Current Favorites - These rock my world.

Ambigram-Matic -- An odd but addictive site. An ambigram is a word or phrase written in such a way that it looks the same when turned upside-down. A hand-crafted ambigram, of the sort drawn by Scott Kim, is a thing of beauty and wonder. On the other hand, Kim gets millions for his, and Ambigram-Matic will do it free-of-charge. Type in your name, or some other word you'd like to mess with, and see what you get. Half the time you'll get unreadable loopy junk, and half the time you'll get something really cool ("joel" works out pretty well, I must say!).

Plumb Design's Visual Thesaurus -- This is one of those things that's so far-out you can barely see it. Which is too bad. But if you're equipped with the latest browser, Shockwave, and a fast computer, come on in. The Visual Thesaurus is an attempt to show the meaningful links between words and concepts. A thesaurus does the same thing, but one little piece at a time. The interface is a little hard to get used to, and the ever-changing network of words on the screen seems to wobble for some reason, as if even the Visual Thesaurus is excited about itself. But it's definitely worth a look.

Salon -- This is as close as I come to reading a newspaper. It's brainy, literate, thoughtful stuff, and it changes every day. The site seems to go on forever, in every direction, and whatever your interests are, there are probably several essays here you'll want to clip out n' save.

The Edge -- If you're the type who can't get enough of the intellectual musings of today's top pop scientists, this site really satisfies. The site was created as a place for science writers (and, yes, actual scientists, philosophers, etc.) to meet, think out loud, inspire each other, bicker like 12-year-olds, and take questions from the crowd. John Brockman, author of "The Third Culture," is your congenial host.

eyecandy -- Check out eyecandy's sleek, cab-forward design. eyecandy looks great, as well it should, because its purpose is to seek out and feature websites of rare beauty. As a designer, I've looked at a lot of similar resources, and this is one of the most consistently exciting.

The Onion -- Saints be praised. A weekly newspaper parody, free for any passerby! What's that, it's not on streetcorners where you live? Relax. Now it's online, almost all of every issue, back issues included. This is laugh-out-loud stuff.

alt.culture -- An encyclopedia of 90's life. The place to catch up on today's if-you-blink-you-miss-it culture.

Babelfish -- Translates any phrase from English to Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish or French. Or vice-versa. Babelfish can even translate entire webpages; just type in the URL. For some real fun try translating the same phrase from English to another language and back again.

Basic Spanish for the Virtual Student -- (Haven't we all felt like we were just a virtual student at times?) This site makes an attempt to teach you an entire language! Whether or not it works for you, you've got to admire its moxie. It's beautifully and intelligently done, as well.

Non-stick Looney Page -- Heaven for fans of old Warner Brothers cartoons.

Searches & Indices

Alta Vista

Yahoo

Excite

HotBot

WhoWhere. Find almost anyone (or anything) through this nationwide white pages/yellow pages directory.

Internet Movie Database -- Still the coolest site on the web.

Ultimate TV List

Ultimate Band List

Linky Linky

Suck. A darling of the Webcritics. But still cool.

Whizzy Places by author and "Black Adder" alumnus Stepen Fry.

Autopilot. Tired of the exhausting decision-making involved in Websurfing? Let the Autopilot take over.

Project Cool. Showcasing some of the most interesting and/or visually attractive sites on the web, Project Cool also includes lots of resources for learning better web design.

The Best Spots on the Web So Far. The stunning link collection of a guy named Chip. Chip has a rare ability to skate past the common, everyday websites, and find the true gems - sites JUST weird enough that we wouldn't come up with the idea of searching for them, yet funky enough to hold our attention. Includes links to The Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum, Chuck Shepard's News of the Weird, Reference Librarian Stumpers, and more. A linker after my own heart.

