August-September-and most of October 1997

Yikes, it's almost Halloween and the Newsletter hasn't been updated in eons! Now that's scary! I guess the Work Fairies haven't been doing their jobs!

Speaking of scary holidays, we're planning the First Annual Halloween Costume Party in the C*E*A Chat Room on the 31st. Log in under a different name than you usually do, & try to guess who the other chatters are! We're really excited about new avatar chat rooms coming online in November, so stay tuned for news about those!

And while we're on the subject of things that are scary, be sure to check out Count Floyd's Movie News, exclusive to the C*E*A. It contains a trivia contest, survey, and lots of exciting news, and was recently named the Site du Jour of the Day.

• Exciting New Additions:
  We've been consuming massive amounts of caffeine and adding scads of new features to the site, as well as redesigning things and undergoing counselling for Yellow Button Withdrawal. The Amazing New Amuse-O-Matic 2000 is getting rave reviews. C*E*A staff scientists Dr. Delbert Dingus and Dr. Buford U. Nerdbooger have come up with the ULTIMATE WEAPON for self-amusement, and it's exclusive to the C*E*A. Perform your own experiment today!

  Watch out Hal*ma*k -- the C*E*A Card Shop is a great free feature that allows you to send your friends electronic greeting cards, and has hundreds of selections to choose from. Don't forget to send one to your favourite Webmistress! And while we're on the subject of favourite Webmistresses, be sure to visit Cathie's newly redesigned Personal Shrine Page, including a game to play!

  We think Jim Rosenberg is one funny guy, even though we're jealous that he's funnier than we are. His jokes are available by daily e-mail, or can be viewed at his web site. We like him so much that we've featured him here at the C*E*A, so visit Jim's jokes regularly, as it's updated daily.

  Everybody loves Trivia, & we've added a thrilling Trivia Game called Trivia Blitz. New questions are added every Monday, and you can register to win cash!

  PeopleLink is an exciting program for instant online communication with your friends. You can download a free copy from our page & start yakking immediately.

  Giving credit where credit is due, we have a new Credits page, where you can see who's behind the scenes here at the C*E*A. Even Tessa the Cat got into the act, although she's been slacking off on the job lately.

  Our Miss Walker was recently interviewed by Bill Hyde, and you can read all about the Genius Behind the C*E*A at The Comedy Zone.

  We've teamed up with the nutzoids at CONK! to bring you the CEA/CONK! Site of the Day, as well as the CEA at CONK which has links to our pages. If you miss the yellow buttons, you can visit them there! As well, they're featuring featuring Cathabanca as aWeekly Feature there.

• We're Everywhere!
  We were a featured site behind Door #3" at ATT.NET, and featured over at Microsoft. We were named one of Netguide's Top 10 Entertainment Sites, as well as being listed under the What's Cool button on Netscape. That certainly IS cool! We appeared in the AOL Top 1,000 Sites Book, @Net Magazine in Europe, an article in the Washington City Paper, the premiere issue of WebGuide Magazine, and a great article about the C*E*A was printed in the Bryan, Texas "Eagle Spotlight". As well, regular chatter MommyAnn alerted us to the C*E*A having top billing on the neat stuff page of her capital city's news channel, WRALTV in NC.

  Awardwise, we were named AdZe's Cosmic Site of the Night and received the LASERGUIDE Weekly Top 20 Award. We received Award For Outstanding Achievement In The Field Of Excellence, JanMan's 'Great Page' Award, The Cat's Meow Award, A Classic's Radial Thinker Award for Excellence in Online Creativity, and voted America's Funniest Homepage for July 1997. If that weren't enough, we were also the Highlight site for the day at SearchPoint. Thanks everybody!

May-June-July 1997

• New Faces:
  Yikes! Here it is August already, and the Newsletter has finally reached the top of our "to do" list! As you may have noticed, there have been some changes lately at the C*E*A. Mr. Leslie is no longer with us, & Miss Walker has been working extra hard lately maintaining the Slurpee machine on her own. New members of her entourage include Mr. Callaway, Mr. Taylor, and Count Floyd, who will be writing a scary Movie News page for us. We're proud to have these gentlemen joining us, as we work towards bringing our visitors more unique ways to waste time as we celebrate our second anniversary on the web.

• Soap Suds:
  Cathablanca, our online soap opera, has proven to be very popular! If you are a C*E*A Chat Room regular, you'll recognize some of the names in it! Miss Walker & Mr. Callaway have been holding auditions in the Chat Room periodically, so be sure to have your portfolio and chocolate bribe ready if you see us. We have some great ideas up our Coolwear sleeves, so be sure to check in each week for a new episode! You may recognize our head writer Mr. Callaway's work from his other projects -- The Del Pompadours Story & An Evening With the Living Dead. We're pleased that we were able to steal him away from the National Enquirer.

• Holy Cat Toy, Batman!
  Our demure Webmistress was presented with an actual whip for her birthday from the Chat Room regulars, as well as a watch proclaiming her "The Queen of Everything". Miss Walker also had the pleasure of meeting Miss Snee & Mr. Ticktockman in person recently in Victoria, where they enjoyed cheesecake, chocolate, and a mature, low-key afternoon. Thanks also to the over 400 people who sent birthday greetings and gifts on July 10, thanks to Mr. Owens at Joke-a-Day for mentioning his favourite person's birthday in his daily e-mail mailing. Mr. Owens also proclaimed Miss Walker "Sex Goddess of the Day" recently, which brought many new visitors this way. Hmmm, we think he likes her or something!

• Speaking of Joke-a-Day:
  Do you like to receive fun stuff in your e-mail box each day? Of course you do! We've set up a subscription form for you to sign up to receive Joke-a-Day mailing -- it's free, so how can you resist?

• More for the Mantlepiece:
  Although we invited him to the staff barbeque, Mr. Grimes at the Cool Site of the Day has not yet come to visit. Recent awards, however, include the highly esteemed Bud Uglly Site of the Day, SuBBrilliant Site Sertification, Pii's HotSite Award, Lightning Sites' Site of The Week, Cybersmith Hot Site of the Day, Cableman's IgPer Award, AirMoogle's Award, and Absolute Zero's "beyond cool" rating. We're also listed in Netscape's new Guide section, and appeared in South African PC Format Magazine. After 2 years we still have it!

