Zen stories to tell your neighbours

"This web site is a collection of stories from the Orient, mostly Zen and Taoist tales" .... " offering profound insights into human nature, the cosmos, and spirituality" ... "Without a doubt, these stories capture all sorts of truths about life and death. But they are also witty, entertaining, humorous, and at times puzzling, even mind-bending. "

http://www.rider.edu/~suler/zenstory/zenstory.html

Web Gallery of Art

A great site for viewing European paintings and sculptures:

http://gallery.euroweb.hu/index1.html

A good deal for everyone

It's unusual in a business relationship for buyer and seller to benefit equally from the deal, isn't it? 5pm.co.uk is a great example of where that really happens.

Restauranteurs advertise discount offers each day, varying depending on how many seats they expect to fill that day. We can then take up those offers, getting excellent cuisine for fabulous prices. Offers range from a free glass of wine, to 50% off the food bill.

UK coverage is pretty good - I use the site normally for eating out in Glasgow. If you're looking for suggestions in that area, my favourites are Rococo, Tiger Tiger, 78 St Vincent Street, The Living Room, The Inn on the Green, Dhabba, Khublai Khan's, Raeburn's (in nearby Paisley) and Gamba.

http://www.5pm.co.uk/

Justgiving.com - charity made easy

Everyone thinks of the advantages of the net being access to information and facilitating communication with a wide range of people you might not otherwise come into contact with. That's true, but sometimes you come across something a bit less obvious. What about giving to charity?

If you're a UK taxpayer, it's really simple to support your favourite charity using Justgiving.com. Your charity gets about £12 for every £10 you donate.

As well as enabling you to make regular or one-off donations, it also provides a solution to raising money yourself, or sponsoring a friend who is doing the fundraising. The money goes straight to the charity, so you don't have to manage the finance yourself.

http://www.justgiving.com/

Videos for fun

This site has a huge number of funny videos available for download - I spent over an hour browsing on my first visit. Look out particularly for the one with the screaming child in the supermarket.

http://www.ftipky.cz/videa.php

Radio Lovers

I commute by bus every day, and have an MP3 player built into my mobile phone.

OK, I could listen to my favourite music, but have a look at this website and you'll maybe understand why I don't - radio plays from the 40s and 50s, sub-divided by genre.

I've been working my way through the Beyond Midnight series of mysteries, and enjoying every one!

http://www.radiolovers.com/

Internet Movie Archive

No, this isn't another version of the Internet Movie Database - you don't just get information on films from this website, you can download the films in their entirety, in a choice of formats, absolutely free!

Of course, there has to be a drawback - the films are copyright free, so you won't get the recent block busters, but you will get a wealth of fascinating viewing material.

Duck and Cover is one of the most popular downloads. This is an American public information film from the 50s - advising school children how to act if the bomb drops!

http://www.archive.org/movies/movies.php

Drop load

Drop load is a great idea. Ever wanted to pass a file onto a friend or colleague, but it's too big to send by email, even if you zip it?

Drop load offers 100 Mb space for transferring files to others. You upload the file to the site and get the recipient to go there to download it. As long as they pick it up within 7 days, there's no catch.

http://www3.dropload.com/

Music Plasma

This is an unusual website - it works on the mind map idea. You type in an artist or band whose music you enjoy and press return.

It then displays links to other similar artists or bands you might enjoy. If you click on any of them, you can see more artists or bands of the same genre.

http://www.musicplasma.com/

Godchecker

This is described as the Holy Database of all Known Gods - yes, seriously!

http://www.godchecker.com/

Commercial Breaks and Beats

Ever heard good music in an advert on TV and wondered what it was?

This is the website you need:

http://www.commercialbreaksandbeats.co.uk/index.asp

Samorost

This must be my favourite online game - don't bother unless you have broadband, but if you do, you really have to try this!

It's one of these games where you have to experiment until you find the way forward. I just love the music.

http://nlp.fi.muni.cz/%7Exsvobod4/amanita/samorost/intro.html

The World Wide Panorama

You can see some really beautiful panoramic photos here. This is the link for a list with thumbnail images, but you can also use an alphabetical list or regional index:

http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/wwp604/AlphaThumbIndex1.html

Leonardo's Workshop

I really liked this one - go back in time and investigate Leonardo's workshop. Some-one from the future has left some out of place items. You have to identify these, and in doing so, you can learn a lot about the work that Leonardo da Vinci did.

http://www.sanford-artedventures.com/play/leonardo/

Happy Neuron

Online exercise designed to expand your mind and build up your brain power - there's one free exercise to try, so I hope you do better than I did:

http://www.happyneuron.com/gbhappyneuron/def_visit.asp

Conspiracy Corner

Did a Boeing 747 crash into the Pentagon on 9/11 or not?

http://www.elchulo.net/files/pentagon.swf

(broadband only - large download)