AIGAlink virtual gallery
URL: http://www.dol.com/AIGA/door.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Unknown
Wonderful. The American Institute of Graphic Arts has developed a beautiful, well-constructed Web site that walks you through a graphics arts exhibition in Philadelphia. Click your way through three rooms (more are expected soon) of outstanding projects, from interior signage to advertisement posters. And fear not: high-resolution graphics won¹t clog your bandwidth. The images are appropriately compressed to load quickly and maintain high quality.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Welcome to Spatula City
URL: http://www.wam.umd.edu/~twoflowr
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
A wide variety of fictitious spatulas are on display, including the Five Spatulas of Fury, and the 12 Gauge Spatula Attachment, which is effective for cleaning even the most encrusted food off of any surface.You are encouraged to submit ideas for spatulas, but if managers Stefan and Jenny Gagne don't get back to you, it's because they don't like your idea ‹ or are busy with their real lives. The site isn't limited to spatula fun; you¹ll also find odd links to such things as an online staring contest, where you go mano-a-mano with a large eyeball.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

The Night Gallery
URL: http://www.wbmca/users/kgreggai/index.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
This elaborate and visually first-rate homepage is devoted to horror, true love, and body noise. By his own admission, the proprietor spends four hours a day maintaining his site. An extensive audio gallery is devoted to burps and farts. Other wonders include pictures of frightening food discovered in the back of his fridge. I get the impression site master Kevin is the Sara Winchester of the Web, driven by some odd demon to ceaseless construction of his page. I'd be truly worried ‹ except he's fallen in love, which is another subject documented with meticulous detail.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Tres Bizzare
URL: http://ucunix.san.uc.edu/%7Esolkode/tres_bizar/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Sometimes there is a case to be made that a site is good, even without a shred of original content. Those questing for ³bizarre² sites on the Web no longer need to rely on casual coincidence (i.e., the occasional click to an unexpected surprise), but can now count on Dave¹s Tres Bizarre page. Dave hunts around for kooky sites and posts a new one each day. (He also archives the old ones.) And to his credit, the sites he chooses are, in fact, very kooky and creative, and will link you to the Web-O-Tainment you may be looking for. YeeHaw! Nice layout, too.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

The Contortion Home Page
URL: http://www.escape.com/~silverbk/contortion/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
For most of us, the ³art² of contortion is a strange joke, an activity confined to freak shows and obscure Eastern religions. Even the most cultured among us, when faced with the sight of a human being contorted in such a way that their head is between their legs and facing in the WRONG direction, are liable to say something along the lines of, ³Now looky there: that person¹s all bent around every which way.² It just doesn¹t inspire the same awe and reverence that ballet does, or gymnastics. It¹s more likely to make us wince than applaud. Whether contortionism is an oddity or an art may be an open question, but make no mistake, there¹s an active, worldwide contortionist community, It may have remained in the shadows until now, but The Contortion Home Page changes all that, baring the arcane world to the light of day. With materials on how ³normal² people can train to be contortionists it may even promote understanding and a new era of appreciation. This site is not just a fly-by-night Internet joke page, mind you, but a practical encyclopedia of contortionism designed by two aficionados and practitioners of the discipline, who go by the Internet names of Sir Supple and The Silverback. Good Web page design calls for a certain measure of simplicity, which The Contortion Home Page manages by sticking to just four sections: Photos, Literature, Contacts, and Links. The photo gallery is a good place to start as contortionists are performers, first and foremost, and play to the eye. The gallery does not disappoint, with pictures organized according to the various performers, artists with names like Raven Merle, and Charis, Queen of Elastic. The extent to which they can stretch their bodies is amazing, straining the imagination as much as it does the tendons. The Contortion Home Page is not just about gawking at this rarity of human endeavor: the literature section provides the context necessary to appreciate the ³how² and the ³why² of it. Documents explain how a contortionist trains, how the natural flexibility of the youthful body must be retained by constant stretching. If even the most accomplished contortionist stops training for a year, it seems, they may never contort again. The contacts and resources section offers free info and gives enthusiasts an outlet for purchasing video tapes of performers such as Ula, who in one scene ³surprises unsuspecting travelers by jumping out of their suitcases!² For people who intend to follow contortionism, there¹s a newsletter, ³Limber Times,² as well as a CD-ROM.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Mentholgook
URL: http://sulaco.bsd.uchicago.edu/~shong/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Mentholgook is a recent college graduate who toils in his parents convenience store by day, and plays with Photoshop by night. He¹s posted his portfolio online, and some of it¹s pretty good. You might want to look at his proposed Wired magazine covers. Or you might want to see some art by a guy with a kooky name. Why¹s he called Mentholgook? He just likes the sound of the word in English.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

ROX
URL: http://www.rox.com/quarry/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
The subliminal stone wall background sets the theme of the ROX site: Stoniness! A series of photos lead to features; Bartender shows us how to mix a Zima Slimeball, Tech-Worshipper gives a guide to campus info-kiosks, the Anarchic Clown defaces a bathroom wall in a Taco Bell, and bald headed Wisdom torches a teddy bear. The adventures of the creators of the ROX cable access TV show are chronic-led here, with a search engine and archive of downloadable video files, (including entire 30 minute episodes!). The zany antics and tight tech format make you wonder how they do it!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

The Asylum
URL: http://www.galcit.caltech.edu/~ta/cgi-bin/asylhome-ta
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The stars of the Asylum, a nuthouse-themed Web site, are not the wacky doctors or patients one might expect. The real stars are a collection of interactive toys with which to play. The mentally disturbed can create pretty pictures with a Lite Brite set or an online paint program, and post ¹em for all to see. The developmentally challenged can write interactive fiction or fill out a poll. The simply cruel can opt to kill the site¹s cute mascot, "Wysiwyg, ³ and bring bad karma to their server. Although it¹s a tad too cute for me, the Asylum may entertain even the most brain-damaged simian.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

The Giant Hatpin Collection
URL: http://wnc.com/hemsath/hatpin.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Here is the work of someone who is either extremely patient or very obsessed. Or perhaps both. I can do nothing but revere this site, which functions as a tribute to one person¹s hatpin collection. View the top level group photo, or see the collection divided into categories ‹ animals, military, boy scout, safety awards, etc. But the clincher is: Each and every one of these buggers also has a close-up treatment photo, for detailed inspections, no doubt. It¹s quite a spectacle.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Froggy Page
URL: http://www.cs.yale.edu/HTML/YALE/CS/HyPlans/loosemore-sandra/froggy.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Ribbit. If you like frogs ‹ ribbit ribbit ‹ you¹ll certainly enjoy the Froggy Page, with its dozens and dozens of frog-related links and info. First, you get froggy pictures. Mostly, the image section consists of links to other sites that contain frog GIFs and JPEGs. But then, there are froggy sounds, froggy songs, and froggy tales ‹ ³The Toad Prince,² and ³The Wind in the Willows,² to name a few. The frog anatomy section will fulfill the needs of the scientist within and, of course, there¹s quite a list of Kermit thee frog links, too. And remember, on the Internet, nobody knows you¹re a frog...
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

The Official Hair Dyeing Page
URL: http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~mizraith/dyeing.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Chameleons, this is it! As one who has sported hair in every rainbow shade from pink to blue, I have to say the hair dyeing page is on the mark. With discussions of the relative merits of permanent vs. semi-permanent dyes, brand recommendations, and maintenance tips, this page will beyond doubt assist your color change needs. It¹s not an exhaustive source of info, but it¹s got the basics that Lady Clairol just ain¹t gonna tell you. The blending tips are awesome!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

100 Options Directory
URL: http://www.jodi.org/100cc/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Looking for some spicy links? Well buckeroos, this index is muy caliente. From bondage to sabotage, crime scene evidence to corporate exposé, the Jodi top 100 lists (cc, ultra, and light) are your underground, back-alley entrances to the info interstate. Savor the flavor of the electronic subculture du jour via this speedy connection. There¹s no telling where the flashing links will send you, so your first visit will be an adventure. Any way you slice it, only a real square would pass up Jodi's links.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Swedish Cursing
URL: http://www.bart.nl/~sante/enginvek.html/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
The Swedish Cursing site is a powerful educational resource with more depth and detail than most 20-dollar Berlitz books. Its approach to teaching Swedish cursing is well-organized, breaking cursing down into subgroups (the devil, god, the damned, etc.) with specific lessons for each group. All curses are thoroughly explored, complete with etymology, a number of examples in context (with translation) and even audio files so you can be sure you're saying it right. Miss this site and you¹ll have cause for expressions like Jävlar! Fan! and Helvete!"
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