Art

African Art

Cave Paintings

Dallas Museum of Art

Egyptian Papyrus Art

Impressionists

Frieda Kahlo

Kandinsky

LA County Musuem of Art

Leonardo Da Vinci

Louvre

Magritte

Minneapolis Museum of Art

O'Keefe

Philadelphia Musuem of Art

Treasures of the Czars

Andy Warhol

World Art Treasures

Wright, Frank Lloyd

Big Evil Corporations (Commercial Sites I Love)

Failure Analysis Associates -- at, that's right, www.fail.com. Got an oil tanker that just went belly up? Did your federal building get carbombed? Any old assassinations you don't feel quite settled about? FaAA can help you. Be sure to check out their handy "Checklist for Protecting Buildings against Car-Bomb Attack". Don DeLillo would love this.

Communication Arts -- A commercial site in more ways than one! C.A. is a magazine that mainly caters to "creatives" - people who do graphics, animation, video, whatever, for advertising & promotion. Big deal? Maybe not, but there are examples of work here that will knock the socks off even the most jaded graphic designers.

Car Talk -- Not too commercial of a site at all, really. Just those two wacky wise men of the automobile world, Click and Clack Tappett (or, if you prefer, Tom and Ray Maliozzi). It's not as fun as their radio show, but how could it be?

Northern Sun -- If you're like me, there's no article of clothing that says "Hey you!" quite as well as a t-shirt. It's like your own personal billboard. And Northern Sun has been putting out some of the coolest t-shirts I've seen for years. As well as buttons, posters, etc.

Archie McPhee -- "Someday," you vowed, when you were a kid, "...someday I'll be a grown up and I can buy ALL THE TOYS I WANT!"

Birthdays - Who shares yours?

Britannica Online

Today Calendars - a collection of "On This Date..." calendar links; just a small part of Janice's amazing CalendarLand site.

Books

Out of Control by Kevin Kelly. -- Absolut Vodka went and put Kelly's whole book on line...it's not old, or copyright free, or anything. In fact, it's an incredible book about the edges of current science.

Books On-Line: Titles

WWW Virtual Library: Literature

Amazon -- The closest thing I've found to a huge, intelligent, attractive bookstore on the Web. And they keep adding new and better features. Bless'em!

Book Stacks -- Another bookseller.

Fantagraphics -- Some of the most creative, bizarre, subversive art these days is in "comix" - and I ain't talking about Superman. Fantagraphics sells a fine selection of artsy treasures.

Atomic Books -- "Literary Finds for Mutated Minds" is their tagline. Goooood stuff.

Loompanics Unlimited -- Where to go to get the really NUTSO books - the ones that make the mail carrier look twice at you. How to be a private investigator, how to beat a lie detector test, how to make big tax-free bucks panhandling, how to counterfeit money; it's all here. You didn't hear it from me.

Uchronia - The Alternate History List -- For readers who love to ask "what if?"

Designers' Websites

Verso

Reactor Art + Design WebSpace

Organic Online, Inc. - Homepage

Atomic Vision

Welcome to Landor

R&D

Wow Digital Imaging

John Brady Design Consultants Home Page

Studio Kari

Chiat Day

Studio Archetype

...And Their Work

@tlas

levi.com

WORD

Discovery Channel Online

Welcome to Planet Reebok

Qaswa Air

Rocktropolis

IUMA

Idea Exchange

Web Page Design - Introduction

Webmonkey - HTML

Creating Killer Websites Online - Core Page

David Siegel's Home Page

CARNIVAL!

CKWS - Example Sites

S. P. Q. R. - The Quest Begins

Welcome to CNET.COM

High Five Award Winners

Virgin Records America

Goodies for Denverites

Colorado Front Range Live Music & Events -- My good friend Doug loves concerts almost as much as he loves Colorado. This list is amazingly comprehensive and updated frequently.

Westword -- Denver's most loved and hated Artsrag is now online...and the result is surprisingly cool. Great layout, and no skimping on content. There's a lot here for people who "aren't from around here" as well. If you ARE from around here, don't miss the Best of Denver 1997. The whole dang thing's online! I'd been waiting for that since I first heard of the WWW.

