Valentine’s sampler: great gifts online
		Plus: how to tell your kids ‘I love you;’ and a quiz about hearts and flowers
		By Teri Goldberg SPECIAL TO MSNBC

Feb. 9 —  Valentine’s Day conjures up all sorts of images, from making one’s sweetheart a home-cooked meal to a night out without the kids. But cards, flowers or chocolates have become almost essential. This year, avoid the last-minute dash to several stores. Let the Web help you pick out the basics — and take you to some exotic places, too.

			Electronic cards
	Many Web-based companies offer site visitors a way to send free electronic cards. The operative words here are electronic, fast and free.		Hallmark has helped us realize that sending anyone a card can brighten a day. But in cyberspace, Valentine’s cards take on a new meaning. Many Web-based companies offer site visitors a way to send free electronic cards. The operative words here are electronic, fast and free. By simply clicking on the card of your choice and filling out a short form, you can send greetings within minutes. So, even if you didn’t get that raise, you have no excuse.        And if your company has sent around a memorandum that forbids Internet use on company time, you can quickly send cards on your morning or afternoon break.
			Valentine's Day Quiz How much do you know about love? Take our quiz.        Most electronic card Web sites allow you to write a personal message and preview the card before sending. For those of you who need to get everything done early, a few sites let you delay sending until a future date. The company notifies your Valentine of the card’s arrival via e-mail.        Blue Mountain Arts, at www.bluemountain.com in Boulder, Colo., not only offers thousands of free cards but a bit of ’60s philosophy, too. Founders Stephen Shultz and Susan Polis Schultz see their business as a “public service” and want to “help people communicate their feelings through poetry and art.” The couple launched the greeting card company in 1971. Stephen, a theoretical physicist and “avid supporter of peace,” manages the Web site. Susan, a poet and former reporter for underground newspapers, writes many of the greetings. Other poets contribute to the Web site, too, including, for all you Trekkies, “Star Trek” actor Leonard Nimoy, who apparently writes poetry while he’s off the movie set.
			Valentines for the lovelorn Have an ex-love you want to fling a tender arrow at this Valentine's Day? Then the "ex-love" cards at bluemountain.com may be just the thing for you. Depending on the depth of your pining, one of company's four cards, to which you can add your own personal message, is bound to make a perfect Valentine. Read carefully, though. The "I Miss Having You In My Life Card" may sound all sweetness and light, but it also speaks of “the tears and the fights” and of a heart “bruised and slightly wilted.” Ah, love.        For card lovers, the main Web site attraction may be the large selection of musical cards. These unconventional greetings arrive with electronic versions of theme-related songs. However, electronic music appears to lag behind other late-century technological wonders, such as high-density television. Some of the music is so bad or unrecognizable, that it may strike a sentimental note but more likely it will strike your funny bone. On the other hand, cards with animation can be quite clever and entertaining. The rock ‘n roll Valentine’s features a dancing turtle with a halo of flashing hearts.        Virtual Chocolates, at virtualchocolate.com/valentines, a Web site sponsored by chocolatiers, offers what its calls “postcards” online, most bearing images of chocolate.
			For cold weather climates, the Hot Chocolate Valentine may be your best bet. To send a more seductive image, the Bathtub Valentine may be a good start. If you choose the chocolate-covered strawberry (pictured here), you may be inspired to check out the recipe, courtesy of the photographer at the Home Page of the Chocolate Covered Strawberry at oocities.com/NapaValley/4121. Heather, 42, a stay-at-home mom with two teenage sons, designed the Web site and obviously likes chocolate.        Back to Select a gift category         OLD-FASHIONED CARDS        If you’re looking for a creative approach to Valentine’s Day or a way to keep the kids busy, click on to Ben & Jerry’s online ice cream parlor at benjerry.com. You can order ice cream (six pints packed in dry ice costs $64.95) or buy some bowls in the gift shop, but the Valentine’s Day craft-and-fun page may distract you for a while. In addition to mailing electronic postcards, you write your own Greek mythology or make an old-fashioned Valentine by printing out lacy patterns. Some of the postcards advertise Ben & Jerry’s products but founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield give 7.5 percent of their pre-tax earnings to charity. So, your late-night ice cream binges not only promote “progressive social change,” but also fight “racism, sexism, poverty and environmental destruction.”        Build-A-Card, at buildacard.com lets you create a special greeting by teaching some of the fundamentals of graphic design. The Web site’s advanced card-building feature allows you to design your own card. Placing images and text against different backgrounds is not so easy, but with a little practice you’ll be able to drop a heart in a city skyline or send your fiancée a picture of a diamond ring.        Back to Select a gift category         Postal options        The U.S. Postal Service has not gone completely electronic but a few post offices have a presence on the Web. All you need to know about the Valentine’s Day remailing program from Loveland, Colo., can be found at loveland.org/valentine. Since 1946, people have been sending pre-stamped, pre-addressed Valentines to the Loveland post office, where valentines are postmarked from the small ski resort in the Rocky Mountains. Started by the Loveland Chamber of Commerce, volunteers hand stamp more than 300,000 cards annually. A small town in the Sandhills of Nebraska, called Valentine (the town’s population was estimated at 2,884 in 1996), has a similar remailing program at heartcity.com. This year’s deadline for mailing was Monday, so mark your calendars for next year.        Back to Select a gift category         Chocolates        Who can resist chocolates on the day set aside by the Romans to honor Juno, the wife of Jupiter? One of the first chocolatiers to go online was the Chocolate Gallery at chocolategallery.com in Goleta, Calif., a suburb of Santa Barbara. “When we first set up our Web site, you could search for “chocolate” on the Yahoo search engine and only one page of listings would come back,” says Tim Johnson, owner of the 19-year-old chocolate business which went online four years ago. A Yahoo search now pulls up 575 sites.