Cool Vanity Home Pages

by Jason Sneed

Ah, the vanity site: selected attributes of the self, embellished with creative license, made available 24 hours a day (even as we sway, exhausted, at the computer screen, goin' the extra mile to clean up our micro-media persona by getting any distinguishing body marks, unwanted sidekicks, and other contraband outta there with a scan of the ToolBar!).
But hey. Vanity home page publishers are just taking advantage of opportunities that weren't available in the age of but one Elvis, when the "Marilyn"mole was like copyright law, and Orson Wells had an entrenched monopoly in the "big guy" industry. The new decentralized "rock star"economy of the modern world allows more of us the chance for recognition, as the Web opens up the media space to get those vanity images out there.
The Net celebrates some of this year's best:Enter our favorite vanity sites.

Odd Todd's Home Page of Immaturity
http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~stadler/

Todd "Odd Ox" Stadler is definitely puttin' it out there - as drummer for ska band Burnt Toast, artiste, and co-researcher in the T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. project (http://www.rice.edu/~gouge/twinkies.html). Self-professed nerd, silly person, caffeine fiend and total wacko, Todd can be found looking dapper in a red funkster shirt, Micky Mouse Tee, and pigtails. Odd Todd knows we're laughing with him..

Karawynn Long
http://www.greyware.com/authors/karawynn

First time visiting? Text-only browser? She's got the downloadable software, so relax and stay awhile! Karawyn's page is big on the image links. Click on the photo of a comfy couch for her recommended fiction page, etc., ad finitum. A sci-fi/fantasy author, her "Brag Shelf" holds her published short stories and poems, with color pictures of the magazines they're published in. Like her pages? You can hire her to design yours, too.

The Home Page of Randal L. Schwartz
http://www.teleport.com/~merlyn/

Randal's links tell an epic: "The Biggest News In My Life at the Moment"- a criminal case against him led by Intel; "The Black Hole" - here the story is told, referring to *The Great Resource Consumer and the Black Hole of Productivity*, a book he wrote. On to: "The Friends of Randal Schwartz" - props from the home team and info on how to donate to his legal defense fund, then, "First Area of Interest" - all about hacking Unix. Amazingly, next is "Xerox Parc Map Viewer"- how to find his house, with a finale of his own instruction on how to finger his account to get access his travel schedule.

Bearnet
http://www.bearnet.com/

Bearnet leads with a protest to "The Telecommunications Reform Act,"backed by a quote from Harry Truman. Next, exclamation-point icons list his latest projects, flanked by a photo showing his "I'm into the sciences and have access to all kinds of crazy stuff, maaaan"-type smirk. His work summary piece scrolls down to a collection of links. Aha! This guy is a grizzly, and he'd roar like one if his links to the Playboy Channel and the Jeff Zeldman Adult Page were ever threatened.

JB Home Page
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~brada/home.html

"Welcome to my MIND" (pronounced 'Velchome to my Miiiind!). Brad Anderson's home page immediately calls in the clout with the black page, blue ribbon, and "hit count'' odometer, marked, "Enhanced."Proud and generous, he next offers a link to run a VRML file on the Mac from his Netscape VRML browser. By the time we get to his cumulative collection of quotes about genius, creativity, perfection, and wisdom, it's time to realize, "No question, my man Brad is way DEEP"!

Bianca's Smut Shack
http://www.bianca.com/

Wha-? Always remember that bianca, the proud hostess of a stick figure-drawn house known as the Smut Shack, loves you and has many trolls for friends. From the drawn floor plan of The Shack, I immediately hit the Cafe. Led through by dreamy language and childlike decor, I felt the company of good karma. Guests must first sign the guest book; I left a quote by Walt Goodman, "Happiness is a way of travel, not a destination." Then a mandatory reading through the other entries reminded me of the obvious - SMUT! Got me good, but c'mon now...

Bob(c)Web (MIRRORED)
http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/a/asdamick/www/index2.html

Bob knows about gettin' the word out, 'bout startin' a buzz 'round town... and BOB(C)WEB fiercely guards its unbiteable style with diligent splashes of the copyright symbol! Feeling "chic"?; check out "CLUB BOB." Turns out BOB(C)NET is the Internet branch of CLUB BOB, a non-profit arts organization (is there another sort?)

Hampsterland! (MIRRORED)
http://www.netgate.net/~ravenna

Recognizably in good taste with *two* Top 5% banners, Hamsterland! also holds the unique award of being the very first Egotistical Site of the Week! A "Danger Will Robinson"-like flashing icon beamed "WARNING, WARNING." Signing off at the page's bottom, the banner read "Click here for no reason." O.K., I'm bait. For a minute there, I felt like Daffy Duck sitting in a rocket console, looking at that big red button...

Mark Thomas' This Is The Hole
http://anansi.panix.com/~sorjabi/index2.html

As several sets of numbers popped up onto a field of black on-screen, it started to get kinda EEEerie. Which should I choose? High? Low? Odd? Even? I stuck with the ol' standard and jumped headlong into #13.....click. Here launched a dialog of rhetorical complaint, told in a tone of bitter spite. As I made my escape, a banner read, "Smile at Me," one click from it generating an auto-response message field, pre-addressed to Mark himself. I had a special trophy for him, to hang high in his palace of Despair, and keyed:

Subject: consolation prize: 2nd Runner-Up: "Strictly Weak" Award

Mark

A panel of hereditarily placed jurors at our popular Internet magazine judge your site to be among the "right fielders," casted "townspersons,""teacher's aides," and "participants" in the world of vanity Web sites. Although you were selected for inclusion in our favorite vanity sites of the year, just think of how the added exposure makes the loss far more conspicuous and significant. Thanks for reading, and see you next year.! :)

Crystal Waters (http://www.typo.com/)
Ted's Home Page for Cynics (http://users.aol.com/cynic4/)
Gary Edge (http://www.europa.com/~edge/)
Jeff's House of Illegal Bodily Functions (http://www.wco.com/~jeffg/)
Tomas Clark's home page (http://www.word.com/staff/third/guyday/tclark/index.html)
Eric Bogosian's home page (http://www.users.interport.net/~ararat/index.html)
Kevin Savetz's Page O' Stuff (http://www.northcoast.com/savetz/)
Jeffry Glover's Home Page (http://www.winternet.com/~jmg/)
Fred Davis' Web Lust (http://www.weblust.com/)...MIRRORED