Website Hall of Infamy
June, 2003 Winner: Butt Art
Here is the online journal—complete with pictures—of an artist who paints canvases with his butt then sells them on eBay. That's right, folks, he applies paint to his bare ass then presses the painted cheeks on a canvas anywhere between one to several times. Judging from his journal entries, it looks like there is a market for this kind of art, although it's highly unlikely that Steve Murmer will ever join the ranks of distinguished and famous artists like Keith Haring, Michelangelo, or Vincent Van Gogh. His work could provoke all kinds of bad puns including:
His art is completely asinine.
The artist is such an ass for doing this.
There are no ifs, ands, or butts about this art being stupid.
This art kicks ass—NOT!
May, 2003 Winner: She Dumped Me
Christopher Puzzele, a lawyer who describes himself as being "100% totally honest" when he is not working, had dated the same woman for eight years. She stuck with him all the way through college and law school. She even stuck with him while he was starting his career in the legal profession. Things were fine until one day she told him that she was ready to have children and he basically said something like "I'm not ready for that yet." She subsequently dumped him and he responded by creating this site where he whines about how heartbroken he is and how he is now actively looking for a new woman to have a long-term relationship with.
Awwwwww, poor Christopher. Let's all hold our hands virtually together in cyberspace and feel pity for the poor, lonely, sad, and misunderstood lawyer—NOT!!!
I could've understood his hesitation if she had demanded children a few months after they started dating. But they were together for eight years, for Christ's sake! Surely, any woman in a long-term relationship would feel ready to make a more permanent commitment with her man and would automatically assume that her long-time love feels the same way.
He comes across as being someone who wants a relationship that's serious enough to be dating on a regular basis for many years but will never reach the marriage and family stage. That's fine if the woman is also a commitment-phobe who just wants to date for years and years. But any woman who knows for sure that she wants to get married and have a family in the future would be better off to steer clear of this guy.
Of course the site itself would be enough to drive some women off. When you first arrive at the site, you arrive at a splash page where your cursor is followed by a bunch of hearts and kisses every time you move it. Click on the "She Dumped Me Logo" and you are taken to a second splash page with a yellow smiley face that's pretty useless and only prolongs any visitor who wants to get to the site. Once you actually get inside the site, the page has a large picture of the guy and a moving background that includes floating smiley faces and falling hearts. Of course, all those heavy graphics and "they-are-only-cute-for-one-second-before-they-become-annoying" effects will slow down the loading time of anyone who has a dial-up modem. Heck, it could even slow down the loading time of those with cable, DSL, or T-1 lines.
Those special effects were so cutting-edge—back in 1997. Nowadays such tricks like that are totally lame, along with the scrolling Javascript message at the bottom of the browser (that reads "YOU CAN'T LAUGH AT YOURSELF, WHO CAN YOU LAUGH AT?"). What's more, this site violates the one golden rule of web design—the more special effects on a page, the longer it will take for a page to load, and it increases the chance that a visitor's browser will crash before the page finishes loading. (My own browser crashed a few times trying to reach this site.)
At the bottom of the site's front page, one can read this statement: "And Do You Know What's REALLY Pathetic? I'm STILL Single!?" Perhaps if he hadn't added so many bells and whistles on his site he would get more women willing to stick around his site instead of leaving out of frustration with waiting for everything to load (or experiencing a browser crash waiting for everything to load).
This site makes an excellent example of why you should never get a lawyer to design a website.
April, 2003 Winner: MessiahCAM
Sometimes an innovation comes along—such as the World Wide Web—that genuinely creates a revolution in how people interact with each other and express themselves in a public forum without having to go outside. Other times an innovation comes along—such as an invention of the webcam—that have such silly and vacuous uses that it makes you wonder why someone even bothered to invent it in the first place.
With Easter being on April 20 this year, it's appropriate to focus on the MessiahCAM, which is yet another weird way to use webcam technology (in addition to taking headshots of various so-called webcam boys and girls sitting in front of their computers and taking pictures of women who come to abortion clinics). It's a Jerusalem-based webcam that's set up in order to capture any pictures of the return of the Messiah. There are two cams—one that's focused on The Golden Gate East-Wall and the other that's focused on the Ascension Chapel on the Mount of Olives. Since, as of this writing, the Messiah hasn't come yet, watching the cams is about as interesting and exciting as watching paint dry (or watching JenniCam).
This site also features the latest news on the Rapture (which is supposed to happen soon, according to this site).
There are a few things I've wondered about. Suppose the Messiah chooses not to appear at either place where the cams are located and decides to re-appear in a third location instead? Or suppose the Messiah really does want to return to Earth in those two spots but is so camera-shy that He refuses to appear in either of those spots as long as the cams are focused on them? That's something that the website's owner(s) should think hard about, especially if they want the Messiah to return to Earth.