Abraham Lincoln sent his expensive pocket watch to a watchmaker named Jonathan Dillion for repairs in 1861. Generations of the Dillion family heard the story about that watch. The anecdote said that the Civil War broke out during the time that the watch was being repaired. As he learned about the battle breaking out, the watchmaker claimed that he wrote a hidden message on the president’s watch. Through the years, the story came into question, but the family remained steadfast that it was the truth. Recently, the Smithsonian Museum decided to find out. They had an expert take the watch apart, and there on the back of the watch face was written “Jonathan Dillon April 13, 1861. Fort Sumter was attacked by the rebels on the above date. Thank God we have a government.” It wasn’t exactly the quote he had remembered etching, but the hidden message was right where he said it would be.

There is a fun growing trend among bloggers to make graphs which describe song lyrics. Most of them are easy to figure out, for example describing a Beck song by showing the number of turntables as 2 and the number of microphones as 1. The one I have pictured here is a good one, too. It shows “Once In a Lifetime” by Talking Heads which you probably recognize even if you didn’t know what the song is called. I found a few different collections of these, but I’ve seen some of them reprinted on multiple blogs, and I haven’t been able to determine the actual source. Even if I can’t give proper credit to the creator, I can point out that you can find some examples of popular music at the blogs Just Whatever and In Deference To My Idols. A hip hop version is also floating around and can be found at Jamphat.

People love to take funny pictures when they’re on vacation. I think every person I know who has been to Pisa, Italy has a picture of someone holding up the leaning tower. Michael Hughes is a 56-year-old who takes the concept a little bit further. He loves to take pictures of the world’s famous landmarks - perfectly blended with cheap souvenirs. Hughes started this hobby back in 1998 and has accumulated a rich collection of over 100 fun images. “I noticed coffee cups from a shop near the Statue of Liberty had the statue printed on it, so I poured my drink on the floor, and positioned it in front of the statue. Since then, taking the pictures has developed into a hobby and a passion to the point where I have been taking trips recently just to photograph a souvenir next to its landmark.” The story came from the My Modern Met blog.

Dubai is a place filled with excess, and soon the beaches will be no exception. Famous design house Versace is creating a beach with cooled sand so that it doesn’t burn the bottoms of guests’ feet. British website Times Online describes it as “the world’s first refrigerated beach so that hotel guests can walk comfortably across the sand on scorching days. The beach will have a network of pipes beneath the sand containing a coolant that will absorb heat from the surface. The swimming pool will be refrigerated and there are also proposals to install giant blowers to waft a gentle breeze over the beach.”

Sometimes we forget that we live in the age of the internet, and people often ask questions which could easily be answered by a quick Google search. Any geek worth his or her salt will jump at the chance to gently remind less technical friends how easy it would have been to find answers on one’s own, and being able to do it in an elitist way is certainly a bonus. This is where the site lmgtfy.com comes in, an acronym for “let me google that for you.” Enter the simple query that you used to answer your friend’s question, and send them the link it creates for you. You can also use the convenient tinyURL button to obfuscate the URL. When someone follows the link, it will show them a quick flash tutorial about going to Google, filling in the search box, and pressing the button before finally presenting the results. I used this last week when a friend of mine asked about former Super Bowl MVP award winners. Let me Google that for you.

Google has become so much more than a search engine. Google Earth and maps have made the atlas seem hopelessly outdated. Terrestrial documentation was not enough for the big ‘G’ however, and soon Google Space and Google Oceans were launched. Now Neatorama reports that a British man thinks that he may have found the mythical lost city of Atlantis using the latest Google tool. “Situated in an area called the Madeira Abyssal Plane, the grid was spotted by aeronautical engineer Bernie Bamford as he browsed through Google Ocean. Bernie, 38, of Chester, said: It looks like an aerial map of Milton Keynes. It must be man-made.”

Baby faced Alfie Patten looks like he’s about 8 years old. He’s really 13, and it’s old enough to become a father. The British boy has a daughter named Maisie with his 15 year old girlfriend. British paper “The Sun” describes the scene when the parents brought their new baby home from the hospital. The four-footer — who looks no more than eight — said: “I know I’m young, but I plan to be a good dad.” As he went on the PlayStation with 15-year-old girlfriend Chantelle Steadman, he added: “I think we’ll be good parents. I’ll have to work extra hard at school.” Chantelle looked up from 18-rated action game Saints Row II to admit her first night out of hospital since having 7lb 3oz daughter Maisie had been tough and had left her “in a daze”. The original story and the follow-up are both available online.

