Ummagumma      ummagumma@rogers.com
I made this!

The Dot Eaters/The Number Crunchers      www.8bit-museum.de/
The German language version of my site, along with author Stephan Slabihoud's own classic computer index.

Emulators Unlimited      www.emuunlim.com
My gracious hosts, and a great emulation support site. From here you can get all the programs you need to play most of the games featured on this site, plus many, many more. Along with an emulation news section, emu author interviews, universal videogame list, videogame ad archive, and much more...it's your one stop shopping emulation extravaganza!

The Vintage Gaming Network      www.vg-network.com/
Formerly Dave's Classics, the flagship site of classic game emulation. This site has weathered quite a storm as waves of litigation have washed over the whole scene, and it has come out the other site as a continuing lighthouse for anyone interested in what's happening with classic gaming.

Digital Press      www.digitpress.com
Another great stop for anyone interested in classic gaming and the emulators that let you relive it. Offers such services as the Retro Mall, classic game reviews, FAQ archive and sound and image sections.

Ginger's Classic Corner      www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Lair/4798/index.html
Some thoughtful reviews of games available through MAME and Retrocade. Now if only we could get her to really open up and speak her mind...

JoseQ's EmuViews      www.emuviews.com
Another nice support site, with reviews, news and interviews.

MacMAME News and Information      www.calarts.edu/~nstrum/macmame/
Indispensable site for users of the Apple Macintosh version of MAME.

MAME: Intellectual Freedom/Legislative Issues      www.mame.gen.mi.us/resourc/legis.html
Probably one of the more stunning coincidences on the net. You probably think this is a site dedicated to studying the legal issues surrounding MAME and other emulators, right? Well, so did I, but actually it's a resource page by an organization called the Michigan Association for Media in Education (MAME). And to further compound this amazing similarity, this page does deal directly with all of the major legal questions concerning emulation such as copyright law, acceptable use, intellectual property and fair use provisions.

Monroeworld      www.monroeworld.com
The home of Shane Monroe, mouthpiece for the emulation scene. Not to mention Insert Coin, shrine to all things Retrocade (a marvellous successor to MAME), and various multimedia hi-jinks that will burn up all that spare bandwidth you have lying around, heh.

MAME - The Official Site      www.mame.net
MAME is a computer program that, at the time I am typing this, handles over 1300 arcade games, both classic and more recent offerings. It emulates the original game's hardware, allowing ROM images dumped from the original memory chips to be played on your computer system. It is without a doubt one of the best downloads you'll ever make.

MAME WORLD      www.mameworld.net
And this site has probably the most complete coverage of this incredible program.

RetroBase         www.retrobase.de
An extensive, and impressive emulation site, with lots of great pics, info and more.  A must see for emulation fans.

ROMLIST      www.romlist.com
Repository of ROM images, needed by emulators to play the games.  UPDATE Site's ROM collection has been seriously curtailed due to litigation.

Pugsy's MAME Cheat Page      cheat.retrogames.com/
Built into MAME is a cheat system, allowing memory addresses to be tinkered with for infinite lives, faster speed and other player performance enhancers. This is the site to go to to keep up with the updated cheat.dat file, containing the addresses for the latest round of games added to MAME. If you're into cheating, which I am not. Not at all. Never had to resort to that kind of chicanery in say, Black Tiger. Nosiree!

The Video Game Critic      www.videogamecritic.net
A truly great, comprehensive list of capsule reviews for every game system you could think of.  To-the-point reviews and accompanying screenshots make for a wonderful guide through the world of classic gaming.

The History of Computer Games: Part One: 1975-1982      www.suite101.com/article.cfm/computer_gaming/444
The first in a four page article taking computer game evolution from 1975 to the present day. Not the best navigation scheme, however...once you've read the first page just click the button to go up a level and you'll see the article list with the rest of them.

History of Home Video Games      videogames.org
Greg Chance's frighteningly large archive of home system information, from 1972 to 1996. How can you go wrong with a site featuring such a dignified logo?

I.C. When      www.icwhen.com/index1.html
A massive, and I mean massive, chronological history of computers and videogames, by Donald A. Thomas, Jr. Endlessly fascinating.

