| Part of Domain Fees Ruled Illegal |
| Wendy Orlean Williams, RIP |
| The New Face of Yahoo! |
| GII Awards: Pick the Winners, Get a Computer |
| Personal Diary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict |
| What's up on the Isle of Man |
| Easy Riding |
| Thoughtful Travel Index |
| Life in the Tropical Lane |
| Images of Australia |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
BREAKING SURF
Part of Domain Fees Ruled Illegal
The frozen assets of the Intellectual Infrastructure Fund, collected for several years by Network Solutions as part of domain registration fees, have been declared illegal. NSI stopped collecting that fee ($15/year) in March. The US District court found the fee to be an illegal tax because it was not approved by Congress. Don't expect a refund just yet; it's not clear how much is in the fund, who would be eligible for refunds, or what will happen to the money. Congress could even still authorize those funds and use them. The judge also dismissed parts of the suit that claimed NSI has an illegal monopoly on top level domain names. Lacking an update at press time, this lawsuit site should have more information soon.http://www.bode.com/nsi/index.html
Ms. Williams was a ninth-grade dropout, topless dancer, adult performer, banned in London, nominated for Grammy, fined $35 for decking a papparazzi, and arrested in Cleveland for performing clad only in shaving cream. She introduced the mohawk to rock 'n' roll, founded the Plasmatics, blew up car on national television when that actually meant something, chainsawed guitars, covered her nipples in electrical tape, made People magazine's Best Dressed list, cut a hit speed-metal version of "Stand By Your Man" with the lead singer of Motorhead, did her own stunts in the cult classic "Reform School Girls", wore boots in the shower, acted on "McGyver", appeared on the covers of both High Society and Vegetarian Times, turned down offer to be the frontwoman for Van Halen, wrestled an alligator, sky-dived nude for Playboy, championed health food, worked to rehabilitate wildlife, thought about it, decided she'd peaked and that the "hypocrisies of life" were too much to deal with, and at the age of 48 left a package of favorite noodles to long-time boyfriend, walked into the woods, fed the squirrels, and shot herself. So, how's your life going?
Wendy/Plasmatics: http://lonestar.texas.net/~triske/plasmatics/index.html
Wendy Story1: http://lonestar.texas.net/~triske/plasmatics/texts/caffeine.html
Wendy Story2: http://lonestar.texas.net/~triske/plasmatics/texts/rsg.txt
http://beta.yahoo.com/
GII Awards: Pick the Winners, Get a Computer
According to USA Today, the Global Information Infrastucture (GII) Awards are "a cross between the Oscars and the Baldrige Awards of the Internet". The prestigious awards do in fact attract top talent, as well as Vice President Al Gore, who has handed out awards in the past. This year's 68 finalists compete in 11 categories judged by various experts. Entries include the Internet Movie Database, the Whitbread Round The World sailing race, Audible.com, and many more. The quantity of quality here can provide hours of great netsurfing. You, too, can get in on the judging action. Guess the GII Awards winners and you could win a loaded Gateway computer system.http://www.gii.com/
SURFING SITES
Searching by the Northern Light
The Northern Light Search site is a search engine with a clever twist. It automatically organizes the results of your search into customized folders. When we searched for the song "You Gotta Have Heart" from Damned Yankees, we could quickly and easily narrow down which sites to try by selecting a folder. Options ranged from Special Collection Documents to Jazz to Chicago Hope. The speed with which the search results were returned was pretty impressive, too, although we never did find a copy of the lyrics - but we still got heart.http://www.nlsearch.com/
http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/k12/naha/nanav.html
Inuuqatigiit is a school curriculum developed with the help of community leaders for Inuit students in some of Canada's most northern communities. Clearly written, it paints a sharp picture of the Inuit world view on issues of morality, the family, and the environment, without resorting to the reverential mysticism that sometimes mars cross-cultural texts. This skillfully written document emphasizes similarities across cultures so smoothly that it's unclear in the text just when it slips into issues that are singularly Inuit. How many Grade 12 teachers hope that students learn to hunt seals safely in different seasons and know the proper way to show respect for a seal after it has been killed? This wonderful site teaches all of us about contemporary concerns and cultural strategies among people who rely on tradition to define themselves.
