What we have learned from "The Blair Witch Project": You can never carry too much beef jerky on your person. Get a bigger car, preferably one with spotlights attached to the roof. Origami is no match for stick people made with real sticks. A device called a tripod is just the thing to hold cameras steady. Rocks are evil. Don't taunt the girl with the Type-A personality. Walkie-talkies aren't so silly after all. One log looks much like another. Always have a deck of cards handy.

"Helium is first / Doesn't have to stand in line / Freezes vocal cords." This haiku, part of a James Katzmiller ode to helium, is just one part of The Periodic Table of Poetry - but as any scientist will tell you, every little bit counts. Nearly every element in this Table is accompanied by a poem, haiku or piece of prose by a different author, and like the elements themselves, they exist in harmony or conflict, depending on which sets of words you bring to bear upon each other. Barbara Givens' "Silicon" makes humor of its substance ("silicon, my silicon, / do you uplift the hearts of men? / no, says my beloved, / that's silicone") while Dancing Bear's "Hydrogen" somehow brings its lighter-than-oxygen namesake down to human level ("my dreams burning like Hindenberg zeppelins / in the cold gray morning / I rub hot ashes in my eyes"). The Periodic Table of Poetry proves what every poet has long suspected - that poetry, like everything else, is in every living thing - its components building the complex matter of the soul.
 

The Passenger leaves at least a 20 percent tip. Always has, because A) I have worked in the service industry and have an all-too-clear memory of how shabbily waiters are treated by those cheap, Satanic bastards - the American Public; B) It's easier to figure than a 15% tip and I can count on one hand all the times that the server hasn't deserved it. Not everyone feels the same way, however, and for those malefactors Bitter Waitress was born to even the odds. Concentrating on the strange dining and behavioral habits of the celebrity set (amazingly, rumored notorious cheapskate Johnny Depp isn't here - yet), Bitter Waitress takes no prisoners and leaves no Creme Brule unturned. "We've kept lists of names, of incontinence and of gratuities," the "about" page declares. "Now we will call to task the celebrities, the restaurateurs, the chefs, and the general dining public (to the restaurateur, peons) who would do everyone a favor by eating at home." Tip wisely, friend.
 

Radio Free Underground is the Passenger's favorite net radio station of the moment, for the same reason I can't listen to regular radio anymore - it's all about the variety, baby. Choose your path: "The Artificial DJ" allows you to make your own mix from a list of genres that includes everything from Techno to Gothic, serving the cocktail up RealAudio-style. "Make Your Own Mix" works from the same principle, only with an artist list rather than a genre market. If decision-making isn't your thing, there's no end of custom-made music mixes ready and rarin' to go. A terrific way to enliven your drab, cubicle-bound existence, even if there is no idiotic "on-air personality" ringing the Pavlovian bell when it's time to "call in and win."
 

Who among us doesn't owe their very life to Tabasco? Throw out your catsup and bow down to the one, true condiment. (Salsa is a food item, dammit.) You can pour it on scrambled eggs, into soup, into select bar specialties - How could sweetened tomato paste stand up to it? Tabasco's official site is every bit as hot / cool as the product it celebrates, with exclusive recipes ("Bayou Yam Muffins," anyone?), a gallery of Louisiana-based artists and three of the coolest screensavers ever created by humankind. Drink it like you mean it.

Never trust an insane Margot Kidder look-alike wielding a bible. Too many cigarettes are not enough. There's a time to film and a time to drop the camera and run like hell. There's a time to, um, cast away stones. And there's a time to say, "Go on ahead, enjoy the woods. I'm just gonna soak in the hotel's Jacuzzi, maybe drink a Zombie or two." Standing in the corner thinking, until next week...