The Data Lounge
Why are drag queens always in the desert these days? There was Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, there was Patrick Swayze playing Vida Boheme, and now there's Trudy, host of the Data Lounge. Is it that we, as a culture, respond to this juxtaposition between the raw natural and the extremely artificial because the industrial revolution has filled our lives with manufactured goods? Or is it that nothing in those vast open spaces can upstage a drag queen's fabulous couture? Trudy knows.

Trudy is an exiled Manhattanite glamor queen on a mission of destiny to add color and style to the Arizona desert. The Data Lounge is her little spot of culture in those arid lands, where she logs on to the Internet to write entries into her Dearest Darling Diary, respond to Calling Cards, and post 'Lectric Letters. Her diary tells the tale of how she packed her bags and left Manhattan, her trip into the desert, and her many adventures into Los Angeles or back to New York for Wigstock. Calling Cards are where we, Trudy's admiring masses, can send her our comments or pleas for advice, and if grace is smiling upon us, she will post our words with her reply. Some of Trudy's special friends, whose missives get posted in 'Lectric Letters, are Mr. Jewel, who keeps Trudy informed by writing her about the various Broadway shows he sees, Sage, who writes Trudy poems and has intimated that Trudy is her mother, and the Marquessa Areta von Kass, who tells Trudy of her dating tribulations.

But are these electronic words enough for one such as Trudy, once the premier socialite of Manhattan? Can the lizards and cactus compare to the fashionable boys and girls walking down Fifth Avenue? Of course not, but at least Trudy has Sir Lancelot, her faithful German Shepherd, to keep her company on those long desert nights. But not to worry that anything untoward is going on, that Sir Lancelot's doggy innocence is being taken advantage of. He's got his own section at the Data Lounge where he offers his opinions on politics and the state of his digestion.

But Trudy can't be online all the time to help those less fortunate as the desert wind would make her skin positively ruddy if she didn't take time out to put on a moisturizing mask. To give her time for beauty, a clever little bit of programming, the Draginatrix, takes over while she's away. By answering a series of questions, the Draginatrix will provide the user with a whole new drag queen makeover.-WKC

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Intentional Communities
Intentional communities have an honorable history and a pretty good Web site. The notion of shared living today is brought to us by earnest folks who want to find better ways to live together, share resources, and create ecologically and environmentally smart living arrangements. These might include housing coops, land trusts, and eco-villages as well as actual communes. Here you'll find articles, listings and descriptions, events, and products from and for communitarians. As you might expect, the crew building this site, sponsored by the Fellowship for Intentional Community, keeps a regular diary (with links) of their Web updates.-KW

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Retirement Net
Shame on you, Retirement Net. All you've given us is a brochure with some warm fuzzy photos (and fuzzy-headed marketing copy), and a lower-48 US map with five (or is it seven? your map and text links don't match) states from which to choose. So we pick a place to start thinking about where we'll retire, and then all we get is a list of your "managed care properties"in each state - name, address, phone number. Period. We don't think we'll leave our retirement planning to you -- or call your lame Java-enabled 800 number for more info, either.-KW

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Spirit-WWW
If you're curious about spiritual matters broadly defined, gravitate to Rene Muller's Spirit Web. This gent has built a thoughtful and useful site featuring articles, a useful glossary, and links to more info on topics like yoga, meditation, UFOs, reincarnation, and channeling. He has selected a number of articles and essays for each topic, so you get a variety of voices. And he includes a metaphysical bibliography, an event calendar, relevant e-mail contacts, and "spiritual web chat," where you can discuss spiritual beliefs and mysteries with others. An excellent stop for the open-minded spiritually inclined among us.-KW

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Teen Home Page
Clearly well-intended, this page is a big loser for its target audience of teenagers, who must be cool at all costs and could easily hoot this site off the Web en masse. Our anonymous HTML beginner doesn't spend enough time finding links (there's way too much plain text here) or hanging with the gang who embody the ideal teen. If you feel clueless, you might want to check off "the top five colognes guys like to wear" (there are six listed). But if you have a semblance of a clue, you'll be at a fun music or entertainment site, and not here.-KW

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The Millennium Matters
Feeling anxious about global warming, virus outbreaks, or over-population? Run, do not walk to The Millennium Matters for a long perspective on these and other crises affecting Planet Earth. Millennialists come in all shapes and dogmas; it's safe to say they believe that virtually all our daily experiences point to the end of life as we know it. Many of these pages cover UFOs, New Age spirituality, and communalism and the links offer further reading, FAQs, newsgroups, and the like for a wide, wide array of subjects. If nothing else, dipping into these pages will give you a vivid taste of a culture in the making.-KW

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