TODAY'S TOURBUS TOPIC: ABSOLUTELY USELESS WEBSITES

I put on my Centre For The Easily Amused t-shirt this morning and remembered with a twinge of sadness that this site has forever vanished from cyberspace. But a little research on the web quickly revealed that there are still plenty of sites that have ABSOLUTELY NO REDEEMING VALUE.

Before we visit those utterly useless websites, I must urge you to support our wonderful TOURBUS sponsors. Both Flying Noodle and Travel Information have been "on the bus" for several years, and I can tell you from personal experience that they're top notch!

All of the OTHER sites featured in today's TOURBUS are totally useless, a complete waste of time -- not worth the electrons from which they were constructed. So I'm sure you'll enjoy spending countless hours visiting them, just like me. :-)

USELESS INFORMATION

Steve Silverman seems to have too much time on his hands. This science teacher who lives near Albany, New York has spent several years putting together a collection of pages he calls "Useless Information - Stuff you never needed to know but your life would be incomplete without." Actually, it's a fascinating journey through history, science and trivia that has attracted thousands of readers and won a boatload of awards.

* Read the true story of the Flubber Fiasco, in which some of the fictional properties of Hasbro's movie tie-in Flubber toy appeared to become reality. In 1963 the product was selling by the millions, but after a recall Hasbro found that getting rid of the stuff was no easy task!

* Learn about Mike the Headless Chicken, who lived for 18 months after his head was chopped off by Farmer Olsen.

* Or ponder the plight of Sir Alfred, who has been waiting for his flight to depart since 1988. Alfred has been stuck in a French airport, tied up in government red tape for over a decade.

* How about this for creative recycling? Jack Hall, a bored sailor in the 1930's made thirteen working musical instruments, a windmill and a lighthouse out of discarded matchsticks.

* What's the highest price ever paid for a PEZ candy dispenser? How would you like to try some Chlorophyll or Eucalyptus flavored PEZ? Learn more than you ought to know about this candy phenomenon.

Visit the Useless Information page at the address below. I found the Site Index page to be very helpful in navigating.

http://home.nycap.rr.com/useless

HOW MUCH INSIDE?

How many square feet of floor space can be covered by your basic bag of Doritos Nacho chips? How much foam is really inside those cans of expanding foam? And exactly how much white sugary goo is there in a 20-ounce package of Oreo cookies? Rob Cockerham, creator of the Cockeyed Laboratory, has answers to these and other questions that have troubled humankind for days.

http://cockeyed.deadtrout.com/inside/howmuchinside.html

DANCING PAUL

The site says he can dance if he want to, but it's really up to you. Select the Music, the Jiggy, the Booty, some scenery and a cast of backup dancers. Annoyingly hard to stop fiddling with! This site may take a while to load, due to the "Tourbus Effect".

http://www.dancingpaul.com

DON'S BOSS PAGE

Of course I don't recommend that you explore these pages while you should be doing Important Stuff at Work, but if temptation overcomes you, here's a site that you will find invaluable. Visit Don's Boss Page for hard-at-work sound effects and the Personal Protector.

http://www.donsbosspage.com

THE REALLY BIG BUTTON THAT DOESN'T DO ANYTHING

And finally, you must experience The Really Big Button That Doesn't Do Anything. The RBBTDDA was discovered by Stefan Gagne in 1994 and placed on this page, but it may well have existed for decades prior.

http://www.pixelscapes.com/spatulacity/button.htm

Kinda makes you wonder what other undiscovered artifacts are just waiting to be found floating about in cyberspace, doesn't it? That's all for now - see you next time! --Bob