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.hamrick.com/names

Enter a surname (last name) into the form on this page and you'll get a map of the United States showing the distribution of people with this surname within the 50 United States.  The source of this data is the 1850 Census, 1880 Census, 1920 Census, and 1990's phone books, and there is a drop-down menu where you choose which one to search.  You can also choose "All years" and get an animation showing the changes from one period to the next.

http://www.windowblinds.net

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q253/7/39.asp

The first site is home for the WindowBlinds shareware program that lets you put skins on regular Windows programs.  Go to the site and look at the examples, and you will understand immediately.  You can change the style of title bars, buttons, toolbars and much more. It gives you total control over your graphical user interface.  Many users have contributed the skins they developed to a library that you are free to use; they even have several to make PC's look like Macs!

The second link above is to a Microsoft article describing the concept of skins and giving links to several other products that have skins.

http://www.hpol.org

Are you old enough to remember the famous "Watergate tapes" from the Nixon presidency?  The public has been able to listen to them at the National Archives in Washington D.C. and WebSkulker did that once many years ago.  Many of these tapes are now available online at the History and Politics Out Loud site.  Either Browse by Speaker and look at the Nixon section, or Search by Speaker and enter "Nixon".

Choose a recording and you will get a page giving some information about it.  Click on "Listen" to hear it in RealAudio; click on View Transcript to read instead of listening.  The site has an amazing feature: as you are listening to a recording, the RealPlayer will display that section of the transcript.

"HPOL is a collection of invaluable audio materials -- some available for the first time on this website -- capturing significant political and historical events and personalities of the twentieth century. The materials range from formal addresses delivered in public settings to private telephone conversations conducted from the innermost recesses of the White House. Our aim is to provide an accessible source of audio information to enliven instruction and scholarship in history and politics and to enable easy access for all persons to the rich audio archives of American history and politics."

http://www.busplunge.org

Bus Plunge: real people, real buses, real plunges down mountains, into rivers, etc.

Submitted by Jr. Skulker Sidney Bernay

The Amazing Goldstein 

A traveling salesman comes to a small town in the Midwest and notices a circus banner:

"Don't miss the Amazing Goldstein!!!" 

Curious he buys a ticket and sits through the usual circus acts. Animals, clowns, contortionists, and other sleazy acts. Finally the trumpets blare and all eyes are turned to the center ring. There in the middle ring is a table with three walnuts sitting on it. 

In comes a little old Jewish man 5 foot tall barely able to walk up to the table.  He unzips his pants and whips out the longest shlong and proceeds to smash all three walnuts with three swings.  The crowd erupts in thunderous applause and he is carried off by the clowns. 

Twenty years later the salesman arrives in a nearby town and lo and behold he sees a faded sign for the same circus and the same "don't miss the amazing Goldstein."  He can't believe the old guy is still alive, much less still doing his act!  Once more he buys a ticket, sits through the acts, and again the center ring is illuminated. 

This time there a three coconuts on the table.  Little Goldstein takes forever to make it the table, but once more smashes the coconuts with three swings of his amazing weapon. 

The salesman requests a meeting with him after the show.  In his dressing room he tells him he's never seen anything like the act.  But he wants to know why he is now smashing coconuts instead of the much easier walnuts. 

"My eyes aren't what they used to be!"

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