 After the home page, award sites have to be the most numerous type of content on the Web. From Best of the Web '94 to Cool Site of the Hour, it's obvious that on the Web: "those who can't, award." Ad Nauseam is no different. In an effort to bolster readership and fill space, Ad Nauseam is proud to present the First Annual Nauseated Awards. From my personal investigations, it seems the only requirement to be an award provider is to have a nifty graphic for all the winners. The objet d'art to the left is suitable for framing in home or office. These sites have undergone excruciating examination to validate their conformance to a demanding set of criteria. Unfortunately, this demanding set of criteria was scribbled on a napkin and lost in a San Jose Airport bar, so you'll just have to trust me. The categories and winners: Best Site Hosted by a Convicted Felon:
The G. Gordon Liddy Home Page First, I should mention that Oliver North's home page was in strong contention when I realized that he never was convicted of any crime -- although any stalwart Republican will proudly admit he lied his ass off to Congress. To his supporters, the American Constitution is just a list of formalities, like contest rules printed in miniscule typeface on the side panel of Capt'n Crunch. To them, Oliver North is a twentieth century George Washington, except he lied about cutting down a cherry tree and selling the wood to a fanatical theocracy to buy arms for an authoritarian regime. Such a patriot! For a fascinating page on Ollie, check out Oliver North and Me. Trust me, the snapshot of the marijuana pipe signed by Mr. North himself is worth the loss of browser cache in gold. But this award doesn't go to Ollie, it goes to Liddy: the burgularizing gun-toting Republican dirty tricks bag man who's bumbling ineptness began a cyclical chain of events leading to the resignation of an American President. Incredibly, his brash resistance to judicial process and involvement in the worst Constitutional crisis ever has made him a bit of a folk-hero to the members of the law 'n order Republican Party. But, he did serve time for his heinous deeds, which means we have a winner! Liddy's site shows he's matured and progressed since his Watergate days. Take a peek at his 1998 Stacked & Packed Calendar featuring stacked chicks packing heat. Or him with his Corvette brandishing a vanity license plate reading "H20GATE". Classy! Breasts, guns, talk radio, the bald head, sports cars with vanity plates ... a classic case of male middle-age crisis on glorious display for the world to see. The home page may be dead, but it sure gets interesting when it's about someone who really screwed things up and is damn proud of it.  |
This supposed tidal wave of "anger and controversy" is nothing more than the rebellious posturing Madison Avenue has been fine-tuning since the days of ad designer extraordinaire Darrin on Bewitched.
| Best Site Maintained by a Totalitarian Government:
The Singapore Government Internet Web Site This contestants in this category were varied and impressive. Iraq? Desert Storm took the wind out of their sails. El Salvador? My two years of high school Spanish wasn't enough to critically examine their offering. Zaire? Recent democratic elections kept them out of the running. And then, I started thinking about Singapore. Singapore's thriving capitalism and high standard of living juxtaposes against the standard image of totalitarianism: third-world banana republics ruled by juntas and multinational corporations. Singapore, on the other hand, doesn't have any bananas. Their web site has easy access to major ministries and "organs of state". The pages give an indication of a highly efficient organization. Each ministry has a mission statement, access to online services, event listings, applications, even archives of speeches. In short, Singapore is using the Internet to solve all the incompetence normally attributed to bureaucracy. Wandering through the Leviathanesque maze of boards, committees, departments and authorities made me realize that red tape isn't so much to keep my hands tied, it's to keep the bureaucrat's hands tied. Give them too much free time and we'll wind up with a mega-efficient super-organized government ready to run your life to death. Using open client-server standards, of all things. The only thing missing from Singapore's site was pictures of Michael Fay's bruised ass getting caned. Now that would be a fun page! The Inverted Wrist Award (Site Most Anxious To Pat Itself on its Back):
Revolting! I found out about Revolting! through an emailed press release. I get a lot of press releases, mostly from publicity agents who think Ad Nauseam is the kind of publication that re-manufactures press releases into "news stories". This is kind of self-congratulatory crap splattered throughout the release: For Immediate Release PREMIERE ISSUE OF INTERNET WEBZINE SPARKS ANGER AND CONTROVERSY REVOLTING!, a new online webzine which founder R.U. Sirius has termed "a Weekly World News for 20-something hipsters and netheads," has sparked controversy in its first week of release. The front page features a full-blown photo of Charles Manson playfully mugging for the camera with the headline "Charlie Don't Surf (But He's Got His Own Website)."
Hey -- Charlie Manson doesn't "playfully mug" for any camera. But the swastika on his forehead does make for a nice touch. The larger problem is that Revolting! thinks they're touching some sort of nerve in the constipated American public by interviewing Mr. Helter Skelter's webmaster, George Stimson. Except that -- oops! -- no one's shocked by Manson today because everyone knows he's a sick fuck, and no one's interested in George Stimson because he wasn't the one who convinced a bunch of teenagers to engage in ritualistic slaughter. The back patting must've gotten pretty hammer-like when Revolting!'s designers added "stolen" corporate ad banners to the top of their pages. Yeah, I bet the corporate guys are real ticked off they don't have to pay for the ad space. The anarchistic juices must have really been flowing when they thought that one up! And since this press release was probably written before Revolting! went on line, this supposed tidal wave of "anger and controversy" is nothing more than the rebellious posturing Madison Avenue has been fine-tuning since the days of ad designer extraordinaire Darrin on Bewitched. (The first Darrin, not the second.) Pretty damn sad when creative chaos has to hire a press agent to get the word on the street. The revolution will be publicized? | 
