Cyberslacking

Please check out the links posted on the righthand column of this Web site to keep up on the commerce we and our friends are making careers out of -- but if you want to waste time and have some fun, visit these. Also, if you want me to link your biz site to my links, let me know!

www.engrish.com
www.mycathatesme.com
www.elfyourself.com

There are some great face-morphing sites I pulled off the wire at work -- I'll add those later.

Here's McClatchy Tribune's top picks for 2006:

Web Search: Best of 2006 online
By Randy A. Salas
McClatchy Newspapers

As another year draws to a close, various Web sites have started posting their "best of 2006" selections. Some of these sample lists don't cover typical subjects, but, hey, this is Web Search.

TOP BABY NAMES If it's Aidan or rhymes with it, BabyNames.com (www.babynames.com) likes it for a boy's name. The site's more than 1 million members listed Aidan (Aiden, Aden) as their favorite boy's name. Their top boys' names of 2006 also included Caden (Kaden) at No. 2, Braden (Brayden, Braeden) at No. 3, Jaden (Jayden) at No. 4, and Hayden at No. 11. Ethan was No. 5. For girls, Ava was tops, followed by, in order, Abigail, Cailyn (Kaelyn), Madison and Emma.

WORD OF THE YEAR "Truthiness," coined by Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," was picked by visitors to Merriam-Webster's Web site (www.m-w.com/info/06words.htm) by a 5-1 majority vote as the word of the year. Colbert said it means "truth that comes from the gut, not books." The American Dialect Society formally defined it later as meaning "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true." The rest of the top five: "google," "decider," "war," and "insurgent."

TOP NATURE VIDEO National Geographic News (news.nationalgeographic.com) recently announced its biggest stories of 2006 (www.startribune.com/a2069), a list topped by the revealing of the Gospel of Judas. But more interesting, certainly from a visceral standpoint, is National Geographic's best videos of 2006 (www.startribune.com/a2068), topped by amazing footage of a giant Pacific octopus battling a spiny dogfish shark in an aquarium.

TOP SCAM The Consumer Affairs Web site (www.consumeraffairs.com) says that after evaluating the 50,000 consumer complaints it received in 2006, its top scam of the year is a growing scheme in which victims are told they have won a lottery in Canada or Europe and must pay various fees to collect it. One Kansas man lost $300,000. "You can't win a contest that you didn't enter," one official reminded consumers.

FUNNIEST POLITICAL QUOTE Politics are a funny business to pundit Howard Mortman, aka Extreme Mortman, so it's only natural that he compile his list of the funniest political quotes of 2006 for his blog (www.extrememortman.com). Sen. Ted Stevens' comment that the Internet is "a series of tubes" seemed like a shoo-in when he uttered it in June. But then Sen. John Kerry came up with his much-publicized zinger to top Mortman's list: "If you make the most of (education), you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." Kerry later said that he was trying to make a joke, but that it came out wrong. "We'll believe him," Mortman said in explaining his choice. "But not without a price."

BEST VIRAL VIDEO Forget the top movies of 2006. IFILM has weighed in with its best viral videos of the year (www.ifilm.com/collection/18220) _ the kind of clips that are passed around by e-mail and posted on blogs and other sites. Top candidates included comedian Michael Richards' racist tirade during a show, news personality Connie Chung massacring "Thanks for the Memories" and comedian Judson Laipply performing seemingly every dance move of the past 50 years in six minutes. But the winner was "Brokeback to the Future," a hilarious faux movie trailer using existing footage to suggest that Marty McFly and Doc Brown had a more personal relationship in the "Back to the Future" films.

TYPO OF THE YEAR The must-read site Regret the Error (www.regrettheerror.com), which tracks mistakes in the media, honors Reuters for creating the typographical error of the year in a story about a recall of "beef panties" (www.startribune.com/a2072). What kind of buns go with those?

(Randy A. Salas is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Do you have a favorite Web site or a question about how to find something on the Internet? E-mail websearch@startribune.com or go to his blog, www.startribune.com/websearch.)

All snug in their beds

After a birthday outing to Ripley's, Sunset Celebration, Hard Rock Cafe, a ghost tour on the way back to the van and a stop at the Looe Key Tiki to dance a couple songs, it was back home for the screening of "The Princess Bride." From left, Macy, Jackie, Claire, Reanna and Sabrina. Five girls on a sofa bed, Christmas cookies and one tired mama. Wouldn't you know they kept me up until 2:30 a.m. It was a magical evening to be 9 -- or 32.