The Strange Tale of Anubis
URL: http://www.tefnet.org/mpcpast.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Every journalist likes a good story; this one is the tale of Anubis, the dessicated cat. A computer screen may not be the ideal medium for the telling, but here it is: the narrative of a nineteenth century feline discovered as a mummified relic between the walls of two demolished buildings. Somehow, near the turn of the century, it found its way to the State Historical Bldg. in Madison,Wisconsin where it was on display for some years until the fossil was borrowed by some nascent newspapermen. It was never returned, and soon assumed iconic significance as the mascot, and indeed emblem of, the Milwaukee Press Club, having been dubbed Anubis--after the Egyptian, jackal-headed deity. And there you have it.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Illustrated Guide to Crackers
URL: http://mathlab.sunysb.edu/~elijah/cstuff/index.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
While this site might be considered bizarre by some, cracker fans will find the information presented here as important as a good knife is for cutting cheese. A dozen or so crackers are pictured on the site, and a click on their image yields packaging information, suggested "dosage" (serving size), and ingredients. Missing, however, are calorie and fat content information! (A significant oversight in the case of peanut butter Ritz Bits!) Crumb-rating might be useful too, for those times when you're in bed jonesing for a saltine. Maybe you can post your experiences on the subject in the site's cracker forum. As Andy Griffith once said, "Mmmmm.... Good cracker!"
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Project Denny's
URL: http://entropy.muc.muohio.edu/~p7a77/dennys.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Project Denny¹s documents Jason Alan Pfaff¹s quest to visit as many Denny¹s restaurants as possible before he dies. The congealed-egg-yolk-yellow backgrounds, photographs of luridly colored Denny¹s meals, and thick white coffee cups that serve as icons evoke the Denny¹s experience almost right down to the smell. What sets Project Denny¹s apart from the typical one-note-joke tribute page is its extensive store of what could be considered actual research‹reports on each Denny¹s visit describing the wait person, food eaten, and overall experience‹along with an organization that takes it all seriously: You can search four different indices, plus a Project Sampler. Check it out; it¹s a hoot.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Unofficial Wendy's Home page
URL: http://www.vbc.net/~wendysnet/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Set up by a couple of wacky young men from New Jersey, the Wendy's Unofficial Home page is an expression of their love for Wendy's restaurants. Louis and Ish: Two men with a mission: "to visit every Wendy's we had knowledge of, starting with New Jersey, then moving on, limited only by our $5.05-$6.00 an hour jobs." Come to the site for Wendy's reviews, Wendy's floorplans, and links to like-minded individuals. There¹s an interactive map, thorough directions to Wendy's in their area, Wendy's FAQ's, and an extensive photo gallery. Tune in soon for information about their pilgrimage to the very first Wendy's in Columbus Ohio.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

Cindy Crawford Concentration
URL: http://www.facade.com/Fun/concentration/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Remember Concentration? The game where you try to match up pairs of cards? Here¹s a concentration game featuring Cindy Crawford made especially for her. The author claims this game is harder than the traditional game because who can screw with your concentration more than Cindy? The pictures on the cards are ³inspiring², and the game itself is a nice bit of programming. If you have a supermodel fetish it might be worth a ten minute visit.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

The SPLEEN
URL: http://www.mcad.edu/home/faculty/szyhalski/Piotr
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The Spleen is a nice piece of work when it isn¹t busy being long-winded and ³arty.² The site is divided into separate segments, each with it¹s own mood. While the presentation of each piece is top-notch, much of the actual text is dense and makes little sense. Maybe I just didn¹t get it. There are a bunch of little animations viewable through Netscape or Shockwave, like the one of a studying student turning into a devil ‹ that was super-nifty. The Spleen is named after an organ who¹s exact function is unknown and you can live without. If it weren¹t for those animations, the same might be said for this site.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

The Official French Fries Page
URL: http://www.select-ware.com/fries/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
I¹m not really sure why this site is classified as bizarre. As it points out, French fries are found all over the world. What could be more common than that bag of fries you get from the McDonald¹s drive-thru? Well, these pages have an ideal balance of information on the supposedly ³bizarre² French fry, including humorous sections, recipe¹s, international information, and the complete text of the U.S. government regulations concerning French fries. A special section also covers the Quebec treat ³Poutine.² Bizarre? No. Tasty? Yes!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Transparanoia Bros Gargoyle Quest
URL: http://www.razorfish.com/bluedot/gargs/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
A trip through France to photograph architecturally enhanced rain spouts from the middle ages becomes a journey into the darknesses of the human soul and the outer limits of sanity as 2 brothers are driven on a quest to discover ancient mysteries. Or you could call this site ³What to do with those neat vacation photos you took last summer.² Lots of gargoyle pictures from the cathedrals of France are interwoven into a gonzo narrative that actually has some real historical information. Points off for various misspellings and gratuitous scary sound files.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Wire Me
URL: http://www.anythingbut.com/~chant/wired/index.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
David Chant has a dream. He wants to get his 15 minutes of fame, and he wants them now. He has set up an entire site with the sole intention of getting mentioned in Wired magazine. Many of you may be thinking that this is the point of every Web site (fishcams? wired rooms?), but David has cut to the chase and is asking everyone who hits this site to e-mail Wired and tell them about him. If you want to help David achieve his dream, e-mail info@wired.com, and tell them David Chant sent ya.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

The Bathrooms of Madison County
URL: http://www.rust.net/~fluxus/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Here¹s a story about a trip to the God-kissed acres known as Madison County, Iowa, with no concern for the quaint bridges they have there. Well, okay... there are links to souvenir shops (³I covered the bridges in Madison County² t-shirts and the like), but this site is really about a man¹s trip back home to see his mother, about the woman he takes with him, and how Diet Coke seems to go right through you. With lots of pictures, it¹s a good show. Enjoy it.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

THE LIBRARY OF QUESTIONABLE SCHOLARSHIP
URL: http://www.teleport.com/~dkossy/librqsch.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
This site describes the work and life of Alfred W. Lawson, the inventor of 'Lawsonomy'", the Knowledge of Life and a desire to learn TRUTH by studying the forces of "Zig-Zag" and "Swirl". Uhh...Okay. From here it's off to the Kooks museum lobby to find a beautiful image of a neon entrance; Open 24-7, the place looks packed! The Schizophrenic Wing, Conspiracy Corridor, Gallery of the Gods and Monuments of Kookdom are all here. This site is extremely well-laid out, with several sets of possible link sets; some are text-only and others are laid out by title, color image and explanation.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

SEA MONKEY WORSHIP PAGE!!!
URL: http://haven.uniserve.com/~sbarclay/seamonk.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
Sticking to the undersea theme with aqua lettering set against a beautiful ocean backdrop, this site pertains to all things Sea-Monkey, accompanied by the registered trademark stamp throughout. This means links aplenty: to the Sea-Monkey Celebration Page, Sea-Monkey Christmas, Birth Announcements, FAQ, etc., etc.. Our Aussie friends recognized this Canadian site with the ³Top 1% of the World's Web sites² award; still, the site creator warns us that these lovable creatures may not appear as illustrated in several hilarious images!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

You Have Found Us
URL: http://fringeware.com/SchwaRoot/Schwa.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
Alien invasion paranoia as conceptual art. The site features products for defense against extraterrestrials, though, as you will soon learn, no place is safe. There's an abundance of striking black-and-white graphics, plus subtle and well-conceived humor free of the literary sledgehammers most web-site jokesters feel they must wield to get a laugh. A favorite was the fine print disclaimer that degenerates into a rant by the company's disgruntled lawyer. The site looks good and is easy to navigate.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Troquista Home Page
URL: http://www.ph.utexas.edu/~ldevlin/troquista.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Arm your guns, we¹re warriors in a monster truck shoot-out. The Troquistas have joined forces with other anti-Doctress fanatics to bring us this site ‹ one of many, anti-Neutopian Web pages. (The Doctress is a bizarre Usenet newsgroup personality who spews utopian-like visions she calls Neutopia.) While the Troquista sect of the rebel force has a small page with some less-than-savvy design skills (links to ASCII text and a distracting background), it¹s possible you might not care about graphics by this point. The content is so very hysterical that it *should* be read. Outstanding!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Impropaganda Networks
URL: http://www.impropaganda.com/~street/detour/chapel.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
At first glance, the Impropaganda Network looks like a winner. It¹s got great graphics and a plethora of interesting-looking articles: an Illuminati outline of history, nuclear bloopers, ³Spontaneous Human Combustion,² and more. How can you fail with a lineup like that? The site doesn¹t necessarily fail, but the articles range from the fairly decent to the surprisingly poorly conceived, bordering on the boring. The one exception is an article on the nineteenth century Emperor of America, but it¹s just been republished from another magazine. Impropaganda has so much potential, but such little payoff.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Foam Bath Fish Time
URL: http://redwood.northcoast.com/cgi-bin/fishtime
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
When you first enter this site, you¹ll see a collection of foam fish displaying the current time on the sides of their bodies. (I was hoping the fish would run around and spell out the time or something more grandiose.) While somewhat charming as it is, I have a little clock in the upper corner of my computer that can tell time too. The page also includes some clock and time links from around the world, and a collection of pun-infested fan mail. It¹s a solid piece of Web work and worth a look, but it didn¹t really float my boat, if you catch my drift.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