March-April 1997

With new projects in the works, performing chocolate rabbit taste comparisons, and keeping the C*E*A up-to-date, we've been too distracted to update this page, but that doesn't mean we don't have news!
• Be Our Guest:
  Everyone likes to hear a little praise now and then, & we're certainly no different! We've added a C*E*A Guestbook page, & have been thrilled to read niceties from all over the world. If you haven't already signed it, please drop by! While you're at it, be sure to get yourself a personalized C*E*A Membership Card if you don't already have one, or drop by our Coolwear page. The personalized mousepads are very popular, and make great gifts.

• Chatting:
  The C*E*A Chat Room has become quite the hangout for our Easily Amused friends. The regulars held an online masquerade party in late April, which was a big success. Drop in for some real silliness and a friendly atmosphere!

• Are You A Windows User?
  It's okay, we still love you. To console yourself, you'll want to visit Mr. Ricci & Mr. Lorenz, our close personal friends at DigiDay, for some distraction. As well as the C*E*A calendars "What's So Funny?" & "How To Avoid Work @ Work", you'll find many other free calendars to choose from. They're like those popular cartoon-a-day calendars that you get for Christmas, only they're for the PC, they're free, they don't use paper, and you get to choose the one you want rather than the one your parents chose for you. If you like a selection of awesome Wallpaper for your PC, be sure to check out their ScreenThemes section for stunning full-screen photographs that literally "pop" out of your screen. We were unable to find the wallpaper pattern featuring Miss Walker, but assume it will appear in the next version with Mr. Kawasaki under "Famous Mac Users".

• Media Stuff:
  We were a featured site behind "Door #3" at ATT.NET, appeared on CNN Headline News (the C*E*A, not Miss Walker's performance of "Cruising the Internet" with the Spice Girls, which was unfortunately cut from the broadcast). Ice TV, a New Zealand television program, featured the C*E*A and brought hoards of visitors from Down Under to the site and the chat room. Honorary staff member Wally Glenn praised the C*E*A's family-friendliness on Kim Komando's radio program, and the folks at WebTV contacted us about featuring the C*E*A in an upcoming infomercial. Let us know if you see it -- it should be much more interesting than all those exercise equipment ones. You know, we may not be perfect physical specimens here at the C*E*A, but our fingers are in great shape. If there were an Olympic event for sitting perfectly still in a chair in front of a monitor, we'd win hands-down, or should that be butts-down?

• Awards! We Love Getting Awards!
  We are indeed losing patience with the Cool Site of the Day people, who have yet to acknowledge your favourite site (that would be us) with their coveted award. We don't know whether they're waiting for Miss Walker's birthday (please note July 10 in your calendars -- ring size 8, favourite chocolates See's Nuts & Chews), or National Webmistress Day, but we do wish they would hurry! In the meantime, we'd like to thank the following folks for recognizing us recently: Electric Reality E-Site of the Week, Out of This World Award, The Kermie Award, Silly Burrito Link of the Week, Pii's Hot Sites, TheAward Administrator (5 Stars), Spunky's Cool Site Award, and The Funny Bone's Five Star Boner Award. We also appeared in Rob's Internet Tutorial for Newbies. Thanks, folks! We appreciate it!

February 1997

• Over One Million Served!
  All chocolate consumption & kissing ground to a halt on Valentine's Day, when our main page counter zipped past 1,000,000 (a million for those of you who can't cope with all those zeroes)! Thanks to Pam & Les for sending us a screen shot of the momentous occasion! If we hear one more person say "gee, if all of those people had sent you a dollar...", however, we will scream out loud and it will not be a pretty sight. Speaking of pretty sites....

• Is That a Gnome in Your Locker, Or Are You Happy To See Me?
  The C*E*A received a lot of publicity in February, due in part to the huge success of our 2nd Annual Virtual Valentine. We were reviewed in Lockergnome's Windows Newsletter, a Free Windows 95/NT E-zine, appeared in Fast Company Magazine, received glowing praise on the PRN Radio Network's Daily Report, and Miss Walker made a repeat appearance on the Dotto on Data radio program, where she discussed Valentine's Day sites on the Internet and other amusements.

• The Bluest Skies You've Ever Seen Are in Seattle:
  The Seattle Times proved its good taste by awarding us the Web Humor Award in its 1996 Seattle Times Best of the Web feature. We were named a Luckman 4 Star Site, appearing in their World Wide Web Yellow Pages, and Tourbus was kind enough to write a feature about the Virtual Valentine and its creators. The good people at CONK also featured the VV, our Short Attention-Span Site of the Week was featured in Yahoo Internet Life magazine, and we took part in Riddler's Bloodhound web surfing game. Now we can stop basking in the glory & come up with something for the next holiday involving chocolate consumption!

• Understanding The Web:
  Those of us who have been using the Internet for a while take a lot for granted. Mark Hurst at Creative Good has a daily column online, the Creative Good Web Help Center, offering free daily Web help in easy-to-understand language for NORMAL people like us, not the techno-elite. Thanks, Mark!

January 1997

• It's Chat Time!
  The C*E*A Chat page was just added, and already it's proving to be a popular Amuseketeer hangout. Make sure you drop by the chatroom to see who's logged in! The C*E*A staff hope to be there as much as they can -- be sure to say "hi" if you see us!

• Queen of the Internet:
  Our Miss Walker was the subject of an article in Sympatico Net Life magazine, entitled "Queen of the Internet". Of her, Mr. Tafler wrote: "Walker attracts hundreds of thousands of people to a web site that celebrates the ridiculous, the ironic, the virtual pie-in-the-face -- just about anything to distract and amuse people who spend long hours at a computer screen. She's the mind and keyboard behind the Centre for the Easily Amused, the central repository of links to over 1,500 web sites designed for people who need a brain-cell break but can't pull themselves away from their computers."

• How Do You Say Love Hurts in Japanese?
  There's been a flurry of magazine appearances lately -- right now you can find us in Internet World, Fast Company, Yahoo Internet Life, Online Access, and "Mac Fan Internet", a Japanese publication which featured the Virtual Valentine.

• Hot Stuff!
  Wow! The C*E*A was selected Websight's Hot Pick, which is also distributed by e-mail through TipWorld. Welcome to all our new visitors, & thanks to Melinda for her excellent taste!

• Help Wanted -- The Positions Have Been Filled:
  Thanks to everybody who replied to our call for assistance. We're in the process of checking all of our pages for dead or inactive links, & getting rid of the old links will make room for new ones! We'll be sure to advertise again when we need help!