I’ve been using a Linux computer running MythTV as my DVR ever since I traded in the Dish Network receiver for basic cable over 2 years ago. After the tube TV finally gave out, I joined the digital revolution and bought a Sharp Aquos. My dad spotted a motherboard with an HDMI port, and that was enough to get me thinking about an upgrade. I downloaded the new version of MythDora, installed a new video capture card with a digital tuner, and spent a few hours using Google to troubleshoot the issues I had getting it set up. The details are too geeky to get into, but the end result makes it all worth it. The movies look great with the increased resolution, and having them all accessible at the touch of a remote is a dream of couch potatoes everywhere. By far my favorite features are the automatic commercial detection which does a great job of skipping the ads without me even needing to skip ahead by 30 seconds at a time. MythWeb is the other great feature, which allows me to log into a web page, see the schedule, and set up recordings from anywhere in the world. If you’re interested in tackling a project like this yourself, do your research first, because it’s not a simple task. My favorite resources are MythDora and the MythTV Wiki.

I like both Skittles and vodka, so I don’t see where one could go wrong with this combination. The folks over at the Mix That Drink blog take you through a nice tutorial about how to create your own, including nice pictures and descriptions of each step. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m so intrigued by the concept that I’m looking forward to the project. The comments reveal that you can find the cool bottles at the Container Store.

For 10 minutes of fun at your next dinner party, invest in some of these Dressed for Dinner Napkins. Pick your favorite style, and then tuck it into the collar of your t-shirt for the ultimate in trailer park fashion. Expect to pay about $6 for a pack of 20. You can find them at Urban Outfitters and Wishingfish.

Back in 1971 anything seemed possible, including products which never should have seen the light of day. The advertisement for the Flame Gun snow removal system claims that the dial-a-flame action is so easy that even your wife can use it. It promised to be the easy way to clear snow and ice from driveways, walkways, and stairs, though they do point out that one should not use it on wood. That’s a good tip. The ad also says: “Here’s a tool so versatile, you’ll wonder how you ever did without it. With its long feeder tube you can reach out-of-the-way places [to] destroy insects, anthills, old wasp nests, all at a safe distance.” It’s not hard to believe that this product never really caught on.

Use the tools that you are given to make one of the ping pong balls look like the picture on the box. It sounds simple enough, and it is, but the simple task gets more and more difficult as the rounds go on. It took me a minute to figure out what to do, but once it became clear that you drag the ping pong balls onto the different items that surround the play area to process the factory ball. Drag it on a bag of seeds to disperse them around the ball, and then onto the watering can to start them growing. Use belts to layer different colors, and when you get it to look like the picture, it will fall into the box and you’ll go on to the next level. It’s an interesting little diversion.

The best thing about the internet is that one can learn from the mistakes and experiences of thousands of other people. Traveling is an activity which can really benefit from that information. TripKick.com is a site which collects facts about hotels around the world. You can find out which rooms have a little more space, a better bathroom, and the most spectacular views. If you book a room at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, for example, you should ask for an even numbered room if you want a view of the Strip. The odd-numbered rooms overlook the desert. You can also find more about the areas to which you’re planning to travel, including advice about what to see, how to get around, and how much things cost by clicking through to WikiTravel.org. With a similar setup to Wikipedia, the greatest thing about the site is that it’s constantly being updated with new information by other users visiting the locations.

Do you ever look back at your parents old yearbooks and laugh at the fashion and hairstyles of the olden days? Well now you have a chance to laugh at yourself. Upload a picture to Yearbook Yourself and see what your yearbook photos might have looked like if you would have been in school in different years.

1956	1964

1970	1976

1984	1990

Photoshop can make pictures funnier. Sometimes adding something extra works, and sometimes removing something can be even better. There is a collection of images at fwdfish.com where an important piece has been meticulously erased, leaving a jockey hovering in mid-air, a whole group of people on an invisible roller coaster, and a man sleeping on a missing bench. It’s silly, but kind of fun, and the photoshop work required to accomplish this in a believable way is impressive.