MELVIN
URL: http://www.melvin.com/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
MELVIN is a humor magazine that bills itself as America's First Web site. While it might not be the first, it's certainly one of the better ones. Opening with a big newspaper-esque splash page with a ³fake² tabloid story headline, MELVIN stands out. Followed by more "news" items, pop culture articles, and even interviews with bands, the magazine manages to be funny most of the time. Navigating the site is a bit of an exercise, however, as a clear table of contents is hard to find. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a new issue posted since June 1995. Too bad.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

The Bones
URL: http://www.TheBones.com/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
What final words do you want on your tombstone? Here¹s your chance to test-drive some pithy send-offs before you really need them, courtesy of a good-humored, skeleton-laden site called The Bones. Lots of RealAudio clips and cheerful down-home skeletal comics are here; so are fake epitaphs for the rich and famous (among them, George Burns, Minnie Pearl, Minnesota Fats, and Mickey Mantle). You can join The Bones by submitting your own farewell and, of course, buy the T-shirt, which is quite charming. Be the first one on your block to hang with the Grim Reaper. (On the Web, I mean.)
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Flake World
URL: http://www.flake.com
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Flake World, the self-proclaimed "best cereal site on the web," is a stockpile of snap, crackle and pop-art from the past six decades. Flakemaster Scott Bruce serves up heaping helpings of cereal lore,. box shots, collector info and actual cereal items for sale. Grassroots grainiacs might have a hard time digesting, however, when they realize Bruce's previous identity was Mr. Lunchbox, the man whose lunchbox tribute book helped turn those rusting childhood icons into high-priced collectible commodities. Perhaps this site will cause a similar overvaluation of cereal boxes, but at least you can enjoy some whole-grain goodness in the process.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Cosmic Baseball Association
URL: http://www.clark.net/pub/cosmic/cba1.html#top
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
This is the kind of site that exemplifies what I like most about the Web: it accomodates the weird, wacky, flippant, impulsive and idiosyncratic nature of the human Nerd. What worries me is the claim that the CBA has been in existence since 1982. What if Mickey Mantle, William Burroughs and (Jeremy) Boorda were on the same conceivable Other-world playing field? Requisite to being a player in this metaphorical quadrangular league is a contribution to the counterculture; recent death is a co-factor in selection. Actually this site takes a lot of maintenance, and once you peer past the novelty a strange cohesiveness becomes apparent. Well-linked to the pages of these ethereal major leaguers.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Poultry Page
URL: http://www.cyborganic.com/people/feathersite/Poultry/BRKPoultryPage.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Colonel Sanders eat your heart out: this is a guy who really loves his chickens, and just about every other kind of poultry he can get onto his farm. Initially just a poem to the exotic specimens he breeds, the site has become a minor clearing house of information on varieties as diverse as ducks and peacocks. Loving portraits are presented of his spectacular birds, as well as sound-enhanced videos of hens a-layin' and partridges a-perchin. Sure, it's a vanity page, but an endearing one just the same.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Tito's Home Page
URL: http://www.fri.uni-lj.si/~tito/tito-eng.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Marshall Tito, (Josip Broz), dead these 16 years, has never looked so good. Not only the architect of a famous and resilient brand of non-aligned, European, post-war Communism, he can now be seen as the guy who kept Croats, Muslims and Serbs from each others throats for two generations of the Cold War. This is the page he would have approved, an unabashed piece of propaganda replete with copies of his famous speeches, photos with other illustrious world leaders, and a rather glowing biography of the high points of his long military and political careers.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Lip Balm Anonymous
URL: http://members.aol.com/LipBalmA/index.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
And I thought I was the only one! Start your recovery here with the proven Twelve Step method. Principle #1 is "We admitted we were powerless over lip balm -- that our lives had become unmanageable."Learn all about the evil industry of addiction, from Carmex to Blistex, and help fight the insidious dependency. Something eating at you? Ask Lip Balm Anonymous. One troubled soul wanted to know if Vaseline counted as lip balm. (It does.) All the support you need is right here, friends. Hello, my name is Suzie, and I'm addicted to chapstick.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Last Ditch
URL: http://www.bway.net/~ditch/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
I got so caught up in page after page telling me to turn back, I was hooked. There¹s not much to the Last Ditch site, but then they¹re the first ones to say so. What you do get is some funny writers who make fun of their site so effectively, it comes off as a success. Good self-deprecating stream-of-consciousness stuff, and the Sewage Report is a must-read.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Why Cats Paint
URL: http://www.netlink.co.nz/~monpa/index.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Did you know that cats can paint? Neither did I. Apparently there is a group (the Museum of Non-Primate Art) dedicated to collecting fine feline artwork. This site is actually an outgrowth of the book "Why Cats Paint" written by Burton Silver and photographed by Heather Busch. Everyday it promises to bring you a new cat painting. Don't believe it? See the QuickTime movies for irrefutable evidence. Can your cat paint? Test its reactions to pictures on the site to get some idea. Positive reactions (including cat pawing, tail wagging, and intense staring) to the pictures means that your cat has artistic potential. Another fun activity is to try to spot the fake cat paintings. Don't ask your cat for help on this; that¹s cheating.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

Ripped Off By A Landlord
URL: http://ocf.berkeley.edu/~andyneal/r-home.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Have you ever had a Landlord from hell? Your psycho Mr. Roper doesn¹t hold a candle to the weirdo these guys had to deal with. Read their long-but-interesting account of what they¹ve had to go through just to get their deposit back from the paranoid schizophrenic they rented from. There are also some links to legal resources on the web that might help you out if you¹re in a similar situation. Although there aren¹t any graphics to speak of, and some of the links don¹t work, it doesn¹t take too much away from the horror of their situation.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Mullet Watch
URL: http://www.zeta.org.au/~ash/mullet/mullet.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Mullet is the Australian term for a type of haircut best described as short-in-front-long-in-back. The type of haircut worn by a particular male country star. The type of haircut (shudder)... I used to have. This site has pictures of all kinds of mullets from Brad Pitt¹s celebrity bouffant to random hair sculptures found on the web. There¹s also a list of hair-related links for visiting fetishists. Hair doesn¹t grow like this naturally, and Mullet Watch is about the only place you can go to celebrate this visionary art form.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

The Particles of Star Trek
URL: http://www.hyperion.com/~koreth/particles/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Every time I hear someone on Star Trek babble on about bobyon particles or phase-induced anti-matter, my head spins. Did you know Paramount pays ³science advisors² tons of money to keep track of this stuff? Now you can too with The Particles of Star Trek. It¹s simply a big list of every imaginary, real, and quasi-real particle ever mentioned in any of the show¹s incarnations. If, Heaven forbid, there¹s a particle you know of but isn¹t listed, you can add it with a handy form at the bottom. A few graphics, or any formatting at all would help this site out a bit, but it¹s still a funny document.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

The Pronoia Page
URL: http://myhouse.com/pronoia/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Pronoia, this site explains, is the sneaking suspicion others are conspiring to do you good. Beyond posting this definition, the idea has little to do with the site. There¹s a list of books and some links to religious and community oriented sites that I suppose espouse pronoia. There¹s the table of contents from three issues of the British magazine, Head, along with some of the artwork, and four whole articles which have nothing to do with pronoia at all. That¹s about it. I have a sneaking suspicion you won¹t like it very much.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

House of Sacred Squirrels
URL: http://msuvx2.memphis.edu/~ujmshrader/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
(Note: In keeping with The Net¹s ³Sympathy for the Devil¹s Home Page Designer² policy, this review is written in the style of the page it reviews.) Do college students have too much time on their hands? People Do. U-G-L-Y spells yooglee: so say I, with panache, and at random. Surrealist? Nyet. Dada? Nyetnyet. Just plain weird, and so are your friends (Fox Homepage, Dirtquest). You¹re looking the very picture of xpliq! It makes me happy: means nothing, tastes great. You don¹t need drugs to fish in my stream of consciousness, but it couldn¹t hurt.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

WHITE TRASH CAFE
URL: http://gramercy.ios.com/~rcwiley/trash/trash.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
The question is: do you want to eat or shop? These are the only two things to do at the White Trash Cafe; well, that and wait. It seems that the creators forgot about the critical element of convenience! You know, like a drive-thru? The shopping has two sections: White Trash (t-shirt, briefs, timer and fragrance) and Celebrity Trash (OJ'S Evidence Collection). At least you don't have to waddle from the parking lot to the mall entrance...
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

BUREAU OF MISSING SOCKS
URL: http://www.jagat.com/joel/socks.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
This site boldly explores the occult, conspiracy and extra-terrestrial theories of missing socks throughout the world, with a Missing Socks Secret Agents Home Page link. On a lighter note, the Bureau is doing whatever is possible to reunite socks throughout the world, or find new homes for orphaned socks: The Missing Sock Singles' Club, for example. Fill out a sock "personality" profile, and send it in the hopes of locating a sock soul mate, or join the communal vibe efforts of Woodsock '96! Praise unto The Bureau of Missing Socks; leading the way in sock reuniting efforts worldwide.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

