Delphion Research - not the most thrilling intellectual property website, definitely not the best of the web. But their archives of obscure patents (complete with animated demonstrations)? Entertaining. And...odd.

Everett: a permanent ecovillage Some guy I don't know named Daniel Rirdan sent me an email inviting me to join a venture he is starting. Its called the "Everett Venture", and he describes it as "a Burning Man-like, year-around settlement encompassing all aspects of living". The key thing here is that it appears to be focused on raising 150 children in a new way - the way Hillary Clinton recommended. Utopias have been often tried, and usually failed - sometimes ending up as creepy cult-like communities. more inside

The hanging of 38 Sioux at Mankato, Minnesota on December 26, 1862 following The Dakota Conflict Trials which condemned over three hundred participants stands as the largest mass execution in American history.

Cool Or Demented? Is Andrew McLean... more inside

Curious George - Digital Camera Buys? Hi all. Can anyone here point me to a non-biased resource (web page or publication) that has well researched, up-to-date reviews of digital still cameras? I've been itching to buy something in the neighborhood of $400-$600 that would also allow me to have some substanital manual control and as well as easy point and click capabilities when I need them. Obviously, the higher the pixils and bigger the chip the better. And I don't need SLR, but if a cool one exists in my price range, I'd consider it.

The Real World: Des Moines Imagine the reality TV high jinx when 8 polymorphously perverse beings (3 females & 5 males) begin sharing a $10 million, 13,000-square-foot home near downtown Des Moines... Are any of you one of the chosen?

Darth Vader's got a blog Because even dark lords of the Sith have their bad days.

The Lump Charcoal Database. BBQ Season is here, time to roll out the grills and start smoking large hunks of meat. The lump charcoal database will help those of you that are BBQ obsessed pick the right lump charcoal for your needs. It includes the Lump FAQ, full Charcoal Reviews and a handy dandy Comparison Of Charcoal Burn Times And Ash Production. more inside

Curious George: Bring on the Bundt! I have the most awesome bundt pan, but I don't have an awesome recipe to go with it. What are your best recipes for bundt cake? more inside

Y-Fronts and foreigners are just two of the (four) topics discussed by animated teddy bears over at Ricky Gervais' website [he of 'The Office' fame]. Cute, funny, possibly NSFW (mild language / themes), oh, and QT.

The National Christian Art Competition is designed to promote and encourage Christian artists around the globe by creating a venue of high level interactive exposure through the world renowned site, www.ART4GOD.com. "We do not tell artists what to create; we just say 'CREATE!' This year we gave out $3,000 in Cash Awards and over $3,000 in gifts to the winners," founder Stephen Sawyer shared enthusiastically.

Curious George: Memory upgrade more inside

What weird/stupid/silly stuff have you done? Sometimes we all do things that we know are stupid, silly, dangerous or just plain weird. Of the stupid/silly variety are me yelling "moooo!!" at cows when they and I are in the immediate vicinity of one another. In the dangerous catagory, although I haven't done this in years, as a teenager I would close my eyes for 30 seconds while driving on the freeway at night. In the weird/stupid was about a year after my divorce when I looked up a "spell" on the net and tried to get back at the ex-wife by witch craft. So, give monkeys, what sort of goofy stuff have you done.

Faisa's "A Family in Baghdad" blog is something I read pretty much daily. Her son Raed is a friend of Salem Pax, the first Iraqi blogger. more inside

Bigfoot filmed in Canada this link supposedly includes the video, but bedamned if I can get it to work. And here. more inside

New Pope - Cardinal Joeseph Ratzinger is now Pope Benedict XVI

The London Line is an exciting new free London newspaper (sorry, rest of the world). Full of amazing stuff. Spot the monkey.

Microsoft Word grammar checker ain't so good. An associate professor of marketing at the University of Washington has found that the spelling and grammar checker in Microsoft Word aint what it's cracked up to be. He's been written up in the Seattle PI newspaper, MSNBC and even the dreaded Slashdot.

Nappycakes. For those times that you need a cake made out of diapers, and nothing else will do.

Russian Astrologist Plans to Crash NASA’s Independence Day Imagine a twist to the plot of the movie Deep Impact: besides the comet, NASA is pitted against a Russian astrologist who wants to sue the agency because destroying a comet would irrevocably harm her “system of spiritual values”. A comet is not threatening Earth, but NASA’s Deep Impact is set to collide with the Tempel-1 comet on July 4 and that has really upset one Russian astrologist.