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>>> September 24, 1998 Beep! The message on your answering machine is getting stale, but your creativity is less than zero. What to do, what to do? The Answering Machine (www.answeringmachine.co.uk) has the solution to this very real problem. The site has nine categories of messages: movies, TV, comedy, musical, adult, serious, people, weird and other. Obviously, not all the messages are winners, but browse around a bit and you'll be sure to find one you like--audio clips from King of the Hill, The Muppet Show and Ren & Stimpy. Inventive original items include, "this answering machine has been connected to a 5,000-volt power supply that has been wired to this small kitten..." Tech note: the messages come in either .wav or the much more compact MP3 formats. |
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>>> September 17, 1998 South Park gets Shocked Fans of South Park should check out Macromedia's Shockrave (www.shockrave.com/ members/toons/southpark/). And let me say Howdy-Ho! With lots to do on this site, I suggest starting in the bathroom with the Mr. Hanky Construction Set. Then it's off to see Chef, who acts like a magic 8-ball, answering your yes or no question with his Solomon-like wisdom. Follow that up with a hunting excursion in Jimbo's shooting gallery. Then kick back and watch some classic clips--like the Weight Gain 4000 ad. On another front, if anyone still hasn't read it, the Starr Report can be found at www.broadcast.com/news/, where it can also be listened to in audio format. It sounds like it's being read by Larry King and they've "thoughtfully" broken it into excerpts, in case you don't want to listen from beginning to end. |
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>>> September 10, 1998 Guided tours come to the Net The Internet may be a gold mine of information, but like any mine, you need a good company to get at the ore. Enter the Mining Co. (www.miningco.com). A nicely designed site, TMC features 14 areas of interest, each of which then branches out to sites for over 500 topics. This description makes it seem a lot like Yahoo! But what makes TMC stand out from Yahoo! or other portal sites is its use of Guides. Each topic page is maintained by a Guide--a real netizen involved and/or interested in the topic. The site is easy to navigate, and I like the concept of having Guides--it keeps the information current and it puts you in direct contact with someone who has an interest in the same area. All in all, TMC is worthy of being near the top of any bookmark list. |
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>>> September 3, 1998 Bert???! Sure, we all know that Bert--the monobrowed, cackling foil of a roommate to rubber-duckie Ernie on Sesame Street--is gay. But many might not realize that he is also evil--very, very evil. Or so the evidence on the site Bert Is Evil (plaza.v-wave.com/bert/bert.htm) would have you believe. The site is a collection of incriminating evidence against Bert, culled through many "anonymous sources who choose not to be revealed." The body of evidence includes interviews with Bert's colleagues, as well as some e-mail between Bert and cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. It also features a wonderful photo archive: Bert at the recent U.S. bombing sites, Bert with Osama bin Laden, Bert on Jerry Springer and Bert on Ernie, to name but a few. After a visit to this site, you'll find it impossible to look at Bert the same way again. |
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>>> August 27, 1998 Chronicling the Net You're watching Jeopardy and you've just bombed in the "Internet" category. You're pretty irate. What do you do? Why, brush up on the "History of the Net" (www.zdnet.com/yil/content/mag/9809/history.html), of course! This lovely little article, found on the Web site of magazine publishers Ziff Davis, chronicles the history of the Net year by year, beginning in 1971 and going right up to 1998. Peppered with the right amount of anecdote, snark and wit, it makes for some entertaining reading. And once you're on zdnet, use it as springboard for other pieces of Netizen interest, from Net gossip to finding the latest shareware downloads. |
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>>> August 20, 1998 Lifestyles of the drunk and disorderly It's Sunday evening and Hard Copy isn't on for another 24 hours. You need a fix of celebrity dirt and you need it now. Where do you go to satisfy that craving? Let me recommend a hit of the Smoking Gun (www.thesmokinggun.com). Using the Freedom of Information Act and court files, TSG offers up actual documentation of celebrity arrests. There's lots of material, from the LAPD report chronicling the drug/booze rampage that landed Christian Slater in the slammer, to Bobby Brady's DUI charges. Also of interest is the U.S. Custom's Cavity Search Criteria, a flowchart for performing body cavity searches. Updated twice weekly, TSG also offers a contest: guess which celebrity's name is blacked out on a police report and win a prize. |
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>>> August 13, 1998 It's crap-o-rific! Got several hundred hours to waste? Visit Geocities (www.geocities.com)--the place where nobody is somebody and bad taste reigns. This site hosts thousands of free personal sites. Anyone can get one; you just have to let the company put ads where they want. They've devised such a simple, template-driven way of assisting the creation of web pages that even a monkey could do it. The main site is structured like a city; the first thing to do is head for the "Neighbourhoods" (which are topic-based: Nashville is country music, Heartland is families, pets and hometown values, etc.) and then "Suburbs." Next, prepare for white trash roulette! The individual sites are identified by numbers so you've just got to click and hop into this inexhaustible gallery of Americana's worst. Enjoy! -Catherine Leconte |
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>>> August 6, 1998 Bells and whistles Macromedia is on the "edge that cuts." In the past few years it has established itself as the software maker for Web graphics. With Director and Flash, it has introduced the most mind-boggling animation tools imaginable. If you've surfed, you've heard of Shockwave (Macromedia's file format). To see the most spectacular uses of their wares, check out http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/gallery/. This gallery highlights the best of Shockwave. Dynamic, interactive and at times downright magical, this showcase won't disappoint you. Brace yourself for the amazing and don't forget: you'll need the plug-in (available on the site). --Catherine Leconte |
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>>> July 30, 1998 Too much time to kill Admit it! You aren't above it. The temptation to rubberneck is uncontrollable! It's not about the misfortune of others... it's more like reading a Stephen King novel. We instinctively want to freak ourselves out. Even the information superhighway's got its own roadkill (very punny, I know). And www.policescanner.com is just the hit you're looking for. You can listen to police scanners from the LAPD and NYPD, as well as the Dallas and Plano (!?), Texas police departments. All the audio streams quite well through RealPlayer. However, listening to scanners takes a lot of patience: for every five banal hours of listening, you'll be lucky to get a minute and a half of excitement. You kinda have to think of it as background noise: boot your browser and hope for municipal mayhem. --Catherine Leconte |