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This week’s surfing adventure runs the gamut from B-movies to making a thought-screen helmet. If you’ve never heard of a thought-screen helmet, prepare to be entertained. In addition, there is a website devoted to helping left-handers. Too late for me; I flunked scissors. Finally, a reminder about observing Earth Hour on March 29, which I wrote about in the first CyberScribbles column of 2008.

B-Movies (www.bmovies.com). No sign up is necessary, just choose what you want to view, then sit back and enjoy. Choose horror, science fiction, kung fu or wild westerns. I chose to watch a 1952 film of the Lone Ranger. I remember watching that show before color television, and I may have listened to it on the radio. Anyway, I found out after all these years how the Lone Ranger received his famous moniker. I did not know that Tonto made the Lone Ranger’s mask from the vest of the masked hero’s fallen brother. What I do know now from an adult’s point of view is that the acting was cheesy. Work your way through the menu of films you can watch. “Little Shop of Horrors” is among them, as well as several Bruce Lee and Buck Rogers movies. There are some more recent films and some classics that will keep you occupied on a rainy day.

Writing Left Handed (www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk). Watch tutorials that help southpaws navigate the world of pencil and paper. Most of us who favor our left hand tended to just slog along, smearing our palms and adjusting to right-handed desks in school. No wonder we are considered more creative. I have cramped, badly turned letters—just as the tutorials warn against. But then, you try writing down quotes when someone is talking fast in an interview. Pay attention to the numbers of writers and artists who are left-handed. Oh, and I would like to know how to cut with the left-handed scissors sold on this site. I tried a pair once, but could not get them to work for me.

Stop Alien Abductions (www.stopabductions.com). Wow! Free step-by-step instructions for making a thought-screen helmet to ward off intrusive alien eavesdropping! This website, which appears to be all serious business, is funnier than some of the sites tagged as funny. Michael Menkin, a technical writer who has done work for NASA among other companies, is the inventor of the helmet. Obviously, he is not trying to make money off this site. He lists the supplies needed and where to find them. Apparently, he is very serious about winning the telepathic war he believes we humans are fighting with the aliens. The testimonials are funny, too.

Earth Hour (www.earthhour.org). Mark this Saturday, March 29 on your calendar now. At 8 pm that evening, folks around the globe will turn off their lights for an hour as a way to create “a positive tipping point” in the race to slow down global warming. This concept is a global attempt to replicate what the city of Melbourne, Australia started last year. At the Earth Hour website, individuals from businesses, town and city governments, and anyone else can pledge to get an awareness campaign started. You can watch a short video and see Melbourne go dark, as well as listen to appeals. Sounds like a good idea to me.

            Is it safe to say that winter is behind us? Easter heralds a new season and it is unlikely that any of us in Beacherland will take for granted the warmer days ahead. At this time of year, decorated eggs symbolize rebirth. Below are some websites that feature some of those exquisite eggs. A few other sites mentioned, while not directly related to Easter, have to do with hope, too.

Easter Facts and Traditions (www.factmonster.com/spot/easter.). Short explanations are geared for schoolchildren, and perhaps the rest of us who have become too lazy to read more than 500 words at one time. Passover is also explained. Links to other holidays take you to easy-to-read material. Factmonster, developed by Information Please, aggregates information in a simple format. If you want to try finding information outside of, say, Wikipedia, this might be a simpler choice.

Easter Around the World (www.aerostamps.com/chetski/holidays/Easter/traditions). Unlike Christmas, Easter traditions are not as diverse, it appears. I found a “recipe” for making colored eggs according to a German tradition, where eggs are boiled with onion peels, or beet juice, or spinach juice for coloring. Old-fashioned, maybe, but the coloring method might appeal to parents who don’t like the idea of using packaged food coloring. I wanted to find out about the tradition of bonfires at Easter in Germany, but the link was broken.

House of Faberge (www.faberge.de). Who can resist looking at the bejeweled eggs that Tsar Nicholas commissioned for Easter gifts? The tradition of creating these wonderful objects of art continues today, with contemporary themes created by Faberge artist Victor Mayer. Choose the link on the home page that takes you to a gallery of Mayer’s work. I don’t recall seeing any prices, but then, if one has to ask, then he or she can’t afford it.

Learn Pysanki (www.learnpysanki.com/steps/). Anyone can learn how to make (write) the decorative eggs that are a Ukrainian tradition. Just follow the step-by-step, illustrated instructions, and pick a design from a selection that ranges from basic to advanced. This website provides bunches of information, including original dye recipes and explanations for the symbols and colors.

Pysanki Showcase (www.pysankishowcase.com). This website belongs to Patty Wishnuk-De Angelo, a New Jersey Pysanki writer whose work was selected to be exhibited at the White House in 2004. The gallery is loaded with beautiful eggs to view. One that especially caught my attention was an etched emu egg of a Cossack. If you are considering the idea of writing some Pysanki, you might want to view this gallery first in order to gather some design ideas.

Fortune Cookie Fortunes (www.chinese-fortune-cookie.com). Don’t laugh: I purchased some plastic fortune cookies to insert “fortunes” for a group warm-up activity, and I needed ideas. Imagine my delight when I found this website, offering four different .PDF files to download and print. The challenge of writing my own fortunes was solved, except for having to cut each little strip and inserting them into their plastic home. Made me wonder how those fortunes we find tucked inside the sugary cookie get in there. If anyone travels to San Francisco, they can find out by taking a tour of a fortune cookie factory. I’m packed and ready to go. What a great Beacher feature that would be! All I need now is an airline ticket.