TRUE SCIENCE
URL: http://www.dnaco.net/~ivanjs/truescience.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
Did you know that integrated circuits are your friends? Lingering precariously close to direct links to Selvia's Art Cave, the True Science site gets to the bottom of the "true" meanings of those little contraptions of the modern world. First the reader is forewarned of the "false" definition which they may have enountered via the Popular Press Society (PPS). Full of acronyms such as (WLD) Wonderful Little Device, text links lead to seven individual pages describing the contraption pictured in the site¹s full-color icon.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

The Neoist Path
URL: http://fub46.zedat.fu~berlin.de:8080/~catsin/Neoist_Text_Path.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
The Neoist way encourages plagiarism as it saves time and shows initiative. Had I known this sooner, I would have lifted whole segments for this review. Links are often confusing, as is a lot of the babble about the Seven by Nine Squares. Maybe basking in this disharmonious flux of gibberish is the point. If so, we all need to ask ourselves whether we have better things to do with our time than frequenting this site. If we *don¹t* have more pressing pursuits, we should hand over the planet to the dolphins right now.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

PavePage
URL: http://www.solon.com/~gutt/pave.the.earth/pave.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
A site devoted to the advancement of the Holy Cause of Paving the Earth. The Holy Order of Asphalt wishes to flatten mountains, fill oceans, and eliminate all animals except Blind White Cave Cows, which will be used for hamburger in the Beer and Burger communion. The Plan purportedly teaches knowledge of the twin pleasures, speed and convenience. Help this cause, and you will be rewarded; defy it and risk the wrath. This example of tongue-in-cheek ranting is a cut above most.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Schwa
URL: http://fringeware.com/SchwaRoot/Schwa.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
What might be bizarre to you is deep brain food to some, and satire to still others. Schwa is whatever you want it to be, a movement of anti-culture or a space alien freak phenomena. The site is as ambiguous as the ³movement² itself. Pictures of cartoony little grays (space creatures with big eyes) adorn the Gallery, while sound clips, press clips, and Schwa merchandise fill up the rest. It needs some color, and a suped-up spaceship logo gyrating across the top might be nice. But as far as originality and fun factors go, Schwa rocks!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

LoserNet
URL: http://www.calpoly.edu/~ttokuuke/loserHP.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
LoserNet is the continuing online journal of a truly pathetic, purported 42-year-old virgin loser. Almost every day, he adds a paragraph to a continuing saga describing his escapades to the gym, where he feels awkward, or his time at home in a tiny apartment, where he obsesses about his neighbors. Sad as it is, the journal kept me occupied for over an hour, and I had hardly scratched the surface. Sure, there are no graphics, and the 115k text files are a bit awkward to load, but it¹s sort of like watching a car wreck. Read it before he goes into therapy and becomes normal.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Fig Bar Man For President
URL: http://www.epix.net/~wayne26/mrfigb/figbar.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Forget Dole, Clinton, and LaRouche. The real front runner in ¹96 is Fig Bar Man. If you visit the Fig Bar Man's Presidential Campaign HQ, you¹ll read parts of his platform, press conference transcripts, and the latest poll information on a guy who has presidential aspirations and dresses like a Fig Newton. The premise is good, but there isn¹t enough material to make the campaign seem convincing ‹ no ³campaign² photos, charts, or weird political analysis. None of the trappings that would make this a truly great site. Now I do have a Devil Dog that would make a great vice president...
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Biologically Bizarre
URL: http://www.missouri.edu/~c487689/bio.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
From the pages of the Not Yet Web site come a collection of biological improbabilities having more to do with the mental ramblings of a bored college student than biology itself. The page is filled with cartoony graphics of these genetically manipulated monstrosities, each with a paragraph describing their proposed function. The Greasy Lips will clean out the filthy bottoms of fast food greasers. The Nail Snail will sit on your desk and bite your nails to a perfect shape. It's cute, without being too annoying. Now I have to feed my Review Writer so it won't be so cranky.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Twinz Unlimited
URL: http://www.fishnet.net/~twinz/twinz.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Frank and Fritz Liess explain it all to you: definitions of the varying types of twins (fraternal, identical, Siamese); misconceptions (never ask which one is older; the correct query is ³Who was born first?²); famous twins, twins in film, and, thanks to Photoshop, wanna-be twins (current picks are Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt). There¹s a list of organizations for twins, including one for moms of twins and one for twinless twins (those who¹ve lost their twin sibs). Thanks, Fritz and Frank, for an amusing and useful site. Just one objection: it¹s cheating to include the Del Rubio Triplets under the category of ³Supertwins.²
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Baked Lays: The Chip that Roared
URL: http://www.worldvillage.com/wv/feature/bakedlay.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The Decline of Western Civilization, continued: Someone with the unlikely name of Joel ³I Can Never Eat Just One² Comm has done an excellent job of marketing Frito Lays¹ latest entrant in the snack food category, a low-fat creation called Baked Lays. His story, told in loving detail, follows the purchase and consumption of a bag of these goodies, complete with photos of couch potato on couch (Joel himself, perhaps?) devouring them. Scores of testimonials by fans/addicts follow, including the compelling remark by a trio of supermodels: ³You can eat like one of the guys and still look like one of the girls.² If Frito-Lay didn¹t invent Joel, they should have.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

WWWench
URL: http://www.publicshelter.com/wench
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Filmmaker (*Atomic Cafe*) and writer, Jayne Loader, is our WWWench, who provides a weekly (more or less) diary of her exploits and thoughts. The best part of her quirky tales is the links. From a paragraph describing an Italian dish made of pig lard, for example, you jump to a Miss Piggy page. Because she stopped in Turin, Italy, you jump to a Biblical scholar¹s discussion of the Shroud of Turin. As she attended a film fest marking ten years since Chernobyl, so you go to a nuclear accident protest site. And so on. Full of good black humor, the Wench has managed to turn out an engaging tale of her life and times.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

How to Toilet-Train Your Cat
URL: http://www.greyware.com/authors/karawynn/toiletcat.htp
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Talk about public service and the end of kitty litter. Karawynn Long has detailed for cat-lovers the world over how to train your own little Felix to use the toilet just like humans do. Complete with pictures, the site¹s engaging tone and practical advice will definitely put some cats (and their owners) through some serious changes. You can also link to Karawynn¹s cat training FAQ and - just to show she¹s not biased - her Puppy Pages.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Cement Geese Clothes Museum
URL: http://www.sims.net/organizations/ksme/cement-clothes/gooseidx.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
The main problem with this site is that its potential market is already oversaturated. Let's face it, cement goose clothes are like those ubiquitous AOL disks -- everyone already has more of them than they know what to do with. However, if you're one of those maladjusted backwoods cave-dwellers who still doesn't own a single cement goose, or if any member of your flinty flock is underdressed (or indecently exposed), peck this page immediately. Rifle through the jpegs of stylish goosewear for all moods and seasons, then make your online purchase in an instant.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Fruit Stickers
URL: http://pharmdec.wustl.edu/juju/Fruit/fruit.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Your average fruit consumer doesn't pay much mind to the bite-sized bit of graphic art right before his/her eyes. Now, thanks to this site, you can appreciate those stickers (on melons, apples, persimmons, bananas, etc.) for what they are: petite, pleasing posters with bold logos, vivid colors and mascots galore. From the extensive Chiquita archives to the seasonal collections, fruit sticker stalkers take their pursuit seriously without trying to turn it into the next collector¹s fad. The bytes needed for such a fruity display makes for a slow download, but you can always enjoy a banana or two during the lag time.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Durian Online
URL: http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~durian/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
There is a big, smelly fruit that grows along the Malaysian peninsula and the Indonesian archipelago. It's a pendulous and prickly item the flesh of which is so fetid that it¹s banned in many public places. And yet to a lot of folks the fruit is ambrosia. Fresh, the segments are hawked at bus stations as a cool refreshment. In frozen form, it¹s a favorite ice cream flavor. Lesser grade specimens can be distilled into an intoxicant. Intrigued? Point your browser to Durian Online for an introduction to the forbidding fruit of the East.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Strange Foreign Objects in Dogs Feces
URL: http://members.aol.com/scroach1/poop.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
If you've ever felt a perverse respect for goats who can eat barbed wire or for sharks with whole bicycles in their gut, you're overlooking the little miracle worker in your own back yard. Dogs, too, will eat almost anything. This site doesn't yet contain photos or x-rays, but the poetic language makes up for that. Among the undigestible riches so far are soap, screws, valuable jewels, underwear, coins, scouring pads, kitty litter, car parts, toys, boxes of crayons, and strings of beads. It's only one page, but what a page it is! A certain reverence prevails.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

The Lost Elvis Diaries
URL: http://home.mem.net/~welk/elvisdiaries.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
This broad parody of hard-boiled detective novels puts a reporter on the trail of The King¹s rumored but previously unseen diaries. If incessant Elvis jokes, stock characters, and lines like, ³I sensed he was lying. I don¹t know what it was. Maybe it was the glint in his eye, maybe it was the stammer, or maybe it was the ŒI¹m Lying¹ T-shirt he was wearing,² strike you as darn funny, you might enjoy this chapter-a-week serial yarn. Unfortunately, the diaries themselves don¹t appear until chapter 15, and then only as dull one- or two-sentence entries. Maybe that¹s the kicker‹Elvis¹s diaries are boring.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

