think i neded that, so i tried again.

This time i selected "Japanese" as my mood, because that reminded me of the Vapours song... and I was transported to Japander, a site featuring American movie stars and recording artists as they've appeared in Japanese commercials over the years.



















Like, for instance, Ben Stiller in a Japanese soft drink advertisement. Or the eighties group Wham!in an ad for Maxelle casette tapes.





















Priceless.

I decide, then, to get serious and make a few selections based on how I actually feel.

When I selected "disorganized," the site brought me here, to Pocket Mod, a kind of organizer you can create online and print out, then carry with you in place of a bulky PDA or Day Planner.























Again, sometimes it takes you just where you didn't know you wanted to be, and other time it sweeps you off to snooze ville, but what are you gonna' do? Keep trying , that's right.

When I continued and described my mood as "morbid," I was lead to Find A Grave...























a great site that allows the user to search for records of death and burial and seek out grave locations for the many dead people in its data base, including that many famous dead people who one has likely been trying to locate.























They also have an online store where you can purchase Find A Grave merchandise, which of course you will see as a must-have, as I did.












I went with the Find A Grave postcards featuring various grave sites, including that of Marilyn Monroe, which I think I'll send to my grandmother in Florida, just to let her know I'm thinking of her.

When I chose "murderous" as my mood, the site introduced me to another great web page that offers a fun game where you have to guess if the person shown is a computer programmer or a serial killer.




























Got it!

















Ooo, I got that one wrong!

















Got it, but that was too easy!

Anyway, it's a blast! I recommend you go play it for your self.

So, I realize that not everyone out there feels as I do, dark, morbid and alone. There are those of you who are content, happy and downright chipper. In deference to you people and in order to give an example of what pages might be available to you based on your moods, I selected "delighted" as my mood next, and was taken here:



















Wow!? All I can say is wow! This page is just too creepy, with all its positive energy and warm regard for general productivity. All I can say is wow! And that I'm suddenly quite glad not to be one of you people.

Back to my self. Mood: "rejected"...





















...ahhhh, Rejection Collection, a web site featuring letters and stories about rejection by those who have felt its bitter sting. that's more like it.


Okay, well I think you get the idea behind and my attraction to the Wild Mood Swings site.

Another great surfing site, that i have to mention having devoted so much attention to that one, is Surf-O-Matic.













It isn't mood based, but it is equally fabulous in its ability to introduce time-wasting enthusiasts like myself to pages we might not otherwise have found.

You can set the speed and then click start, and this site does the surfing for you, taking you to seemingly random pages from across the web.

For me, the surfing started on a page set up by a man to describe his research and findings with regards to the belief that having a beard keeps you warmer when out in the elements in the winter. Duh! Of course it keeps you warmer, but the image of what he did to conduct his research is great...























He shaved off half his bushy beard and kept the rest in order to test out this popular theory.

Next, about thirty seconds later, I landed on a new page, Strange Mag.


















This is an e-zine devoted to the exploration of strange phenomenon, I guess like the existence of a man who not only felt one had to shave half one's face to test whether a thick beard provides protection from the elements, but that actually did it and then walked around that way.

From there it took me to a page where you can create a super hero, or villain, supposedly.











But all you can really do is generate a name for your hero, or in my case villain,because i often find myself rooting for the bad guy. The name is supposedly generated based on what you select from a handful of attributes.

And I can't even pronounce mine. Kzkg--what the hell is that!?



Anyway, next Surf-O-Matic took me to a confusing page that was on the one hand the home page of a religious sect devoted to the Partridge Family, but at the same time serves as a memorial to a young man who died in `04, who apparently inspired the creator's devotion to the Partridges, but didn't actually believe in their powers himself.























Either way, the links provided on this page take you to places no less bizarre than it, so enjoy.

Then it took me to a page devoted to clowns.























And I got the fuck out of there immediately, because clowns really creep me out, and not in a good way.

In light of all the fun that all these sites have brought to me and others like me, I couldn't very well end this post without, again, plugging Stumble Upon, the web-surfers best friend. It is the vehicle through which I first came upon many of the sites, like Moodstream, Surf-O-Matic, Wild Mood Swings, and Musicovery, featured here today.

I use it all the time (feel free to check out my pages)



















and recommend downloading the tool bar and beginning a journey through the world wide web right away.























