How not to buy happiness. In effect, I wish to propose two different answers to the question “Does money buy happiness?” more inside

Curious George Calls the Cops When do you, personally, call the cops on strangers? Visible blood? Scary noises next door? Damn kids in your Jello Tree again? To screw over your annoying neighbours and their stupid loud stereo/dogs/opinions at odds with yours? Never, because you won't be a brainwashed stooge of The Man? Is 911 on speed dial? Or ranked with 666? I ask because I had to ponder the people in the apartment next door and their very loud and possibly dangerous bout of wall-punching, door-breaking and general screechiness at 2 am last night.

Celebrity Conceit: In the spirit of Melanie Griffith, Star Jones is the latest personality to pervert her own website.

Curious George I recently obtained some china that belonged to my husband's grandmother. I would like to find out where and when it was manufactured, except I have no clue how to go about it. I would like to start online with the research of the china. Any monkeys know of any web sites that I can look up the hallmarks on?

radiorocket A concept (sort of) music video featuring the Rocketcam and 2+2=5. Damn cool, and the launch/touchdown is timed amazingly.

Parallel Park. Some mindless Monday Flash fun. Via ABS. more inside

Water bears! No, this isn't a double post; these bears are microscopic critters who slurp the innards of plant cells. Water bears dwell in oceans, ponds, swamps, caves, and backyards from Sweden to South Africa to Bloomington, Illinois. You may think these amazing little jelly-bags are extremophiles but they're really just waiting for something better. more inside

Book-A-Minute Classics! Feed your head in under 60 seconds (or, probably, less). Great expectations, Jane Eyre, Light in August and the collected works of E.E. Cummings, others.

Curious George: Avoiding what I deserve. So I woke up today after having a wholesome Sunday composed for the most part of body paint, Stolichnaya and ginger beer, and was wondering if there was anyway to prevent the headaches/slowness of mind/cramps/faint hallucinations often experienced the morning after such activities now that I'm at work today and trying to be a responsible adult. Please help me. This is unbearable. AND MY COWORKERS MUST NOT KNOW. Currently alt-tabbing between this and excel. more inside

American Antigravity Lightning-beam guns! Gravity beams! Vortex-thrusters! Yes, it's American Antigravity! (Oh, and don't miss the non-lethal directed lightning)

Curious George - Am I being courted for a cult? By coworkers not surprisingly. The other day, I'm in the break area and see a couple of coworkers talking. They ask me how my day was going, and I told them that like everyone else, it wasn't going great. One of them piped up, "It doesn't have to be that way, you know." more inside

Gmail or Gawab mail? 1 GB of email?

Starfish Bored with your old desktop picture? Need a good background for a website? Try this free (as in speech and beer) image generator for OS 9, OS X, and Windows. Not only do the images tile seamlessly, you can customize color schemes with different palettes and share seed numbers. Or you can just keep generating random images while contemplating the pretty colors.

Misunderstanding Iraq. According to this article, the US and the new Iraqi government doesn't have a chance. The reason: Saddam understands Iraq....and we don't. [International Herald Tribune printer friendly]

Curious George: Why the light pink background? As I was reading the FAQ, I came to this part of it, discussing monkeyfilter's color scheme. I've been curious why light pink was chosen for the background, and I was really suprised to read that a majority of monkeys prefer that color. But now I suspect that it's supposed to be a different color, like maybe it's supposed to be the same purple Tracy's weblog uses. Is this right?

Koko Calls For The Dentist.

Curious George -- info suck My average internet usage has tripled, then quadrupled in the last few weeks, although the basic way I use my connection hasn't changed and nor have my surfing habits. I don't have a website, (well, I do have a small one, but there's nothing on it), I don't do any filesharing, and all virus definitions are updated (and I'm on a Mac, so there's nothing really current out there anyway). My ISP says that there's a lot of usage going on when I connect. What the hell is going on? Ideas? As it stands, this is costing me money, and I don't like it. Thanks!

Remember the cartoon Smurfs? They were communists, according to this article. It makes sense, in an odd way.

Here's a monkeychallenge: what the hell IS this?
"access is restricted to invited subscribers only. the waiting list is approximately 18-22 months. cost is $50 for a [CD key] and $10 per month to get on the waiting list." For what?

Kitties! Kitties! Kitties!