Web Reading

E-Zines

A big shout-out to my friend Leslie Harpold and her fab e-zine Smug. It comes out the first of each month, and the name sums it up pretty well. The name, however, doesn't tell you how funny the thing is. And it is funny. Mystery Date is worth a read, but as a warning, it's not really for men. I found scary memories from my child/teen years as well as groovy graphics to go along with them. There is a nifty paper 'zine published out of Wicker Park called The Lumpen Times. It can be found lying around in book and record stores around cool neighboorhoods in Chicago. It defies description, and I have no idea from whence their name came. Another print magazine that has an online version is Fast Company. I haven't spent a lot of time here, but the print version is pretty cool. Now to see how long it lasts, the print, I mean.

As far as major magazines available on-line, the only one I visit regularly is Mother Jones, but I recently discovered Salon Magazine, home of Camille Paglia's online column. I was going to take the link to Mother Jones off my website, but then something interesting happened. I had a six month contract doing test scripting for ANS Communications, an America OnLine company, and they had about a foot-thick firewall between the employees and the rest of the 'net. They were also test marketing a proxy product called "Cyber Cop." I linked to Mother Jones through my own web site, and I got a message saying that I was *barred* from MJ's site because they were a Military Extremist organization. You gotta love that.

Columns

Cecil Adam's The Straight Dope is a long running column that I used to read in the Chicago Reader. Basically, he answers dumb questions, settles bets and researches urban legends (usually to answer a dumb question or settle a bet). If you like Click and Clack, there's now a Car Talk site where you can visit and worship at their altar.

Hypertext

While I realize that lots of reading on-line is suboptimal, if you're bored to tears, and you want to look busy, try reading something from this huge collection. Do you like Tom Robbins? Well, I do, so here's a link to the Tom Robbins Fan Page. If all else fails, there's always Dilbert.

My cute and talented SO, Tino found an interesting site that he seems to have become kind of obsessed with. It's Big Fun, and the creator, The Gus's own web site. He's read the diaries to be found here, I think all the way through. They are about The Gus and his group of friends in Charlottesville, Virginia. They are also about drugs, astrology and human relationships. I went hunting for new journal reading material on June 17, 1997, and my favorite from that hunt is Estrogen. If you want to visit Open Pages and decide for yourself, feel free. Another journal site that's, um, interesting is Walter Miller's site. I'm pretty sure this is fiction. elly's work diary is another execution of this sort of thing. I'm familiar with what tech jobs require, so I liked this one and Core Dumps from my Brain.

Things that aren't any of the above

I those goofy web Personality Tests entertaining, though I'm not sure why. If you're bored enough, or if you already know you also find them to be entertaining, try the Keirsey Temperament Sorter. I remember taking this one when I applied for the DePaul School for New Learning. It was only marginally enlightening for me, but I suppose it told them something. The alt.society.generation-x-ers are fond of the Myers-Briggs, but the Keirsey is the same thing. I'm an INTJ, and there seem to be a lot of them about on alt.society.generation-x.