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Make your head dance!

At Palloozahead.com you can make your own... um... weird dancing thing?

Upload a picture and use your own head or use some prefab heads. Then pick out your outfit, your dance moves, and the music you want to get down to.

UPDATE: Palloozhead.com is no more. If you want to upload your head to something, try this instead. 

service announcement for readers

I realize that the Move Over Mr. Ed post contained a bad link. It has been repaired. Sorry guys! Please give it a try as I really think you will enjoy this one!

Fast-traveling Graffiti

Remember when your mom used to yell at you for putting money in your mouth? "Stop that! Money is filthy!" Well she was right (you sicko), money is filthy. And that's because it's been EVERYWHERE. The green stuff really gets around, sometimes leaving me to wonder "Where have you been, little dollar? What have you seen?"

That's what makes finding little notes on money so cool: it's like a message in a bottle in the form of legal tender. 

Stuff People Write on Money certainly won't be winning any prizes for most creative web site name, but it is fun to poke around in and see people's little messages to the world. Reading the comments you'll see that some people have actually recognized dollars they previously possessed. Maybe you will too!

Move Over Mr. Ed!

So, wow...I really don't know what to say about this one except the following:

a) It's Swedish

b) It's simple

c) It's singing horses.

How to Steal Your Own Identity

If you're a Citi Bank customer, you may want to move your money after reading this hilarious prank.

The people over at zug.com are always pulling some great stunts, but The Identity Theft Prank is by far the best. This guy does everything he can to try to trip off the alarm on Citi Bank's "Identity Monitor" service. including using a credit card belonging to someone who doesn't exist, going on an insane shopping spree, signing receipts "stolen", and buying all the makings for a fertilizer bomb big enough to take out New Jersey. Eventually he goes straight to Citi Bank. Read it to find out what happens.

Jog your book memory

What was that book with that woman, I think maybe in China? And she like kills a guy or something? Maybe there are some shoes involved?

Now that you've gotten appropriately addicted to goodreads.com, you've probably come across that annoying problem: what the hell was the title of that book you read 4 years ago about that kid who lives with that badger for awhile and like, learns to speak badger or something, but not in a Disney way, and maybe it was a true story?

Well fret no more, dear reader. Help is here in the form of the aptly named WhatsThatBook. This site allows you to submit extremely vague descriptions to their apparently psychic admins, who in turn will tell you what the title is and who wrote it. 

To give you some example of their genius, let me show you an inquiry I sent them recently: 

Looking for a book about a guy living and working in some sort of complex with a lot of other people, as a sort of indentured servant to a crazy rich guy who is ill and constantly on drugs. Maybe the people in the complex are also on drugs or brainwashed and don't know why they work for the rich fat man? any ideas?"

And from that sorry description I got a title (Louse) author (David Grand), a publishing date, Amazon link, and a synopsis 4 times as long as this Web Diversions post. It's like magic!

Thems Good Readins!

Move over Myspace: there's a new networking site in town and the nerds are finally taking over.

Goodreads.com is deceptively addictive. You can use it to keep track of all the books you've read, rate books, and write reviews.  Then you can s

ee what your friends are reading, their top rated books, and their reviews. It's a great way to get reading ideas as well as be reminded of that weird novel you read 3 years ago and really liked. 

You can also customize your "shelves", which is how your book lists are maintained. It starts you off with the standard shelves of "read", "currently reading", and "to read". You can add as many custom shelves as you want, like "graphic novels", "books I read in 1999", or "books that remind me of Sally" (because I know you still think about her).

You can also browse strangers and, even better,  find people in your area who actually read, which is perfect for starting that book club you've been dreaming about. 

From their press release: Goodreads' founder, Otis Chandler, says, "Somehow, reading books seems to have gotten a bad rap. People are working too hard to read and watching TV instead. But every once in awhile you run into a friend who tells you about this 'great new book I'm reading.' And suddenly you're very excited to try it. That's the kind of excitement that Goodreads is all about.

Also, something to be charmed by, when you send Goodreads a gushy email telling them how much you love the site, Otis himself actually writes you back. That's like calling up Apple customer service and getting Steve Jobs on the line. Thanks Otis!

