Year-End Sale on Links: I have no idea where the last week went - devoured by locusts, perhaps. Luckily I've got a large garbage bag full of miscellany to entertain you while you are struggling to digest that fruitcake.

• Whoa! Junior High flashback! Powers of Ten, the classic of educational filmmaking is available on-line. All I need is a little carton of milk, dried out fish sticks, and a spitwad in the eye to make the experience complete.


• I don't remember having any professors like John Cleese. I hope he's teaching hotel and restaurant management. Or maybe classical Spanish. Que?


• According to this long essay by author David Brin, Tolkien/LOTR is an enemy of democracy, technological advancement, and progress in general. I would have to agree, think of how much productivity will be wasted watching the INTERMINABLE movies in this series.


• Obviously inspired by the refrigerator magnet word games, a "poet" in England has received a grant to do something similar with sheep. This, she claims, is an exercise in quantum mechanics. Um, no, it's an exercise in fuddleheadedness (would that word fit on the back of a sheep?). Now if the sheep were to spontaneously form the phrase Mutton is Murder or Wear Synthetics, that would be something.


• Speaking of odd research, < ahref="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/12/20/wbunny20.xml">a multi-national study of the anatomical dimensions of Playboy centerfolds just concluded and was published in the British Medical Journal. Someone paid these people to examine Playboy centerfolds in detail. That's pretty stupid. I would have done it for free.


• Apparently they have now mapped all the shipwrecks that have ever occurred in the Hudson River - not just some, all of them. But they won't release the map because their afraid the Discovery Channel will be overrun with documentaries about raising 19th century barges and recovering the cargo of bowler hats and mustache wax.


• 99 years ago, as of December 17th, the Wright brothers made their historic flight, which has enabled such contemporary miracles as the Untied Airlines bankruptcy. Back in the '30s, John Dos Passos wrote this intriguing, stylistically creative account of the brothers and the event.


• If you, like me, despise the CAPS LOCK key because it makes you type stuff like, "wELCOME TO THE hOUSE OF sTUPID," PC Magazine has a free utility that can remap your keyboard as you see fit, including disabling the CAPS LOCK key. kUDOS!


• If you are Lions fan (or anti-fan) don't miss this deal. (Thanks to The Legendary KK for the link.)