Here goes. Sing with us. Maaa-carena, Macarena, Macarena, Macarena! (Pause. Take breath). Macarena, Macarena, Macarena, Macarena. Heeeey, Macarena (with how-to images). Again. MMMMMMacarena, Macarena, Macarena, Macarena. Heeeey, Macarena (this one with how-to text). In case you don't already know, the Macarena is a dance, a craze, an Electric Slide of these here times. And this is the latest selection of Picks. Welcome.
You can call the Macarena a Can-Can of sorts, but can you can? The reason we ask is, Home Canning Online makes it so you can can. At home, no less. Provided by the folks at Bernardin, Ltd. (they make home canning products) the site also preserves a fairly large amount of free information. Here, you'll find a searchable collection of recipes, a large number of useful tips and a home canning forum. Now we'd like to say something about keeping a lid on it and getting into a jam, but we won't. That would be a canned response.
Speaking of canned responses, do you know what to do the next time you get one of those unsolicited solicitations while eating dinner? The Anti-Telemarketer Source, in its own words, is dedicated to "providing the public with a humorous, and informative way of battling unwanted telephone sales calls." The VinMan has put together a collection of facts you should know if you'd like to be out of the sales loop, so to speak, as well as rather interesting personal tactics (pick the one you're most comfortable with) and a list of sometimes hilarious links. (See Telemarketer Fun).
Here's an idea that really takes the cake. Manfred and Gordon's Virtual Patisserie is kind of, sort of, maybe a cross between Like Water for Chocolate and Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, with a dose of dessert porn thrown in for good measure. We have no idea what dessert porn is, but thought we'd say that anyway. It's hard to explain Red's Revenge, or Bogart's Folly, much less to explain a collection of links that include x-ray images of cakes and pies. But we like it. At yeast it rises to the occasion. Further obligatory puns: it frosts our cupcakes. They can have their cake and eat it, too. Let them eat cake. The proof is in the pudding. (Don't email any others, we'll have our telemarketers call you.)
Okay, time to get serious. Just the facts. As it happens, just the FAQs is what you'll get at FAQ Finder, a plethora of links to FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) online, organized into appropriate and thoroughly useful categories. Developed by Philip Kallerman and Ras Jarborg of Stockholm, Sweden, the database also offers you the chance to add more. Here we learned that domestic pet ferrets are otherwise known as Mustela furo, but sometimes called Mustela putorius furo. How about that? There's a lot of facts to FAQs.
From the fact or fiction department, we have Musee Imaginaire, an Italian site exhibiting legal fakes of art masterpieces. Take a virtual tour of the museum and peruse their selection, which includes reproduced Renoir, kopied Klimpt, pretend Picasso and Pissarro, make believe Monet, Magritte, Modigliani and a slew of other pilfered paintings and painters.
Don't like fake masterpieces? What? You want to see Dave's Wonderful World of Yo-Yos instead? Fine. Go ahead. Just remember: you've thrown us for a loop (de-loop). The site has its ups and downs. Many.
Richard Lederer likes language. He's a veritable verbivore. He has a penchant for puns. He points out that English "is the only language in which you drive in a parkway and park in a driveway and night falls but never breaks and day breaks but never falls." He points out a whole bunch else, too. Sometimes he points it out in Salon Magazine. Which is to say, in other words (plenty of other words), Richard Lederer's site is Pun Central. (Note: the last sentence of this paragraph was meant to be something funny about Richard Lederer's site. But we couldn't come up with anything, and hey, why pun-ish ourselves and you?)
Finally, an unrelated, fascinating story. The short version: In December, 1994, a Chinese university student named ZHU Ling became gravely ill. The symptoms of her disease were peculiar and proved difficult (if not impossible) to diagnose. You can read about them in detail at this site. In March, 1995, ZHU Ling was hospitalized and shortly thereafter fell into a coma. Tests, treatments and consultations by a number of specialists and doctors were inconclusive and did not cure her. In April of the same year, BEI Zhicheng, a student at Beijing University, "sent an SOS e-mail message through the Internet", documenting the case and asking for help. The longer version of this amazing tale, including what happened next is at First International Telemedicine Trial. We suggest you stop there when you take your pick(s).
(Also: we've been given one hundred Yahoo! t-shirts for a Picks of the Week contest. We'd like you to email us suggestions, thoughts, amazing plans for this contest. Send your ideas to dumb-contest@yahoo.com. If we use yours, there'll only be 99 t-shirts to give away.)