CLICK AND DOUBLE CLICK: ODD SITES ABOUND ON THE INTERNET, BUT SOME OF THEM ARE LOTS OF FUN

One of the amazing things about the Internet is the fact it gives a forum to anybody -- even if they're weird. Today, I'd like to look at a couple of those odd Web pages that really deserve a second look.

Do you like cows? Art Cows of Chicago was suggested by alert reader Ann Bartlett of Cape Girardeau. It's a fun site in an odd sort of way.www.artcows.comCow art and photographs are featured on this site along with a free screensaver with a bevy of beautiful bovines.

What did you do on your summer vacation? This site feels confident you probably spent time with the Cows and took some pictures. You can share them here with Cow fans across the world in the scrapbook section.

You can also download your own virtual cow or herd for that matter, colorize it and share it with other cow lovers. There's even a spot for these virtual cows on parade. OK, they're not really on parade. It's just photographs of unusual cow sculptures and art across the country. I never realized that cow art was this popular.

In the FAQs, we learn that Chicago Art Cows is a unique public art exhibition featuring nearly 300 life-sized cows transformed into works of art by hundreds of Chicago artists. They are on display in public spaces and buildings throughout the city.

Do you like to draw? You might want to check out the Caricature Zone.www.magixl.comYou can take a look at the Gallery of Rich and Famous People in caricature. The site says a new face is added every day.

You can also participate by sketching the caricature of someone you know using a few clicks of your PC mouse. Click on the word Blockheads or the blond-haired boy to enter the site in English. Then click on the words "caricature is fun, just follow the guide."Under their "You are the Artist" heading, they ask, "Do you feel like teasing someone today?" It's really a lot of fun. They give you a standard caricature face, and then you can personalize it with lots of choices under headings of skull, eyes, eyebrows, nose, temple, jaw, mouth and chin. Hey, this is starting to look like someone I know. Me.

The instruction on how to save or print the image is on the screen preceding the caricature. You might want to print out the instruction or you'll lose your work when you click the Back button.

Elsewhere in the site, you can take a peek at this artist's vision of how top models will appear in the future or send an animated postcard. Caricature Zone also includes a new play corner with funny games that use Flash. You can also take a quiz and see how well you recognize the stars from the caricatures. You can also look at funny mutations of famous faces.

I didn't do a Halloween column last week, but something came to my attention that is too good to let go. It comes to us from the Courier Press newspaper in Evansville, Ind. James Derk, whom I met, is an absolute genius when it comes to the Internet. He dreamed up a cool site for Halloween, which has proven so popular the paper is going to keep it going.www.courierpress.com/ghostThe Willard Library is Evansville is supposedly haunted, but is it really? The paper has set up a "ghostcam" and invited visitors to the site to become a ghost hunter. As legend has it, a "Lady in Grey" was first seen 60 years ago by a library employee. Since then, countless other employees and patrons have reported seeing this apparition. The Ghostcam takes a new image every 45 seconds. Surfers are encouraged to be the first to see the ghost and report back. Proof by several people is posted, and you can agree or disagree.

You can also tell your own ghost stories, either at the Willard Library or any other experiences you have had. This is slick.

In a hurry? I ran across another odd site last week that's pretty slick. It's called Fast TV and bills itself as the "smart way to see your world." www.fasttv.comIt has an online archive of more than 350,000 hours of video, which is searchable, from weather to movie trailers, politics to music videos, sports to breaking news. The neat thing is you can fast forward to the part you really want to see.

You need RealPlayer G2, which is free, to use Fastv.com. It also suggests you have at least a 4.0 version of either Internet Explorer or Netscape for optimal viewing.

What are people searching for? Well the Top 10 Fast TV searches provide some clues: Earthquakes, football, Pokemon, Elvis, Ryder Cup, weather, mp

3, Hawaii, Christina Aguilera and South Park. Quite a range.

This site is a push to make the Internet more user friendly, and it's pretty novel.

What's your favorite odd site? E-mail me at click@semissourian.com.

See you in Cyberspace.

Joni Adams is the managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.