First Flash Friday!

Welcome to the first weekly installment of Flash Fridays! Originally I was planning for Flash Fridays to consist of  every Web Diversions reader receiving a strip-o-gram. But I crunched the numbers and decided it wasn't in the budget. I liked the name though so I decided to keep it and just show you a new flash movie every Friday instead. 

So, without further ado, I present our first flash pick, Salad Fingers: Episode One

Warning: this may severely creep you out.

mosaic your face

You know those lame Bob Marley posters where the big picture of him is a mosaic of tiny pictures of him? Well now you can make your own lame mosaic pictures!

Image Mosaic generator  lets you upload any image and turn it into a photo mosaic using pictures they collect from flickr. Then you can download the image to share with friends. Kind of creepy, kind of neat. Give it a go!

wrap music

There are many things in this world that people are perplexingly drawn to, but none so mystical or so tempting as... bubble wrap.

Admit it, you love the stuff. Your fingers itch with the mere thought of squeezing those translucent orbs.

Well the good news is, now you don't have to wait for packages to indulge this simple pleasure.

Virtual bubble wrap is finally here. Choose between small, medium, or large bubbles and get popping! The site even times you on how long it takes you to pop a whole sheet of bubbles, so you can race the clock and try to improve your bubble-popping skills. 

How would you say that in Jive?

Ownay youay ancay anslatetray exttay, oryay evenyay olewhay ebway agespay intoyay "ialectsday" ithway ethay ickclay ayay uttonbay!

That is to say: now you can translate text, or even whole web pages into "dialects" with the click of a button.

The Dialectizer lets you enter some text or, much more fun, a URL, to be translated into a handful of questionable "dialects", including "red neck", "jive", "cockney", "Elmer Fudd", "Swedish chef", "moron", "hacker", and "pig latin". I recommend taking your livejournal friends page for a spin in "red neck", or read The New York Time in "jive" (note the link to "get crib delivery". 

If the site seems to have trouble holding on to a page you enter (as it does with NYTimes), simply click your mouse on the scroll bar and keep it held down; as long as you keep it pressed the page will stay open.

In Georgia, we call it "Brain Coke"

Remember in the 5th grade when you learned the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum? Yeah, neither do I. Good thing there's BrainPop 

BrainPop is a site for students and educators, but fun for everyone. It has over 600 informative, interesting, and extremely cute flash videos under the categories of Math, Science, Social Studies, English, Technology, Health, and Arts & Music. The videos are hosted by the affable Tim and his robot, Moby. Movies have supporting material in the form of comics, quizzes, and home experiments with Bob, the ex-lab rat.

Topics range from pirates to graphing linear equations to Louis Armstrong to AIDS. It's a subscription site, but there are always some movies for free under every category. You can also sign up for a 14 day free trial, which I highly recommend. Gift subscriptions are also available and make the perfect present for your favorite blogger.

So get watching and start reclaiming all that early education you erased with those college bong hits. 

Spend the Day With Salinger

If you're feeling tired of all those lousy phonies, maybe you should take a little time out with J. D. Salinger. 

We've all heard the speculation that the reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye has stacks and stacks of short stories and novels stashed away in some vault, and maybe when he dies we'll finally get to see them. And though you feel bad, wanting the old kook to die, you can't help but be a little impatient. 

Because Salinger is one of those authors that you can get rabid about: after Catcher you devour Nine Stories and then all the Glass family stories, and then you find yourself thinking "is that it?" He's sort of the literary equivalent of Neutral Milk Hotel in that way. "What do you mean there aren't anymore albums?"

Well now, just like the hours you've spent on Limewire, downloading every scratchy, 45 second live track anyone ever got on their mini disc recorder at a Neutral Milk Hotel show, you actually can get your hands on just a little more Salinger without wishing death on the poor guy. 

The uncollected writings of J.D. can now be read on freeweb. It includes what it calls the "under-published" stories, magazine publications from 1940 - 1948. It also has the illusive Hapworth 16, 1924, a continuation of the Glass family stories in the form of a letter home from the young Seymour Glass while he's away at summer camp. You may remember in 2000, when Salinger was planning to publish it. You could even sign up in advance to buy a copy on Amazon. But Salinger backed out at the last minute. 

