This column is for the last of you Internet holdouts. Your pigheaded refusal to help line the pockets of those friendly and monolithic communications giants ends today, for as a public service this month, I'll be dragging you kicking and screaming into the Internet community, with the most exciting new party game to hit the scene since the first time someone in a basement shouted, "Left foot . . . blue!"
Bear with me for a moment. You probably already know that the incredible explosion of the World Wide Web is partly attributable to how easily the Web allows two electronic "pages" separated by vast geographic and ideological distance to be linked together and freely accessed. In addition, the Web allows properly motivated people to view images of a fundamentally naughty nature. I say that these are two great tastes that taste great together and have developed Web That Smut!, the thrilling new online game that combines the intellectual stimulation of the film-nerd party classic The Coppola Connection with the competitive thrills of the smash game show Name That Tune.
The object of Web That Smut!: to proceed from a perfectly innocent starting point on the Web to . . . hang on -- I've got the text of the legislation written down somewhere. Aha! -- "words and/or images of a prurient nature which violate reasonable standards of good taste in the town and/or county of its source or destination of transmission."
Here's how to play. You and your opponent sit at opposite sides of a Mac with Internet access and a Web browser up and running. Your opponent names a Web site. You then offer an opening bid of how many mouse clicks it will take to move from that friendly locale to an image of graphic smut. Just as in the TV original, you barter the wager back and forth until one of you loses your nerve.
You: I can Web That Smut! in five mouse clicks.
Opponent: (after a wary pause) Web That Smut!
You then have the agreed upon number of mouse clicks to locate any text or graphics that, when accessed, immediately take your mind's eye back to the lecture your clergyman gave your entire Sunday-school class when he caught your friend staring at the depilatory ads in Woman's Day.
To illustrate: You begin at Apple's top Web page (http://www.apple.com/). Glancing through the contents, you wisely spend your first mouse click jumping to Outside Resources. From there, Apple and Macintosh User Groups seems the obvious choice, but after carefully examining the entire page, you click on Online Publications of Interest instead; the casual mention of "eZines" in the item's description makes you suspect that it's a sure path to pay dirt. Or perhaps not, as you're presented with a list of dry technical journals and industry news. Beads of sweat form as you realize that you have only four mouse clicks left and that those'll run out quickly if you need to work your way through a Best of the Net page.
But what's that you spy in the middle of the screen? You're saved! Amusing Rants on Internet Topics! As a longtime Net jockey, you understand only too well the significance of the word rant, and so it is with no little confidence that you stab the pointer down on DaveNet. Hmm. Nothing there but a file reference . . . that's no good. Skip to Dave's home page, and see if there's a directory of sorts. Netscape and your unaccelerated-graphics card require a moment to draw the page, but when it's done, you see the finish line right there in front of you -- in the form of a link marked Sexuality. The window's title bar now reads A Society of Parents and . . . a thoughtful, well-reasoned, and entertaining commentary on the need for parents to take an active role in their children's development and activities? What the hell is this?! But wait, Dave comes through, inserting a gratuitous photo of a nude lady at the very end just to get Senator Exon steamed, with a link to the Libido page thrown in for good measure. By now, members of the crowd can no longer contain themselves, and they shout "Exooooooonnnnnnnnnnn!" as you race around the office on your rolling chair.
All the thrills of big-time TV-game-show action, without the inconvenience of having to drag home a whole bunch of ugly Harvest Gold major appliances afterward. And the rules are so simple:
1. Any mouse click that activates a link to either a file or
another Web page counts toward the total. Clicks within the
scroll bars are free.
2. You cannot hit a site more than once in any one round, but if
you need to backtrack, you may do so without penalty. When Web
That Smut! is played at championship levels, however, each click
on the Back button counts; this is the game's equivalent of
doing the Times crossword puzzle in ink and marks you as one big
and crunchy master of Web naughtiness.
3. Mouse clicks must be limited to the content area of your
browser's window. The What's New and What's Cool buttons are
verboten, as is the keyboard -- you can't perform a keyword
search.
4. A contestant has Webbed That Smut! when the screen contains
an image featuring either nudity, creative forms of
counterproductive dress, or text of a prurient nature as
described by Senator Exon. For instance, any appearance of the
word Winnebago or Turnstile scores an immediate Exon for you or
for your team. Merely accessing a file doesn't count; the text,
sound, or imagery must be plain for all to see for the Exon to
be recognized by the scorekeeper.
And then there's Web That Smut!: The Drinking Game. As with all good drinking games, the rule maker had to formulate the rules while drunk, so I downed a whole bottle of Sam Adams Triple Bock and waited for the magic to happen. When my vision returned four days later, I read the resulting manuscript, and I must say I really don't approve of what I wrote at all. So my advice on this one is to just pop a tape of The Bob Newhart Show into the VCR and try to get a game of Hi, Bob! going concurrently.
The solo version of Web That Smut! is a variation I've developed entitled Championship Conservative Chain Gang. According to the original text of Exon's Communications Decency Act, distributing offensive materials via the Internet or acting as a means of access to same invites a two-year jail term. The object of Chain Gang is therefore to change the fate of the world by getting as many archconservative political figures on a prison chain gang as possible in one uninterrupted pass, via the Web sites they control. You get points for the length as well as the quality of the chain. Witness my best game to date:
Beginning at the Web page of über-Reaganite Dick Armey (http://www.hous .gov/armey/), two clicks brings you to the top of the House of Representatives, headed by Newt Gingrich. Three from there lands you in the Flat Tax Home Page, with plenty of links to the conservative world, such as the archconservative Political NewsTalk Network, which happily gives you access to the Christian Coalition's Web page. Cool! Now we've got Ralph Reed smashing rocks along with Newt and Dick! A deep browse turns up a Q&A article by none other than Pat "I Am Not a Televangelist" Robertson, with one and only one link to the outside.
Fortunately, that's all we need, as that crucial link in turn leads us to the Best of the Web contest page. From there, four mouse clicks takes us to the Frequently Asked Questions page of the alt.sex newsgroup, from which startling pictures of women modeling terribly revealing and clearly uncomfortable leather-and-chains ensembles is but one click away.
And the name of that crucial site linking all these conservatives to the Leather Goddess? Why, it's a link to the United States Constitution page at Cornell University.
It's pretty cheap irony when you think about it, but I'll take it anyway.
Andy Ihnatko can be reached at andyi@world.st .com and isn't ashamed that readers can Web That Smut! from his Web page (http://www.zdnet.com/~macuser/andyi/) in three clicks.
