Moments suspended in time from last year's celebrations - Dick Clark and Mariah Carey in Times Square, fireworks over the Sydney Harbour in Australia, 2.3 million people on the beaches of Rio De Janeiro, celebrations along the Thames under the London Eye in England. There's moments captured from Japan, Portugal, Taiwan, Switzerland, Amsterdam, and Slovenia, all captured as Quicktime Virtual Reality Panoramas, meaning that you can use your mouse to look in a full 360 degrees and take in all of the details, the hieghtened excitement of communities gathered to welcome another year. Some even include the sounds of the moment. Make sure to come back and check the website later next week when they will add new panoramas from this weekend's big bashes. [More]

This week's puzzle room is an all-time classic. Jan Albartus' Mystery of Time and Space (MOTAS) is a succession of locked rooms, each with no apparent way to leave them. It's up to you to click around, explore the furniture and uncover the items needed to invent a way out. The solution to the first room is actually a trick that has been used by prisoners in the real world. As you progress, the riddles and puzzles behind each room will get harder and harder with the later rooms being difficult enough to challenge even the most expert of puzzle masters. Since the game was first launched in 2001, it's remained popular enough for Albartus to update it with more rooms and a new soundtrack. Click here to see the other puzzle rooms in this series and as always, you can e-mail me at krisabel@gmail.com for clues and hints [More]

Countries around the world will be welcoming the New Year this weekend with fantastic fireworks displays. Here's a collection of some of the most spectacular and the most extreme events including those in China and Mexico where people are allowed to dance amongst the fireworks as they are set off on the ground. Click on "more" to go to the video gallery. [More]

News Junkies pay attention. Every day you'll find a scan of the front page for 521 newspapers from 52 countries around the world. You can have thumbnail pictures of the pages listed for you in a grid, sorted by region, or even linked to a world map to let you quickly scan them and see what patterns arise, how different each paper approaches the news and what big stories take priority from one part of the continent to the next. Each of the front pages are available for download for free in large format, big enough to read. From the Ottawa Citizen to the Denver Post to the Asahi Shimbun. The interactive website is actually an exhibit from the Newseum, an Arlington, Virginia-based institution devoted to the public understanding of the medium and business of news reporting. [More]

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If you somehow missed out on preparing a turkey dinner this holiday season, here's your chance to go through the motions with a virtual oven and virtual 10lb turkey. It's up to you to figure out how to turn the oven on, what heat setting to switch it to, and then from there all you can do is wait for it to cook.... in real time. Turn on the interior light to watch it if you wish, or continue working at your computer and simply check back on it later to see how its going. When you're done you can e-mail a serving to your friends. At least there's no mess to clean up. [More]

A series of interactive travel toys, Hungry Suitcase pairs you up with a talking, wisecracking suitcase named Sammy. Sammy will show you through a house full of vacation paraphenalia and the idea is that you "feed" him the objects that represent the kind of things you're looking for in a vacation, and, at the end Sammy will put together a recommendation for you based on your choices. It's mainly just fun to feed the suitcase and spin through the house. Once you've finished the first part, you'll find more goofy activities - upload your photo and make it sing, play the toilet fishing video game, watch videos starring Sammy, and design a female suitcase for Sammy to date. [More]

I find myself in the mood for some Air Hockey this week and hope you're feeling the same. After you choose which country you'd like to play for, you'll be pitted against a player from each of the other countries to decide who is the world champion. First one to reach seven points takes the title. The controls are easy, it's all in the mouse. Just hit the puck into the computer-controlled player's net. [More]

If you've received a gift this week, especially one that you wanted, were hoping for, then you might want to send a really good thank-you e-card and the 1 Million Thank-Yous card by Hallmark is easily the best. It's a clever gag that I wouldn't dream of giving away. For more free cards and fun featuring these two characters, visit hoopsandyoyo.com [More]