http://www.learnnet.nt.ca/Inuuqatigiit/TitleoPage.html
The Black Market Remembers the Market in People
Don't be fooled by the address. There are no FAQs here - just terrible answers. The Black Market publishes the accurately named Little Known Facts about Slavery, and in it we find the particulars of miscegenation laws, the earliest origins of colonial slavery, accounts of local slave rebellions, the reasons that manumission gave way to interstate trade in humans, the tensions that gave rise to the NAACP, and the series of early laws that stripped wholly free human beings of their life and liberty a tiny bit at a time. The research might be a tad shaky in some sources - there's at least one obvious factual contradiction - but overall The Black Market has compiled an intriguing, if dismaying, selection of tales that should never be forgotten.http://theblackmarket.com/slavefaq.htm
Do you think Abba sang "Portaloo, couldn't escape if I wanted to"? Do you have the uneasy feeling that you just might have it wrong? Join the crowd, then laugh out loud as you read the 1,370 other misheard lyrics recorded at this site. Our reviewer was horrified to find that the Police were not singing "A year has passed since I broke my nose" in Message in a Bottle, and that she'd been happily singing along with the wrong words for years.
http://www.kissthisguy.com/
Oh My God, They've Webbed Kenny! The Bastards!
Comedy Central actually encourages unoffical "South Park" sites, so copyright-be-damned Web sites featuring multimedia from the flatulent, no-holds-barred cartoon series are bursting out all over. Now that "South Park" has made the cover of Newsweek, we figure we should get on the ball. Despite the imitators, the official South Park site ranks as the best we've found, with neat features aside from the obvious T-shirt, coffee mug, and video marketeering one would expect. You'll find sound files, video samples, trivia, and Shockwave games, including a great Pac-Man clone that sends Cartman chasing through town killing Aliens and eating those infinitely nutritious Cheesy-Poofs.http://www.comedycentral.com/southpark/
Britannica's History of America's Women
Almost-like-thumbnail graphics and single sentence summaries, arranged chronologically, lead here to crisp overviews of the history of America's women. Scores of signal events - most related to the history of status - move you smoothly from Pocahontas to Sojourner Truth to Margaret Sanger to Madeleine Albright. A short opening essay contemplates changes in the way women's history is perceived, and how a feminist view of history has given women proper due for their role. Our reviewer argues, though, that feminist history is too often women's experience in history rather than feminist interpretation of it. She also notes two jarring inclusions in the Britannica chronicle. Earning special entry are the introduction of the TV dinner and the general availability of pantyhose. Would we take seriously a man's history site that marks the invention of the riding mower and the introduction of the clip-on tie?http://women.eb.com/
Statistics show that airplanes make a reasonably safe mode of transportation. This site, however, focuses on those times that something - possibly some two-centimeter, three-cent piece of wiring - went terribly wrong. The Ultimate Crash Web Site is an archive of airplane, helicopter, and balloon accidents captured on film. The site has stills, movies, forensic computer simulations, and sound clips from flight data recorders, the orange, so-called indestructible black boxes. A comedian once asked why the entire plane isn't built out of this same indestructible material. After viewing some of the images at this site, you may ask the same.
http://www.cam.org/~gilmour/
"Behold the power of cheese." That's right. Cheese is now wired, and wired to the gills if you'll excuse the mixed metaphors. Written in a hip, irreverent style, this site makes even the most mundane sliced dairy product seem exciting. In the Cheese Spotlight, you can have your cheese talk to you before you eat it in grand Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tradition. The site answers your frequently asked questions, provides recipes, and even introduces you to a featured chef, forced to answer the age-old question, "If you were a cheese, what type of cheese would you be?"
http://www.ilovecheese.com/
Check This Site - It's Grrrrrrreat!
