Welcome to this week's selection of Picks, declassified and hot off the press thanks to the Freedom of Information Act. Well, okay, not really. But we like to pretend. On the other hand, if you would like to peruse what once was private but now is public (in a federal government sense of the word), head on over to The National Security Archive. An independent, non-governmental research institute and library, the NSArchive is where you'll find declassified U.S. documents that shed light on anything from the Nixon-Presley Meeting (Elvis wanted to be a Federal Agent at Large!) to the Cuban Missile Crisis and a handful of White House e-mail in-between.
We're also eggstatic to report that the National Geographic Society recently hatched its newest online creation, Dinosaur Eggs. So: where to begin with the bad yolks? The Society may have put all its eggs in one basket with this one, but they're definitely not walking on egg shells in the process. The site offers a hard-boiled look at fossil researchers and dinosaur hunters (eggheads, perhaps) as they scramble to open fossilized eggs and reveal the embryos inside. Does this make them modern day poachers? We'd like to know. We'll let that thought incubate for a while and, in the meantime, without trying to hen peck, we really think you should take a crack at this great site.
We know it's rotten, but we're on an (egg) roll and there's more! As it happens, the American Egg Board has come out of its shell with the Incredible Edible Egg World Wide Web Site. Most eggcellent. Here, you'll find recipes (some of which don't go over easy, see: egg salad pizza cones), basic egg facts (and you thought Albumen was a band name!), egg safety and the potentially eggcentric, yet interesting, Eggcyclopedia. Mmmm, egg-salady.
What? You don't like eggs? You'd prefer to learn how to remove all the seeds from a watermelon? Fine. Go ahead. But let us seed this thought in your mind: although the site is useful, you've made us a little melon-choly.
In other fruit related news (and, as it happens, from the shameless plug department), the Big Apple and surrounding areas has a new guide. Take a bite out of Yahoo! New York, the latest in our harvest of regional web directories. You know the routine. Find a searchable index of local sites, as well as New York message boards, a guide to nightlife (courtesy The Village Voice), local news and sports coverage (WCBS), the Daily Dish (New York Daily News), theater listings and info (Playbill), classifieds and a whole tree (grows in Brooklyn!) of other... stuff.
Now, a serious note. We realize that in these politically charged times its only fair to offer both sides of the story. The story in this case is something we covered in last week's selection of Picks. We're sure you can imagine the severity of this matter and so, without further ado, we'd like to do what is just, correct and noble, that is: call attention to the oh so official Macarena Free Zone. Thanks to Smile, part of the Sacramento Bee's online presence, you can cultivate your Anti-Macarena-ness here.
Barbie doesn't Macarena. If she did, we'd know about it. Afterall, we have been to The Barbie Chronicles. Created by photographer Dean Brown, the site takes "a capricious look at the Plastic Darlin's infamous days... and nights." Here you'll find a series of often hilarious photographs of Barbie doing what she does best. Which seems to be anything and everything. Our favorite is Barbie's History of Art, which brings new meaning to our understanding of Whistler's The Artist's Mother, Gauguin's Tahitian Caprice, Manet's Olympia and a whole slew of other objets d'art. Isn't there a phrase written somewhere, Ceci n'est pas une Barbie Doll? We just don't know.
While on the topic of not knowing things, if you don't know the location of the nearest ATM machine, try VISA's new ATM Locator. Exactly what it sounds like, the site allows you to pick a state from a graphical map then specify your street address (and more, if known) and it'll throw back the three ATMs closest to you. You can also choose to view the locator's worldwide listings, which are informative but not as specific as the U.S.
Finally, Dave Barry in Cyberspace. Throughout this month, the recently revamped Yahoo! Internet Life site is publishing excerpts from Dave's hilarious new book. We learned from chapters already online that: the ancient Egyptians used numbers to build the pyramids and keep score in bowling, there's more to Stonehenge than meets the eye and Da Vinci was pretty much ahead of his time. The rest you'll have to read yourself. Excerpts appear every MondayWednesdayFriday, through October 9. Future installments include "How To Buy A Computer" and "The Evil Genius of MS-DOS", amongst others. There's only one small thing left to say. What is it? Take your pick(s).
(Our contest: We have one hundred Yahoo! t-shirts to be given away in some kind of Picks contest. Last week we asked you to email us your ideas. You did. Some people emailed URLs, but that's okay, even though you should send those to suggest-picks@yahoo.com. The ideas are great. We'd love to see more. Again, if we use your idea, you'll get the first shirt. Email dumb-contest@yahoo.com. Thanks!)