It's time to get away.

Dear Meredith:

Sometimes, I just want a weekend trip, but I don't know where to go or what to do - that's nearby, that is. Voila this handy website - choose where you live, how far you're willing to travel, and what kind of trip you want, and you'll get some recommendations. Unfortunately, it's currently only useful for those who live in big cities (aka, NOT ME), but here's hope that they add more cities soon.

Weekend Getaways

See the world from a different perspective

Dear Meredith:

This handy website converts pictures you've taken so that they look like photographs of miniature scale models. It's sort of awesome. The picture on top is one I took when in Porto, Portugal over the summer - and the one on the bottom is the tilt-shifted version.

Tilt Shift Maker

Create a little symphony at your desk.

Dear Meredith:

Despite the rather unfortunate name of this site, it's a clever little application where you draw lines, and when the balls fall on the lines, they make sounds.

BallDroppings

"Let's not mess with nature. We are here to make babies. So, let's get to it."

Dear Meredith:

If you were a guy cruising for chicks, I'd send you this link. Just hit the refresh button, and a sparklin' brand new pick up line would be there, waiting for you to use it on some unwitting girl.

What the hell. I'm sending you the link to it anyway.

Pick up lines generator

If you don't like 'em, then nuke 'em

Dear Jennifer,

Let's talk for a second about websites we DON'T like. For those sites that make you a little angry, or sites that you respect deeply but still kind of want to kick in the face, use Net Disaster.

You can nuke it, set aliens on it, corrode it, shoot it, spill coffee on it, or pee acid onto it. Yes, acid pee is a choice.

Special thanks to Kemper for the find.

ENJOY

A letter from you!

Dear Jennifer,

While I will try to be regular with my letters to you here, you can also have control over letter receipts by visiting Future You and sending an email to your future self.

Simply create an email to yourself and then decide when to send it to you.

Who knows? Maybe your email could end up being the basis of a huge sci-fi film starring Nic Cage.

FUTURE YOU!

How I learned to love the bomb...

Dear Jennifer,

Do you need a little more nuclear destruction in your life? How about power over the nuclear destruction of several major cities? If I know you, then the answer is yes. : )

Visit this website to play around with dropping nukes on cities and watching a computer enactment of real-life repercussions.

It's sick. It's morbid. It passes the time.

Tom found this one.

NUKE EM!

Girls in a warehouse!

Dear Jennifer,
Here is the latest web campaign from AXE hair spray: Pictures of men are shown to a room full of women who then stand on the "yes" or "no" area of the room to vote for whether the dude's hair is "girl approved".

It is pretty hilarious to picture 100 girls being kept in a warehouse for the sole purpose of judging male hair.

I believe you will HEARTILY enjoy.

LET THE JUDGING BEGIN!

Courtesy of Bunway Airlines

Want to send a personalized ecard that stars your favorite LOLcat or dog? Check out this variant from the I Can Haz Cheezburger and I Has a Hot Dog websites. You pick a LOL post and send it to a friend, loved one, or hated enemy. There are a plethora of options.

DELIVERED BY BUNWAY!

Want humor instead of hearts?

Jib Jab is an awesome website that sends emailed greetings and videos that can be personalized. But not just any greetings - these ones are really really funny and can sometimes star you.

This link specifically goes to their "alternative" Valentine's videos.

Whether you are single or expecting gifts today - these are a hoot.

ANTI-VALENTINE VIDEOS

Just one word.

Just absolutely stuck creatively? Need something to get your writing juices flowing? Go to this website, which features just one word about which you write for a minute. Write anything you want, whatever the word inspires. Then submit it, and see what other people have written about the word also.

One Word

Build sand castles on your screen!

This is a site where you can click and wave your mouse to build things with sand.

Make a castle!
Make Lawrence of Arabia's home!
Or just watch the variations of pixels pile up.

Move your cursor over the small gray block at the top left corner to choose colors, music, etc. Thanks to Kemper for the find!

GIMME SOME SAND!

It's a ....?

Copy and paste a selection of text (yours, someone else's, does it really matter?), and the Gender Genie will tell you if a girl or guy has written it. Really handy when you get those anonymous letters.

The Gender Genie

Bring out your inner Picasso.

Let your inner artist flow free with this online canvas. Better yet, click on "view other paintings" and watch other people's masterpieces being created, right in front of your very eyes.

artPad

What color are you?

The fine people at Pantone, in addition to providing standardized colors for use, well, everywhere, also predict annual color trends. Additionally, they've created this handy little site for you to discover your birthday color. I am grape royale.

Colorstrology

Also useful to see what other people have named their offspring, so you can choose something unique for yours

This fascinating page shows you how popular any baby name has been since the 1880s. It's interesting to see how names that once were popular way back when have come back into vogue (see, for example, Emma, which was the 3rd most popular name in the 1880s, suffered a long period of decline, ranking as only the 448th most popular name in the 1970s, to its current rank in 2007, again the 3rd most popular name).

Just in case you were interested, Jennifer was WAY popular in the 1970s (most popular name for girls) and 1980s (second most popular name for girls) (surprise?), but has since died off, to be replaced by names such as Emily and Isabella (first and second most popular names, respectively, for girls in 2007).

The Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager

Elf Yourself!!

Words cannot describe how hilarious and satisfying this dance generator is. You plug in up to five pictures of you and your friends, and then their heads get put on top of the necks of dancing elves. I highly recommend choosing the sassiest pictures you have of your friends - then it looks like their dancing is personally directed at you. Do it!

DANCE WITH THE ELVES!

Make Your Own Muppet!

And then have it actually exist in reality!! Click on the link below that says "I WANNA MUPPET" to go to a website where you can create a muppet of your choice and have it shipped to your home. I must confess, one of my biggest dreams in life is to be hugged by a muppet. This sounds like a pretty sweet opportunity.

I WANNA MUPPET!

Downloadable Diversions!

This website offers a bunch of downloadable programs to add distractions to your monitor. One choice creates little sheep that will interact with each other randomly. Another creates a cat that will hunt your cursor. Jennifer has downloaded the sheep before without incident, but please use your own discretion. Now go count some adorable, playful sheep!!

SHEEP!

Superman's time suck

Ever wished you could just float above the Earth and let all the information just come to your perfect ears? Well now you can peep on the world from your monitor and enjoy constant, ever-changing information with robotically-voiced updates. See how many people are stuck in an elevator RIGHT NOW. See how much people are talking about hockey vs how much they're talking about basketball RIGHT NOW. See how many seconds remain until "doughnut day". Check out what the most popular video is on youtube, and what the most popular word is that is being used in chats.

Maybe eventually this will tell you where a crime is happening so you can squeeze into your tights and cape and beat Superman to the punch.

Sprint Motherboard