Tony the Tiger welcomes you in bold, brash, cheerful color to Cereal City USA, a brimming bowlful of games, recipes, and nutritional information. Surprisingly quick to load considering the wealth of features it contains, Cereal City has more than a dozen well-constructed Shockwave games and puzzles. Kids of all ages could spend hours here. You can also send a free e-card, get the recipe for Apple Crunch, or buy yourself a tasteful set of Tony the Tiger balls! For golf, of course.http://www.kelloggs.com/
Here's a Web site for those who love musicals, especially bad ones, a site dedicated to on and off-Broadway shows that didn't make it - and we're talking true classics of bad taste. "Didn't make it" is a relative term: this site's author has chosen musicals that fail to live up to potential, such as Charlotte Sweet, Pacific Overtures, and Steel Pier. There's also a Musical Links section, and information about nominating your favorite almost-but-not-quite shows. Capeman, anyone?
http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Alley/3712/index.htm
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... the UN???
Systems Man is a new Super Hero, destined to strike fear into any menace - foreign, domestic or extra-terrestrial - that might threaten those protected under the auspices of the United Nations Charter. Follow the adventures of Systems Man as he defends Earth from disruptive alien beings intent on wiping out our small corner of the galaxy, or so every one believes. We're not quite sure what to make of this on-line strip, other than that we hope the actual United Nations is a little more organized than their designated cartoon protector. Up, up and thataway!http://www.inetcomics.com/online/book04/index.htm
Documenting the great war between people and the - er, potatoes, this site offers a full history, complete nonsense, and some images that portray potatoes as strangely hog-like beings. "The second great power, the tubers... lived at peace for millions of years until the fleshy folk became a threat to Earth itself." Unbeknownst to us, the battle apparently still rages on. Perhaps we should get out a bit more.
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dimension/9261/index.html
The Web site of the movie "Lost in Space" contains a cool Shockwave environment that takes you to each planet the Robinsons encounter (with an option to create your own) and lets you download a robot, enter contests and chat rooms, or play an entertaining VRML adventure game. When you're tuckered out, buy yourself an official T-shirt to remind you of your voyage.
http://www.dangerwillrobinson.com/
ONLINE TRAVEL
Personal Diary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Nigel Parry, a young Scottish journalist on the West Bank, describes the bizarre life of those living there as objectively as possible, a difficult feat considering the daily death and pain. As one 20-year-old engineering student is gunned down in the latest installment, apparently for making a soldier look foolish, the conflict is brought from the distance of television to the horrors of reality.http://www.birzeit.edu/diary/
Stand at the highest point on the Isle of Man on a clear day and you can see England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. As you might guess, this tiny Celtic nation is awash with the influence of many cultures, a fact made eminently clear at this Web site. The site features a logical design, with well chosen photographs, cogent prose, and straightforward navigation that quickly give you a sense of the island's history and culture and its modern activities. Some of the activities listed on the 1998 events calendar intrigue us: Company Pub Quiz Challenge; the British Hillclimb Championships; IOM Open Sheepdog Trials; and an International Festival for Majorettes and Baton Twirlers. Things are happening here. Clearly, local commerce, banking, and tourist industries will do much to draw history buffs, scuba divers, sportsfolk, hikers, bikers, and other visitors in across the waters.
http://www.isle-of-man.com/index.htm
This isn't a review of that Peter Fonda vehicle, but rather a look at a site devoted to those who like to pack up, throw the bags on the back of the Harley, and just roll until they're sick of it. Doc's Motorcycle Touring Pit Stop is an invaluable resource for those planning or dreaming about taking off and roaming around North America or Europe on top of a motorcycle. Among other info, you'll find tips on gear, travel, and the headaches involved in bringing a bike across the Atlantic. The site's author is always looking for more input/war stories from those who have made similar journeys. How we envy them all.