The Squashed Bug Zoo
URL: http://squashed.roach.org/zoo.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
The weirdly elegant, sepia-colored photo of a long-legged, delicate-winged dead insect that serves as the Squashed Bug Zoo¹s background gives this frankly disgusting concept an aura of aesthetic inquiry. But not to worry, fans of insect gore, there¹s nothing high-minded about the presentation of this collection of mostly viewer-submitted squashed-bug photographs. Each specimen is accompanied by a caption describing the critter and the circumstances of its death. There¹s also a small-vertebrate section, which is not as nauseating as you might think, although I didn¹t have the stomach to view the rat part. Definitely an uncommon passion.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

The Bacon Oracle
URL: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~bct7m/bacon.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Any idea what the Bacon number of Max Von Sydow is? Well, Max appeared in the film Awakenings with Robert De Niro and De Niro was in Sleepers with Kevin Bacon, giving Max a Bacon number of two. See how it works? All of this information is brought to you courtesy The Oracle of Bacon at Virginia and two guys who set out to prove that no one could have a Bacon number bigger than four, since he always acts in movies with big casts of famous actors. You can also play a version of the game with Schwartzenegger as the center of the universe.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Phone Losers of America
URL: http://www.peak.org/~bueno/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Apparently inspired by a guy who dabbles in illicit phone codes and credit card fraud, Phone Losers of America takes as its premise the fact that symbols of communication authority should be made fun of: Ma Bell, AOL, and Bill Gates. There's a Prank Phone Call page with sound bites of choice harassment, reviews of recordings of more prank calls, extensive links to phone and bad attitude-related sites. Also, an anti-award page. Self mocking we-are-proud-to-be-phone-losers humor throughout. To hear the site's ringleader, Redbox Chilipepper tell it, ³everyone's talking about PLA. If only they were saying something nice."
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Making Chainmail
URL: http://members.aol.com/sblades/maile.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0197
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
"Chainmail.. not just for Knights anymore." Forget knitting sweaters, try making your own chainmail. It is easy and this site promises to show you how. There are cutesy animations (so use the latest browsers) that illustrate what you should do. Apparently the creator of this site has been making her own chainmail garb for over 4 years and has decided to share her knowledge to the web world. What do you need to start? Just a pair of needle nose pliers and some 5356 alloy welding wire available from your favorite hardware store. There are also links (no pun intended) to other chainmail making sites. Beware: one wrong click and you may end up in her catalog section featuring adult themes and models wearing chainmail.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Terri's Shoe Page
URL: http://www.thoughts.com/shoes/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
According to Terri, "this page is dedicated to my shoes and how they make me feel." She has lots of shoes and lots of interesting feelings. Everyone is invited to come and share her passion. Despite a big following, Terri's site seems innocent enough. What you get are pics of Terri's size 10 feet in a variety of pumps, heels, and boots. The smitten can send cash donations to help with her tuition or enter to win a pair from her closet. There are some newer pictures of her in stockinged feet and others, by request, of her chubby dogs drenched in chocolate or surrounded by rose petals. Not for everybody.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

AdZe MiXXe, Astrologer Extraordinaire
URL: http://www.adze.com/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
AdZe MiXXe isn¹t your average astrologer, but a man with a mission. A mission to spread the good word of astrology and his unique sense of capitalization across the globe. The site isn¹t just a listing of daily horoscopes, but a complete astrological forecast. Check out the current phase of the moon and it¹s affect on you, how you and your mate match up astrologically, predictions of the weather, stock prices, and political events. There are even star charts for the stars, with tips for Bill Gates, Charles, and Diana. Superstition doesn¹t get more exciting.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Data Goes Out On the Town
URL: http://pulsar.cs.wku.edu/~travibr/data.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Here we have a guy with too much free time on his hands. He kidnaps a cardboard cutout of Star Trek¹s Data from his girlfriend and tries to be funny. He dresses it up and takes it¹s picture with a bunch of people in a variety of ³wacky² situations, and then posts the images online. Some of the photos, like Data taking a shower, are funny ‹ but most aren¹t. The text that¹s supposed to tie the pictures together is ill-conceived and annoying. They should have come up with a coherent story before taking the pictures. Maybe go out on a limb and torture him, or take some compromising photos of Data and a donkey. Something.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

WardoWorld
URL: http://www.actwin.com/csn/WardoWorld/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
WardoWorld is the home of the ³Daily Fun Fact ³ and ³Games for the Simple.² Almost every day, a short, obscure Fun Fact is posted on the Web for your trivia-starved brain. It¹s like a fact-a-day wall calendar without the wall. You can also sign up to get them via e-mail which seems like a much better way to me. The other part of the site, Games for the Simple, is a small collection of really easy games. Really easy. Stuff like: Which line is longer? A) ----- or B) --------------- ? I¹ve seen this joke a million times before, but it¹s still sort of amusing for about three minutes.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Page from the Future
URL: http://members.aol.com/futurepage/future.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
100 years from now it¹s possible to look into the past, scientists are puzzled by the most trivial facets of our lives, and they like posting their personal diaries for long-dead people (us) to read. These are some of the impressions I got from this fanciful site, purportedly the work of a team doing research on the late 20th century in the year 2090. But as a present-day reader asks, ³If you are from the future, how come you¹re using America Online, you fools?²
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

The BASTARD SON OF THE LORD HOME PAGE
URL: http://www.trog.com/jesus/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
Connoisseurs of sacrilege will find this good-humored. Christians will find it tasteless and profane. There are pictures of the Savior here and a song about him. And then there¹s the Messiah Log, a new development by which the Lord posts his daily thoughts, including links to a list of Hell bound souls ("not all-inclusive, updated frequently"). Guess he has bad days, too; I was surprised to see Mother Teresa listed here! Then there's the community-building aspect of the the site: the Page O' Miracles; read through the testaments or add an "alleged miracle" of your own!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

THE AMAZING MAGIC 8 BOB
URL: http://inp.cie.rpi.edu/cgi-bin/bob
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
The BOB site opens to several horrendously-superimposed horizontal frames. The effect is clutter until the initial link is discovered. Born of boredom, Bob and the creator are currently depressed. Humorous, I suppose, but pretty techie. Any jokes containing Perl script referencing are a bit of a stretch... It is possible to "draw upon Bob's infinite wisdom by entering a yes/no question." This can be sent directly to the source. I'm just not sure about the quality of Bob's divine wisdom..
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

NO MAN'S LAND
URL: http://mars.superlink.net/henry/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
No Man's Land: nice try at black humor. After accepting the disclaimer stipulating I leave at once if I encounter any objectionable content, it became a vain search for anything interesting. There's a Might-ish interview asking "Macully Culkin" about puberty problems, a joke book, and a horoscope. The highlight is The World's Dumbest Inventions, including non-alcoholic beer, clothes, school, home shopping club, and government; but we knew that already.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Punchy Advice
URL: http://www.pacificrim.net/~lbrodie/punch/advice.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
Humans, mostly college students, submit questions about love and roommates, which are answered by a gaggle of quasi-muppets. Characters include a nerd, a babe, and some creatures of indistinguishable ethnic origin that are probably offending someone. Pictures of the characters mean excessive download times for paltry laughs. Questions are sometimes amusing; the answers usually less so. If you¹re interested in having these things appear at your party or corporate training video, you can contact Leo Brodie, who has thoughtfully supplied abundant marketing materials for his puppet company, Punch and Brodie.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Encounters
URL: http://www.westworld.com/~ah.ha/extra.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Here we have a man who has been visited by Zoonch, a propheteering space alien shedding light on the path to peace and joy. It sounds a little too Haight Ashbury 1968, but nonetheless, it¹s an interesting read. But guess what, kids? That¹s all you get. It¹s one *long* page of text excerpts from a book about this experience with Zoonch that the site creator no doubt wants us to buy ‹ 1-800 number included. So, yes, it¹s bizarre, and unless you are super interested in hippie space creatures, it¹s also useless.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

