Yahoo Picks My Newspaper

This is great! I had forgotten all about this. Not long after I started my gonzo little rural quarterly back in 1995, I put it up on the Internet.

My half fact, half fiction little newspaper was the third Texas newspaper on the Internet back in those early days, ahead of the Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio dailies.

After this little promo from Yahoo, it got the attention of the New York Times, Editor & Publisher Magazine, PBS and the BBC. I don't think they realized the Register wasn't a "real newspaper", as I was interviewing Santa Claus and Bigfoot back in those days.

It was my "10 seconds of fame" and a lot of fun.

I ended up with a big part in a two hour PBS documentary called Digital Nation, and got a rave review from the Arts at Large reporter from the New York Times who called the Register the "...Prairie Home Companion of the Long Star State...".

I never saved the little Yahoo link that started it all, but I found it live on the Internet last week by accident. Life is funny! The link goes to the old server where the Register started, and the story that is linked is in tough shape 11 years later, but it's still there?

Who woulda thought? All from Round Top, a town with a population of 81. (It's only 77 now according to the 2,000 census, but the Mayor thinks they got it wrong!)



Yahoo's Picks of the Week (3-11-96)

For various reasons - timely, informative, wacky, you name it - the following sites are listed here because we think they are good. If you know of any others, please send us a note about them. Also send any general thoughts or comments about Picks and the new format. Click here if you only want to view this week's list. Or, try our new feature, Yahoo! for a Day, a selection from our daily additions that stand out as noteworthy.

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Yahoo World Tour

Presented each week with a new focus, the tour highlights some of the great stuff found in our regional categories. This week's theme: local news.

What can we expect from tomorrow's weather in St. Petersburg? What's new in New Zealand? How will South Africa celebrate it's second year anniversary of democracy? What happened in Israel today? For that matter, what happened in Round Top, Texas, today? Such questions are easily answered, thanks to the growing number of online, regional news sites, a handful of which make up this week's tour.

The Jerusalem Post, an English-language Israeli newspaper, includes daily coverage of events unfolding in the region, as well as columns, music, film, people and places features. We dug up an interesting article in Nature & World titled "Use pets to achieve better parenting."

For more local news, try the Round Top Register, from the biggest little town in Texas. Round Top, with a population of 81, is the smallest incorporated town in Texas. But when you catch a ride at Uncle Sack's Internet Depot, or read about art and architecture in Henkel Square, it quickly becomes clear that you don't need to be big to be the center of the universe. There's even a map, if you're not convinced.

Main Street South Africa a newsletter created by two South African journalists living in Washington, D.C., offers business and political analysis of the country, as well as travel and personality features, soundbites, a collection of useful links and more. Main Street's collection of Vital Statistics is a fairly comprehensive gathering of interesting facts about South Africa, and includes a map of the country's new regions. For more news from this part of the world, try Yahoo!'s collection of links to South African English and Afrikaans newspapers.

From Africa to Russia and the St. Petersburg Press, the first Russian newspaper to venture online, in July of 1993. The site includes an archive of back issues, a culture and lifestyle guide, and their current 149th issue. In the latest news is Garry Kasparov and coverage of St. Petersburg mayoral elections, to be held June 16 of this year.

From Cambodia's national newspaper comes The Cambodia Times. Updated weekly, the site offers comprehensive coverage of this and neighboring countries and includes in one of its latest installments news on actor Haing S. Ngor's death, in Los Angeles. Finally, the Christchurch Press Online, New Zealand's second largest newspaper, offers, amongst other things, a weekly press briefing, which is where we learned that popcorn was used to secretly bring into the country a painting by Flemish artist Rubens, on loan from the Australian government. The site offers a wide range of news on all matters: sports, business, computers, motoring, real estate and more. Take your pick(s).