Ralph H. Baer Consultants      www.ralphbaer.com
Known for his meticulous record-keeping (a habit that probably came in pretty handy during 20 years of videogame patent litigation), it's no surprise that Ralph Baer maintains the most detailed and informative history of the development of the first commercial home TV videogame system, what eventually became Magnavox's Odyssey. Full of fascinating information, along with a plethora of incredible images, including the "brown box" prototype and even scans of the handwritten conceptual notes he made prior to its development.

Videogamespot's History of Video Games      www.videogames.com/features/universal/hov/index.html
A quick walk-through of the industry's history.

Videotopia       www.videotopia.com
One of the coolest things I've never seen. If it ever gets up near Toronto I'm there. Videotopia is a huge travelling exhibition of classic videogames, both arcade and home consoles. On the advisory board are such videogame luminaries as Al Acorn (PONG), Ralph Baer (Odyssey), Nolan Bushnell (Computer Space, PONG), and Eugene Jarvis (Defender) among others. Not too shabby. The website contains the major entries in the exhibit, along with a truncated history for each.

Classic Video Games Nexus      fly.hiwaay.net/~lkseitz/cvg/nexus/
Consider it the Yahoo! of classic arcade and home videogaming. Jumping off point for all things videogame classic.

Game Rankings - The Game Review Database     www.gamerankings.com
An index of game reviews, making it easy for punters to pony up the dosh, cor blimey!  Sorry, I think I just had a flashback to Amiga Zone magazine.

The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers      dadgum.com/giantlist/
A priceless site for information about the people behind the games that established the industry.

Metacritic: PC GAMES REVIEWS      www.metacritic.com/games/pc
What I consider the "rottentomatoes.com" of computer games review sites.  Gathers all of the reviews for a game and provides an average score, as well as links to the individual reviews themselves.  Of course, the quality of a game is a very subjective thing, but this site still provides a good starting point for a possible purchase.  Very handy.

The Museum of Tektronix Scopes      margo.student.utwente.nl/~wel/tek.htm
There's nothing nicer then measuring voltages on a good, solid Tek oscilloscope. Here's a page with a large collection of the green phosphorous beasts of yore.  UPDATE: This site is now closed, but it has posted some good links to other Tek sites so I will leave it up.

The New KLOV      www.klov.com
Named the Killer List Of Videogames, for good reason. Lots of neat technical information on nearly 1000 arcade games, as well as some interesting historical tid-bits.

Old-Computers.com      www.old-computers.com/news/default.asp
A large museum of computer hardware and videogames, with a European bent. In particular I point you to the "Stupid Scan of the Week" link on the site under the "fun" tab, which is a pretty hilarious analysis of those idiotic product shots game and computer companies loved so much in the 70's and 80's.

The Old Computer Dot Com       www.theoldcomputer.com
A great layout, lots of information and plenty of multimedia flash highlight this terrific retrogaming site.  Things to check out here include the Emulators section, the comprehensive Library including an impressive collection of streaming classic gaming commercials, and a 24/7 retro radio stream.  Great stuff!

Twin Galaxies - The Official Electronic Games Scoreboard      www.twingalaxies.com
Since 1981, this has been the Guinness Book of videogaming achievement. All manner of games are included, along with gaming news and interviews with the talented people who have mastered them.

Zany Video Game Quotes      zanyvg.overclocked.org
A brilliant index of non-sensical texts derived from bad Japanese game translations for the English market, complete with corroborating screenshot AND audio evidence. A winner is you!  UPDATE: Changed this listing to the new URL, and will also rant about the GODDAMN 600 POPUPS THAT NOW TORTURE YOU, THX OVERCLOCKED!  Users, start your popup killers.  Still a great site tho.

The Adrenaline Vault - Game NOT Over      www.avault.com/cheats/
The rest of the AVault is great, I recommend you check it all out, but I've highlighted their cheat page because I figure it's one of the best on the net, if not THE best, for PC games. They seem to have the latest cheats out fastest, and keep the largest amount of older cheats archived. A nice mixture of type-in cheats, trainers and strategy guides available. If you're into cheating, which I of course am not. Never had to resort to this kind of chicanery in games like Empire Earth. Nosiree!