TOES
URL: http://eclipse.bgsu.edu/~awelker/toe.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Do you have strong feelings about toes? Love Œem? Wish that people had unremovable plastic molded boots like an action figure? This site includes a form that you use to post your feelings about toes and a page to read what other people have posted. No pictures of disgusting feet, no toe-related links, not even a listing of podiatry schools or foot fetish counseling centers. If you¹re going to tackle the oft-overlooked subject of our nethermost extremities, you¹ve got to do it right. But for now, just go here and post stuff about fingers, the Superior Digits!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Children in Need Leg Wax Page
URL: http://www.aber.ac.uk/~rag994/leg_wax.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
Brief and unattractive, yet hilarious and inspiring, the Children in Need Leg Wax page had me cackling out loud. There's not much to it: some thumbnails of "piccys from the excruciatingly painful leg wax," with a smattering of brief text. But it's all good nonetheless. The page chronicles a charity event put on by Aber Rag, the student charities appeal of Aberystwyth University in England. The payoff for just 7 pairs of mens¹ legs stripped and smoothed, courtesy of Jean and Claire from JB¹s Hairdressing? A not-so-shabby £1200 (about $1800). BB
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Beard Research
URL: http://mudhead.uottawa.ca/~pete/beard.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Is the Beard Research Site the online epitome of interdisciplinary science, merging the studies of meteorology, physics, biology, anatomy, psychology and dermatology in one awesome all-encompassing experiment? Or is it perhaps an insidious piece of commercial subterfuge, cleverly engineered by Schick's corps of clean-cut HTML masterminds under the guise of a "homebrewed" web page? Or did your pal Pete Hickey just get bored one day, shave off half his beard, then dedicate a photo and some server space to tell the tale? Lather up, scrape the site, and let us know what you think.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

WWWF Grudge Match
URL: http://www.cheme.cornell.edu/~slevine
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Sort of a comic riff on pro wrestling, this site would actually work much better on radio than on the Web. It's a fun and funny idea, sure; this just isn¹t the medium. Imagine grudge matches between Imelda Marcos and Leona Helmsley, or between a Rottweiler and a Rottweiler's weight in Chihuahuas, or between 100 midgets and 500 centenarians. Imagine the gruesome spectacle of Gary Coleman and Webster, battling to the death. Now imagine reading interminably long scrolls of text on drab pages, stored on a busy server that refuses fully a quarter of all connections.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

The Slurpee Shrine
URL: http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~munoz/slurpee/slurhome.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
A concept in search of content, The Slurpee Shrine is unlikely to satisfy any but the most ardent worshippers of the icy treat. Other than a clever animated Slurpee graphic and the Slurpee Facts section, which is nothing more than a list of flavors, there¹s not much here‹no Slurpee history, no personal Slurpee experiences, no Slurpee lore. You can add to the list of flavors and vote for your favorite, but that¹s it. The somewhat desperate-sounding plea for ideas leads me to believe that after his initial great idea, the Slurpmaster found himself sitting in front of a computer screen saying, ³Now what?²
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

The Amish
URL: http://www2.pcix.com/~brandx/amish.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Amish Power Rangers?...yeah, bizarre all right. Another cyber-fantastic battle ground between putative enemies in an imaginary world involving buffed up Amish squaring off against insulting pretenders to their Pilgrim Utopia. The Amish are just one of a series of "clans" in this wacky league. Veers dangerously into get-a-life diversionism. This realm is too off-the-wall to be really offensive to any practitioners of 18th century Christianity, and since it's doubtful any faithful Amish have even seen a computer, giving them a prod behind their backs is kind of a lame laugh.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Ultimate Taxi
URL: http://www.ultimatetaxi.com
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Maybe you've heard of entrepreneur Jon Barnes, owner/operator of The Ultimate Taxi in Aspen, Colorado. It¹s not a real taxi, but a clever, Internet-related tourist trap. If you¹re in Aspen, you can get taken for a ride (30 minutes long) for just 75 bucks in his specially outfitted cab. The site gives the hard sell including a virtual tour listing all the cool gadgets and toys actual fares can experience: there are 8 lasers, a fog machine, disco balls, synthesizers, digital cameras, computer equipment and lots more. Customers also get keepsake mementos and a story to share with the grandkids.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Cycling Accidents Database
URL: http://duke.usask.ca/~yeo/your_accident.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Stitches. Deep leg wounds. Endos. Concussions. Scratched knees. Gravel burn. The preceding can only add up to bicycle accidents and this site aims to list as many of those as possible. There are several dozen accidents listed here. You can read detailed descriptions of the accident along with the date, bike type, cost of repair, and any bodily injury. Once you're done reading the Accident of the Week, you can search the database by typing in keywords. Alternately, you can browse the index to view all the entries. After reading a few descriptions you will mostly likely say, "Ouch!" and grab your helmet. Your medical insurance paid up?
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

Ovi's World of the Bizarre
URL: http://netmar.com/users/ovigher/ovi.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Ovidiu Gherghe has collected some very funny stories on this Web site --stories of the incredible sort that friends are always e-mailing to friends. You know the kind. And while it¹s a great read, the presentation is lacking; the text is split into dozens of pages, navigational buttons are rare, and on the day that I visited it none of the main page¹s graphics loaded properly. Ovi does know some fun HTML tricks (he shows Œem off at http://netmar.com/users/ovigher/webplay.htm), but these pages need work.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

George Goble
URL: http://ghg.ecn.purdue.edu/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
While most of us may only get 15 minutes of fame, George Goble has put extra time on the meter with his attention-grabbing Web page. No, not the 50¹s talk show guest -- this is George Goble the Purdue electrical engineer whose moment in the sun came in 1994 when he ignited a barbecue grill with three gallons of liquid oxygen. Result? Incineration of 40 lbs. of charcoal in three seconds, plus a Quicktime movie of the event, lots of JPEGs and audio clips, a Dave Barry column, and a mention in the New York Times. From here you can link to the Radical and Extreme Hobbies Page. I wonder if it can top this?
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

Porn Flakes
URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/stayfree/10/graham.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Unknown
Ideally, you should visit Porn Flakes in the morning, after enjoying a big bowl of corn flakes. Only then will you be primed to absorb the history of this baked breakfast staple. And oh what a twisted tale it is. That bowl you just consumed can be traced back to the cockeyed theories of an enema-loving 18th-century health spa baron and his opportunistic sibling. The Kellogg brothers (along with Battle Creek, Michigan neighbor C.W. Post) are the patriarchs of modern cereal culture, and Carrie McLaren pours out an informative, entertaining history on this page. She even provides a bibliography for further breakfast-time reading.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

The Dog Ate My Homework
URL: http://members.aol.com/rkoul/dogindex.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
A one-stop shopping place for anyone who'd rather fail and get away with it than succeed. This text-heavy site offers excuses in several categories and includes a featured excuse, updated weekly. Become a Zen master of lowered expectations with these gems: "I have low self-esteem." "We've run into a technical snag." "This has never happened to me before." Among the categories are excuses tailored for home, job, school, crime, men only, women only, and politicians. If you'd like to add some of your own, by all means do so; the goal is to include 1,001 excuses.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

Information Supercollider
URL: http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/collider.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
From a technical standpoint, this is not a bad idea -- take bits and pieces of already existing pages on other sites and combine them at random into new, surreal pages. Maybe you'll create a page about supermodels and thermonuclear physics and Spam. Or about marigolds and Bruce Sterling and the high price of burritos. But that's not what happens. What happens is most of the graphics load slowly or not at all, the reslting juxtapositions aren't even a little bit amusing, and no matter how many times you reload the randomly-generated page, nothing that's generated is worth looking at.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

The Chaos Page
URL: http://www.newwave.net/~rem001
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
The Chaos Page tries so very hard to be irreverent, wacky, iconoclastic, but mostly it¹s just sophomoric. Knee-slappers like ³This page best viewed with Nutscape² and ³member of the of free beer online Pabst Blue Ribbon Campaign² abound, and one button invites you to, ³click here for a gratuitous beaver shot.² With a heavy sigh, I did, and yes, it¹s a buck-toothed builder of dams‹pornography would at least have been surprising. There¹s an occasional laugh here, but you have to wade through a lot of inanity‹not to mention far too many annoying flashing text blocks‹to find it.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

The Living Almanac of Disasters
URL: http://www.westbank.org/~Calender/nstart.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
If sea disasters, explosions, jet crashes, fires, natural calamaties and other disasters are your thing, you will love this place. It works like a "This Day in Disaster History": you select a date, then read the list of accidents and disasters that occurred on that day. It then automatically advances to the next day and continues ad naseum. The look is disastrous: just a plain grey backgrounds and a short one sentence write-up on the disaster (including the number of dead or wounded). Occasionally, a picture accompanies a listing. Unfortunately, the site crashed Netscape a few too many times to make me want to return.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

Pavement Terror
URL: http://www.enrapture.com/pterror/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
This is the tale of a man who could make his van backfire on command. So, he decided to mount a black and white camera pointing outside the back of the van and to take pictures of his startled prey as he drove around town. The result, of course, is this page where he displays a handful of his best pictures. As promised, the people are in a frightened state--cowering in absolute fear, covering their ears and jumping up in alarm. It¹s a semi-interesting peek at a terrorized populace. For an even bigger waste of time, try reading the same exact page in Cockney English.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

ELVIS SPOTTER'S WEB PAGE
URL: http://ace.cs.ohiou.edu/personal/smccormi/elvis.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
This site treats us to single photo of the King, shaking hands with Mr. Nixon. Surprisingly, instead of "In Search Of" kinds of images, a three-button menu leads to ³testimonies² of confirmed Elvis sightings, the most recent of these entries (for the devout stalker) and a form to send in your own account. Seems like he still gets around; reports come from Scotland (Loch Ness?) and Australia, not to mention his native terrain. But the true proof is an e-mail message addressed by my Elvis Aaron Presley himself!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12

