Curious George: Annoying CD wallets. You know, these things. What ad wizard designed them? You can't label them because there's no place on them to affix a card. You can't write on them because they're jet black. You can't tape a label on because it falls off the nylon and makes it sticky. Any creative solutions for labelling them?

Curious George: How do you research old news stories? Do any fellow monkeys know of any site that archives or scans 20 or 30 years worth of major national news stories from AP/UPI/Reuters or major newspapers? Yes, I will likely pay a visit my city newspaper, but I'd be happy to pony up a little cash for instant gratification. I see the Houston Chronicle might be one possibility but it only goes back 19 years.

Curious George: Contact lenses. Anyone know of an online contact lens vendor that is not militant about a slightly expired prescription? more inside

Curious George: What is in turkey pastrami? Is there a website anywhere that lists exactly what meat is in different types of specialty meats -- e.g. salami, bratwurst, hot dogs, etc? All websites I've found use vague adjectives such as "beef" or "pork". Sorry, I am a picky about meat and don't want to be eating offal, organs, and snouts. Or lips and a-holes, to quote John Candy.

Face blindness. This analogy is from Cecilia Burman's prosopagnosia pages, loaded with fantastic graphics and visuals on this strange affliction. As someone who cannot remember new faces until I've had weeks of contact, social situations can be annoying, frustrating, and sometimes a tad offensive.

Will your baby have Asperger's syndrome? A university study released last week reveals that tilting the body of infants at the age of six months reveals indicators for Asperger's Syndrome, a high-function form of autism. The study was printed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and builds on a 1998 study. more inside

Curious George: Big mouths in New York. No, I'm not referring to verbal behavior. Rather I've been noticing a pattern with typical Caucasian women from the northeast U.S. having larger mouths and fuller lips, compared to those here in Texas. more inside

The abacus. Great website devoted to the first mathematical calculator. If you've ever been curious about how they work, this should teach you all you need to know. A nice complement to the slide rule thread.

Curious George: Kerry waffles? Does anyone know whether Kerry lives up to the allegations that he waffles on issues, or is this taken out of context? I manage a large, closed phpBB board, and Bush supporters, who have a 41% lead over Kerry supporters according to a poll I ran last week (90 votes), seem largely fixated on this one point.

Curious George: Hosted server I need some help from the monkeys here for finding a reliable hosted web server. more inside

What OS are you? Cute quiz if you've got time to answer twenty questions. more inside

Curious George: E-mail bouncing service? I recently had to close an E-mail box on my hosted server since it was getting 300 spams per day. This address was important though, and I'd like to bounce messages with an unharvestable graphics image of my new E-mail address for the benefit of the few legit people who try writing me. Unfortunately.... more inside

Abandoned & little-known airfields. Slightly arcane, but lavishly illustrated and rich with obscure history on forgotten US airports. Being a Dallas native, my favorite entry describes the massive Greater Southwest Airport, which brought American Airlines 707 and DC-10 service into Dallas but was demolished and forgotten by the end of the 1970s as DFW Airport came online. (mirror in case it goes over bandwidth)

Curious George: Let's be friends. I'm curious how many monkeys have been stuck in the "friend zone". more inside

Naval Operations in an Ice-Free Arctic. This government symposium took place in 2001 but was a sobering highlight of my web surfing this evening. "Submarine data reveal a 40% decrease in arctic sea ice volume ... These trends translate into a possibility that the US Navy will be required to operate in the Arctic ... New capabilities will be required in many aspects of air, space, surface and subsurface operations and support."

Morning glory. The desolate Gulf of Carpenteria area of Australia is an empty region full of marshy salt flats, and it's prime crocodile country. It's also home to one of the most exotic cloud patterns on the planet, the morning glory. The town of Burkshire invites tourists to see them, scientists document and study them, and glider pilots are drawn to them (excellent trip logs!) Morning glories may also be occurring in the western Atlantic, most notably on Canada's Sable Island.

The Fahrenheit 9/11 backlash? I noticed the (mostly) positive reviews by our monkeys of Michael Moore's new movie. But even with this being a controversial film, Google News served up a heaping helping of negative reviews when I was browsing the news this morning. more inside

Eat it, don't fling it. I really want to get into scat play but I'm afraid of getting together with someone and loosing it (puking, etc). What can I do to prepare myself? Yep, everything you need to know is right here.

Global dimming. The consensus is that the sun as we see it is 10% dimmer than it was in the 1950s, owing to a steady increase in atmospheric particulates. Slashdot did cover this a month ago. How about some grow lamps for those banana trees?

Mad Cow II. The USDA's mad cow test program turned up another winner Friday. While the USDA assures Americans it is “very likely" the cow will turn out to be negative, industry sources say the BioRad test has a false positive rate of about 0.1%. BTW, only 200,000 (0.2%) of all United States cattle are subject to testing.