CanadianGamer.ca      www.canadiangamer.ca
This site is an excellent collection of reviews, previews and features from a gang of crazy canucks who have little more to do aside from gaming than sweeping their igloos and feeding the seals.  They do, however, have an excellent eye for writing talent with their reviewers.  Of which I am one. ;)

GameSages - The Cure for the Common Code      sages.ign.com
Another big cheat archive, this one with cheats across a variety of platforms including the Amiga, classic consoles, modern videogame systems, even Dreamcast games for Christ's sake!

GameSpot      www.gamespot.com
My favourite of the non-tree-killer computer games magazines. Huge, with lots of previews, cheats, demos, betas, interviews and best of all, user submittable game reviews. Produced in conjunction with Computer Gaming World, my second favourite printed gaming rag.  UPDATE: Unfortunately, in the wake of the dot.com collapse, you now have to subscribe to "Gamespot Complete" to get even basic services like game screenshots and the ability to submit game reviews.  Does anyone actually think this is a sound business model?  Ask for payment for things you can easily get for free at a dozen other sites?  I dunno.  Good luck GS, you money-hungry B's.

GameSpy.com - Gaming's Homepage     www.gamespy.com
What was once simply a homepage for an online gaming service to rival Kali (remember Kali?), is now a top-notch gaming news site as well.  Again, like GameSpot, they've introduced a subscription scheme, but it isn't as fascist about denying you information.  Check it.   

Atari 2600 History and Commentary      www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/9176/2600essy.html"
A very thoughtful treatise on the development of the VCS and the games we played on it.

Atari 2600 Tricks, Easter Eggs, and Glitches      www.digitpress.com/faq/vcstrick.htm
The name says it all.

Atari Archives      www.digiserve.com/eescape/atari/Atari.shtml
A nice, simple site...who's coverage of the Atari scene is anything but simplistic. A wealth of information, FAQs, news articles, game reviews, and other pages from the book of Atari.

Atari Gaming Headquarters      www.atarihq.com
Graphically heavy, and pretty loaded down with great information too. Has the goods on Atari coin-ops, home systems, computers, and other miscellaneous equipment that fell through the cracks. AND game articles AND game reviews AND editorials AND news AND blah blah blah...just go there, okay?

The Atari Historical Society      www.atari-history.com/
Exhaustive study of the company and its many products, with a seal of approval by founder Nolan Bushnell himself.

Design case history: the Atari Video Computer System 
www.atari-history.com/2600/Atari_case_history.html
A geek's guide to the VCS. If all you know is you put the cartridge in the slot and turn it on and it runs, and that's ALL you want to know, then don't click on the above link. A highly technical, but still fascinating, look under the plastic hood.

The Official 2600 Doom Page      www.geocities.com/TimeSquare/Arcade/8691/2600DOOM.HTM
2600 Doom is probably one of the greatest hoaxes ever pulled off in classic gaming, and this is the site that gives you the rundown, including screenshots of the "game".

Pong: The Official Website devoted to the PONG story      www.pong-story.com/
A complete look into the development of the first popular videogame, both in the arcade and the mass of dedicated home games. Includes plenty of great information and images.

You Should Have Been There--Pong      www.discovery.com/stories/history/toys/PONG/birthday1.html
Located at the great Discovery Online site, a description of Nolan Bushnell's rise from geek to game god.

2-bits Web Site - Mattel Intellivision      http://dsplib.com/intv/index.html
The technical side of Intelligent Television. Manuals, schematics, chip data, and other geekified material.

Blue Sky Rangers      www.intellivisionlives.com
Anonymous Intellivision programmers no longer! Ground zero for all things Intellivision, including an emulation CD-ROM with 30 classic Intellivision games and other Mattel related multimedia.

The Intellivision Overlay Site      www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/7690/index.html
A big collection of scans of those little plastic sleeves you slide over the keypad on the good old Intellivision.  Scroll down to see the alphabetical list for 'em, it's not easy to spot on the page.

Sam's Intellivision Page      members.aol.com/pbjurman/intv.html
Very nice overview of the system and its peripherals, providing lots of information and graphic images.

The Coleco Adam Home Page      www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/u/dmwick/adam.html
Here is where one goes for a large amount of technical information on the CV, a breakdown of the various AdamCons that have been held over the years, lists of suppliers, and other great stuff.

