Lindsay Lohan is supposedly in a "real" rehab setup, Britney Spears seems hellbent on having her kids taken from her, and Paris Hilton remains the celebrity with the vaguest charisma. She's not potentially tragic like Lindsay and Britney. Paris is . . now dull. But that doesn't make her a bad person. She has retreated slightly and is perhaps doing those promised good deeds in a naughty world. Or, just sitting home reading all the massive September fashion magazines.

Web s(L)ites Fun

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Web s(L)ites Time Killers

PUZZLES Number LogicCaught up in the current Sudoku craze? This site offers a hefty supply of puzzles to tackle. Work independently or compete head-to-head against other registered users. There are three levels of difficulty; the site will time you (there's a pause button if you need to take a breather) and, if you wish, "validate" your answers (and highlight any mistakes). You don't have to sign in to use the site — but you do if you want your scores recorded.

CELEBRITY GOSSIP TMZKudos to these newshounds who broke the Mel Gibson story. TMZ is the place to go when you need a shot of entertainment and celebrity news; its "gotcha" style reminds us of The Smoking Gun. Scroll down to the bottom of the home page for links to the latest posts on some of the other "hot blogs" in the celeb category, including "L.A. gossip rag" Defamer and the more media-centric, Manhattan-based Gawker. Got more time to kill? Pink Is the New Blog dishes with flare.

MOOD LIFTER Cute OverloadBecause sometimes you just need to look at pictures of kittens. Or farm animals. Or hedgehogs. This popular blog provides a daily dose of cute imagery, found somewhere on the Internet or emailed in by a fan. Browse categories ("Pocket Pets," "Cats N Racks") or follow the site's links to more cuteness at sites like Baby Animalz.com and Pandafix .

PAINTING Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetas Here's a place where you can indulge your inner abstract expressionist: move your mouse to splatter virtual paint and click to change the color. To create a hard copy, right-click on the "canvas" and select Print.

FREE GAMES ShockwaveYou'll find a variety of ways to procrastinate here — there are games you can play by yourself, and multiplayer games; flash games you play inside your browser, and games you download. You can browse by category or search by keyword (check out Loop, under Adventure). If you don't already have the latest Shockwave Player installed on your computer, you'll be prompted to download it.

MONSTER MASH Yu-Gi-Oh GrooveHere's one for the kids: a site that features characters from the popular anime world of Yu-Gi-Oh, doing something they don't ordinarily do: dance. It's silly and fun — you mix and match the music and moves. Developer Timothy Harris photographed the actual toys in various poses to create the stop-motion animations. Best feature: though sponsored by Mattel, there's not an ad or corporate logo in sight.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Web s(L)ites Free Facts


As my dad would often say, "There's no such thing as a free lunch." The phrase originated with an offer first proffered in American saloons in the mid-1800s. In order to draw patrons, drinking establishment would offer free lunch as long as patrons purchased a drink with their meal. Elaborate economic discourses have ensued over the years, arguing that a free lunch is a logical impossibility. Still, if search data is any indication, we're obsessed with finding just about anything that's free.

Using the Hitwise database of U.S. Internet searches, I've amassed the most popular 10,000 search queries that contain the term "free." When compared to all Internet searches, terms that contain "free" are by far the most popular. For the week ending June 16, 2006, over 3.9% of all searches in the U.S. contained the term "free." The hunt for cost-free products and services ranged from "free games" (at 0.73%, the most popular of all "free" queries) and "free music" (0.70%) to searches for free ringtones, credit reports and myspace layouts. But by far the most searched for free items are of the prurient nature: four of the top 20 free searches are "free sex stories," "free sex," "free sex videos," and "free sex pics."

"Freeness" is seasonal; searches spike during the holiday season, surpassing 4.2% of all internet searches as holiday shoppers are lured by "free shipping" offers. Summers show an equivalent rise in free queries, as boredom and more leisure time drive interest in "free games," "free chat," "free movies" and of course "free myspace layouts."

The most surprising part of our "free" quests is just how optimistic our searches can be. There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but plenty of people look for the 78th most searched-for term, "free money." (Meanwhile, "free cash" is in the 1581st position.) I entered the query into Google to see if perhaps I had been missing out. The search results are dominated by a number of listings for sites that help you find federal grant money (not free—those are my tax dollars at work), sponsored listings for different loan products (definitely not free) and advertisements for services that help you find unclaimed funds.

It's ironic that, among the 10,000 "free" search terms, even into the long-tail of unique queries, there is one search term that is noticeably absent. Maybe the adage has conditioned us to think that searching for it would be even more futile than "free money." There's not a single search for "free lunch."
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