dateURLperson/place/thingmisc
06.08.99Out of Photographers
this is the internet version of a really awesome Japanese magazine. it's such a great idea: publish regular peoples' snapshots. the print edition has thousands of photos.

some of my favorites:
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wakarusaprohardware.com
"an experience to remember." i like old turn-of-the-century hardware stores with wooden drawers. i'm being serious, not sarcastic, okay?


06.07.99 webpagesthatsuck.com
this site bothers me. it's from one of those self-proclaimed web mavens who's written a book and speaks at conferences, etc. this is him. this is too.

his thing is to "learn good design by looking at bad design." he finds badly-done websites and tells how they could be better. and of course, anyone who has looked at more than three websites is asking themselves, who couldn't do that? there are so many bad websites that it's kind of fun and exciting when you stumble onto a good one.

so this guy has a few common-sense ideas about user interface, but (and here's the kicker) webpagesthatsuck.com is a pretty sucky website, which makes this guy a no-talent know-it-all, the worst. i was going to give a bunch of examples about why his site sucks, but that'd be almost as bad as him--suffice it to say, click around and see for yourself. there are uglier websites, but his is definitely bad. so, how does he have the nerve to do what he does? who does he think he is? hey vincent flanders, who do you think you are?

also, how does this guy get speaking gigs and book deals? do the people who book him and pay him to write books realize that his website is not very good? i don't get it. then again, i never got david siegel, either. thankfully, no one talks about david siegel anymore anyway.

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david siegel
bad designer and pretentious man. he was one of the first self-proclaimed web know-it-alls that i heard about. now his website is just sitting there; he hasn't updated it since 1997. oh, April 1998, i guess. good.

now he's doing siegelvision.com which is still pretentious, but better looking, which makes me think he had someone else design it. maybe some volunteer.

here's a david siegel parody site. not clever or anything, but still kind of funny and somehow satisfying.


06.05.99

you know those awful tanqueray ads, well this is my idea for one:

"mr jenkins' escaped olive rolled behind that lavatory. do be a dear, and retrieve it for him, won't you."

to be most effective, the ad should be placed in bathrooms.
06.04.99 National Alternative Pet Association
"Do people put you down because your pet isn't a socially acceptable cat, dog or goldfish? Do you prefer the companionship of a domestic ferret, sugar glider, hedgehog, gerbil, snake, lizard, prairie dog, domestic skunk, degu, wallaby, emu, parrot, millipede, llama, exotic cat, monkey or ?"

as an organization, they seem to be a little on the defensive side, but their pictures are great, in all their monkey-kissin', skunk-cuddlin' glory.


06.03.99 Jeffrey Allen's Guide to Karaoke Confidence
learn to sing karaoke like the pros. "This practical simple Karaoke book unlocks the secrets to unleashing your untapped Karaoke vocal resources". emphasis mine.

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karaokescene.com
strangers' karaoke pictures. always interesting.
Del's Saloon
Buddie's Diner

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CIA for kids
"...there is information that other countries will not share with the United States, called secrets."

and there's a trenchcoated man holding a poorly-drawn chicken. wait, i guess it's a pigeon. oh, not just any pigeon, it's Harry Recon, ace photo pigeon. what a bad idea. i want my tax dollars back.


06.02.99 Krofft tribute
tv was never more tripped out. lots of pictures.

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Priscilla Pigsley makes Pet of the Day
"I am Miss Priscilla Pigsley. Age? A lady never tells...My dream is to grow up to be a Las Vegas showgirl."

Elle est ici, aussi.

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sf weekly article on cnet tv
i'm not going to start linking to lots of tech company news articles, but i couldn't resist this one because it makes fun of cnet so much, and also because it has this line:

"Why is the son of a former U.S. president spending his birthday standing in a converted gymnasium at the foot of Coit Tower, fiddling with a paddle ball toy, waiting for his co-host's nipples to recede?"
the word, "RITALIN"
written in colored chalk on the sidewalk in a child's handwriting.
i'm stupid. + advice.
on the buttons page, i put an email link to mrpants.com, which is not me. Stupid. Of course, it should've been misterpants.com--all spelled out. like the URL you're at right now. It was wrong for over a week. It's fixed now. stupid, stupid, stupid.

here's a tip for when you're getting a domain name: don't buy one that's made up of words that you have to spell out to people all the time ("that's misterpants dot com, all spelled out, M-I-S-T-E-R-P-A-N-T-S"), especially if there's a shorter, easier, more common way to spell those words. and particularly if you yourself are prone to typing in the shorter, easier way of spelling it.
06.01.99 making of a fluffernutter
a handsome and informative little documentary.

tricia deserves credit for finding marshmallowfluff.com. the whole site is awesome.

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Natalie Portman's bio
"Natalie has a dog named, Noodles which is half Poodle and half Schnauzer. Noodles recently had her anal glands removed."

for more in-depth coverage of Natalie's dog's anal glands, there's this Tonight Show transcript.

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Cult 101
lots of interesting articles on cults from AFF, an anti-cult group.

this one's good: "What messages are behind today's cults?" by Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D., the guy who did the stanford prison experiment.

and this one's really interesting too, "Deception, Dependency & Dread The Conversion Process" by Michael D. Langone, Ph.D. It outlines the process by which a cult typically converts someone.
unsolicited site updates
everyone knows that spammers are inconsiderate, awful, greedy people; and even the most fervent agnostics pray for the western heaven-hell dichotomy thing to be true in hopes that Sanford Wallace burns in eternal agony.

and most people agree that the unsolicited bad-joke-senders are at best kind of annoying and would benefit from a slap on the wrist or perhaps some prolonged spanking.

but there's another bad internet neighbor i want to complain about because i've enocountered a fair number of them and i haven't really seen anyone else ever mention them. (and while i was hoping that Miss Manners would address this in her column, i'm sorry to announce that my messages to her are now falling on deaf ears. she isn't answering my phone calls anymore. and last time we spoke, she muttered something about, "one finding it necessary to file a restraining order." and i know she's not even reading my letters because i keep finding them in her trash, unopened.)

i don't even have a good name for these people, but what they do is exchange email pleasantries with you once or twice and then a month later you find that you're subscribed to their site update newsletter. there are 7 of them i was easily able to find in my inbox right now--some from sites you've probably even heard of. and one of them got all mad at me when i unsubscribed! if anyone reading this does this (and i don't think any of the few people who regularly see this page do because misterpants.com has never received any of that), i think the thing to do is ask something along the lines of, "do you want to receive my site-update newsletter? if you do, i'll sign you up." easy as that. ask first, then if they say yes, sign 'em up.

okay. i just wanted to get that off my chest. i'm all better now. thanks for bearing with me. i'm surprised that you read this far.