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>>> Feb. 3, 2000
Wild Wild West Hang 'em high: Now that the plug has been pulled on iCraveTV, high-speed video junkies need a new source of flickering light and sound. What better to fulfill this need than an old Western, streamed direct to your desktop courtesy of Yahoo! Broadcast.com. Ensure you have Windows Media Player installed and you're off to the O.K. Corral, without the riding sores. Saddle up at www.broadcast.com/ broadband/Movies_And_Film/Westerns. Pop PopImage: The Web's premier comix e-zine is celebrating its second year of existence. This month's PopImage includes interviews with Vertigo editor Axel Alonso, and a review of the classic graphic novel Maus, so if comix are your thing, it's www.popimage.com/ for you. Bork Bork Bork: This one's been around a while, but it's still fresh. The Automatic WWW Text Borkifier www. astro.queensu.ca/~dursi/borker.html will translate any Web site into the Swedish Chef's babble. Hefe-a luts ooff foon! : Michael Citrome |
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>>> Jan. 27, 2000 The funky ostrich Video memories: Here in the midst of the winter blahs, one's mind veers toward nostalgia. Rather than regretting lost love, why not celebrate lost time spent in an '80s arcade? ClassicGaming.com, at www.classicgaming.com, is the top site for retro video games. Remember Joust? Well, with the magic of emulators and some help from the site, you can sip a flat New Coke out of a plastic straw while making little ostriches attack each other from the comfort of your own home. It's the O.G. Merger mania: We all know about AOL-Time Warner-EMI, but the question still remains: what would happen if Zippo, Audi, Dofasco and Dakota Mining merged? Would the resulting conglomerate be called Zip Audi Do-Da? Ponder this one and many more at www.edu-orchard.net/PROFESS/HUMOR/ralph28.html. Mmm, filth: As you finish off that bag of Cheetos, have you ever considered how much rodent hair it might contain? The U.S. FDA Food Defect Action Levels guide lists exactly how many insects can be in your box of raisins before it's considered contaminated. Cringe in horror at http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/dalbook.html. Michael Citrome |
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>>> Jan. 20, 2000 MP3 to go Borrowing without returning: MP3 supersite mp3.com has recently launched my.mp3.com, a new site that lets you listen to your own CDs online, even if you're in Finland and they're on your desk back in Ville St-Laurent. All you have to do is download the free Beam-it software from my.mp3.com and insert your CD into the drive. The program confirms that you do indeed own the album, and will then allow you to listen to it in streaming mp3 format from the site. The whole process takes under a minute. A record is kept of all the CDs you beam, so you can listen to all of your albums at any time. Of course, a clever and subversive way to exploit this system is to create a single account on my.mp3.com and share it with all your friends, allowing you to listen to all of each other's CDs, but you didn't get that idea from me. Chia puberty: Classical marble statues with leafy green growths. Wonder no longer: www.chickenhead.com/features/chia/index.html. Michael Citrome |
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>>> Jan. 13, 2000 Kiss those phone bills goodbye Call your mom: In the two months since its launch, the free long distance telephone Web site dialpad.com has registered more than 1 million users and logged over 37 million minutes of talk. Anyone can register at (www.dialpad.com/) and call any number in the U.S. for free--provided they have a Java-capable Web browser, a microphone and speakers. The revolution extends to long-distance pranking: it's now possible to look up A. Gorilla or Mary Christmas in any phone book from Memphis to Miami. Check out Yahoo! People Search (http://people.yahoo.com/) and search by last name or location, and find out whose refrigerator is running, and if they can catch it. Old school Xmas rocking: A belated Xmas gift for all you fans of the old school. Old School Cuts (www.oldschoolcuts.com/) has something special: live MP3s of the 1981 Christmas Rappers Convention in NYC. Original performances by Busy Bee, Kool Moe Dee, The Force MCs and others, all for free. : Michael Citrome |
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>>> Dec. 16, 1999 Only 9 spending days left Relive the '70s: Evel Knievel is the man who calls death a "skinny goth sissy." What could be a better Xmas gift for the Bauhaus fan in your life than a pin with Evel's likeness (with or without motorcycle of death) emblazoned on it? This is only one of the items you'll find at Flashbacks (http://www.flashbacks.com/), which offer one of the largest selections of nostalgia crap on the Web. For $4.95 you can get a John Travolta postcard book; then again, if you prefer cars and rednecks over Vinnie Barbarino, $12.95 will buy you a Dukes of Hazard musical watch. Yee haw! Monster truck Christmas: If the General Lee isn't car enough for you, maybe a 40-foot-tall, propane flame-breathing robot might be more your style. The Robot Store is now offering Robosaurus for sale on their Web site (http://www.robotstore. com/assembled_robots/robosaurus.html). Seen at monster truck shows all over the world, Robosaurus conveniently folds up into a standard trailer for easy transportation. It may not fit under the tree, but it could certainly eat the tree. Michael Citrome |