http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Downs/1382/
Attempting to tame the explosion of travel related sites on the Web, Virtual Voyages has come up with simple categories like the Caribbean, Mexico, Cities, and general Travel Resources. Each category page has links to specific locations. Each site page has maps, contact phone numbers, a list of other relevant links, and even a link to the appropriate search result page at altbookstore.com. Though well organized and easy to use, this site needs to expand coverage.
http://www.virtualvoyages.com/
If you dream of life in the Caribbean, or live there, check out this one-man site designed to promote the tropical lifestyle of Kittitians and Nevisians (i.e those who live on St. Kitts or Nevis). It includes the framed "National Browser", a weekly news e-zine with posts that discuss issues such as healthcare and extradition. Although some of the news is humdrum ("Caribbean hotels encouraged by cruise lines"), some may catch your eye ("Woman accused of raping man in Barbados"). You'll find more variety of the guidebook type in the "Caribbean Shores" gateway to a variety of islandic news and travel sites. Explore "West Indian Recipes" for stuffed eggs, salt fish balls, rum punch, callaloo, conch fritters, curry goat, and other delicacies of this sunlover's dreamworld.
http://www.chrisevelyn.com/
Mark Boyle's photography site features 150 images of the Australian landscape. Some are amazing, and all will look best on a monitor set to millions of colors. Mark has stock images available on CD and an online Shockwave resume that's brief and well done.
http://www.iinet.net.au/~mboyle/index.html
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
WebTrips' flashy, impressive site shows animated cartoons in all their mischievous glory. With music, cartoon theater, and games (ask the psychic burrito a question and watch him spew the answer), it'll keep you amused for hours.http://www.webtrips.com/
Now and then, we all encounter someone who deserves a well executed wedgie. Great minds on the Net have pulled together to provide us with (drum roll, please) the Virtual Wedgie. What will they think of next?
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~abusch/greeting/
If the K word sends fear through your heart, don't visit this site, you'll probably have a heart attack. Because everyone (including us) is yearning for the spotlight, we sang 'Can You Feel the Love Tonight?' and got dizzy watching the bouncing ball. It's Java, by the way.
http://www.karaokekrazy.com/
Drop into the Pit at this slick, stylish, and upfront site for marketing and PR company Kranzler Kingsley, and try your hand at the World's Worst advertising slogan or create a really terrible jingle.
http://www.kkcltd.com/
Lockjaw, Scrawllege, Norso Skimpus - not new and strange diseases, but new and strange fonts available from this all-original font archive. As a bonus, check out the Random Thoughts section for a grin or two.
http://www.sunwalk.com/index.html
We Likessses the Linkssses, Precioussssss
Rolozo Tolkien is the product of a student of astrophysics, Ryan Lovett, who found himself downloading everything he could find on the Internet about Tolkien and realized that he had a calling, if you will. On his page are drawings with thumbnail indices, family trees, maps, and even Tolkienesque fonts.http://godzilla.eecs.berkeley.edu/rolozo/
Just the look of joy as these lunatics plummet through hideous rapids on little river boards made us dumb with bewilderment. It looks fantastic, if the tingle of possible loss of limb thrills you.
http://www.teamextreme.no/
Wanna drive a sporty car without spending big bucks? The car dudes and dudettes here give you the low-down on purchasing the used car of your dreams. Team Monty recognizes that not all of us are in the Ferrari class - but surely we deserve to enjoy our little homes on wheels.
http://www.teammonty.com/
The Bottom Line on Web Shopping
Bottom Dollar's search agents find the lowest online prices for books, software, toys, and other dry goods. It finds a good number of entries but by no means all of a category and it seems picky about keywords. Fast enough to be worth a stop when you're looking to buy something specific.http://www.bottomdollar.com/