Here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

This week’s amusement from the “interactive toys” corner of artist Ze Frank’s Web site. The New York Times wrote an article about Frank, focusing on his experiment in letting anyone and everyone write a script for one of his daily video podcasts. That experiment earned second place in the TIME magazine’s list of top ten podcasts back in 2006.

But, for the purposes of wasting time, check out Frank’s online, interactive tools made with Adobe Flash, a strong knowledge of math and a mind for thinking outside of the box. Some highlights:

• Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.To use Ze Frank’s kaleidoscope tool, choose colors, draw lines and drag shapes onto a blank black circle. The tool will meld the shapes and drawings to instantly create an animated kaleidoscope-like image. The older, simpler version of this tool is here, the newer version is here.
• For the holidays, people in offices that allow sound can annoy co-workers with a visual carol maker. Just drag little elf heads, which represent notes and chords, to an empty black box. The elves will sing the song that you create. Proud composers can even e-mail their creations to family, friends and bored co-workers.
• A “string spin toy” has users scribble on the screen as that doodle-art is transformed into a 3-dimensional image. Old version here, new version here.
• And last, but not least, is my favorite – a 3D snowflake maker. For those who were entertained by the last snowflake maker I wrote about, this one is even better. It allows the user to create the snowflake as it spins in 3D. Even first-timers like myself can achieve some really pretty results (see my example at left).

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