The Internet Rainbow (www.the-internet-rainbow.co.nr). It will take you less than two seconds to add your personal color to a growing band of “rainbow.” Mine is a shade of green, and I guess I was the 249,813^th person to add a color. I’m not sure what value this site has, other than a time-waster. (Via Growabrain).

Have you ever noticed the number of bylines in the Beacher with Irish names? I guess that makes us really special this time of year. Naturally, I found you a St. Patrick’s Day site as I roamed the green hills and valleys of the internet this past week. And for you more serious readers, you can park yourself in front of a website that addresses the excesses of the information age. Then, when you get tired of reading, you can move on to the bits of trivia that add to the aforementioned excess.

All St. Patrick’s Day (www.holidays.net/stpattys/). Did you know that true Irishmen scoff at the tradition of green (Guinness) beer? Or that leprechauns are cobblers by profession? Whatever you are looking for to celebrate the wearin’ of the green next Monday, you’ll find it here. How about a recipe for Colcannon? Or, you can learn to write a limerick, or memorize an Irish blessing. You’ll find clip art, coloring pages, puzzles, more recipes, history, and lots of other information to make you ready to celebrate. Here is an Irish Blessing for you that I copied from the website:

May your life be long

May your heart be true

May your path be clear

And your skies be blue

May your soul be happy

And your spirit light

May you know deep joy

May your dreams take flight

Propaganda Analysis (www.propagandacritic.com). This is a perfect time to read up on the slight-of-words spewing from the mouths of presidential candidates, or admen. My eyes started to glaze over a bit, so I found my way over to the video gallery, where I caught about five minutes of a (longer) 1960’s-era film, “Brink of Disaster.” This propaganda film addresses those “dirty hippies” and the importance of supporting the Viet Nam war. There are several other films to view in the archives. Somewhere along the way I found myself at the Prelinger Archives (www.archive.org), where a huge repository of films—good ones and not so good ones, are free for the viewing.

Worst Foods in America (www.menshealth.com/20worst/worstfood). This is an article in the online magazine that reviews 20 heavy-on-the-calories-and-fat menu items that will guarantee to add pounds to your frame, and clogs to your arteries.. All are chain restaurant or fast-food selections. Tops in calories are the Aussie cheese fries with Ranch dressing. The onion blossom at another restaurant comes in second. You’ll have to read the article to discover the other 18 worst foods.

Most Expensive Car Toys (http://fulgeria.com/en/2008/02/22/the-most-expensive-car-toys/). Yes, indeed. Words deceive. I was expecting to find gadgets, and aftermarket gizmos when I read the teaser headline. Instead, I gazed at a photo of a full-size Ferrari Formula 1 race car made from Belgian chocolate. The cost? $24,000.. For chocolate! No motor! And that is just one of about six “car toys” featured here. None of them are functional, but the full-sized racer made of toothpicks(!) is certainly a wonder. By the way, I apologize for the long url. I found a shorter one to get you to this site, but you would be wading through some racy, family-unfriendly photos to access the car toys.

Reliable Resources (www.collegedegree.com/library/). A listing of 25 online resources will lead you to trusted information—helpful when you are doing research or writing a term paper. Several of the listings have been mentioned previously in this column. One that was new to me is Intute (www.intute.ac.uk), which I briefly scanned. With online movies and quick bytes of this-and-that proliferating on the Web, I truly wonder how many people use their computers for educational purposes.

Visual Arts Data Service (www.vads.ahds.ac.uk/). Since I have an interest in digital scrapbooking, I am usually looking around for copyright-free images. Several gallery archives are posted at VADS, as this service is called. I found myself drawn to the “Posters of Conflict” gallery, which focuses on WWI and WWII, and contains over 7,000 images. I figure that visual learners can absorb a decent understanding of the effects the two world wars had on people. The images are not in chronological order, however. You must be willing to look through pages and pages of images, which can eat away a good chunk of time. There are some disturbing images of Hitler’s propaganda, and some curious ones about the need to eat potatoes, not bread, gather rags, metals, buy war bonds, etc. You’ll come away understanding the many hardships people lived through during each war.

Dante’s Inferno (http://web.eku.edu/flash/inferno). Throw away the Cliff Notes, students. This flash presentation is much more enlightening than dry reading.

String Theory (www.tenthdimension.com). This flash presentation and explanation makes it so much easier to grasp the concepts of the fourth-through-tenth dimensions, especially for slugs such as myself. It will give your brain a good workout and keep senility at bay. If you dig what you experience, then head over to the forum page and read the remarks of the many people who appear to easily understand these concepts.

Jeopardy Questions (www.j-archive.com/listseasons.). Remember superstar Ken Jennings? You too can become just as brainy by plowing through the questions (oops! I mean “answers”) from Seasons 1 through 24. It’s a lot of reading, but your brain will love you for the challenge.

Only in Russia (http://sneez.com/only-in-russia). This one is for Charley McElvey, our foreign correspondent who fell in love with the country of my ancestors. This site has posted about a dozen photos of strange circumstances that might be found in a “backward” nation. I particularly liked the bales of hay stacked haphazardly on the back of a compact truck. Enjoy, Charley!

 Artist or Ape? (http://reverent.org/an_artist_or_an_ape.) Measure your ability to recognize true abstract art from an ape’s painting. I was pleased with my perfect score. I don’t know if that means that the quiz was too easy, or that I can thank our local artists for teaching me some things. When you have finished that quiz, you will find lots more about literature, poetry, music and even politics.