• Laura's Big Book of Dumb Things:
  Laura Rubin has a great future ahead of her. She's just 13, in the 8th grade, (they ARE the best humour writers), & has written a great page called Laura's Big Book of Dumb Things. Of the Internet, she says, "You can get recognized for being stupid, or funny, or evil (or all of the above!), and people think it's funny! And they still don't know that you're not from Mars, or a vampire or something not of this Earth! It's great!" We couldn't have said it better ourselves!

• Personalized Mousepads:
  In our attempt to become the Sears of the Easily Amused, we're pleased to announce the latest addition to our line of C*E*A Coolwear. Now you can get a personalized mousepad to show the world that you're an Amuseketeer!

December 1996

• Happy New Year!
  Excuse the lateness of this newsletter, but we're still digging ourselves out from the biggest stowstorm in 80 years here at the Victoria branch office. Being housebound was fun for the first few days or so, but shovelling shoulder-high snow left us too tired for surfing, & we ended up using our new Tickle-Me Elmo dolls as massage units for our aching shoulders! We hope all of our Amuseketeers had a great Holiday season, & we'd like to thank everyone for their cards, gifts, & festive marriage proposals.

• Extra, Extra, Read All About It!
  We were featured in an article in the New York Times about fun web sites, entitled "For Pure Creativity, These Sites Take The Cake". Did somebody say cake??? Other newspapers picked up the story, bringing many new visitors to see what the fuss was all about. It's so great having a reputation for being silly!

  The C*E*A was also featured on the TV show "Don't Quote Me On This", was Cool Central's Cool Site of the Hour, received the Milkywayman Site of the Year Award, & was deemed a "Way Cool Site" by Your Webscout.

• What Day Is It Again?
  Our DigiDay Calendars are receiving rave reviews, with thousands of copies being downloaded last month. If you haven't already done so, download your free copy of "How to Avoid Work at Work" or "What's So Funny...?" today & let us know what you think!

November 1996

• Our Christmas present to you:
  Our DigiDay calendars are ready! We've been collaborating with the Vision X software company to provide material for 2 freeware calendar programs, "How to Avoid Work at Work" or "What's So Funny?". Although we're devoted Mac lovers ourselves & "don't do Windows", we got involved because we thought that these programs were so impressive.

  Rush to DigiDay & download the free calendars for yourself & your friends, so you can enjoy a different work-avoidance story or joke each day. If you can't afford gifts this holiday season because you're spending all your money on our Miss Walker, & would like to give others the calendars as gifts, there's a special form set up to e-mail a personalized notification to your friends of a gift for them to download.

  Submissions are still welcomed for both calendars, & we hope you'll fill out the forms for the "What's So Funny" & "How to Avoid Work at Work" calendars. We'd also love to hear your workplace tales, Interview From Hell anecdotes, office romance stories, or whatever you do to keep sane from 9 to 5.

• Love Connections:
  We've heard of 2 couples who have gotten together via our Amused Amigos page! Although it certainly wasn't set up as an online dating agency, we're thrilled for them! Please send us news of your online adventures to amigos@amused.com. The first couple to get married get free C*E*A T-shirts! Good luck!

• Hopping on the bus:
  The folks at the Tourbus newsletter were kind enough to feature us. To subscribe to this great e-mail publication, send a message to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM with "Send SUBSCRIBE TOURBUS Your Name" in the body of the message. We were also a PC Magazine Hot Site, & enjoyed appearances in PC Novice, Denmark's Cyberglobus Online, the New Riders WWW Top 1000 book, the Sydney Morning Herald, Buffalo News, Online Access, & the Omaha World Herald. If anybody out there can speak Swedish, can you let us know what this means?

  We were placed in the Top 100 web sites at the Internet Success Awards site, awarded the Positive Boote Award, a DigiDay Site of the Day & named one of the Best Human Interest Sites on the World Wide Web. We're also getting a lot of traffic from the Science Fiction Book Club site, but can't seem to find where we're listed. If anyone can enlighten us, we'd appreciate it!

• Easily Amused?
  We received a nice message from Karl Katzke, who is a member of the Easily Amused People of America Club, West Linn Chapter. Since we liked their name so much, we promised Karl we'd pass the word on about their club. If you're interested in forming a chapter at your school, let him know!

October Boosletter 1996

• Happy Halloween!
  We're trying our hardest not to get more sticky candy on the Centre's keyboards, after having Cathie's new C*E*A mousepad suffer an unfortunate chocolate accident. Sadly, no trick-or-treaters knocked on the C*E*A's door on Halloween night. Perhaps it was due in part the fact that we left the outside & hallway lights off while we watched Must See TV, but we are now forced to eat the pallet of candy that we had purchased at Costco for the occasion. We can only hope that Costco will have a sale on Big Ass Chairs in November & that our Dental Plan coverage is up to date.

• Give This Boy a Ham!
  Speaking of Big Asses, at Brian Deal's web site, The Most Powerful Man in American Broadcasting, you can read about his trip to a Late Show taping & sign a petition to get him a Big Ass Ham. Drop by his site & sign it!

• Riddle Me This:
  The big news this month is that our wild Trivia Game, Mental Floss is now online. We think the folks at Riddler have brought you the best trivia questions there are, & we thank them for bringing this game to the C*E*A. If you think you're pretty smart, it will bring you down to earth quickly -- it even managed to humble Miss Walker, our resident trivia queen. The trivia game is just another way of thanking our dedicated group of Amuseketeers for spreading the word about the C*E*A.

• WebTV:
  If you see the new WebTV boxes in your local stereo store, ask for a demo. We were thrilled to be selected as a featured web site by WebTV, & you can find us in the Entertainment/Humor section if you click on the "Explore" icon on the main page. Just imagine sitting on the sofa surfing on your TV with a cordless keyboard! We know this item will be on many people's Christmas lists, & if anyone is wondering what to give the C*E*A staff as a gift, one size fits all!

