To use the links in this newsletter, you must be connected to the Internet.  PC Eudora users: to see this and other html mail properly you must check the box "Use Microsoft's Viewer" in the "Viewing Mail" options.

http://www.icq.com

http://www.icq.com/download

http://www.icq.com/products/whatisicq.html

WebSkulker has been saving up a bunch of neat add-ons for ICQ that he wants to tell you about and the rest of the issues this week will each contain one or two ICQ items.  But first he will talk about ICQ itself for those jr. skulkers not familiar with it.  ICQ (I seek you) is an instant-messenger type of program that lets you know which of your friends are online right now (assuming they also use ICQ) and when they are, you can send instant messages back and forth of various types, as well as chat with one or more other ICQ users.  ICQ is by far the most advanced of the instant messenger programs and has the most non-AOL users.  The third link above explains the features of the program in detail.  Download it via the pointers in the second link above, install it, and tune if tomorrow for the add-ons.

http://www.anybirthday.com/search.htm

WebSkulker heard about this site from the Winmag.com's Win Letter and found it hard to believe until he tried it with his name and the names of some friends.  You type in someone's first and last names (the first several characters of the first name will work if you aren't sure how they spell it) and optionally all or part of their zip code, and the chances are this site will find the person in its database extracted from public records.  It will list all the people who match along with their current (or slightly past) city, state and zip code, and their birthday.  The partial address information is supposed to be to help you locate the person you want if there are several with the same name.

You may be very curious about how they happen to have the birthdays of most people in the country, and this is partially explained in their FAQ at http://anybirthday.com/faq.htm .

http://www.airtalk.com/_primer.htm

This site will be boring to most jr. skulkers, but we know that many of you are interested in technical details about telephone systems and this site presents a tutorial about an aspect of telephone company operation that you probably don't know anything about.

"For those of you who don't know what cable pressurization is or why telephone companies spend big bucks annually putting air into their cables, you've come to the right page. The System Studies Cable Pressurization Primer describes the importance, benefits, design characteristics, and basic components of an air pressure system. It also explains some of the key management functions required for a successful air pressure operation."

http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/cow_eye

San Francisco is not only home to WebSkulker and his cat, but has the Exploratorium science museum.  One of WebSkulker's exhibits there is the cow's eye dissection.  A guide will take a cow's eye apart while explaining everything, and at the end, put it back together again.  This site gives a virtual tour of the event.

Submitted by Jr. Skulker Goat Boy

Recently, the Washington Post asked readers to combine the works of two authors to create so-called "Merge-Matic Book" titles, accompanied by suitable blurbs. The results of the "Invitational" follow: 

Second Runner-Up: "Machiavelli's The Little Prince" - Antoine de Saint-Exupery's classic children's tale as presented by Machiavelli. The whimsy of human nature is embodied in many delightful and intriguing characters, all of whom are executed. (Erik Anderson, Tempe, Ariz.) 

First Runner-Up: "Green Eggs and Hamlet" -- Would you kill him in his bed? Thrust a dagger through his head? I would not, could not, kill the King. I could not do that evil thing. I would not wed this girl, you see. Now get her to a nunnery. (Robin Parry, Arlington) 

And the Winner of the Washington Post's Dancing Critter: "Fahrenheit 451 of the Vanities" -- An '80s yuppie is denied books. He does not object, or even notice. (Mike Long, Burke) 

 
Honorable Mentions: 

"Where's Walden?" -- Alas, the challenge of locating Henry David Thoreau in each richly-detailed drawing loses its appeal when it quickly becomes clear that he is always in the woods. 

"Paradise Lost in Space" -- Satan, Moloch, and Belial are sentenced to spend eternity in a flying saucer with a goofy robot, an evil scientist, and two annoying children. 

"The Maltese Faulkner" -- Is the black bird a tortured symbol of Sam's struggles with race and family? Does it signify his decay of soul along with the soul of the Old South? Is it merely a crow, mocking his attempts to understand? Or is it worth a cool mil? 

"Singing in the Black Rain" -- A gang of vicious Japanese druglords attempt to beat the daylights out of Gene Kelly. However, his highly articulated footwork has no competition, defeating the wicked crime element and winning himself an Oscar in the process. 

"Catch-22 in the Rye" -- Holden learns that if you're insane, you'll probably flunk out of prep school, but if you're flunking out of prep school, you're probably not insane. 

"2001: A Space Iliad" -- The Hal 9000 computer wages an insane 10-year war against the Greeks after falling victim to the Y2K bug. Hackers finally do something good for a change by implanting an Anti-virus program which repairs Hal and all the IRS, CIA, FBI, Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force computers at the same time. The Greeks then suddenly realize that they have slept through the last 1000 years and are not prepared to give up their oil lamps and stone wheels quite yet. 

"Rikki-Kon-Tiki-Tavi" -- Thor Heyerdahl recounts his attempt to prove Rudyard Kipling's theory that the mongoose first came to India on a raft from Polynesia. 

"Jane Eyre Jordan" -- Plucky English orphan girl survives hardships to lead the Chicago Bulls to the NBA championship. 

"The Scarlet Pimpernel Letter" -- An 18th-century English nobleman leads a double life, freeing comely young adulteresses from the prisons of post-Revolution France. 

"Lorna Dune" -- An English farmer, Paul Atreides, falls for the daughter of a notorious rival clan, the Harkonnens, and pursues a career as a giant worm jockey in order to impress her. 

"The Remains of the Day of the Jackal" -- A formal English butler puts his loyalty to his employer above all else, until he is persuaded to join a plot to assassinate Charles deGaulle. 

"The Invisible Man of La Mancha" -- Don Quixote discovers a mysterious elixir which renders him invisible. He proceeds to go on a mad rampage of corruption and terror, attacking innocent people in the streets and all the while singing "To Fight the Invisible Man!" until he is finally stopped by a windmill. 

"Fiddlemarch" -- Emotionally dessicated medievalist Dr. Casaubon is transformed when everyone in the town reveals that they are Jewish and start to dance and sing a lot. 

"Of Three Blind Mice and Men" -- Burgess Meredith has his limbs hacked off by a psychopathic farmer's wife. Three surgeons not only perform the necessary repairs, but relieve the stricken victim of his multiple cataracts and his white cane. Did you ever see such a sight in your life? 

"Planet of the Grapes of Wrath" -- Astronaut lands on mysterious planet, only to discover that it is his very own home planet of Earth, which has been taken over by the Joads, a race of dirt-poor corn farmers who miraculously developed rudimentary technology and evolved the ability to speak after exposure to nuclear radiation.

WebSkulker is a daily newsletter in html format. To subscribe or unsubscribe, go to our web site at http://www.webskulker.com  or send email to listserv@webskulker.com with precisely the following: "subscribe-webskulker" or "unsubscribe-webskulker" as the only words in the SUBJECT.  Leave off the quotes and be sure to include the hyphen.  Before you even think about unsubscribing, we strongly suggest you go to our web site, click on "unsubscribe", and read the story of the two farmers.  You will be shocked at the consequences!

To change your subscription to a new email address, unsubscribe from the old address and then subscribe to the new address.

This newsletter is copyrighted 2000 by The WebSkulker.  You may use any material in this issue for any reason provided that you attribute it to the WebSkulker Newsletter and include the URL to our web site: http://www.webskulker.com .