RTD -- One day this site will supposedly give you interactive route and schedule information...meaning, as I understand it, that you could just sit there in your batcave outside of Denver and tell rtd.com that you need to get to Boettcher Concert Hall downtown by 7:30pm, and it would think for a sec and then spew back the correct time you should be waiting for the bus at your local bus stop. Whether the site will be this invaluable or not remains to be seen (top men are working on it right now....top...men...), but for a pedestrian like me, it's an irresistable idea.

Denver Election Commission -- "Did I miss that election? Or is it next Tuesday?" This is the place for you.

CO Congress Members -- Be that angry constituent your congressperson loses sleep over.

Humor

The Ants Are My Friends.... One of the funniest pages I've seen. A list of misunderstood song lyrics, along with the correct ones, contributed by the listeners at home, just like you.

Pythonline -- They're no slouches. Monty Python went and put their own Website together. Eric Idle is the main force behind it, and new Terry Gilliam sketches are around every corner. As you can imagine, a lot of the site is devoted to merchandising, but that doesn't put much of a damper on the fun stuff here.

The Far Side by Gary Larson

Deep Thought of the Day -- Jack Handey's brilliant idiocy.

Dave Barry -- fresh essays straight from the Miami Herald, every day.

Spoonerisms -- Not a pretty site, but comprehensive. This stuff ranges from the mundane to the sublime.

Spumco -- The guy who brought you Ren & Stimpy has a new website.

The eXonizer -- Gives you a specially-crafted CENSORED version of any web page in the world, while-u-wait! Very funny.

The Sheath File. Think you know all your condom euphamisms? Think again.

The Movie Cliches List -- See description below, in "Movies"

Movies & TV

Internet Movie Database -- Everything about every movie ever made. No kidding.

The Movie Cliches List -- Ever notice there are some things you'll see in movies that have NO basis in reality (such as the strange shape symbolizing a view through binoculars), yet they keep coming up in MOVIE after MOVIE?

The Movie Sounds Page

Recent Ebert Movie Reviews

EachMovie -- This thing is great fun, and actually USEFUL. It uses a form of artificial intelligence to determine (based on how you rate movies it asks you about) which new movies you would probably enjoy. Try it, it really does work. (See also Firefly, a similar contraption that does the same thing with music as well as movies.)

The Oracle of Bacon -- What is the mysterious secret of Kevin Bacon? What strange cosmic threads weave his fate together with EVERY OTHER ACTOR WHO EVER GRACED THE SILVER SCREEN? Find out for yourself at the Oracle of Bacon.......oooooOOOOooooOOO!

Wizard of Oz images

The Making of Citizen Kane

Brazil-Hypermedia Brazil FAQ

Blade Runner (Off-World)

The Kubrick Page "Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!"

MST3K - Deus Ex Machina

Letterman's Top Ten

Upcoming Simpsons Episodes

The School House Rock Lyrics Page -- Yes, well, I DO hate to brag, but I happen to be a close friend of Bob Dorough, creator of 90% of the School House Rock songs. (That's his voice on "Three, It's a Magic Number".) A kind and wonderful man. Thank you, thank you.

Music

The Ultimate band list

The Unofficial They Might Be Giants Home Page -- A site as lovingly crafted and detail-oriented as one of TMBG's own works. (See also The Official They Might Be Giants Home Page, which IS one of TMBG's own works.)

Plunderphonics -- I love it when musicians put their own sites on the web, instead of waiting for fans to do so. Plunderphonics is to music as collage is to art. "Sampling", or using pieces of other musicians works, is taken to extreme...sometimes with legal permission, sometimes not. You may have heard of "Gray Folded", an authorized tribute to the Grateful Dead using samples from 25 years of performances of a single song. This site is rich and full, lots of angles are explored.

Negativworldwidewebland -- Negativeland brings their mixture of hip cynicism and childlike playfulness to the net, and the results are delightful. Their top page looks like a cross between bauhaus design and 50's menu art. From there you can delve into interviews, essays, descriptions of their albums, links, etc. Once more, this is a band that's not afraid to do their own website.

