findingDulcinea

Kicking Off the Summer on a Positive Note

Memorial Day may have started as a tribute to war veterans following the Civil War, but in modern times, it also marks the beginning of summer and is often celebrated with cookouts, parades and general warm-weather revelry. Although Weather.com says it’s expected to be rainy “for much of the nation” this weekend, that won’t stop millions of us from taking day or weekend trips to visit family, or explore new or familiar getaway spots.

This summer, we're in a recession, but that needn’t make us any more glum. Recent polls encouragingly suggest that money isn’t strongly tied to happiness. One poll by the Associated Press and mtvU shows that a higher percentage of college students are happier this year than they were last year. Many people are stressed about the economy and job market, including college students, but there is also evidence that those with higher incomes aren’t necessarily happier than those who aren’t. Education level more strongly correlates with happiness, says a study by Britain’s National Literacy Trust, so take some time this summer to feed your mind.

The recession “may actually be good for people,” as our positive news columnist Anne Szustek wrote earlier this week. Follow the lead of New Yorkers, who are reportedly volunteering more, shirking their “self-insulating” stigma. For families, summer is an especially active time, and it shouldn’t be any different this year. Sticking together and sharing experiences is even more important now. Find affordable alternatives for your family to enjoy this summer.

Liz Colville
Senior Writer
Audience Development

Sweet Sites | Play the Game: Reconnecting with Childhood Games on the Web

Nostalgic for the games you played when you were a kid? Here are three sites that can help you recapture those old memories and potentially share your childhood fun with your own children.

If the happiest moments of your youth involved tossing away all your quarters at the arcade, you might enjoy KLOV (Killer List of Videogames), sponsored by the International Arcade Museum. Search or browse the alphabet for detailed information and images of classics like "Burger Time" and more recent favorites like "Dance Dance Revolution." If you have hundreds of dollars and the floor space to spare, the site also includes whatever eBay listings for the game are available. Those with thinner wallets but deep devotion might be interested in purchasing the game manuals.

If your pulse used to race to the clatter of dice, the fluttering of cards and the march of plastic game pieces, than BoardGameGeek, a database of more than 30,000 board games, is for you. Plug in the name of your favorite board game into the search box for a brief description, images, forums discussing game play and listings for the game on eBay and the site's own marketplace. If you've got information about a particular game that appears to be missing from the site, you can add what you know via an online form.

Maybe you preferred to spend most of your kid downtime outdoors; in that case, visit GamesKidsPlay. The site isn't particularly elegant, but it does have a nice long list of rules for playground games, as well as jump rope and clapping game rhymes. If you're desperate to remember exactly how to play Red Light/Green Light," "Steal the Bacon" or "Spud," this site is an answer to your prayers.

Amy Goldschlager
Editor

Find your own "eureka" sites using SweetSearch.

Consult our Video Games Web Guide for more sites that will connect you with video games new and old.

Sweet Sites | Name That Tune: Nailing Down Music & Lyrics on the Web

It’s a universal experience: there’s a song, or part of a song, that you just can’t get out of your head. Unfortunately, you can’t remember the name of the song or the band who sang it. But fear not: the Internet was invented to solve agonizing conundrums like this. (Okay, maybe the Internet wasn’t specifically designed to help you cope with your earworm problem, but it seems like it might have been.)

Did you first hear the song a few weeks ago as Dr. Gregory House moodily limped/stomped through the hospital or when, for the millionth time, Chuck failed to listen to Sarah and Casey’s instructions to stay in the car and got captured by Fulcrum agents? Then pay a visit to TuneFind, which catalogs the songs used in recent TV shows and new movies. If the song is available on iTunes, the site will direct you there to buy it.

If it’s an older song that’s lodged in your brain, type whatever you remember of the lyrics into Lyrster, a lyrics search engine that indexes more than 350 lyric-hunting sites in English and French. Some of the sites also lead to audio or video clips of the song in question. (I personally was thrilled to find a cheesy video of “Disparue,” a French rock song from 1982 that I encountered during a high-school summer spent in France.)

If you’ve used the two sites above to successfully identify your song, head on over to just hear it, which searches the Web for audio and video of your chosen song. If you’re looking for multiple songs, you can drag each one to the right of the screen and create a playlist.

Just hear it has acquired all the appropriate licenses to ensure that artists receive royalties for their work when you stream their songs; that means you can root out that earworm and feel virtuous at the same time. The site is currently in private beta; you need an invitation to gain membership privileges that allow you to save playlists between visits. However, you can e-mail them and request one.

Amy Goldschlager
Editor

Find your own "eureka!" sites using SweetSearch.

What Are People Spending Money On in the Recession?

Call me crazy, but I think there are positive things to draw from this recession. True, I never worked for Lehman Brothers. I don't have a mortgage or build SUVs for a living. But I live in New York, I work in media and I used to enjoy professional hair dye. I'm by no means impervious to the effects. But I do think we can learn from the crisis as we adjust to the times.

I made some adjustments of my own. My old column, "The Way to Work," became “The Way to Keep Working.” It was when I wrote about the “Recession Depression" that I realized staying happy means making sure the quality of your life doesn’t sink too low. So I recommended five things to keep spending money on during the recession and asked our readers to opine on my choices. It turned out that readers had a lot to say on the subject. So we decided to launch a full-scale inquiry. I asked for feedback through Facebook, Peter Shankman’s Help A Reporter Out and the Qwidget commenting tool. And that’s when I really started to see the silver lining.

What I found was an eager, articulate, positive and brave community. "Things You Can't Live Without During the Recession: Readers’ Choice Edition" gathers what people are saying about the things they love. Good wine. Good food. Running sneakers. Coffee. Gummy bears. Someone even e-mailed me to tell me that she couldn't do without a solar-powered birdbath in her backyard.

The indulgences that people are allowing themselves are not outrageous. Rather, to me, they help to define everyone’s individuality and humanity. A year ago, people were concerned that materialism was driving this country to ruin. Now, we’re working toward a happy medium. We’re finally ready to put some meaning into where our money goes.

Rachel Balik
Senior Writer

How Do I Know If I Have Swine Flu?

Photo: Ryan Remiorz/AP

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a global panic, er, we mean pandemic, called swine flu. Or, at least it was called swine flu until the name was changed to protect the innocent. (Pigs, that is.) It’s now going by the clunky but nonoffensive title of influenza A (H1N1). Thankfully, we’re all clear on one fact: You can’t get swine flu from eating pork.

Unfortunately, when people start to panic, facts are hard to come by. On Twitter, which has been heralded as a hub for so-called citizen journalists, not every post tagged “#swineflu” contained information that was accurate, or even worth reading. People using the Twitter search engine to find answers may not have been employing the soundest judgment.

But even the professional media was responsible for creating a bit of a scare. As one Huffington Post blogger observed, a few headlines reading “Death Toll Rising” can lead the innocent news consumer to feel like “there’s a plague on.”

And while there have been comparisons to the flu epidemic of 1918, suggesting that influenza A might be the next Spanish influenza, we won’t help ourselves by giving in to hysteria. Still, a trait shared by the two viruses is that they start out mild. Spanish influenza eventually got worse, and influenza A has that potential.

In short: We can’t stop paying attention. Somewhere in between panic and ignorance is a happy medium.

That’s why we decided to find five sites with reliable, accurate and comprehensive information about swine flu. Get all your questions answered about how the disease started, why it’s a concern, what the symptoms are and how swine flu affects travel. The only thing the article won’t tell you is where you can buy a surgical mask.

Rachel Balik
Senior Writer