Coleco Adam's House      coleco.freeservers.com/m.htm
It baffles me why web retailers figure they have to pump cheesy midi musak at us like we're strolling around K-Mart or something...guess it's supposed to evoke that department store feeling. All it does is make me want to go to the hunting section and get me a .306 and start ventilating people (luckily, while virtually shopping you can do that by firing up Quake). But musak aside (UPDATE: They've deep-sixed the music, but not the brain-breaking design and colour scheme), this is a good site dealing with the sale and service of ColecoVisions and ADAMs, along with other classic consoles.

ColecoVision.com      www.colecovison.com
A great starting point for information on 1982's last, best hope for the videogame industry.

Jones Telecommunications/Multimedia Encyclopedia    www.digitalcentury.com/encyclo/update/coleco.html
Their Coleco entry has a lengthy description of the company and their products, including the ColecoVision and Adam computer.

Telegames      www.telegames.com/
Sellers of ColecoVisions, Personal Arcades, and other classic systems, as well as modern consoles. Also has a ColecoVision emulation CD available.

Nintendo      www.nintendo.com
The official home of Mother N. You needed me to tell you this link?

A Portrait of Mario      www.wordyard.com/dmz/digicult/mario-4-91.html
Never has the struggle of the pixelated proletariat been so succinctly exposed. It's about time somebody used the words Nietzsche and Koopa in the same paragraph.

The Unofficial World of Nintendo      www.world-of-nintendo.com
Heavily commercialized with a slightly clunky design, but still offers quite a bit of interesting content.  Highlights include a cheat archive, images from game endings, and an archive of transcribed game manuals.

ARNOLD.C64.ORG      ftp://arnold.c64.org/pub/games
Be very careful about downloading from this FTP site. Playing the tonnes of emulator-ready classic Commodore 64 game images found here has been known to cause sleep loss, diminished appetite, irritation with bothersome loved ones, and an overwhelming sense of amazed nostalgia. You have been warned.

C64.com      www.c64.com
I like this site, with it's huge, searchable archive of C-64 games each accompanied by a handy screenshot.

Commodore 64 Internet Archive      cia.c64.org
Another huge archive of C64 games, with a convenient indexing system and nifty graphics.

C64 Game Guide      www.c64gg.com
Great site featuring a huge index of Commodore 64 games, with screen-shots and production info. Accented with some pretty cool aural and visual web design.

Lemon - The C64 Game Source      www.lemon64.com
Awesome is the only way to describe Kim Lemon's C-64 disk image repository. Straightforward web design combines with a huge assortment of downloadable games accompanied by screenshots and reviews. This may be a personal thing, but the highlight for me was downloading the C-64 cartridge game International Soccer. Running all the way down the field with the ball bouncing perfectly on my head while the CPU guys bounce harmlessly off me in a vain attempt to disrupt this repeal of the laws of physics...nostalgia factor of about 6 million. Heh.

Llamasoft      www.llamasoft.co.uk
Eccentric is a word that springs to mind. To understand exactly how much, all you need to know is that Yak, aka Jeff Minter, wrote the world's first (and only, I would think) videogame based on the premise of mowing the lawn. Along with Hovver Bovver, Yak wrote a whole bunch of other great games for the C64, quite a few of them dealing with his burning, life-long obsession...Llamas. The dromedary, not the Latino actor. Hence the name of his software company...Llamasoft. His site is a great stream-of-consciousness acid trip, along with some very nice reviews of the best of classic videogaming. Plus, anyone that considers Roger Waters a god is perfectly sane in my book.

The New Project 64      project64.c64.org/index.htm
Are you like me, and always wanted to read the original M.U.L.E. manual, just to see if you actually had missed some documented subtle nuance of playing the game? Well, now you can, with this incredible project of providing the text of every original Commodore 64 program manual available online.

Defender FAQ    www.digitpress.com/faq/defender.txt
Interesting FAQ on the classic.  It's not easy to navigate, but an interesting read nonetheless.

Have you played ROBOTRON today?      www.tripoint.org/robo/robotron.html
Phat, phat site taking an exhaustive look at Jarvis' two-fisted marvel.

Raw Thrills     www.rawthrills.com
Game development house that Defender creator Eugene Jarvis has started up.  Not much more here than a logo and email link, but hey!  It's Eugene Jarvis!  