Internet in a Baby
URL: http://www.wideweb.com/baby/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Internet in a Baby is revolution in interface design. You are presented with a photo of a baby boy on the phone. Clicking on different parts of the baby send you to different spots on the web. Click on the hair, and you go to Chewies Hair Cream page. Click on the right hand, and you go to the Skywalker-worshipping Order of the Right Hand. You get the idea. My biggest gripe about the site is that the title is misleading. The picture isn't of a baby at all, but a five year-old child. I guess Internet in a Pre-Schooler wasn¹t a catchy enough title.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12

The Official "Kill Joe Fortner" Home page
URL: http://members.tripod.com/~MachineDie/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
There's this woman, see? And she doesn't like her ex-boyfriend Joe very much anymore. This page is her revenge where, with no proof offered, she accuses him of crimes including child molestation. She's just begging him to sue her and her ISP into oblivion. She identifies Joe in great detail (down to his 11-inch thingie), withholding only his SSI number. She admits malice, and the defamation couldn't be more blatant. She says she can't find him, but I found 8 matches using Switchboard and 30 matches using Yahoo! People Search.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12

Mike¹s Garbage Pail Kids
URL: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mdlarson/garbage.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
³Welcome to the most disgusting page on the Web!² reads the opener at this site devoted to the trading card world¹s answer to that saccharine doll craze from the cabbage patch. Well, call me unflappable, but on the gross-out gauge, this one hardly registers. On any gauge, in fact, the needle is pegging empty. The pages load slowly, the images are poorly rendered, and most of the images lack links to content as of this writing. As for the 80¹s card craze, it¹s strictly pre-adolescent gag material that would hardly scandalize your grandmother.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12

Driveways of the Rich & Famous
URL: http://www.cris.com/~Driveway
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
John Cunningham is the creator of a public access TV show (you can check your local time and cable channels here) that features visits to driveways of the rich and famous. As of press time the only four stars that were listed were Madonna, Brad Pitt, PeeWee Herman, and character actor extraordinaire Ned Beatty. Basically, Cunningham just goes around the Hollywood hills and haunts some nice looking driveways and ends up talking to a few people. His page includes screen captures from his show, a must-read "interview" with Madonna, Ned Beatty's neighbor, and a few Brad Pitt groupies.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12

Clowns on the Web
URL: http://www.amexpub.com/jbatutis/clown.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Are you afraid of Clowns? Oh, who isn't nowadays? Buck up and be prepared to stare at a whole screenful of hellish clown faces. It¹s screen after screen, in fact, of painted clown faces. All the popular (and obscure) clowns are here: Doink, Pennywise, Cheesecake(?), Krusty, Bozo, and lots more. Clicking on the pictures should take you to associated pages, of course, but not many of the link worked.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12

List of Dead Presidents
URL: http://www.csn.net/~mhand/Presidents/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Manus Hand visited the grave sites of every dead president, save four, and has the pictures to prove it. See photos of Manus in front of the final resting places of our former great, not-so-great, and totally forgettable leaders. Simple to navigate and brilliant in concept, this site deserves a visit by anyone who enjoys exploring people's odd obsessions. If you beg him, maybe he'll bring you back a Millard Fillmore Memorial T-shirt when he finally gets there.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 11

looking
URL: http://muon.qrc.com/mdavis/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
I looked and I looked, and I clicked on what I thought were tomatoes. The more I clicked, the smaller they got. Wow. When I finally got to the main page, I found a site organized by color ‹ don¹t ask ‹ filled with artsy poetry, and essays on music theory, modernism, and the Greeks. The site¹s aesthetic is clean and well-crafted like a Mondrian painting. And, like the artist¹s work, is just a little more exciting than brushing my teeth. But, hey, if you¹re into black turtlenecks and clove cigarettes, c¹mon down!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 11

The Winkle Gallery
URL: http://www.jazzie.com/winkies/winkie3.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The Winkies are triangular cartoon characters taken from an old computer game. The Winkie Gallery is filled with various artistic renditions of these ³lovable² space aliens: a Winkie with an axe, a Winkie in love, etc. It's nicely put together, with small images linked to larger GIFs. The main problem with the page is that the Winkies themselves are annoying. If you like cutsey humor, you¹ll probably fall in love with these denizens and call me a heartless, lonely old man. But I wonder why the Exon Amendment couldn¹t censor this stuff.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 10

House of Slime
URL: http://www.teleport.com/~jleon/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
According to John Stone, the sterile world of computers is missing one thing: slime. Slime exists almost everywhere you look, and this slime-themed home page promises to deliver you there. The real star of this site, however, is the slimy Slug. It features diagrams, photos, slug-lore, and links to other slug-sites. The information on the site is on the skimpy side, but it¹s attractively packaged and humorous in tone.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 9

Virtual Kissing Booth
URL: http://www.whitehawk.com/vkb/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Each time you enter the virtual ³kissing booth,² you're greeted by a different photo of a wholesome girl and wacky caption underneath. I assume the next step is to smooch your monitor. MMMMMMM! Since my monitor tastes more like chicken than a girl, the novelty wore off quickly. Oddly, in none of the pictures I encountered were the girls even puckering up, and most of the photos look like head shots from a second-rate casting office. Fortunately they are attempting to recruit some new models. With some more variety, this could be an entertaining place.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 9

House of Slime
URL: http://www.teleport.com/~jleon/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
According to John Stone, the sterile world of computers is missing one thing: Slime. Slime exists almost everywhere you look, and this slime-themed homepage promises to deliver you there. The real star of this site, however, is the slimy Slug. It features diagrams, photos, slug-lore, and links to other slug-sites. The information on the site is on the skimpy side, but it¹s attractively packaged, and humorous in tone.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 9

Abandoned Site Version 1.8
URL: http://www.xtc.net/~nil/?Yahoo
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
This site is not much more than an exhaustive series of nothing-links that don¹t do much and don¹t lead anywhere. It¹s this very quality that lends the site a Zen-like air and leads the user into a new level of spiritual consciousness. What does it all mean? Nothing. There is not one bit of anything useful in this 800-page koan. Constantly chastising you for wasting your time, yet daring you to link to the next page, the Abandoned Site is humorous, entertaining, and ultimately pointless.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 8

Mike and Anthony's Wired Room
URL: http://saturn.dsu.edu/room/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Rahlman
A couple of self-professed computer geeks showcase their dorm room at Dakota State University. General information includes current temperature, door status (open or closed), and the number of socks each have in their drawers. You can easily navigate to an overhead diagram of the room and photos of interesting objects, or interact by turning on a fan for up to 20 seconds. The FAQs list is funny. I was concerned these guys might be real losers with too much time on their hands, except they have a great sense of humor and girlfriends. Go visit.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 8

SpinnWebe
URL: http://www.thoughtport.com/spinnwebe/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
SpinnWebe brims with greatness. It¹s the home of the Dysfunctional Family Circus, in which you replace Bil Keane¹s normally rollicking cartoon captions with some of your own. Then there's this weird Magic 8-Ball thing that responds to your queries by sending you to a carefully chosen URL somewhere on the Web. Then there's the Nipple Server. Forget watching some boring coffee pot, dorm room, or fish bowl ‹ this site has a new nipple posted everyday! View it, love it, and vote on its nippleness.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 8

Air America Homepage
URL: http://pages.prodigy.com/NY/airplane/AAindex.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
These people love to fly planes. Commercial airline jets to be exact. They fly, organize, and meticulously schedule a virtual commercial airline and are very serious about it. You have to admire the obsessive detail lavished on their love of the world of the airlines. When I first looked at the site, it took me a full minute to figure out that it wasn¹t real. If you get creamy at the thought of 747s, load up your flight simulator and moonlight as a virtual airline pilot. The only thing missing is the menu of delectable airline snacks.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 7

Ask Dr. Neutrino
URL: http:/nike.phy.bris.ac.uk/dr/ask.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Rahlman
Dr. Neutrino answers physics questions submitted by net citizenry. They range from the metaphysical ("Are time and space inseparable?") and the straightforward ("How do we know how far away stars are?") to the ridiculous ("What is the terminal velocity of an antelope?"). The good doctor writes clearly, often with a sense of humor. Users are encouraged to answer questions, too, which sometimes leads to showing off big-brain capability or ramblings from those under the influence of pot, caffeine, or both. Entertaining and educational. The only drawback is the inability to find a question by topic.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 7

Todd's Gallery of Pathetic Human Regret
URL: http://www.eden.com/~tfast/regret1.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Rahlman
Todd exposes his own closeted skeletons and airs dirty linen. Categorized lists of personal regrets from childhood through high school (with the college years soon to come) include not sticking up for friends when he had the chance, believing a science teacher was genius, and being unable to convince pals the nearby woods were haunted by invisible dinosaurs. However, Todd's biggest regret is having contact with stupidity. The site is easy to navigate, and easy on the eyes, too. Equal parts confession and rant, this is a well-written and funny self-portrait.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 7

beanie
URL: http://granite.sentex.net/~bracken/beanie.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Rahlman
"This is where freedom begins," says beanie's introductory manifesto. The author obviously has an agenda, though it¹s difficult to understand what it is. Sarcastic stickman cartoons about friendship, happiness, and heaven have a delightfully uncomfortable tone, while a long story about a monster alien who turns out to be Yoda doesn't convey the sense of tongue-in-cheek paranoia it should. However, it is easy to navigate the inconsistent content. Worth a look.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

