There are a lot of cool things out there that you can put in your site. But just because they are cool doesn't mean you should use them. Scrolling text is a good example. Unless you really need to have a stock or news ticker, there's no reason to use scrolling text other than that "it's cool".
I've seen some sites that used what seemed like every script that the designer could find. Apart from being cluttered and annoying (from flashing/moving stuff) it also brought my computer, which is pretty quick, down to its knees. Imagine what that would do on older machines.
Background audio is also not a good idea. If you really want it, have if off by default, with a button to turn it on in an obvious place. If someone is visiting your site in the middle of the night, chances are they don't want unexpected noise.
While pictures are cool, keep the number of them down. Including many pictures is the quickest way of making the overall size of you page skyrocket. That, in turn, will make the overall time your page takes to load skyrocket as well.
Running your site through this website analyzer is a good idea. It will itentify problems with the loading speed of your pages and give suggestions to improve. If you have problems identifying when you go overboard, this will certainly help.
Keep it simple
Overall, keep things simple. If something complicates things, or doesn't add to your content or the image you want to portray, then don't use it.
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