Here's a bunch of weapons made with one-line ascii art. They are handy to put into IMs and text messages.

>>---->                       Arrow/Dart
 
||||||[::]|||||||||||||       Belt

`=o==   o                     Cannon

-==|)-                        Crossbow

=-O *   *    *                The Enterprise firing photon torpedoes

=-O~~~                        The Enterprise firing phasers

O/////])===================== Light sabre

-|-------                     Sword

oxx)=----------               Sword

==-----------                 Whip

If you have any more weapons made with just keyboard characters, please leave 'em in the comments below.

I've posted before about putting trains, pizza, and ice skating into your instant messages and cell phone text messages via ASCII art. Now here's some animals ASCII art found across the internet that fits on one line of text that you don't have to turn your head sideways to see.

Also make sure to check out www.GrocerySurvey.net $100 gift card.

\-o-/                           Bat

><>                             Fish

><(((('>                        Fish

/><{{{{">                       Fish

ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmo'      Millipede

----{,_,">                      Mouse

~~~~~~^~~~~~                    Shark

__@/                            Snail

/-o-\                           Spider

/\o/\                           Spider

///\oo/\\\                      Spider (or some kind of bug)

_/\,                            Worm

_/\__/\__0>                     Worm

And it's fun to do a mirror image of two animals facing each other
----{,_,"><",_,}----
Are they kissing or facing off WWE style? "I'm gonna git you, sucka!"

Or even better yet, let's have a mouse face off with a worm!
----{,_,"><0__/\__/\__
Thatsa one giant worm!

Got any more ascii animal art? Leave them in the comments below.

Here's a handy ASCI art character toolbox of all the special characters you can make:

Á À Â Ä Ã Å á à â ä ã å É È Ê Ë é è ê ë Í Ì Î Ï í ì î ï  
Ó Ò Ô Ö Õ Ø ó ò ô ö õ ø Ú Ù Û Ü ú ù û ü Ÿ ÿ 
Ç ç Ñ ñ Æ æ Œ œ § € ¶ ¿ ¡ 
« » – — “ ” ‘ ’ ‹ › · ‚ „ ° ± ÷ ‰ µ ¬ ƒ ß ¢ £ ¥ ® © ´ ¨ – ˜ ¯ ¸ ª º
zʎxʍʌnʇsɹbdouɯ1ʞظıɥbɟǝpɔqɐ

Here's the standard characters too:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
! @ # $ % ^ & * ( )

` - = [ ] \ ; ' , . / 
~ _ + { } | : " < > ?

All aboard!

«dõõ-oo--o°°°o-o°°°o-o°°°o-o^^^o-o^^^o-o±±±o-o----o¬****
============================================

Anyone have any neat ideas on how to do a different engine or boxcars or even caboose?

| |	two skaters starting out
| |	moving closer
| |	and closer
||	now they skate as a couple
||	skating around
||	around
||	around
||	picking up speed!
||	look at them go!
|-	now he is holding her horizontally!
&	And they are doing a pretzel move!
()	now they bend to each other
)(	and bend away
$	and now she wraps herself around him
T	He holds her up in the air
^ |	And tosses her up in the air!
^ |	Oh no, he moves out of the way!
__ |	And she falls down!
__|	Here he comes to see what happened
/|	And he picks her up
||	Hooray! Gold medal! wait...
°||°	there's the gold medals!

(from an IM conversation with Elle Wells)

Ever get hungry while in front of your computer with no food? Now you can pig out on pizza right from your own keyboard! Here's some ascii pizza emoticons for you to devour!
o small pizza
O medium pizza
@ pizza with everything on it
^ slice of pizza
< slice of pizza
> slice of pizza
) just the crust
# one way to cut up a pizza into slices
* another way to cut up a pizza
X and another way to slice up the tasty dish
ñ thin crust pizza from side view
= deep dish pizza from side view
\ cheesy bread!
! cheesy dipping into sauce
6 buffalo wing
ÿ pizza cut in half
© pizza with one really long anchovie
Æ pizza with a really weird shaped anchovie

A search on google for "bird emoticon" yields nothing good. So here is the internet's first bird emoticon:
~*~
the asterick makes it look like it's a bug, let's try this:
~8~
Not bad. Kinda looks more like a bee there. how about this:
-*-
That's too abstract, maybe some more motion in its wings:
\*/
hmm, that doesn't look like a bird. Try this bird face:
:^
or maybe this jumbo bird in flight:
-^ó–ó^-
or a sideways flying bird:
}
That } looks like the type of birds we'd make in grade school, except you'd draw the shape so it goes horizontal, not vertical. Maybe a simple v works just fine:
v
or maybe it should be a w
w
no that w doesn't make any sense. Maybe the v needs a head:
V>
yeah, yeah. now it just needs a tail:
~(V>
is it better with a different tail?:
`-( V'>
haha, now it looks like a mouse.

Two new emoticons developed through instant message today!

pothead (it's a flowerpot on top a smily)
*--`---] : )

spongebob squarepants
[8^D]|]=

Check out how these wonderful ascii creations evolved.

pothead created by IM with : )]TomTool71
spongebob created by IM with ]=]DaynaGreen214