• Wherever You Go, There We Are:
  Miss Walker hit the airwaves again as a guest on the Dotto on Data radio show. As well as rhapsodizing on her current favourite web sites, she entertained the guests with witty repartee & took calls from listeners. Print media appearances this month included the Nanaimo Times, Dublin Telegraph, PC Novice Guide to the Web, Vermont's Awesome Internet Guide, Sweden Internet Guide, Houston Chronicle, UVic Torch, and New Riders' WWW Top 1000 book. We were pleased to receive the USA Today Online Hot Site Award, PC Magazine's Site of the Day, Windows Magazine Web HotSpot, Cybermad's Mystery Site of the Day, Net Talk Live Hot Sites, & the Not Total Crap Award. It's awards like the last one that make us know we're doing the right thing.

• Are You Reading This At Work?
  We have received a large amount of work avoidance stories & strategies for our DigiDay calendar project. Please send us your hints for looking busy, tips for creative work avoidance, workplace anecdotes, stories of moronic inDUHviduals (either bosses or coworkers), games & craft projects that may be created from simple office supplies, or anything else that makes the work day FUN (well, tolerable at least)!

  Selected submissions will appear in the upcoming DigiDay calendar "365 Days of How to Avoid Work at Work", & we will also be creating a C*E*A web page of your ideas. Let's see how creative you can be -- you could win our Sloth of the Month Award! We're also going to be supplying material for a DigiDay Humour calendar, so if you have any favourite jokes, please send them to funny@amused.com for possible inclusion.

• Those Pesky AOL Disks:
  Ever wonder what to do with all those free disks you receive in the mail? As well as the amusing 101 uses for AOL disks, Bob MacDonald formats & donates them to local schools. Anyone sending him disks gets their names entered into draws for CD-ROMs. You can also create AOL art with the disks.

September 1996

• Well, bust our lab coat buttons!
  On Thursday, October 3 the cognoscenti of the Internet world honoured the Ask Dr. Science web site with its highest award - Cool Site of the Year (Scripts Category). Your votes & the good judgment of the folks at People Magazine Online & Infi.net made Ask Dr. Science the web site that "best combines theme, function and writing into an enjoyable, understandable experience." Being the designers of this site, we are thrilled beyond belief, as this honour is the Internet equivalent of the Academy Awards, except the recipients haven't had as much plastic surgery.

  Unfortunately we were unable to attend the awards ceremony in New York, but we did manage to watch the webcast on the Internet. It was just like watching the festivities on TV, only if somebody was constantly unplugging the you & you had to run across the room to plug it back in every time. At the crucial moment our award was announced, we lost the video feed & had to rely on the IRC chat area we were in to receive confirmation that we had been announced as the winners. It was quite the experience nonetheless, & we didn't have to buy new clothes.

  Oh, at the Cool Site ceremonies they distributed some minor awards to seven lesser-known web sites. Sharing the Ask Dr. Science spotlight were Discovery Channel, Hotwired, Netscape, Java, Salon, Alta Vista, and Timothy Leary's Home Page.

  Thank you for your votes, your support, and your getting the word out to others on our behalf!

• Trivial Pursuits:
  We're working with the good folks at Riddler to develop an interactive trivia game just for C*E*A members, & it will be online around October 15. If you'd like to receive notification when the game is up & running, drop us a line at trivia@amused.com & we'll send you an e-mail when we've wiped the sweat off our brows & it's ready.

• Extra, Extra, Read All About It:
  We were interviewed by Siona Carpenter of the New Orleans Times-Picayune for an article about web sites for the differently attentioned. Miss Carpenter did such a great job of the article that it was picked up by the Newhouse News Service and appeared in newspapers across the country. Our Miss Walker was quoted as saying "Visiting the Centre for the Easily Amused is like sneaking a comic book into the bathroom at work, just to escape it all for a few minutes" and "In these stress-filled days we all need a little escape from reality, and I think these goofy sites are the way to do it." It's so nice to be considered a world expert in such a prestigious field!

  Along with important study information, the C*E*A was mentioned in the student handbook for University of California, Irvine -- now if they would only give us honorary doctorates in surfing for procrastination aids. Around the world we were discussed in other languages, as we made our way into Australia's Computer Living, Swedish Internet Guide, Tips & Advies Internet in the Netherlands, & the Village Voice in the US. As more & more books on the Internet are published, we found ourselves among good company in What's New on the Web, Dave Barry in Cyberspace & Best of the Web, a special publication by Barnes & Noble.

• Dave Barry Thinks We're Cool!
  Yes, you heard it right! Excerpts from the new book, "Dave Barry in Cyberspace" appeared in the October issue of Yahoo! Internet Life magazine. We were merrily reading along when we saw our name in print, as the C*E*A was "highly recommended" by Mr. Barry as a source for fun/useless web sites. We dropped the magazine, locked the doors & ran to the bookstore, where we confirmed that we appear in the book as well. Our pal Dave did not fill out a survey when he visited, but we hope he is a regular visitor, sees this, and sends us autographed copies.

• Awards of the Arbitrary Time Period:
  Honours received this month were being listed in the Top 100 of 1996 by Platinum 100, being awarded Cheesedog's Pick of the Pack, The Kilroy Award, Cool Central Site of the Week, RubberChicken Fun Site of the Week, & Computer Currents Interactive Links of the Week.

• A Hunk to Start the Day:
  The C*E*A was featured as an Official Daily Site for the week of September 30 at The Daily Autoload pages, & judging by the amount of traffic brought our way, a lot of people are visiting there each day. This site recommends that you configure your browser to have their pages appear as your start-up screen, & features search engines, basic links, & a daily picture of a hunky looking man. Now if that's not enough to wake you up in the morning, we don't know what is! Oh yes, for the men there's The Daily Bikini, as well as one for the office. If you don't already have your browser set to have C*E*A as the first site you see each day, give The Daily Autoload pages a visit!

August 1996

As Mr. L. nurses his broken arms, the result of a freak Macarena collision at Miss Walker's School for the Rhythmically Challenged, our Creative Directress resumes control of the keyboard. Or was it really an accident? Stay tuned.

The hot weather has made it difficult to spend time in front of our Macs when the Slip 'n Slide is beckoning, but we've refilled the Slurpee Machine with Cream Soda, cranked up the fans, & filled the staff room's Mr. Turtle pool with ice, because we have a lot of exciting news to tell you!

• Show the World You're Easily Amused!
  At last you'll be able to tell the world you're a member of the C*E*A without flashing your membership card! We now have T-shirts, mouse pads & caps available from our Coolwear page. C*E*A T-shirts make ideal job interview attire, & the caps are perfect for hiding a Bad Hair Day when you've been surfing the Net rather than attending to personal grooming needs.

