by Chris Cochems (ChrisTuna)

For those of you who don't know me, I have been around IRC and the 40's channels for a little over a year. Click on the word ChrisTuna at the bottom of any newsletter page to visit my homepage and learn more about me than I know myself. Please sign my guestbook.

This column is, and will continue to be, devoted to WWW sites that I find interesting or useful. I will try for 5 new sites each month, as time permits. Note that I am viewing in Netscape, and that some of these may not be as interesting for those of you using a text Web browser.

The envelope please....

And the 1996 champion is......(drumroll please)..... REBA!!!!! With a whopping 30 out of 33 correct. Rumor has it that she hasn't slept in 30 days. In all seriousness, some of the questions were meant to be very difficult, and I didn't expect anybody to do that well. None of the other entries are even close to her score.

One of the purposes of this contest was to trick contestants into exploring new areas of the web. I think everyone who attempted the questions will attest to it succeeding in that. In several cases, correct answers were found at sites other than the one I had used. All of the correct answers to each question appear below.

1) What is the release date of Peter Paul and Mary's latest album?
answer: April 11.
http://www.magick.net/~ppm/nppm.html (or corresponding one for other browsers)) or http://peace.wit.com/uwp/music/info/releases/5415

2) What is the birthdate of Frida Kahlo?
answer: July 6, 1907.
http://www.cascade.net/kahlo.html

3) What is the ISDN telephone number for the Del Mar POP for CTSNET? (area code not required)
answer: 550-0468
http://www.cts.com/personal/

4) What is the only full time, not-for-profit alternative cinema in Central Florida?
answer: Enzian Theater
http://www.magicnet.net/enzian

5) What (recent) day did the Galileo probe finish entering Jupiter's orbit?
answer: Saturday, Dec 9 1995
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/countdown/joi.html
alternate answer: Dec. 7th, 1995
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/files/releases/gllprb.txt or http://ccf.arc.nasa.gov/galileo_probe/

6) Who said "I would have made a good Pope"?
answer: Richard M. Nixon
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/quotes.html or http://www.an.cc.mn.us/rdr/qpolitic.html or http://matrix.casti.com/qc/TQM-MSI/SLQ.TXT

7) What is the phone number for the customer service line of Toy Biz?
answer: 1-800-634-7539
http://www.aloha.com/~randym/action_figures/toy_comp.html
Alternate answer:212-682-4700
http://www.payment.com/htbin/fw/sql/sp_nelson_report?&PUBID=375857

8) What color of Crayola crayon used to be called Prussian Blue?
answer: Midnight Blue
http://www.crayola.com:80/history/home.html

9) What is the simplest Surrealistic act?
answer: Dashing down into the street, pistol in hand, and firing blindly, as fast as you can pull the trigger, into the crowd.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rmutt/dictionary/breton.html

10) How many of the original Watergate burglars had not worked for the CIA?
answer: 2
http://ucunix.san.uc.edu/~taylorrm/1972.html

11) How many cities named Hayward are there in the US?
answer: 10
http://www.indo.com/distance/ (search with Hayward in From to get answer)

12) How many uses are there for an armadillo?
answer: 251 (or whatever the number says at the site below. it keeps going up)
http://yan.open.ac.uk/~rogley/armadillo.html

13) What is the height restriction on the bumper cars at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk?
answer: 54 inch minimum
http://www.beachboardwalk.com/rides.html

14) What breed of dog is intelligent enough to figure out how to use a garage door opener?
answer: Bearded Collie
http://www.duke.edu/~hendrix/beardie.html

15) How many types of green is the 1996 Force electric 4-door sedan available in?
answer: 2
http://www.solectria.com/vehicles/fprice.htm

16) What plane was the finest carrier-based fighter of World War II?
answer: The f4u Corsair
http://www.eng.ua.edu:80/college/people/mdowney/ck/corsair.html
Alternate answer: Mitsubishi A6M Zero Fighter
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_other/a6m.html

17) WHat is the largest skydiving training center in the Southern Hemisphere?
answer: Sydney Skydiving Center
http://www.yahoo.com/Recreation/Aviation/Skydiving/Clubs/ or http://www.wp.com/sydney_skydivers/

18) What is the English equivalent of the French "dance du ventre"
answer: Belly-Dance
http://cie-2.uoregon.edu/bdance/BDhist1.html or http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~kimberly/medance/medance.html or ftp://ftp.std.com/pub/dance/med-dance/d9505w19.digest (if it's a link in a web site, it counts..)

