greg willis

Short quiz to determine if you are like me:

• Do you like maps?
• Do you like free stuff

If you answered yes to both, then read on. This post is all for you.

States will send you, free gratis, a copy of their highway maps. This has always been the case. But with the Internets, you don't need to send you request via USPS -- you can do it online. Now who has the time to gather all the websites into one place in order to save everybody a lot of search result pages? Why, you've already found him!

Truth be told, I had a lot of spare time when I used to work at AOL. When I was waiting to begin another project doomed to an abrupt and inglorious end, I found all the websites. I've updated them recently for freshness, but some links may be old and odd states only have email address to send requests.

Here's a teaser list, full listing below the fold. Collect 'em all!

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

I love this idea. This guy in Germany put a small camera on his cat so he could see what his cat was up to. Now our felines are strictly house-bound, so nothing like this for us. But you really should give it a look. (Courtesy of those purveyors of goodness, BoingBoing.)

Mr Lee CatCam

Got forwarded this commercial from Boomer. It's to the point and dead on funny. Go ahead, give it a look-see.

However belatedly, I do catch up with the hip items on the internets.

Random band, catchy song, strangely compelling dancing -- give it a play.

Here's an oddity for you. You type in the words, the web site sings it back to you. Yes, sings.

Let Them Sing It For You [popup, btw]

Now I know you like the Schoolhouse Rock version, but let it sing the Preamble to the Constitution to you. Text for the copy paste below:

I'm not jaded about the Internet, but I've got a decade of it under my belt. I've seen a lot of cool stuff come on the scene. Then it usually takes one of the following turns:

* goes bankrupt (take your pick of companies in '99)
* gets a court injuction (Napster)
* becomes uncool (any company aquired by AOL)
* inexplicably begins to suck (see above)

It's just rare that I find something truly new & interesting -- and free. Enter "Google Earth":http://earth.google.com/

This one is just too funny to pass up. Worth a click.

Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness

Just type in commands and the Subservient Chicken will do whatever you command. Personally I like watching him build a fort -- but there's plenty else he can do. Gotta love folks with too much time on their hands. (And yes, I know what your thinking about me.)

- Subservient Chicken