• I'd Like to Thank The Academy:
  While the C*E*A has so far been overlooked as Cool Site of the Day, we are enjoying the vicarious pleasure of being affiliated with one of the nominees for the Cool Site of the Year Awards. Our design team is responsible for the recently unveiled new look of the Ask Dr. Science web site, one of only 5 nominees in the Scripts category for Cool Site of the Year. Check out our information page, and make sure you VOTE!

• Amused Amigos:
  Due to popular request, earlier this month we added a Penpal page. It appears to be a resounding success, & we've received so many submissions we've had to clean it up weekly to save disk space. If you're looking for someone to correspond with, sign up!

• Still UnVeiled:
  Miss Walker was the recipient of several gifts of chocolates, belated birthday wishes, & cash contributions towards a new PowerMac (see June Newsletter) this month. The marriage proposal count continues to increase, & she is sorry that she is unable to respond to everyone that her ring size is 8, Miata colour choice Blue, & the Chocolate of the Month is Reisen Chocolate Chews. As Miss Walker has been selected as a Top Five List contributor, we are awaiting the subject of "Top Ten Reasons to Send Cathie Chocolate".

• Media Madness:
  Our time-wasting & work-avoidance activities were written up in USA Today, Irish Times, Central New Jersey Home News, Kansas City Star, tech@work, San Antonio Express & News, Sacramento Bee, Florida Today, & Taiwan Times. We are featured in 2 new books, Luckman's Best of the Web, available at Barnes & Noble, & Netscape 2 Simplified, and were mentioned on Radio Abu Dhabi & 107.9 The End (Ohio), probably just after a Weird Al song.

  We're a big hit in Insomniacs Asylum on AOL, & were awarded the USA Today Hot Site Award, Web Search's Top 1% Award, & Yoyodyne Prized Picks Award.

• Fun Mail:
  As a continuation of last month's guide to receiving fun e-mail, you can receive daily trivia from L.M. Boyd, fun amusements from HumourNet, or more risque laughs from their sister mailing list BawdyNet. Joe Lavin's Humor Column is also available by e-mail. Please let us know if you have any others to share!

July 1996

• Who's REALLY the Boss:
  This is Fred the Janitor here. I'm sick & tired of Miss Walker taking all the credit for the C*E*A success, so I grabbed the keyboard & decided it was my turn to write the Newsletter this month. I mean she's been interviewed on the radio & TV, in magazines, gets hundreds of adoring fan letters, marriage proposals, & chocolates, and is still receiving birthday presents. Come on, people! Just because she's smart, funny & gorgeous let's not get carried away! I do work here too! Oh sorry, I guess I had a little too much espresso today. Okay (deep breath), let's see what happened this month.

• Virtual Vacation:
  We had a nice vacation to celebrate the C*E*A's first anniversary, & spent some time in Seattle, where we had a chance to meet our friends Wally Glenn & Douglas Brick in person at the Speakeasy Cafe. Of course, Miss Walker was the centre of attention, but she still couldn't figure out which door was the ladies' room.

• The CEA-TV Network:
  The C*E*A appeared on TV four times this month. That Walker Woman was interviewed on CHEK-6 News (Victoria BC) about the C*E*A, our site was highlighted in the internet section of Future Shop TV (our first appearance in an Infomercial - cool!), and Miss Walker's Guide to Employee Internet Etiquette was the source of a section on the Discovery Channel's CyberLife show on goofing off at work. We were honored to be chosen as MSNBC's Site of the Night for Wednesday, July 24. I'm sure there will be an afternoon talk show soon featuring Big-Headed Women of the Internet, and she'll be invited to be on it. Are you listening, Rosie O'Donell?

• Her Real Picture:
  Our Miss Walker was also interviewed for an article in the Saanich News, & was the subject of a feature story in Focus on Women magazine. As if that wasn't enough to make her insufferable, she was also featured in an article for the University of Victoria newspaper, The Ring. My name was mentioned once, though, in the Seattle Times, where we appeared in their Personal Technology section & were called "almost useless" - I don't know whether that's a compliment or not. She also let me get a word in edge-wise (barely) in a Gap-Toothed E-Zine feature story about us entitled Muses of Amusement. Be sure to check out Cathie's real picture there, since that's NOT her real picture on her page. HA, the truth is out!

• Pats on the Back:
  It's nice to know we have friends around the world. Thanks to Martin Kurrein in the UK for scanning the review of the C*E*A that appeared in The Guardian. In the US, Macworld Magazine highlighted us as one of the best fun web sites on a CD-ROM enclosed with their August issue, and we received a fax of a review of the C*E*A in the Italian version of Macworld (what does siti stupidi mean?). We were also in the San Jose Mercury-News, the July/96 edition of the UK magazine NetUser, and are also featured in the August issue of Online Access' Internet EZ. This month we received the W4 (Wild, Wacky and Time Wasting) Award, the HHH Award, and got a glowing review from Netsurf at HotWired.

• Web Design by the Pros:
  In an attempt to have no lives at all, we've been doing web design & promotion for other people. Our latest project was a total re-design of the Dr. Science web site. If you'd like to talk to us about web design & promotion, just write for details.

• Fun E-Mail for the Easily Amused:
  If you're like us, you like to receive fun stuff in your in-box on a regular basis. We highly recommend you subscribe to Dr. Science's Question of the Day, This Is True, the daily e-mail version of Greg Bulmash's Humor Page, The Top Five, and the International Junk Mail Clearinghouse. Tell them the C*E*A sent you! Since this is MY newsletter this month, I can also plug a couple of Mac-related mailing lists: Guy Kawasaki's Macway, & Tidbits.

June 1996

• New Membership Card!
  Since the first Anniversary is "paper", we're excited to announce that the personalized Membership Card is now online as our present to you. Special thanks go to Chris Rywalt for writing the script, and to WestNet Internet Services of Westchester for making it happen! We know everyone will enjoy printing out a personalized card to carry as proof of coolness, & are certain that police officers everywhere will accept them as legal ID.

• First Anniversary:
  As the C*E*A's first anniversary nears on July 18, we look back on the past year in absolute awe. Who would have dreamed that we'd appear on TV & radio, receive international magazine & newspaper coverage, & receive gifts of chocolate, all for just having fun? Thanks to all of our visitors for making it such a success; without that counter going up several thousand every day it just wouldn't be the same!