Silver Man rules!

Of all the buskers at Sunset Celebration, perhaps it was the Silver Man that the girls were most enthralled with. Is he a statue? Nope, there's an ear wiggle. Throw a few bucks in his bucket and he'll oblige with robotic high-fives for all and even leave a little silver on your hand! Surely the best souvenir of the evening!

A bird on the head...

Is worth two in the Head Zoo? We never miss an opportunity to chase the resident fowl in the sculpture garden at Mallory Square for the Sunset Celebration. Call me chicken, but this overprotective mama chased us on this visit!

Funhouse mirror

A distorted Sabrina and Macy during our outing to Ripley's Believe It Or Not! for Claire's 9th birthday soiree in Key West.

A walk home from the tiki?

Obviously, somebody leaving Looe Key Tiki had a few two many to be driving, and some other poor sap probably had a long walk home!

Merry Fishmas!

You're a mean one Mr. Grinch

The cops frequently set up a speed trap across the street from the Keynoter, which is great entertainment on a deadline day, but it's never really front-page photo worthy. Except when the Grinch comes to help them run radar. He was waving speeders over to the side of the road and yes, they were ticketed. Talk about steeling cheer!

Keith and Crystal

At the Boondocks party -- this is Crystal, who Keith works the bar floor with every weekend. She's a deal!

Actually, I did find one

Kelly took this at Keith's Christmas party at Boondocks. A photo of me with makeup on. That almost never happens.

Long day

Jessica in the girls' room doorway, trying to round up the troops. Not looking my best, or even close to it, but it's rare that I'm in front of the camera.

Go up the stairs

And welcome to our place. It's a Bahamian (and hence Keys) tradition to put a conch shell outside your front door as a sign of welcome and good luck. The Bahamians were some of the first settlers here and Keys natives call themselves "conchs." For a fun story about our wacky history (as in 1980s history) look up The Conch Republic -- www.conchrepublic.com -- when we seceded from the U.S. in protest to Bush Sr. politics.

The backyard

With your back to the canal, this is what you see.

Our house -- a photo tour

Looking down our canal, which comes out into Bogie Channel. We're on the bayside now, but only about a half mile from the ocean side. Then it's only about six miles to the reef.

Wine charms

Keith frequently comes home with fun bar goodies from Boondocks, and right before Thanksgiving, brought me a set of wine charms. You know, those little charms you put on wine glass stems so when you're having a party everyone can tell which glass is theirs.

They're from Ravenswood (yum) and one said "No whimpy wahns y'all" and another one said (see photo) "No vinos sin huevos."

So, at our Thanksgiving feast, I proceeded to ask everyone who knew any spanish at all what the heck that's supposed to mean. We determined vinos -- wines, and huevos -- eggs. Wine and eggs ... no wine and eggs?

I sent the photo to Melody, our production goddess at the Keynoter who is from Uraguay, and she said it means "No wines without eggs." I don't understand, I told her. And she repeated it. "No wines without eggs." Then I thought about it. And remembered the southern drawl version stated above. "Is eggs slang for nuts?" I asked. Now I was confusing her. "Balls, testicles," I said. "Oh. Yes," she said.

Mystery solved. No vinos sin huevos. Your fun new phrase of the day.

Claire and Thomas

Kept Sugar busy playing stick while they talked about ... well, what is it 9-year-old talk about out these days? I was keeping a safe distance and couldn't evesdrop, too much. Oops, looks like I was spotted!

kids in the hood

Claire is now officially a "tween." The right clothes and not looking like a dork are of the utmost importance. She still claims boys are grody, but not too grody to hang out with from time to time apparently. This is our neighbor Thomas, who can usually be found outside for some good fun.

the secret of salt

A cool literary journal, which you can find under my links list, just came out. The publisher, Kim Narenkivicius, gave me the preview copy on disc and now that I have the bound copy, the loose print-out pages have become Macy's art paper pile. Reduce, reuse, recycle peeps.

When the going gets tough...

...the tough wear underwear on their heads. Also a good tip for breaking up the cleaning-my-room doldrums, I hear.