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Vol. 3, No. 8

February 21, 1997

Welcome to another Tripod Insider -- your source for all things Tripod. This week, the Insider goes undercover around the office and discovers what appear to be some serious addictions and fetishes. Find out more after the editors tell you what's new on the site.

Content And Services

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WORK & MONEY

This week the Work & Money section is devoted to helping you learn how to maximize your money. With that in mind, personal finance whiz Beth Kobliner serves up the skinny on "How to Get the Best Mortgage Deal". Which raises an interesting question -- in these times of uncertain financial prospects and questionable job security, does it make more sense to rent or buy your home? Sound off in this week's Survey.

Many of us can expect to be struggling with our college loans for ten, twenty, even thirty years after graduation. Loan expert Stuart Farmelant shows how consolidation may reduce those payments and protect our precious credit ratings. Lastly, Tools for Thought reviews an all-purpose financial guide for the creatively-inclined (and downright clueless) among us.

Randy Williams, Editor

POLITICS & COMMUNITY

As our Cities vs. Suburbs month continues in Politics & Community, The Suburbs Strike Back! In the Cities vs. Suburbs conference, Tripod's landed members have risen in defense of their quarter-acre lots and two-car garages. Is there more to life than Little League games? We need some streetsmart members to let us know what time it is. Join us.

James Howard Kunstler, author of Home From Nowhere, thinks that "the living arrangement Americans now think of as normal is bankrupting us economically, socially, ecologically, and spiritually." Hear him speak out for a New Urbanism.

You have spoken, and we can't believe what you said! Our own Dan Reines is here to tell us what Tripod members really think about the suburbs, and what you said you'd give up to live in the perfect community.

People say that cities are centers of crime. Prove it. Have YOU ever been mugged? Give us the details in this week's Survey.

Josh Glenn, Editor

TRITECA

Ed Schwartz, citizen activist and community leader (and the author of Net Activism) says that e-mail really can be political action, in Perspective.

Hulking graphics and hefty file sizes? Heaven forbid! Gif Girl saves the day again, in Eye Site.

Cable modems expand our bandwidth, in this week's Lemming Report.

Get a brief history of music on the Web, as a New York music agent sounds off on Real Audio, in Ware/Howz.

And make your own animations, with the help of the Page Slave (and a nifty piece of software).

Michelle Chihara, Editor

HOMELIFE

Due to popular demand, Living and Travel is still immersed in the dubious world of catalog escapism. The average score in the catalogs quiz so far, by the way, is 22 percent correct -- which might be a good sign... or it might mean that you don't know enough about catalogs yet. Educate yourself, in This Life Could Be Yours.

Doctor Bob answers questions about the meaning of extra protein in urine, and how to know when your moles are malignant (can you trust doctors to catch them?).

By the way, have you noticed the three conferences going on in Living and Travel? The Women's Room Conference (men are welcome too!) and the Surviving in the Arts Conference are now joined by the Media Savvy Conference. You'll find these, plus saucy exchanges from all of Tripod's conferences, at Trialogue HQ.

Look out for a new Living and Travel theme next Thursday: The Rise and Fall of Quentin Tarantino (and do women really give a damn?)

Emma Taylor, Editor

Tripod Insider

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This week's theme around the office seems to be addictions and fetishes. Like office workers everywhere, many Tripod staffers are coffee fanatics who can't make it through the day without multiple cups of Joe. Mike "Membership" Merrill, however, who is infamous for bringing his own thermos of coffee to the office, may have found something even more potent: Fatherhood. Mike is the proud father of a new baby girl, whose arrival got him so wired he came right into work the next day!

Mike's counterpart in Membership Services isn't addicted to anything, but she does appear to have developed a new fetish. Recently, Christina began using an elaborate set of straps and pads around her chair. She claims that it helps her back, but if you didn't know better it might be mistaken for something much less innocent. I just hope Christina doesn't start tying up Mike.

On a more serious note, the Insider has discovered that one new staff member has a very serious addiction to office supplies. The signs were all too obvious. First there were the pens, and then the note pads. Soon after came the file folders, and then places to put those files. I guess we should have suspected something when she kept spending her lunch hours looking through office supply catalogs. Fortunately, we seem to have intervened in time, and Susan has owned up her problem. From now on we'll be more vigilant.

Tripod Membership

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Thanks for becoming a member of Tripod.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me.
My mailbox is always open.

Tung T. Pham
Membership Director
[email protected]

This has been another issue of the Tripod Insider, the occasional newsletter on what's happening at Tripod. Past issues of the Tripod Insider are also available.

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