• Give these boys a vacation!
  We'd like to thank 2 of our staff members this month. Don Middendorf did a GIF89 animation of Scooter, our SASS logo dog, which has been a big hit for those with Short Attention Spans. We humbly bow to Paul Tate for creating our new "Featured in the C*E*A" graphic for all of the lucky people who are listed in our pages to use as an official badge of coolness. We'd also like to thank the magnificent love-god Fabio Schwartz for responding online to an important question that Miss Walker submitted for a friend. Yeah, that's right -- for a friend.

• It ain't Entertainment Tonight, but we're happy
  On the local front, we were interviewed on 100.3 The Q radio on June 9. A Victoria publication, Focus on Women magazine, will be publishing an article about Cathie in their July issue, focussing on all the fun that developing the C*E*A has been over the past year.

• Cathie's Power Mac Fund:
  Speaking of our Chief Schmoozing Executive ... it's her birthday coming up on July 10. We know that Cathie would love to receive congratulatory e-mail messages, cyber-cards, chocolates, & a new Power Mac to ward off the expected accompanying depression that could possibly bring the C*E*A to a roaring halt while she consoles herself with romance novels, chocolates & country music. It has been scientifically proven that the relaxing hum of Power Macs have been known to drown out the sound of a biological clock ticking louder than a Soundgarden concert.

  C*E*A members wishing to contribute towards this new Mac may send $1 to: Cathie Walker, c/o 4739 University Way NE, #1231, Seattle, WA 98105-4412. Stalkers should be aware that this is a mailing address only, & those hoping to catch a glimpse of the Great Webmistress will be disappointed. What better way to say "thank you for all those hours of surfing pleasure" than to send the price of a Slurpee? This ends our pledge break, & we now present the rest of the Newsletter.

• We're going to be on TV!
  The C*E*A will be featured on the Discovery Channel next month. Check out the CyberLife show, which will air 7/19/96, at 7.25PM and 11.25PM, and on the following weekend at 2.30PM Sat and 11.30AM Sunday! Apparently they're going to highlight Miss Walker's Guide to Employee Internet Etiquette, as well as our web site in general.

• How do you say Schmooze in Norwegian?
  We continue to receive coverage in languages other than English. We've recently been mentioned in the Jerusalem Post, Boston Globe, Manchester Guardian, Honolulu Weekly, & Norway's Dagbladet newspapers. Magazine appearances were FFWD, PC Home, Sweden's E Magazine, Europe's PC Magazine, & Internet Australasia Magazine.

• Magellan 4 Stars:
  We are thrilled that the good people at Magellan deemed us worthy of their 4 Star Award. As well, this month we received the Cornerstone Foundation Award for Excellence in Entertainment, were deemed a Weekly Specialty Site at Blue Planet's Cool Site of the Day, & received the Excellence in Oddity award. We knew we were Excellent and Odd; now we have the award to prove it!
  

May 1996

• New Staff Member:
  Congratulations to John & Traci (Leslie) Klein on the birth of Katie Cecilia on May 15/96.

• You Mean There Are Magazines You *Haven't* Been In Yet?
  The folks at Yahoo obviously have good taste; they included us in their Picks of the Week for the week beginning May 20. As well, Netguide Now! Newsletter selected some of our surfing-at-work hints to share with their readers for the week of May 26.

  In the June/96 issue of Computer Life there's a great road map/poster enclosure entitled "Computer Life's Guided Tour of Internet Entertainment", where the C*E*A is keeping good company in the Wired Entertainment section. We were also featured in the June/96 issue of Inside the Internet as well as the May/96 issue of Online Access. We were finally able to get a copy of the May/96 issue of the UK magazine PC Format, where we were thrilled to see a screen-shot of the C*E*A next to one of President & Mrs. Clinton. We're sure Bill was majorly excited as well.

  We received international newspaper coverage, as well, appearing in the Irish Times, Zaire Sunday Times, Sydney Morning Herald, Atlanta Journal/Constitution, Albuquerque Journal, and Net BC, British Columbia's news web , published an article about our world-famous Webmistress. We have not yet heard whether any of these newspapers wish to fly us to their city for a public appearance, but are keeping our passports handy just in case!

  These media appearances managed to make up for miraculously being excluded from The Net's list of Top 100 web sites. Congrats to our friend Ken at Chilidog's Condiment Castle, however, on being selected for this honour!

• More Awards For The Mantel:
  We were awarded the Family Jewel Award "for excellence in design, layout, content, presentation, uniqueness, and originality", the Pure Funk Award, and we will be featured as the Hit The Beach! Wave of the Day on June 2.

• Spring Cleaning:
  Since the length of the Random Silliness section is getting a little out of hand & we just can't stop adding new sites, we're going to chose our all-time favourites for a new section soon. Keep an eye out for a new button!

• Send a Message to Netscape Programmers:
  Do you have something you'd like to say to the geniuses who made such fun possible? No, not us. At the Netscape Engineering Sign page you can type text which will be sent to the electronic sign above the engineering area at Netscape. We liked it so much we're saving up for one for the C*E*A! In the meantime, Cathie always enjoys receiving e-mail fan messages, promises of chocolates, and marriage proposals.
  

April 1996

• Happy Spring!
  As the flowers in the outside planter boxes are blooming, & long distance charges accumulated calling Back East to brag, it's been another exciting month at the C*E*A...

• April Fool's - NOT!
  We are thrilled to report four recent major magazine appearances. The C*E*A was reviewed in the May-June/96 issue of Utne Reader. Coincidentally, the cover story is entitled "Are you grown-up yet?". We were also listed in the May/96 issue of Popular Science Magazine, featured as one of the Top 100 Web Sites in PC Novice Magazine's "Guide to the Internet" publication, and highlighted in the May/96 issue of PC Format magazine in the UK. Thanks also to Neill McDonald for naming us his top web site in Off the Wall, where he wrote about us: "... while reading the posted material, one truly gets a sense that the webmasters have better senses of humour than anyone else on the web. Either that or else maybe they're insane (just a joke of course)."

  In celebration of such a successful month, Miss Walker treated the entire C*E*A staff to dinner, where they went all out & ordered the Super Size Fries with their Happy Meals.