The Jellyfish Homepage -- Jellyfish may no longer exist as a band, but its members continue spinning off and leaving spectacular tracks behind them. This page chronicles their history and does a good job of keeping up with the various members in their current projects.

The Rutles Home Page -- If you've never heard of the Rutles, time to introduce yourself to one of the greatest bands of the 20th century. Well, the mid-20th...okay, the mid-60s. Yeah.

Mythology - Ancient and Not-So-Ancient

The Ancient World Web: The Ultimate Index of All Things Ancient

Myths and Legends

Sumeria -- "a collection of resources for exploring alternative ideas in health, science, and spirituality."

The Nazi Moon Bases of the 1940's

The Center for Utopian Studies -- This site knocks me out: An incredible resource for info on all aspects of Utopian and Dystopian (anti-utopian) thought, including fiction, non-fiction, art, links, and much more. Well done.

Lee Harvey Oswald

Kennedy Assassination Home Page

Conspiracy Assassination Sites

The Lisa Pease Real History Archives

Sites I Helped Out On

You couldn't tell it from my Crunchy Gods pages, but I am actually an official Website Designer. This is not to be confused with a Webmaster, who does the actual work of maintaining the server, keeping networks up and running, that kind of stuff. I just do the cushy design stuff, using Photoshop and good ol' HTML.

I had a big part in creating and building the following websites, along with my beloved comrades at Spark Studios. They're presented here in chronological order, so you can look at us grow; from cute baby-in-the-bathtub web designers to gawky adolescent web designers in bad haircuts, to full-grown "Here Comes The Chef" backyard-barbecue web designers.

Zometool -- they're like tinkertoys for astrophysicists (but kids like 'em too!) This was my first commercial site, and it will always be a favorite, though I hope I've improved since then.

Into The Wind -- a must-see if you've ever enjoyed kites.

Industrial Laboratories -- our first site for grown-ups.

Spark Studios -- where I work! This site is undergoing a major overhaul, but it works okay the way it is for now.

JEC's Knowledge Online -- Mind Extension University has a new look. It's called Jones Education Company, and this is their new site.

Beacon Online -- Beacon Clinic, an AIDS clinic in Boulder, Colorado, has created an incredible resource for those seeking AIDS information. I had the priveledge of designing their logo and the homepage for their website.

SupportSource -- Micro House's SupportSource is designed to be the ultimate resource for PC techs. We had fun with the idea that these people "put out fires" every day for a living. I helped design the homepage, the "About" section and the Scenarios.

io image -- An illustration company. It was a lot of fun working with their highly textured imagery.

Cavion Technologies -- Cavion offers online banking technology to credit unions. I got do most of this site myself, which was a thrill.

 

Trivia (On the Web??? Nawwww!)

The Straight Dope by Cecil Adams -- The official site. "Fighting ignorance since 1973 (It's taking longer than we thought)." Where do Lava Lamps come from? Can singers really break glass with their voices? Why does lint always collect your navel? When are coconuts in season? Do close-door buttons in elevators really work? This is the wise-cracking know-it-all uncle your uncle could only pretend to be.

The List of Lists

Factoids!

The Straight Dope by Cecil Adams -- See description above in "Current Favorites"

Websurfer Helper

shareware.com -- They've got almost everything.

THE LIST -- Looking for the right Internet Service Provider for you? Just type in your area code, and you'll get a VERY comprehensive list of providers servicing that area code, with info about each. A great free service.

The Bandwidth Conservation Society -- For you HTML-slingers and Web-art types: These folks are serious about getting web pages TINY. They've got some of the best tips I've seen for making your site zippy without losing its cool.

Web Review: New Works -- Reviews of Websites, for those of you who don't want to waste a second of valuable surfing time deciding for yourself whether you like something or not.

For more groovy links, see my "Useful Stuff" page and my "Favorites" page. (The latter is especially useful for those who have the same favorites as me.)