Red's Toyland Here at The Net, choosing a site of the month isn't easy. A lot of factors have to be taken into account, and we've assembled some massive spreadsheets to handle all the data and calculations. Then again, sometimes a site has something that we just like. In the case of Red's Toyland, we have found The Official Wicked Hair Dyeing Page not only to be well designed, but full of essential information for our editorial staff style.

Mark "Red" Byer and his sister Evi-Lynn put together this wonderful set of instructions, so you get male and female perspectives about taking your hair from its natural blandness to new heights of colorful individualism. The instructions and advice offered go way beyond the quick, back-of-the-bottle blurbs printed on various color products to nuggets of hard-learned practical hints such as "double the maximum time written on the package"that you are going to leave the dye in your hair. As for color choice, "Dark blue and purples last the longest." The discussion gets a little philosophical in the paragraphs debating permanent versus non-permanent hair dyes, and some shocking secrets are revealed about so-called "permanent"hair dyes. 14 popular hair dye products are reviewed on this page, with the authors acting as their own test subjects.

It's a little spurious to honor these pages as a site of the month on the basis of one thing that we at The Net can relate to, but wait, there's more. Red is a self confessed LegoManiac, and we can appreciate that (just see the graphics in our April issue). Red has a whole page where he begs anybody that works for Lego that sees it to hire him to do product design. Besides that, there are links to other great Lego sites on the Web.

Now, Red does mention the Renaissance Fair on his home page, and we at The Net are not united in our opinion about that, but the link actually went to his sister's RenFair page, so that doesn't count. Finally, one interesting project featured on the introductory page is "The Line Around The World."The goal of this association is to bring people closer together by having people put links on their Web pages to other people's pages in the society. Each person has two links on their page (two points forming a line), so that anyone can follow the links along this line and see many new and interesting people, or, at least, their Web pages.-WKC

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John's house of Weirdness Zzzzzzzzzz.... John's House of Weirdness is yet another Vanity page that offers nothing but an insignificantly shallow insight into the creator's life. The usual: links to his friends, significant moments in his Web-wandering life, and the annoyingly ubiquitous Douglas Adams funny face character (whatever the hell it's called.) And, of course, the pointless use of Frames. In fact, John's "Thought of the Day" is that "Frames are most cool!!!"They sure are, but check somebody else's site for proof of this. Well, maybe I'm being too harsh. Kudos to John for at least experimenting with HTML. After all, who am I to talk. I don't even *have* a home page.-DP

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Jon & Francis Berndt Wow! In August, Jon and Francis visited Jon's parents in Minnesota. The weather was nice, and ooooh, the pictures! Lake Superior sure looks mighty purty with the boats floating on it. These kind of anecdotes and snapshots give me that same warm fuzzy feeling I get when I read about Jon and Francis' family history, also presented on this site. Once you've learned all about the Clan from Derbyshire, check out this pair's links of choice. My favorite has to be the "Presentation of Purported Flaws in Evolution Theory."Well, maybe the "Romance Writers' Resources" is even a little bit cooler than that. A page only Jon's mother could love. Or maybe members of his church.-DP

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Karl Tiedemann This is easily one of the best designed and technically superb vanity home pages to emerge from the bowels of the Web. Shockwave, Tables, VRML - Karl experiments with all of it. But then again, it's his biz. This guy runs an interactive video and graphic design company that bleeds professionalism, unlike the current crop of money-grubbing "Web Designers" that are advertising up a storm in your town. Karl also has included a bonus rant on his site about the Ann Arbor, MI chapter of the Anti-Squirrel Coalition. I don't get it either. But you still better watch out for this guy. Or hire him.-DP

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Mark Richardson World This site *looks* busy, busy, busy. But basically, like most Vanity sites, it's filled with a whole lot of nothing. But at least ol' Mark's been keeping up with the Web wizardry tricks of the day. MIDI sound, ticker tape at the bottom of the page, tables and other nifty gimmicks demonstrate the latest in home page painting, even if the content is questionable. But why shouldn't it be? This is Mark's world, not your domain. For example, Mark has graciously installed links to Tia, Jim, Paul and his other pals' home pages. And I'm sure they appreciate it. -DP

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