• Great C*E*A Easter Egg Hunt Winners:
  We are pleased to announce that we received a large number of responses to our first contest. Anthony Adams was the proud winner of first prize, a genuine Mr. Potato Head, and Sheri Saville was second prize winner of a potato gun with which to terrorize her friends, neighbours, and small yappy dogs. Both winners were also sent the fully functional & highly coveted C*E*A fridge magnet. Thanks to everyone for participating! We found it interesting that the girls far outnumbered the boys in both entries & correct answers, & wonder what this says about short attention spans. If you can't sleep without knowing what the answers were, please write to cathie@amused.com.

• I'm Ready For My Close-Up:
  After months of exhaustive research, we are pleased to present Greg Bulmash's Absolutely, Positively Factually Inaccurate Biography of Cathie Walker, written while Greg was a temp at the C*E*A. We urge you to check out more of his writing at Greg Bulmash's Humor Page. We will be keeping copies of the biography on file for when the representatives of Entertainment Weekly call.

• Dubious Honours:
  It's finally happened -- Don Middendorf has now visited every site listed on the Random Silliness & Sites That Do Stuff pages (all rise in front of your computers in honour). If other C*E*A visitors have achievements they wish noted in the newsletter, please contact us at news@amused.com.

• For the Mantelpiece:
  This month we were awarded the Tangled Web's coveted BrainFry Award the Mad Cow Page, and the Shadow Hunters Cool Pick award. We are certain that the Cool Site of the Day people are merely waiting for the Right Moment to call our people to bestow the honour upon us.

• I'm Too Sexy For My Web Page:
  Our new look has met with positive response despite rumours circulating of Mr. Potato Head's sudden demise. We wish to assure our visitors that the culprit who had been leaving threatening french fries in the C*E*A mailbox has been apprehended, & the Unapotato severely dealt with.
  

March 1996

• New Look:
  We hope you like our updated look. While we will miss our mascot, Mr. Potato Head, he remains here both in spirit and in body atop the Centre's PowerMacs. In a burst of spring renovations, we've added exciting new graphics to each of the C*E*A pages and created a new logo for the Short Attention Span Site of the Week. It was either this or new chairs for the waiting room, & we decided our online friends came first!

• Media Appearances:
  Miss Walker, our Chief Schmoozing Executive, has been hard at work. She was a guest on the national radio program Dotto On Data on March 24, where she was interviewed about the C*E*A, classic web sites, and her infamous personal page. Although she was prepared to sing the "Cruisin' the Internet" theme song on the air, there unfortunately was not enough time for this fine performance. Mr. Dotto also highlighted the C*E*A on his TV show, Data's Dotto Cafe, on March 27. Thanks, Steve!

  Miss Walker made a rare public appearance at Victoria's Underground Onramp, an Internet Cafe, and plans to return soon to give demonstrations of quality time-wasting and latte consumption. Thanks are extended this issue to Rita Bronnenkant for giving us a great write-up in the Montclair State University newspaper, and to Netsurfer Digest for reviewing us in their March 15 issue. We can only assume Entertainment Tonight is just around the corner. The C*E*A was also mentioned in the Family Net column in the Victoria Times-Colonist on March 28.

• From the Staffroom:
  Congratulations to Don Middendorf, who was voted C*E*A Employee of the Month. In return for Don's tireless reporting of relocated or inactive links, he has been awarded the coveted C*E*A Fridge Magnet.

• This Month's Awards:
  We were chosen as Irene's Crack House Hit of the Day on March 6, GrandPhant's Phantastic Pick of the Week on March 9, and awarded The Zone Hall of Fame Award on March 15. We were recognized as the Canuck Site of the Day on March 12, and awarded the CompuNet Connection Hot Site of the Week on March 10.

• Find Those Eggs!
  The Great C*E*A Easter Egg Hunt is underway, and entries are being received daily. Don't forget to get your entries in by April 15th to win fun prizes while enjoying your favourite activity -- visiting the C*E*A!

• Hands in Your Cookie Jar:
  Ever wonder what cookies.txt (Windows) or MagicCookie (Mac) was doing on your hard drive? Those files are collections of little data caches put into your computer by some of the Web sites you browse. Sites taking advantage of this feature use your cookies file to store information they can access the next time you - or someone else on your machine - visit. Such information may include which pages you look at and how long you stay at each. One example of cookie use is the Microsoft Network, which allows you to customize which features you want to see when you show up there. We just thought you should know....(from Netsurfer Digest Volume 02, Issue 05)

February 1996

*STOP THE PRESSES!*
We have Big News! The Artists Formerly Known as http://www.islandnet.com/~cwalker wish to announce that their new address is now http://www.amused.com. Now isn't that much easier to remember? Stay tuned for exciting news on our celebratory contest!
• Ahhh, Afterglow:
  February was another great month! We have now recovered from the annual Valentine's Day chocolate-eating contest, and our hands have stopped shaking long enough to type the Newsletter. Special thank to Joono's Horoscopes for sending C. Kay Cummings chocolates, Wally Glenn for sending Boehm's chocolates, and the makers of Tylenol for helping us through the withdrawal symptoms.

• Virtual Valentine:
  Judging from the high number of hits (1,000 alone on Valentine's Day) we assume that you have been enjoying our Virtual Valentine. The folks at Point Communications liked it so much that they mentioned it (and our Chief Schmoozing Executive) in their New & Noteworthy column on Feb 13!

• More Than 100,000 Served:
  The counter for the main page went past 100,000 on February 9! Thanks again to everyone for all the fan mail and a reason to register our own domain name. Stay tuned for its name!

• Blue Ribbon Spud:
  You may have noticed a blue ribbon on our mascot. Although we try to keep the C*E*A a family-friendly site, we support the Blue Ribbon Anti-Censorship Campaign.

• Media Appearances:
  It's been hard to follow appearing in the Wall Street Journal, but we managed. Everyone's favourite story of how we blew up our provider's server is detailed in a new book called Web Advertising & Marketing, and Internet Underground Magazine chose us as one of their Web Top Ten for February's issue. If you see us in print anywhere, we'd really appreciate hearing about it!

• New Awards Received:
  We were selected the Sublime Site of the Week for January 27, GNN/WIC Select honoured us as a Select Site starting Feb 6, and we were the Cool Site of the Nite on Feb 7. Lip Service included us in their Top Ten on February 11, we were the EyeSite Link of the Day on Feb 16, and a new daily web surfing magazine, Web Rats, made us one of their first 5 star sites on February 21. We're in the process of designing an Awards Page, but our Silliness Quotient has been too high lately to get down to business.