Panic Encyclopedia: The Definitive Guide to the Postmodern Scene
URL: http://english-www.hss.cmu.edu/ctheory/panic/panic_contents.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Even if you drop a Baudrillard reference into every conversation you can, or still think semiotics are a badge of hipness, this tedious site will put you to sleep faster than a ³Herman¹s Head² reunion show. Taken from a 1989 book, this postmodern cyber tome feels outdated, with its copious references to Oliver North and Jim Baker. Even poor Elvis is dissected as a Jungian archetype. If I wanted to read this kind of stuff, I could get a Master¹s Degree.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

Spies Surveillance Privacy Personal Protection
URL: http://www.spyzone.com/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Do you need a factory-fresh REMOTE CONTROLLED SURVEILLANCE SUB for clandestine underwater bikini shots? Or perhaps a USED ARMORED CAR for those family vacations in Belfast or Beirut? If you have a few hundred thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket, this is the place to go. The organization of the site, however, leaves a bit to be desired. It takes a while to find pictures of the cool spy stuff, and the product information is a bit spotty.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

The Feeble Gourmet
URL: http://www.nosferatu.nas.nasa.gov/~rat/gourmet
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Rahlman
Karl Schilke, aka rAT, has generously detailed every workday lunch since April 18, 1995, including where, what he ate, and notes on the meal. Discover that on 4/24/95 the "lemon sauce very tangy and fresh" at the Golden Wok, but on 5/8/95 at the same restaurant, he "felt slightly sick and was unable to finish potstickers." The Lunchability Index shows the overall percentage each restaurant has been frequented by him to date. Funny and meticulous detailing, though I wish he had included the address of the Old Country Deli, which rated a bonus "YUM!" several times.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

The Illuminati
URL: http://www.illuminati.org/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The Bavarian Illuminati are hell-bent on covertly taking over the world ‹ and maybe they¹ve already succeeded. Here, on their alleged ³Homepage,² they document their clandestine activities with video footage, pictures, links to ³controlled² sites, and even secret text documents only available by e-mail. Don¹t cross them, though. A video of their dreaded Dropped Wooden Rabbit Torture made me rethink trashing their otherwise content-anemic site. It doesn¹t make them look that all-powerful. Their all-seeing pyramid on your dollar bill may just be the beginning.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

The Mars Earth Connection
URL: http://www.pacifier.com/~dfiler/mars.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Did little men construct a tower five miles high on the moon? Is that really George C. Scott¹s face staring up from Mars? Richard Hogland seems to think so, and this site provides the photographs to make you a believer. These images are freaky. The Mars-Earth Connection is a jumping off point for those interested in these and other interplanetary enigmas that NASA refuses to acknowledge. The site itself is organized like a research paper. Long documentation is stuffed onto one page, and many of the odd resources it cites aren¹t even on the Internet. Do they think I¹m going to visit the library?
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

Synergy Network
URL: http://metro.turnpike.net/~pflaump/start.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Dr. Peter Pflaurn has created a Web site best-described as a computerized Dr. Bronner¹s soap label: It mixes New Age platitudes with technical know-how . This twisted myriad of pages not only help you get in touch with your inner self, but with therapeutic Web sites. Full of odd ramblings on the powers of publishing and the free mind, this place is pretty darn bizarre. Even I don¹t get it... AND I LIVE IN CALIFORNIA! If you like nutzo-writing, than join a doctor who's stood a bit too close to a leaky microwave oven for his own good.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

Boulder Vegetable Rights Association
URL: http://www.bvra.org/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
This activist group from Colorado is out to defend the defenseless little guys of the biosphere: vegetables. Why do vegetarians find it so wrong to eat animals when millions of vegetables give up their lives for their gastronomic pleasure everyday? The Boulder Vegetable Rights Association unearths this hypocrisy with a collection of Usenet posts, advice for the recovering vegetarian, and some shocking photos of vegetables being butchered for human consumption. The site could be better-organized, and there could be a more information on the group itself, but it makes a good visit. I don't think I can ever look a tofu squarely in the eye again.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

A Year in the Life of a Nerd
URL: http://www.missouri.edu/~c667778/diary.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Did you ever wonder what it was like to be a nerd in high school? Of course not. Like Andrew Hicks, you were probably an awkward, zit-faced, date-deprived "loser." Andrew's exhaustive online journal follows his senior year in high school and, if you search a bit, his present life as a college freshman. This Epic of Nerdimesh reveals Andrew¹s private thoughts about his idiot roommate, working in the food hall, and the problems of nerdom. It¹s not the Spellingesque world of ³90210,² but it¹s almost every bit as engaging.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5

Needful Things
URL: http://www.pvv.unit.no/~bct/spypose/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Rahlman
Yet another waste of electrons from some dweeb who thinks unpleasant body functions are worthy of a Web site. This time it's vomiting, with a bonus discussion of air-sickness bags. Of absolutely no interest to anyone except frat guys and Australians, who would make throwing up their national sport if they could sober up long enough to write a set of rules.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5

Pigeons: Amiable Urbanites
URL: http://www.envirolink.org/arrs/peta/factsheets/wildlife/wil6_pigeons.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Rahlman
Pigeon facts, brought to you by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The site begins with heart-tugging story of Cher Ami, the heroic pigeon, then attempts to clear up the bad rap "rock doves" (or "flying rats," depending on your sensibilities) have regarding disease. It also discusses humane methods to keep them from nesting in buildings. The PETA folks do great outreach for all mistreated critters, and here they prove they don't play favorites by championing just the cuter animals. I hope they draw the line at cockroaches, however.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5

The Lipstick Page
URL: http://www.wineasy.se/bjornt/lip.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Rahlman
A library of lipstick information and trivia. Different brands are listed, some with color samples. French products are thoughtfully tagged, so you can avoid buying them to protest France's penchant for nuking coral reefs. Makeup tips and consumer forum have practical information for beginners and experts alike. Kind of cute and it¹s laid out well, but it¹s not weird enough to be truly interesting, and not in-depth enough if you have a serious lipstick jones. It's still in progress, but for now, kiss it off.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5

Welcome to Passport Online
URL: http://www.passport.ca/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Passport Online touts itself as Toronto's biggest service provider. Its home page is mostly promotional junk for its service, but down at the bottom of the page is a tiny hidden treasure: Dyslexicon!, a Web-accessible MOO-like chat area. What makes it so special? The place is crawling with Canadians. Pretend you¹re a lumberjack from Quebec and only speak in a French accent! Bait Canadians by asking them what state they live in! A small diversion for the terminally bored.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5

DCIP Home Page
URL: http://www.conspiracy.org/conspiracy/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Have you ever wondered who pulls the world¹s puppet strings? How can a hopeless drone like yourself ever hope to identify one of the ³hidden masters²? The DCIP Home page was created to unveil conspiracy with a set of pointers to the masters¹ ³official² web pages. While the concept and tone of this site is intriguing, there just isn¹t much material here. The Conspiracy must have deleted it. The people responsible for this page do a much better job with their Illuminati and Trilateral Commission Homepages. Wait... Do I smell a conspiracy?
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5

Mad Hatter
URL: http://www.magi.com/~gray/mh.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Mary Holiday, the Mad Hatter, runs a fan club for himself. And why not? While the site is mostly a collection of previous weird posts to various newsgroups, he fills the balance with FAQs and figures about his life and philosophy. Though the place lacks whiz-bang web stuff (or even graphics), it's a monument to net-ego. Any net-god wannabe should visit and take careful notes: Chastise anyone who asks you a question, and talk about how cool you are. Incessantly. If you've got a smidgen of personality, people might eventually believe it.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 4

Matthew and Jake's Adventures
URL: http://www.mit.edu:8001/mj/mj.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Matthew and Jake are two MIT students who first posted their collection of hypertext stories way back in 1994 and haven¹t updated the site since. The illustrated romps are told in a children¹s book style that gets old quickly and makes me glad I didn¹t attend MIT. The web is a bit different now in 1996, but if you feel nostalgia for a time when Mosaic was the hot thing, it might be worth a visit.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 4

Page of Jeff's
URL: http://www.plantell.com/planett/pjeff/pageofjeff.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Rahlman
This could also be called a "Page of Jeffs." A repository for all net users with said moniker in common to link home pages and talk about all things of concern to Jeffworld. If you're a Jeff, you need this page. If not, skip it. The concept doesn't hold up for long, especially with the ordinary layout. Maybe they need to include famous Jeffs, but really, who's going to care? Except a Jeff, of course.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 3