Ancient History: The Psychedelic '60s - Literary Tradition and Social Change

The tireless folks in the special collections department of the University of Virginia Library have assembled an exhibit of materials about the social movements of The 1960s in the United States, emphasizing the literature of the period, featuring articles and images on the Beats, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, Timothy Leary, the Black Mountain Poets, hippies, Woodstock, illicit drugs, political protests, et cetera, plus handbills, posters, and other memorabilia from those bygone and nearly forgotten days.
<http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/sixties/>

The Lit'ry Life: The Gore Vidal Index

This unofficial fanzine about essayist and novelist Gore Vidal, by a journalism instructor at the University of Pittsburgh, has a brief biography, thumbnail reviews of the writer's books, images of the covers of editions in translation, the transcript of a 1991 interview, and links to related material and sites. <http://www.pitt.edu/\>

Resources: Real answers from real people

At Amazon's free satellite site, Askville, you can ask any question on any topic and get real answers from real people who apparently have a huge amount of time on their hands. What's in it for Amazon? They take the opportunity to offer products related to the topic of the question. <http://askville.amazon.com/>

Shopping: Sales On Line

For current deals on a variety of products, go to SalesCircular, select your state, then pick a category of interest. Best to review this late Saturday or Sunday morning because Best Buy and Circuit City sales start then -- go to their web sites directly, too. <http://www.SalesCircular.com/>

Astronomy: Fantastic Pictures from NASA

George Lucas,
eat your heart out:

Flickr

DIY: Free Personalize Ring Tones

If you're tired of digging out your phone whenever someone else's cell rings, you could buy a couple of commercially available "customized" rings. But if you really want to personalize your phone, why not create your own at Phonezoo.com? Creating a ringtone is as simple as uploading a favorite sound file, selecting the part of the file that you want answering your phone, and downloading your mini-masterpiece to your cell through the service. Other Phonezoo users have already created some terrific (and some truly awful) ringtones, and you can also use them on your phone to save time and effort. <http://www.Phonezoo.com>

Creativity: 10 Most Brilliant Gadgets of 2007

"Big Ideas for a Better World....For [Popular Mechanics] third annual innovation celebration, we honor...10 cutting-edge products." -- from the Popular Mechanics website.

Good Eatin': How to Consume a Kiwano

The Kiwano (aka, the Horned Melon, melano, African horned cucumber, jelly melon, hedged gourd, or English tomato) is a fruit native to a region of the Kalahari Desert. When picked green and allowed to ripen, the fruit tastes like a mix of cucumber and kiwifruit. When it's picked fully ripe, it has a banana-like taste. Here's some help from wikiHow.

Transportation: NYC Subway Sites

Here's a cool animated time-lapse map of the NYC subway system showing the order in which the lines were built. If you're a real train nut, you will also want to look at the history of the NYC subway, photos of the IRT's first stations, and -- though be warned that you'll probably get hooked -- a treasure trove of historical NYC subway maps.

Audio: Download readings of science fiction short stories

MindWebs, a radio series produced in Madison in the late 70s and early 80s, features semi-dramatized readings of stories by the likes of Norman Spinrad, Arthur C. Clarke, Gordon R. Dickson and Ray Bradbury.
<http://www.archive.org/details/MindWebs-SciFi>

The Arts: Degas

"Edgar Degas (1834 -1917)
was an outspoken proponent of a new sensibility....
Degas's style, subject matter,
and artistic sensibility
set him apart from the other Impressionists....
Learn more about Edgar Degas,
his times, his work, and his collection
through this on-line exploration...."
-- from the website.
<http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/Degas/html/index.html>

Tools: expense tracking on line

One of the biggest problems with maintaining an up-to-date record of expenses is that it is hard sometimes to remember and to record correctly expenditures that you incurred this morning, let alone weeks ago. It makes sense to document them as soon as they occur, and an online service like Xpenser makes that much easier to do. There are a variety of ways in which you can record payouts with Xpenser, including e-mail, SMS, IM, even verbally via phone. Once recorded, you can manage your expenses on line. <http://www.xpenser.com/>

By the way, phone input to Xpenser is done with the help of Jott, a service for creating voice-to-text-messages and voice-to-emails. Very easy to use and occasionally handy. <http://www.jott.com/>

DIY: It's A Do-It-Youself Life

DIY Life is a recipe book of great do-it-yourself projects, how-to's, ideas and tips -- how to get a perfect tan without the sun, chill a bottle of wine in under 10 minutes, propagate new plants from cuttings, turn a light bulb into a Sea Monkey condo, get spilled paint off the carpet, conserve water while irrigating or use your digital camera as a PDA, plus reviews and safety recalls, in such areas as home improvement, hobbies and crafts, technology projects, and home and family ideas. <http://www.diylife.com/>