WMS Industries Inc.      www.wms.com
WMS produces hopped-up gambling machines. They also happen to be the owners of the pinball division of Williams/Bally.

www.robotron-2084.co.uk     www.robotron-2084.co.uk
All of the technical information on Williams and lots of other arcade games that a sane person could ever desire.  Game breakdowns, game manuals, restoration walk-throughs and plenty more!

Digital Leisure     www.digitalleisure.com
These people sell the DVD and CD-ROM versions of the Dragon's Lair series of games, and their products are commonly hailed as the best home versions of the games available. They also sell Tender Loving Care, an unusual FMV game where your answers to psychological questions dictate the outcomes. Plus they also offer Dyer's epic Shadoan adventures.

Dragon's Lair Collectables      www.geocities.com/dlair501
There sure isn't a lack of brilliant sites dedicated to arcading's premiere laserdisc game. Dragon's Lair was one of those rare videogames to spawn a massive merchandising blitz, and many of the products are featured here right here along with many great images. It also sports lots of original DL sketch work, and scans of the spin-off games.

The Dragon's Lair Project     www.dragons-lair-project.com
Jeff Kinder's massive website is a truly indispensable resource for anyone even remotely interested in laserdisc games and their history. It has extensive information, images, audio and even movie files for practically every laserdisc game of the era. This should be your first stop in investigating these strange creatures of the arcade.

Dragonstone Software      www.dragonstone.com
Founded by the creators, dedicated to releasing new, cutting-edge 3D games...including a little number titled Dragon's Lair 3D. Contains screenshots and insider production images.

Syd Bolton's Dragon's Lair HomePage     www.pixelpower.on.ca/dl
More DL goodness, but at the time I write this the site is still under construction. It does, however, feature a great page profiling the many versions of the Lair that have come along over the years, including lots of images and information.

Cliff Hanger/Lupin III      lonestar.rcclub.org/~cggraham/Title.html
Terrific coverage of one of arcade gaming's great cult hits.

Lupin III FAQ      www.ccs.neu.edu/home/cruzl/lupin/faq/index.html
This site uncovers the checkered past of Cliff Hanger, aka Lupin III. Full of fascinating information on his creator, and his creation.

Cinematronics Home Page    zonn.com/Cinematronics
An unofficial homepage, featuring a wealth of information on the company.  From it's early vector days to it's groundbreaking laser efforts.

Cliff Hanger (Coin-Op) by Stern, at the GGDB    www.greatgamedatabase.com/GGDB/Details.asp?VID=554&GRID=554
Cliff's entry at the Great Game Database, featuring a complete list of pinouts for you technical, renovator types.

1st Church of Pac-Man      www.flamingmayo.com/firstchurchofpacman
Find yourself space on a pew and start worshipping the King of Koins. You won't be nodding off during this sermon though, as it's a hilarious look at The Great Yellow One. My two personal favourites from the page: the organ intro music (which you now have to click a link to hear) and the informative "Anatomy of Pac-Man".

The Bub and Bob Page      www.bubandbob.com
Here is a truly frightening site specializing in Taito's version of The Neverending Story....the Bubble and Bobble games. Here is a sample quote from the site concerning Rainbow Islands: "The game is sometimes called "Bubble Bobble 2". However, two other games --"Bubble Symphony: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2" and "Bubble Bobble 2"-- claim the same name. Rainbow Islands happens after Bubble Bobble. Bubble Symphony happens after Bubble Memories, which is called Bubble Bobble 3, so Bubble Symphony is really Bubble Bobble 4 or 5. Bubble Bobble 2 also happens after Bubble Memories, so it is either Bubble Bobble 4 or 5. Bubble Symphony's song titles, which refer to Bub and Bob as "Grandfather", are true, then Bubble Symphony is Bubble Bobble 5 and Bubble Bobble 2, which features Robby, the "son", is Bubble Bobble 4. But then again, the intro of Bubble Symphony refers to Bubby and Bobby as the children of Bub and Bob, so Bubble Symphony is Bubble Bobble 4". God help us all.

Buckner and Garcia.com      www.bucknergarcia.com/
Official site for the Pac-Man Fever duo, who have a new version of the album scheduled for a June/99 release. The site features various multimedia material such as video interviews and Real Player music links, as well as a history of PMF and recent images of the guys responsible.