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>>> Dec. 9, 1999 Surfing The Boob Tube According to a recent survey by NPD Online Research, 86 per cent of Net users with a television in the same room as their computer watch TV while surfing the Web. For those of us not lucky enough to have a cable TV so close by as to join in on the trend, iCraveTV (http://www.icravetv.com/), a brand-new Web site launched last week, offers all the Canadian broadcast networks--and then some, all thanks to RealNetworks' RealPlayer software--for free! Although dialup users might find the video quality limited, Netizens on DSL or Cable will become fast fans of the site, with clear, fluid video and high quality sound. TV channels currently available include the big American networks, CBC, Global, PBS and TVO, as well as some channels not available here, including CityTV, NewVR and the WB--so catching the Dilbert animated show is now a rational possibility. Online listings are also available, so if you're bored and sleepless at 3 a.m., you can decide between Married With Children and The Six Million Dollar Man. -- Michael Citrome |
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>>> Dec. 2, 1999 It's Menorah Time! Evening the score: Chanukah begins this week and it's about time us Jews cashed in on the cavalcade of cheap Xmas merchandise the Christians have been enjoying all this time. Montreal-based Oy Vey Productions have created the character of Hanukah Howie, and he's out to give Santa some competition as the jolly-bearded figurehead of the holiday season. You can read his story and buy some shoddily constructed Hanukah Howie merchandise at his Web site (http://www.hanukahhowie.com). Spin a dreidel wtih Kirk and Spock: Adam Sandler's new CD, Stan and Judy's Kid, includes the "Chanukah Song II," which lists more people who are Jewish, including Bill Shatner and Len Nimoy. Also, check out Sandler's new animated short, The Peeper (http://peeper.wbr.com/). It's crude, offensive and just in time for the holidays. Roots.chanukah: For some last-minute Chanukah shopping for that special Jew on your list, check out Roots' Web site (http://www. roots.com/) and indulge their memories of Jewish summer camp. A vast selection of Roots clothing, leather goods and furniture is available, and it's quicker than a trip to the Cavendish Mall. -- Michael Citrome |
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>>> Nov. 25, 1999 Alley elves Every so often an online fad breaks out and everyone's mailbox is flooded with the latest craze to hit the Net. This week, Elf Bowling suddenly appeared, and overnight millions of people were mowing down little pointy-eared men with virtual bowling balls. A creation of those nutty programmers at Nstorm (www.nstorm.com), Elf Bowling lets Santa loose on a bowling alley with elves as pins. The fun lies in the fact that normal pins don't move, taunt, or get accidentally decaptitated. Ill communication: The Beastie Boys just released their new anthology, The Sounds of Science, but through their Web site at www.beastieboys.com you can create your own 40 track, 2 disc set from several hundred available songs. This stunt is a first for a major artist. Mullets Galore: Check out www.mulletsgalore.com and explore a field guide to that most elusive of redneck phenomena, the mullet. Also called hockey hair, the mullet is the official haircut of NASCAR, Pabst Blue Ribbon and various brands of shootin' stuff. -- Michael Citrome |
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>>> Nov. 18, 1999 MP3 made very, very easy Possibly the hottest thing going on the net right now, Napster is a name sure to be on everyone's lips as the holidays roll around and we all have a bit more time to waste. Billed as a "music community," Napster is bar none the best way to find MP3s on the Net. Once you download the Napster client you instantly have access to hundreds of thousands of MP3s. Napster will automatically list your MP3 files and make them available for download. You can also search through all the MP3s offered by Napster users and download whichever ones you want, with no restrictions. Unlike most MP3 sites, which are unreliable or force you to upload to get songs, Napster is free and every song you find will be available because it only lists MP3s currently online. To give you some idea: a sample search for A Tribe Called Quest turned up more than 30 songs. Get the Napster client, currently only available for Windows PCs, at www.napster.com. -- Michael Citrome |
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>>> Nov. 11, 1999 Do not pass go, Bill Gates Looks like Microsoft may soon meet the same fate as Ma Bell and be broken into pieces, now that a U.S. federal court judge ruled that the software empire broke antitrust laws. You can read up on the verdict at Yahoo! Full Coverage (http://fullcoverage.yahoo.com/fc/Tech/Microsoft_Antitrust_Trial/). The court may have declared Microsoft a monopoly, but one site claims that MS founder Bill Gates is in fact the spawn of Satan. Bill Gates: The Antichrist (http://www.freeyellow.com/members4/privantu/bill666.htm) may be one man's swan dive off the deep end, but some of his arguments are convincing. Is the Windows logo really the mark of the beast? The whole Microsoft fiasco came about from the inclusion of Internet Explorer as part of the Windows operating system. As it happens, many people actively dislike MSIE. Check out Internet Exploiter (http://www.jwp.bc.ca/saulm/ie4/) for your RDA of cruelty. Of course, another option is to dispense with Internet Explorer and go back to the old school. Browzerz R Us (http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Network/7070/vintage.html) offers a selection of vintage browsers including Netscape 1.0 and Mosaic. Frames? Bah! -- Michael Citrome |