I loved snowglobes as a kid, although there wasn't usually much going on in them. The Chinese knockoffs in the discount stores in recent years are less magical.

In these globes by artists Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz there's a lot going on. We just don't know what.

Shake Up The World With Creepy Snow Globes at the oddly interesting InventorSpot showcases a selection of the pair's stranger scenes in a bubble. There are many more at the artists' site.

Should these break down your childhood preconceptions of what's acceptable inside a snowglobe, and inspire you to dabble, you can make your own. There's plenty of time before Christmas to perfect your concepts.

The colors of names: An On-Line Color Thesaurus at Mostly Color. You start with a color name, get samples, and you'll see its antonyms too.

 purple haze   drab

Here's the most interesting page on the Web to fans of pinpoint precision color-picking: The full spectrum, microsliced, with the many names each incremental step is known by.

Hat tip to MeFi for these fresh links, among the best on the bitstream tonight.