Classic Arcade Location List     www.classicgaming.com/locations
A really invaluable index of places you can still go and drop a quarter into a classic arcade game and relive the electronic glory of yesteryear. Some directions would be nice, but what you gonna do? Kept as updated as humanly possible.

Midway Games Inc.      www.midway.com
I'm not sure why so many game companies feel the need to try to cram graphics-crazy sites down our modems' throats, but they do. Like Midway, with their fun to navigate but endlessly loading website. No real company history available, but they sure do give full coverage to their current offerings in the arcade and home. You can also find Atari Games here, and see what's left of the coin-op division of this once industry vanguard.

NAMCO WonderPage      www.namco.co.jp
Birthplace of Galaxian and Pac-Man, among others. The English version of this site is a little thin, but it does provide a nice overview of where the company is now, along with an interesting company history timeline. Plus the layout is good in any language.

Space Invaders Shrine      spaceinvaders.retrogames.com/html/index.html
Complete coverage of the game that pretty much launched videogaming into popular culture (after PONG created the industry). A treasure-trove of information.

Andrew Krieg's Video Game Hunter's Oasis      www.execpc.com/~krieg/VidGames.htm
As far as I've seen, the largest collection of classic videogame cartridge and CD lists on the net. The lists are recent, and include manufacturers, year of release, rarity ratings and catalogue number.

ARCADE-CLASSICS.COM      www.arcade-classics.com
Some people scale mountains, some dive deep into the underwater world. And some people stuff their basement full of arcade games. Here's one of the latter, with his incredible collection online for all to see. It's so huge, he actually had a city offical come and almost close it down, because he was violating ordinance codes! Luckily, that all got cleared up, he probably got the little Venture dude Winky to put an arrow in that pencil-pusher's neck. I could go to this site and play with my pointer all day.

Arcade Restoration Workshop      www.arcaderestoration.com
This is simply one incredible repository for info on refurbishing classic arcade games, with step by step walkthroughs and tutorials, conversion help, priceless hints and tips, and tonnes of images to illustrate the process.

The Basement Arcade      www.basementarcade.com
Phat page full of links, graphics, technical info and other good stuff.

Classic Overlay page      www.steverd.com
Large library of scans of the Mylar overlays used with systems such as the Vectrex, ColecoVision and Intellivision. All categorized and ready for viewing.  There's lots of other great stuff on this site too, such as a FAQ list for classic games and complete text reproductions of game manuals.

Computer Closet      www.geocities.com/~compcloset
It's called the Computer Closet collection, but they also have a large videogame section, chock full of good photos of all the major classic consoles and their various cartridges and attachments.

HotRod - The Ultimate Joystick Control Panel      www.hanaho.com/products/HotRodJoystick
"It's just like your keyboard...on steroids!". The mother of all joystick devices, this impressive looking piece of hardware contains two joysticks and an array of 12 buttons. Now you can have the complete arcade experience at home with MAME. Just burn a couple of cigarette holes into your desk, pour coke all around your feet, hire some kid to stand behind you bugging you about your play skills and plug in HotRod.

VideoGameSpot's Video Game Bargain Hunting      www.videogames.com/features/universal/bargain
Not much more you could ask for in a guide to collecting classic systems and games without deleting your wallet. Gives recent bargains spotted at stores like Toys 'R Us, rarity lists, quality ratings, cartridge descriptions and more.

Adventureland      www.lysator.liu.se/adventure/
A great, great big list of adventure games for every platform, from every company, for every gaming aficionado.

Apolyton Civilization Site      apolyton.net
How much more information on Game God Sid Meier's PC strategy games could you possibly stomach?  There's quite a bit of general info on turn-based strategy games as a whole, as well as a deep focus on the Civilization (see below) games.

Auric's Ultima Moongates      www.moongates.com/
Gateway to the Ultima universe. Features image gallery, Ultima history, chat room, file downloads and more.

The Colossal Cave Adventure Page      www.rickadams.org/adventure
Nicely put-together look at the original text Adventure by Crowther and Woods. Just remember to leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind you.

