We wait, in trepidation, for the return of Crispin Glover. He was last seen in Milos Forman's 1996 "The People vs. Larry Flynt"; he may or may not appear in Neal LaBute's upcoming "Nurse Betty." There are those who say they've met The Crispin, and he wouldn't hurt a fly - even shod in those notorious, Letterman-sweeping platforms of his.

Boy, would I love to believe that. But anyone with eyes to see know that Crispin's not like you or I. He's not like you or I.

Their faces are earnest, their manner unassuming. Many of them are celebrating an event - a birthday, New Year's Eve, getting lucky with a bar scam for the absolute first time ever. (In that godawful blue-and-red windbreaker, no less.) And - no one has the slightest idea who these people are. For all we know, it could be your sister, or your tennis partner, or you. The People's Photos is a web gallery made from discarded and forgotten snapshots; it broadens the definition of the term "found art" by grinning brute force. The photos are about what you would expect - poorly composed and lit slices of someone else's life, unimportant enough for the subject to fling them to the wind. But one soul's ballast is another's gold, and I can't help but place myself in the lives depicted in these tableaus. Why are those bikini-clad women crouched, chain-gang style, on the deck of that yacht? What's with the tubby white guy in belly dancer drag? And who is the mysterious "Talia?" Only a select few know the answers to these questions, and as I mentioned before, those people just ain't here. The People's Photos will make you feel dirty, more deeply so than you've ever dreamed possible. The Passenger can't recommend it enough.
 

I don't drive fast, largely because I can't. (Still not very good on the stick shift.) But I know a lot of people that do put the pedal to the figurative metal, and to those would-be Steve McQueens I humbly suggest a quick trip to the WWW Speedtrap Registry. Supported by reader accounts and organized by town, state and/or country, a visit to the Registry can save you (not me - remember, I don't break speed laws) hundreds of dollars in tickets and insurance hikes. Sample testimonial from the great state of Nevada: "I passed three state patrol cars who didn't even flinch, however a local sheriff in a '76 power wagon was more than happy to inform me that the speed limit was only 70. This was approx. 10 miles north of his county, which I don't recall the name, but started out Pharag-something." Fun reading even if you don't have a license - which, having not previously familiarized yourself with the contents of this site, you may not.
 

My friend Gene works in Hollywood as a voice actor. You've heard him countless times; for the most part he does film trailers ("From director Barbra Streisand comes a timeless story...") and television commercials ("On the next 'Babylon 5'..."), though he's done a couple of films, most notably "2010." He had stories upon stories about friends and colleagues hidden behind curtains and in recording booths: "Garfield" actor Lorenzo Music ("Goatee, cool as they come, nice guy"), cartoon talent Jim Cummings ("He can do Romanian tsetse flies believably") and Paul Frees, perhaps one of the greatest voice actors ever to rock the mike. Frees voiced Boris Badenov on "Rocky and Bullwinkle," provided the disembodied "Ghost Host" for Disneyland's "Haunted Mansion"; his Internet Movie Database entry runs 169 entries, not bad for a guy who wore six-shooters to every recording session and announced "The king is here!" upon entering a room. ("And he meant it," Gene said, grinning.) At any rate, if Gene were netted (I am almost certain he isn't), he would no doubt appreciate Voice Chasers, a searchable index of voice talents from the aforementioned Frees to the prolific and possibly schizophrenic Tress MacNeille. The site a little heavy on cartoon talent (to be fair, where most of the work is) and incomplete (all those "photo coming soon" placeholders have got to go), but it's an auspicious beginning nonetheless -- a long-overdue tribute to the studio of the invisible.
 

The Passenger isn't much on puzzles. I mean, boobie, I have enough trouble getting from the bed - point A - to the coffeemaker - point B - before 9 a.m. Pacific. And if the coffeemaker only worked between 9 and 9:30 a.m., and a train full of Passenger clones leaves Barstow at 3 a.m. with a full load o' Sumatra - well, suffice to say that I've always preferred optical illusions, like the ones presented at Sandlot Science. They don't want anything from you; they don't want you to complete a physics degree or to brush up on your chaos math. They just want you to look - in some cases, to look very hard - and find the gifts artfully hidden in the spirals and parallel lines. The page features tributes to Jerry Andrus and M.C. Escher -- acknowledged masters of the art - and enough tricks of the light to caress your left brain for a good hour. A bonus: the page devoted to Moiré (two overlapping, transparent patterns) contains what, to the Passenger's trained eye, is one of the cleverest music-based puns of all time. And I didn't even have to work that hard to figure it out.

I was holding off on this one, but ... Macaulay Culkin is now of voting age. Plus, I think he got married. Kinda puts the whole Crispin thing in perspective, doesn't it? See you next week, fellow kids!