Make sure to check out "Slight Rebellion off Madison", which is an early short story that later became one of the middle chapters of Catcher in the Rye, "I'm Crazy", which was later to become the beginning of Catcher . And in "The Last Day of the Last Furlough", Holden's brother D.B. (at this point named Vincent) reveals some interesting information about Holden after the time period of Catcher. 

So put on your hunting caps, grab your swiss cheese sandwiches, and turn off That's a Wise Child, and get reading!

frank and beams

Sure, Frank Lloyd Wright's butler set fire to his home and ax murdered his wife and step children while the flames raged, but he can put that all behind him now by helping you design a virtual home.

At Architect Studio 3D you can design a house with some tips from Mr. Wright. It starts by picking your "client", whose needs you will attempt to meet when designing (or you can just ignore them and go hog wild building your dream house). From there you get to choose location, design the exterior, landscape, and design the interior, from the walls to the leather chair in the reading nook.

To be honest, the selection of materials isn't what it could be, but for a free program it's well developed. You can change from floor plan view to a 3D view that allows you to move through the house, changing your view, using your mouse. When you're done, you can tour your house and add it to the "Design Gallery".

Who stole my f***ing poptarts!?!?

For those of you who like Found Magazine, or anyone who's ever had roomates, you're going to love this site. Thanks to Cody in Atlanta, GA for bringing this site to the attention of Web Diversions.

Passive Agressive Notes is just what it sounds like: readers submit pictures of the passive agressive notes left by house mates, co-workers, and strangers. It's a combination of the humor of Overheard in New York and the surprising self recognition of Post Secret. Hey! You just got three sites for the price of one Web Diversions post!

I reccomend subscribing to their RSS feed. Hey, while you're at it, why not subscribe to Web Diversions? If you need instructions on how to do it, post a comment and I'll tell you how.

Clone yourself, see an ultrasound of the first pregnant man, and talk to the new Algernon.

This one’s so good, I feel like Web Diversions may be blowing its wad too early.

The RYT Hospital website may be our biggest time waster yet; you could spend hours poking around this site and never see everything. The premise is a hospital with incredible futuristic medical and scientific advancements.

I don’t want to spoil the experience too much, but let me point out some highlights to make sure you don’t miss them: Use the GENOCHOICE section to make a genetically perfect baby and chat with CLYVEN, the genius mouse, after racing him in a maze.

This website is the work of Virgil Wong (http://www.virgilwong.com/), whose own site may one day warrant it’s own post on Web Diversions.

Happy cloning!

Put Words in My Mouth!

Want to make Jesus swear at your mom? Now you can!

SitePal lets people and businesses design animated speaking characters for their websites. The service is 9.95 per month, but lucky for us they have a great demo that can provide hours of hilarity.

Just go to Sitepal and select “Demo It”. Once there, you can select different characters, including different races and genders of blandly attractive people, political and historical figures like Tony Blair and Abe Lincoln, strange animals, robots, and yes, your old buddy the Son of God. You can choose from a wide variety of backgrounds; try putting Pope Benedict in your bathroom for example. You can also accessorize your characters, change the size of their features, and change their clothes.

Now comes the really fun part: making them say whatever you want. Click on the “record” button and you will have the option of adding speech by uploading an audio file (great if you want to make George W. Bush rap Lil’ Kim’s “Shut Up Bitch”), recording using a mic, calling in a recording, or using text to speech. They will say absolutely anything you tell them to.

When you’re done, you can email your message to a friend. Or just laugh your ass off.

Design Your Own Pool

Are you one of those people who thinks the most enjoyable part of playing The Sims is designing houses, right down to the little patch of daisies around the mailbox?

At swimmingpool.com you can design your own pool, including patio, landscaping, and fun accesories like water slides and hot tubs. You can even add a barbeque. It's all done by just clicking and dragging. A relaxing way to waste some time.

http://www.swimmingpool.com/