19) What place is known as "The Clog Palace"?
answer: Chicken Place, 11201 Grandview Avenue, Wheaton MD.
http://www.hahnemann.edu/tap/clogging.htm

20) What product is associated with the color "Hazelnut Souffle"
answer: Lipstick
http://www.wineasy.se/bjornt/lip.html

21) What city is the Whale Watching Capital of the World?
answer: Hervey Bay
http://peg.apc.org/~frasertravel/whale.htm

22) Who was the winner of the 1994 Cracker Jacks Bikini Competition?
answer: Sunshine
http://www.rsabbs.com/swimwear/sun.htm

23) How long does it take to ring a peal on eight bells?
answer: about 20 hours.
http://www.spec.gmu.edu/~msorell/bells.html

24) To what bird does the following quote reffer to?
"Quite audible from far distances, the ecstatic display is likened to the lone trumpet call (see Trumpet)."
answer: The male penguin.
http://www.vni.net/~kwelch/behaviour/behaviour_sexual.html

25) What is a diamond pick made of?
answer: Metal, like other lockpicks...
http://k2.scl.cwru.edu/~kxs67/lockpick/lp-tool.html

26) What is the longest cave in Sweden?
answer: Korallgrottan
http://www.algonet.se/~swecave/

27) What is the worlds fastest table sport?
answer: Air Hockey
http://homepage.interaccess.com/~tweissm/

28) What sport will holds it's world championship on the Sonoma Cutrer Winery's greens?
answer: Croquet
http://www.canvest.com/croquet/

29) In what sport is it important to ask the name of the person who brings the pizza?
answer: Danball
http://www.auburn.edu/~griffjl/danball.html or http://www.auburn.edu/~griffjl/dan-chronicles.html

30) Who holds the world record in One Man Bucking, 20 inch category?
answer: Mel Lentz
http://www.starinfo.com/text/rc_pine.txt

31) What is the capacity of the Rubber Bowl?
answer: 35,202
http://www.wwcd.com/stadiums.html
alternate answer: 42,000
http://pizza.bgsu.edu/~jbillma/sports/mac.html

32) In what sport is the referee called a "Gyoji"?
answer: Sumo wrestling
http://akebono.stanford.edu/~jerry/sumo/faq.txt(seems to be down last time I checked..) or http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~tmccarth/gloss.htm or http://www.fujiint.co.uk/Sumo/what/gyoji.html

33) What would you place inside of a Super Show Projector?
answer: A Viewmaster 3D Reel.
http://circa.com/viewmaster/acces.html or http://redwood.northcoast.com/~shojo/View/Vprj/vprj.html

"Imagine a place where every random link goes somewhere cool... No college home pages, no MAKE MONEY FAST, no 'hi, I'm Biff, and I'm into TV!'. Every link is hand selected by me, and I'm picky." While there are many random URL sites on the WWW, this is my personal favorite, for the reasons in the above quote. Every jump goes to an interesting place. The only downside is that it uses a limited database, and you will get some repeats. This is a great cure for boredom.

This site is suitable for all browsers.

This is your one-stop shop for shareware and freeware on the net. Using their database and Virtual Software library, you can search for and access software in all major archives on the net. You may also subscribe to a newsletter which lists the newest and most popular programs in their database. System administrators may use this site to add their ftp directories to the data base as well. This site should be in everyone's bookmarks.

This site is suitable for all browsers.

Riddler

Riddler is probably misnamed, as many of the contests here are trivia. This does not, however, detract from the fact that this site is a lot of fun. Riddler hosts several contests ranging from daily to weekly to special, and awards real cash prizes to the winners. There is some advertising on this site (someone has to pay for the cash prises) but it is not excessive, and does not detract from the site. To enter the contests you will have to fill out an on-line registration. The site is very popular, and hence can be slow.

People with text browsers may have trouble with the forms here.

The Time Machine

This is a Netscape only site. It is the home page of American Time Lapse, a company that does time lapse photography and other movie special effects. You can, for instance, watch a flower bloom before your eyes here. The site is graphics intensive, and hence slow to load, but is well worth visiting.

Abandoned Missile Base VR Tour

What this site isn't is virtual reality....all you need is a graphic WWW browser. What it is is a tour of an abandoned ICBM missle site, which was entered illegally. The site is extremely well done and fascinating. Maps help you keep track of where you are. Information includes photos and well written text. This is my must see for this month.

Hypertext version by ChrisTuna.