• URL Minder:
  Would you like an automatic message sent to you when the C*E*A pages are updated? Register its URL with URL Minder and keep up to date!

January 1996

• Virtual Valentine
  The remaining Christmas decorations have been taken down from the C*E*A walls, & we are already starting to think of Valentine's Day. In fact, we've created a Virtual Valentine for our friends to show how much we love you. We hope you'll enjoy what we've done to classic love songs. The Carpenters will never be the same again.

  It seems a long haul until Spring, & sometimes we all need a little treat. To get you in the mood for National Chocolate Month, we've included one of our favourites. Try not to get chocolate on the keyboard.

• New Year's Resolutions
  The C*E*A staff have all posted their New Year's Resolutions on the coffee room bulletin board, with the exception of Cathie who claims that she has no faults (she has kindly prepared a list for the staff, however). If you have made any New Year's Resolutions, be sure to check out Grapevine's site . They'll even follow up in 3 months to see how you're doing with them.

• More Publicity
  On January 25 the C*E*A appeared in the Personal Technology column of the Wall Street Journal. Our parents are so proud, & we are thrilled to welcome thousands of new visitors daily. January has been quite a month! We were awarded both the Too Cool Award & the Cool Page of the Day on January 24. Websmith, a new magazine for the technical end of things, published an article about us & how we "brought the Island Net server to its knees" when we first went online in July/95. We've just received a copy of the Toledo Blade article that mentions us, too, in case you'd like to read about "useless sites" or more about us. We were also chosen General Media's "Puppy's Pick" for January 19. Check out their fun web surfing game & win trips.

• Web Trivia
  Did you know that in 1995 the number of sites on Internet doubled every 53 days? Or that the Netscape site receives 19 *million* hits a day?

• Surveying The Damage
  Thanks to all who have completed our new survey. If you haven't already done so, please let us know who you are & what you like. It's fun learning about you all, & we don't even have to clean the toilet when you come for a visit.

December 1995

As the monitors of the C*E*A's Macs are gaily decorated with holiday desktop patterns, we've experienced more excitement than usual lately.

• The C*E*A was listed in the new publications, "Yahoo Unplugged" & "The World Wide Web Top 1000", the book of Point Top 5% reviews. Unfortunately we had already finished our holiday shopping when we received notification, or our entire families would have received autographed copies.

• Our Short Attention Span Site of the Week was listed in Internet Underground's Issue #1 & we're told they're planning to make the C*E*A one of their Top 10 sites for February.

• We were named the "Fan Club Site of the Day" for Wednesday, Nov.22, 1995, and after Cathie's Internet presence was subtly brought to the attention of the writer of the Wonderful Web Women site, the oversight was corrected & she was listed under "Funny Women".

Season's Greetings!

November 1995

• Honour Roll
  We have recently been awarded with yet more distinctions. C*E*A was the starting point for Round Six of Yoyodyne's Six Degrees of Separation game in October. It's a fun web surfing game where you try to find the shortest number of links between the starting point and Yoyodyne's home page. We were also selected as the Hop & Sticky Site for October 31, and BATech's Catch of the Day for October 27.

  Thanks to those who have submitted links for our new Friends of C*E*A page. As you can see, the list is growing daily. If your home page contains a link to us & you want it listed, please fill out the form on that page.

• Hard At Work?
  It has come to our attention that many visitors to the C*E*A are joining us during working hours. Since a select few of you may (egads!) be exploring the Internet from work, we are pleased to present Miss Walker's Guide to Employee Internet Etiquette. Feel free to e-mail us with any other suggestions you may have, and we will add them to the list. We promise not to send a copy to your boss, and you are welcome to use a pseudonym.

• Authenticity of Amusability
  We are pleased to offer the Official C*E*A Membership Card as a holiday gift to our friends. Feel free to print it out and post it proudly above your desk at work.

September-October 1995

Fall has suddenly arrived here at the C*E*A. The lineups at the Staff Lounge slurpee machine have been replaced by the constant operation of the espresso machine, as our dedicated employees become latte-fueled. Now that the new television season has begun, they are finding it difficult to leave the Ricki Lake show to remain at their surfing workstations, so we've had to come up with some new projects to challenge them.

• Friends of C*E*A Page:
  In honour of all of our friends out there in Cyberia, we're going to have a listing of your home pages. Please e-mail us with your name, e-mail address, the name & URL of your home page, and we'll compile them. Or if you'd like, use the form on the Friends Page. Remember, pages must include a link to C*E*A to qualify!

• Who Loves Us:
  You like us! You really like us! (insert Sally Field impersonation) ... On the publicity front, we were thrilled to be mentioned in Mr. Media's newsletter of September 11. We have been selected to be October 7's Cool Place, and Island Net have included us in their award-winning Hall of Fame. As if that weren't enough to make us insufferable, we have been contacted by a firm in the UK about the possibility of appearing on a CD-ROM.

• Yellow Buttons:
  We hope you like our new 3-D look & reorganization. Since statistics show that most of you are viewing our pages Monday-Friday, we thought we'd shorten the loading time for you. You wouldn't possibly be surfing at work, now, would you? Shame on you!

• Submissions:
  Please let us know of any web sites that should be included on our pages. All submissions must undergo a strict selection process, which is greatly enhanced by the promise of large amounts of chocolate.

August 1995

Thanks!

I'd like to thank the Academy...

We've had quite a month thanks to the relentless efforts of our Public Relations Division.
• After appearing in Netscape's What's New list for the week of July 31, the number of accesses managed to overload the Island Net server, & the page had to be put on a timer to limit access.

• We were selected as Barbara's Best Bookmark for August 2, & will soon be a featured hotsite in Starting Point.

• We were selected as among the top 5% of home pages on the internet & received a glowing review from Point Communications. We are pleased to be able to use their "top 5%" icon on our page, and were so excited that we spilled our Slurpees all over our white lab coats.

• The Short Attention-Span Site of the Week has been added for your enjoyment, & you'll find both it and the C*E*A listed in Yahoo's Useless Pages & What's New Too.

• We were mentioned in an article in the Toledo Blade, listed in the Orlando Sentinel's Cyberscene Column, & have been contacted by a magazine directed at Systems Administrators (I suppose we're the Client From Hell).