The Stupid Homepage

Site:
http://metro.turnpike.net/S/spatula/

Category:
Personal Home Pages

Review (in 1996):

Also known as Spatch’s Homepage (“Spatch” is short for spatula), this is a collection of amusing oddments, including some spoofs on the “things that do useless stuff” craze so prevalent on the Web these days: the Page That Tells You Where It Is tells you the site is still at metro.turnpike.net (“Reload this page after a few moments and find out where it is then!”) and the VCR Clock page, which Spatch has painstakingly programmed so you can see exactly what time his VCR clock says it is (which reveals a blinding “12:00” – groan)

There’s also a collection of text files (mostly culled from alt.stupidity, appropriately enough).  The content may be stupid, but it’s a smart site, if you know what we mean.

As reviewed in the 1996 "World Wide Web Top 1000" - a review of the Top 5% of all Web Sites in 1996.

The Great Web Candianizer

Site:
http://www.io.org/~themaxx/canada/can.html

Category:
Web Gadgets

Review (in 1996):

Many Canadians are concerned about American cultural dominance.  This silly site takes direct action against the “hosers” (that’s Canadian parlance for “Americans”, it seems) by taking the average “hosehead” page and “Canadianizing” it.  Beauty, eh?  You just enter the URL of your favorite site, and this gadget “translates” the page by adding well-placed burps and back bacon references.  For example, a visit to the White House now begins with “G’day, eh, and welcome to the House of Commons”.  Then you can link to “The Hosehead’s Cabinet”.  Beauty, eh?

Some of the funniest results can be obtained by aiming the translator at serious Canadian sites, like the Molson brewery (carin’ for your brewski BURRRP!  Scuse me eh?).

As reviewed in the 1996 "World Wide Web Top 1000" - a review of the Top 5% of all Web Sites in 1996.

The Spot

Site:
http://www.thespot.com/

Category: 
Weird and Wonderful 

Review (in 1996):

The Spot is a fun sort of online soap about twentysomethings, supposedly emanating from a seven-bedroom beach house with infamous history of wild partying and debauchery.  Typical resident: Tara, a 23-year-old film student trying to make it as a director.  Zany pet: Spotnik, a “Cyberian Husky”.  It’s a “microcosm of a generation”, so naturally there’s always a party cooking!  Visitor’s can read regular postings from the residents, see the snapshots (“Love on the Beach”), and read the diary entries (“Did Jeff realize I had missed my plane… the morning I found him in bed with Tomeiko?”).

It’s pretty much like your own life, probably, but you may enjoy visiting anyway.  This exremely glossy site is the brainchild of Fattal & Collins, a California advertising agency that is perhaps now deciding what to do with all the fans it has attracted.

As reviewed in the 1996 "World Wide Web Top 1000" - a review of the Top 5% of all Web Sites in 1996.

Spirit-WWW

Site:
http://spirit.satelnet.org/Spirit.html

Category: 
Weird and Wonderful 

Review (in 1996):

Spiritual seekers may well find they’ve hit the motherlode at this site, which is a virtual encylopedia of strange phenomena and alternative realities.  Selections available on this “personal, not-for-profit” home page include channeling, astrology, faith healing, meditation, and UFOs.  The site points out that “the term alien or extraterrestrial shows our ignorance of the interconnectedness we live in”.  (At last, political correctness comes to the galaxy.)

Thoughts on reincarnation ponder the meaning of karma and “How Past and Future are perceived and realized finally by the Soul”.  Contortionists will enjoy the Yoga page, which provides an overview of the different practices, including Karma, Bhakti, and Vedic movements.  Plus New Age art, movies, audio clips, and more.

As reviewed in the 1996 "World Wide Web Top 1000" - a review of the Top 5% of all Web Sites in 1996.

Tarot Resources

Site:
http://www.iii.net/users/dtking/tarot.html

Category:
Weird and Wonderful

Review (in 1996):

This extensive list of tarot resources will please expert readers and curious amateurs alike.  Besides laying out the basics, the page offers a few tips on finding a professional reader: questions like “What deck do you use?” and “What is your basic approach?” may help you weed out those with which you won’t be comfortable (assuming the answers will make sense to you in the first place).  There are other, more obvious tips, like “don’t bring your life savings with you”.  Seasoned pros may want to browse “Tapestry”, an e-zine for forecasters.  Among the more colorful links, are the pictures of the Rider-Waite deck (a popular tarot deck style), and instructions for waxing your tarot cards when their coating gets worn down.

As reviewed in the 1996 "World Wide Web Top 1000" - a review of the Top 5% of all Web Sites in 1996.

Taos Hum Homepage

Site:
http://www.eskimo.com:80/~billb/hum/hum.html

Category:
Weird and Wonderful

Review (in 1996):

“The ‘Taos Hum’ is a low-pitched sound heard in several places across the U.S. and U.K.”, earning its name from the many reports received in New Mexico beginning 1991.  It is usually heard only in quiet environments, and is described as sounding like a distant diesel engine (its common “signature”).  “Since it has proven undetectable by microphones or VLF antennae, its source and nature is still a mystery”.

Wait, don’t laugh!  This quirky Web site isn’t much to look at, but the blend of solid scientific inquiry and off-the-edge speculation is fascinating.  Reports from “hummers” reveal as much of the mystery as they can (bio-iron in the brain tissue?), but it remains a big question mark.  There are clippings from both the straight and the “unconventional” press, revealing a sincere effort to help those unfortunate few who “sense” the hum.

As reviewed in the 1996 "World Wide Web Top 1000" - a review of the Top 5% of all Web Sites in 1996.

Web-o-rhythm

Site: 
http://www.qns.com/html/weborhythm

Category:
Weird and Wonderful

Review (in 1996):

Web-o-rhythm creates a swell color GIF of your personal bio-rhythm chart.  You might remember biorhythm machines from amusement parks in the ‘70's: you put in a quarter, enter your birth date, enter the month for which you want your biorhythm, and it prints it out for you.  Web-o-rhythm is essentially the same, but you save the quarter.  The computed chart shows you when you’re supposed to be up and when you’ll be done in the month to come.

Biorhythm fans will notice the addition of a new cycle – intuitive – to the traditional three of mental, physical, and emotional.  (Does Biorhythm Local 329 know about this?)  As an added bonus, after your chart is computed, you’re provided with a direct link to your horoscope at another site.

As reviewed in the 1996 "World Wide Web Top 1000" - a review of the Top 5% of all Web Sites in 1996.

Vampyres Only

Site:
http://www.vampyre.wis.net/vampyre/index.html

Category:
Weird and Wonderful

Review (in 1996):

Coming to you direct and undead from the Vorld Vide Veb… it’s Vampyres Only.  The entries here are alternately spooky and funny, and host Vlad III is given to puns likely to stick in your craw, such as “Thirsty for more? Here are links to similar veins of interest…”.  The hefty catalog of vampirobilia includes a collection of movie and sound files, from Orlok and Dracula to Barnabus Collins (from TV’s “Dark Shadows”) and, of course, Lestat.

A list of shops from around the world is helpful to those creatures of the night who feel the burning desire to … accessorize.  The Vampire Vulnerability Test is a fang-in-cheek check of your Draculattractiveness.  As they say back on the farm, this page puts the “ick” in slick".

As reviewed in the 1996 "World Wide Web Top 1000" - a review of the Top 5% of all Web Sites in 1996.