Alas, this post has come full circle.

Make Art Online

There's nothing more fun or rewarding than exploring your creative side. With online art applications, you don't have to worry about buying any art materials, such as paper, pencils, paints and brushes. Instead, you can go to the following web pages and create `till your heart's content, as i did, and then just move on with no mess to clean up.


On this popular site visitors can produce abstract paintings in a style that reflects the work of artist Jackson Pollock. This stays on the screen—every stroke or splat remains there as you work around or over it, and a click of the mouse changes the color of the "paint."














Another site offers similar color and paint effects, but the each stroke, each line, sways and swirls and then quickly dissipates, so quickly that a screen shot isn't even possible.

At Bomomo, you can make art with a persistence on the page that's similar to the works created at the Pollock site, but instead of paintings you generate a kind of abstract sketch, as seen below. No doubt, my immense talent is becoming obvious.















Another fun site for art is Screaming duck. Here users can create images with moving parts: whatever is drawn in blue or green moves, perfect for rendering images of water or grass. I guess you could make clouds move too, by coloring in most of the sky blue but leaving spaces that would represent clouds, which would appear to move as the blue sky around them actually did, but that seems like a lot of effort. Instead, I drew an underwater scene, as you can see.












The fish don't move, but the water and the sea grass does.













Boy that's wonderful. If you weren't inspired to create something of your own before, I bet you sure are now. By all means, go to one of these sites and try it yourself.

Or just stay here. Another site that generates a kind of art is Dreamlines. It isn't the user that creates it exactly, though, but you influence it and it generates some pretty cool images.

You just type in a word or phrase, or your "dream," and the application uses lines and colors to illustrate this "dream" of yours. First, I entered the topic of a real dream i have on a recurring basis: Being stuck in a ridiculously long line at Walgreen's. Actually I have that experience in real life on a recurring basis also.
































And in a few seconds my "dream" was loaded and off it went, taking shape and then constantly changing; it emerged as a series of images that flowed in and out of one another.









































That isn't really how it looks in my actual dream when i have it, but it's pretty cool nonetheless. The image continues to evolve endlessly, or at least i never reached any end with it. Eventually some sort of subliminal message is included in the background--i don't know what it says but i had an incredible urge to eat at Dave's House of Pizza after i got done here--and then eventually that is drawn over and the imagery continues...


























































and is truly mesmerizing...

Get Advice Online, From A Llama. Naturally You Would

We all have problems and we all need advice sometimes. On the Naked Dancing Llama site, web surfers like you and i can benefit from the wisdom of the llama, studying the animal's thoughtful words and even ask it personal questions, which he/she will answer via email.
























I have more than one question i want answered, of course, but decided to ask the llama for advice regarding a most pressing issue.































I waited for a day or two, checking my email hourly sometimes, because it is such a pressing matter. Eventually i gave up hoping i would ever get the response i was waiting for and so desperately needed. That llama really let me down.

Incidentally he/she has political aspirations, so keep your eye out. If this llama decides to run for public office again, he/she has definitely lost any chance of gaining my support.


















Luckily there is no shortage of sites where one can seek advice from other people, rather than animals who are notoriously unreliable anyway I'm now remembering.

Live Person is a little deceiving, as there are a few people available for live online chat, but most of the advisers here are only reachable via email, then you have to wait and wait, like all the others.























Family Therapy Net is another source of mostly free online advice on a number of topics. I sent in a very personal question to the good doctor, and then waited patiently for the email response.

































Well this Dr. Green is no llama, he got back to me via email right away and lent me the following priceless advice for dealing with social difficulties:

Identify a person... real or imagined... that you believe has the social qualities that you wish you had. Then put out effort to pretend to be that identified social person. Next, fake it until you make it! Best wishes.

Jeffrey R. Greene, Ph.D., PCC, FAPA



Online Love Advice is another fun site that answers your questions (they apparently don't have to be about love) instantly. I asked about my prospects for finding love and acceptance, and didn't get the response i was hoping for.







































So, I turned back to the pressing issue of rotting bodies, then, as this is still my most immediate concern. I mean, i already knew nobody is ever going to love me. My mom told me that years ago and i don't know why i am still so hung up about it. Those corpses, though, have got to go. My online adviser did little more, however, than acknowledge my dilemma.