Here's a question: you've seen a dream, a bather, a soccer player (well, okay, maybe only the dynamism of the soccer player) and you've done the Broadway Boogie Woogie on a starry night, where are you? Why, you're hanging out with Les Demoiselles d'Avignon at New York's MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art. Besides the handful of images from the museum's previously alluded to painting and sculpture collection, you'll also find links to drawings, prints, illustrated books, architecture, design, photography, film, video and oh so much more. Included amongst the MoMA's current exhibits is Picasso and Portraiture: Representation and Transformation; read all about it at this truly resourceful site.
Here's another question: you've been singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Planet Earth" while performing the "Mexican Cat Dance", you've come "Zooming Around the Mountain" looking for a "Home on the Range", you feel a little like "A Bird in a Loaded Twee", where are you? Why, you're hanging out with the Barnyard Ladies at the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes Karaoke site. If you want to sing along with the likes of Yosemite Sam, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck and the rest of the gang, you'll need a copy of RealAudio, but either way we found that simply reading the lyrics was worthwhile. Turns out that Daffy has his own insights into web-related matters. This week we learned "kindness redeems the dethpicable."
While on the subject of questions and answers, try Reuters' Health Information Services, which provides medical links and information to folks and organizations in the healthcare field. Our favorite section is the weekly Clinical Challenge, which presents a work-up of a given patient and (based on symptoms and certain vital facts like blood pressure, past history and such) you're asked to make your diagnosis. You don't need to be in the medical field to enjoy these challenges, which range from "a salesman with frequent attacks of intense facial flushing", to a "57 year old male carpenter with fever", to "four brief calcium problems." Be sure to read clinical challenge #10, which tells the true story of a foreign diplomat's delirium shortly after arriving in the U.S. The answer is amazing, to say the least.
And while on the subject of RealAudio, you oughta get a whiff of RealAroma, the next big thing to make a stink on the Net, offering lucky users the chance to "Reach Out and Smell Someone," "Click and Sniff" and "Surf and Smell." Yes, this heaven "scent" technology is definitely the cheese: using fragrance push and ATML (Aroma Text Markup Language) you can "share smells in real time, over the Internet, with olfactory buddies all over the globe." Nobody nose better than the folks at RealAroma, who promise the release of SmellU SmellMe aroma conferencing software in the near future. You'll be "incensed" if you miss the developers' corner, which offers ATML tips and smell codes for apple blossom, bread baking, ballet slipper, b.o. (the moderate and NYC taxi varieties), lemon, pizza, sweaty headband and wet sheep, to name but a few.
The folks at GlobaLearn, a not for profit corporation with the mission "to prepare children for global citizenship and develop in them the skills, awareness and determination to become responsible stewards of the earth", recently completed their Black Sea Nations Expedition. Visit their informative site to discover more about GlobaLearn, explore the countries and cultures that surround the Black Sea and meet a handful of expedition hosts, children growing up in the region. Here we learned that fourteen year old Lena Shishova from Russia loves to dance, while ten year old Vladik Krushev of the Ukraine thinks about his day as he falls asleep at night, "whether I made mistakes or whether I was good", and the well-organized Ibrahim Unal from Turkey includes on his daily schedule "11:00 I read for fun." Apparently Ibrahim likes "eating french fries for breakfast, but my mother doesn't always let me. I drink one glass of tea."
For more world travel, try the Alive! Global Network, a "coalition of Websites reflecting the diversity of culture, art, news, politics, commerce, and events around the world." Participants in the cooperative "adhere to the principles of quality, free expression, tastefulness, and tolerance of differing views" and represent a wide range of communities, from Manhattan to Morocco, Helsinki to Hong Kong, Belgium to Brazil and just about everything in-between.
An entirely different kind of expedition, the Hoops Nation Basketball Tour chronicles the adventures of Chris Ballard and three fellow basketball players as they spend seven months on the road, making their way around the U.S., meeting players and playing pick-up basketball in the "best gyms, rec centers, asphalt playgrounds, and concrete courts the nation has to offer." Chris is in the process of writing a book titled Hoops Nation: A Guide to Pick-up Basketball in America, which, naturally, will describe what he finds out there. Yup, there could be worse ways to do research.
Take for instance James Joyce's Ulysses. Most of us develop sweaty palms just thinking about writing a research paper on the tome. We're glad to tell you that now (thanks to the hilarious Ulysses for Dummies) you can at least have a general idea of what happens to Leopold Bloom on June 16, 1904, in Dublin. The next time you're at a party and you say "Ah, Ulysses", you can really pronounce that "Ah" with emphasis and confidence. You've seen it on the web and it makes sense.
In television news, try TVplex.com, "your one-stop info resource for all Touchstone and Buena Vista Television shows." Read about "Home Improvement," "Nowhere Man," and "Ellen", amongst others, download video clips and photographs, or check out the latest film reviews from Siskel & Ebert. The dynamic duo celebrate two decades together this year. (This is where we decide to say "Two thumbs up for that", but then agree to leave it out because it's too cheesy.)
Finally, "the first and last cookbook you'll ever need", True Southern Family Recipes, by Drew W. Weeks, offers almost 300 "family-tested" recipes for "quick meals with outstanding flavor." The site promotes a book of the same name, but you can also browse online for free. Besides the usual fare (barbecued chicken, buttermilk biscuits, cajun shrimp, apple coffee cake, and other delicious morsels) you can try your hand at the more exotic sounding dishes, like: Oven Porcupines, Creamed Dried Beef on Toast, Grits Casserole, and Crystal Light Lemon Pie. Yum. Just one thing left to do: take your pick(ings).