Electronic Arts - USA      www.ea.com/
Listing the official EA site also takes care of Janes, Origin, Bullfrog, Maxis and Westwood. How convenient, eh? They should leave Microsoft alone and start going after these guys. Talk about trying to take over the world...

Encyclopedia Frobozzica      jzip.sourceforge.net/frobozz
Your complete reference guide to the Great Underground Empire. Now you'll never have to use the excuse "A Grue ate my homework!".

Gamasutra - The Art and Science of Making Games       www.gamasutra.com
An amazing amount of information on the videogame industry.  If you are looking to enter the field THIS is the first stop on your journey.  Articles on design, news on the state of the industry, resume database, events calender, lots more. 

Hunt the Wumpus      scv.bu.edu/htbin/wcl
Online update of the venerable computer classic, with graphics AND a multiplayer element. You smell a Wumpus. You feel a draught. You shoot your arrow. Oh no, you just shot some other poor son of a bitch on the net!

Impossible Mission - Solved!      www.geocities.com/Hollywood/3699/impmiss.htm
Go to this site if you dare! Hard to believe that somebody actually broke this classic C-64 game's back, as its puzzle component is commonly regarded as the hardest game ever conceived. This appears to be a complete breakdown of the ending sequence, complete with screenshots and sound samples, but damned if I'm gonna look at it. I still have pipe-dreams of finishing IM one day. Yeah, right!

INFOCOM      www.csd.uso.ca/~pete/Infocom/
The launching point for all things Infocom, computer game pioneers. Includes available downloads of the original three Zorks for the PC.

The (Inofficial) Epyx/SummerGames Homepage      rosenkranz.cjb.net/
Good site for information on this classic computer game, and the company that made it. Features a history of Epyx, along with an interview with Stephen Landrum, head programmer of Summer Games.  UPDATE: Don't let the beautiful landscape fool you, the Epyx page lurks down below there in the drop-down menu.

Ira Goldklang's TRS-80 Revived Pages      www.trs-80.com/
A superlative collection of images, information, emulators and disk images concerning the Tandy computer classics.

Jocksitter Dragon's Ultima Collection Page      www.netassoc.net/ultima/
An amazing collection of rare products pertaining to computerdom's greatest RPG, with many quality image scans featured.

MobyGames      www.mobygames.com
Incredible, ongoing database of classic (and recent) computer games, along with lots of box cover images, screen shots, technical info, and interesting trivia tid-bits. Add your own entries, rate the games that are there, read informative articles, and enjoy.

The MUD Connector      www.mudconnect.com
Your catalogue for the plethora of Multi User Dungeons that exist on the net. This is still a thriving gaming scene on the Internet, and this is how you find 'em.  Not only provides a list, but reviews as well.

'Official' Castle Smurfenstein Home Page      evlweb.eecs.uic.edu/aej/smurf.html
Can you prevent a diabolical scheme to rule the world with Smurfs? Dear God, I hope so!!! Check out this hilarious Apple II disk image, playable with an Apple II emulator. If you haven't figured it out already, it's a parody of the classic Castle Wolfenstein. Also available from Dead Smurf Software...Dino Smurfs.

The Oldskool PC      www.oldskool.org
Great resource for PC retro-computing. Offers guides to running old software, classic computer shrines, an article archive and more.

Richard A. Bartle: Entry Point      www.mud.co.uk/richard
Homepage for the co-creator of the original Multi User Dungeon. Gives a very nice insider's history of MUD, and all of the versions thereof.

Roger Wilco's Virtual Broomcloset      www.wiw.org/~jess/roger.html
Roger Wilco: lover of women, fighter of intergalactic evil, mopper of floors. Get the goods on computer gamedom's coolest custodial engineer, star of Sierra's popular Space Quest adventure game series, at this definitive site.

Scott Adams Grand Adventures (S.A.G.A.)      www.msadams.com
Lots of great stuff here.  What more would you expect from the author of the first microcomputer text adventure?

Sid Meier's Civilization III      www.firaxis.com/civ3
The Civilization series of turn-based strategy games needs no introduction, but damn it, here's one anyway. Commonly regarded as some of the greatest computer games ever produced, they and their illustrious creator Sid Meier and his long-time programmer Brian Reynolds have risen to the top of the field, and if not created the genre, then masterfully re-worked and re-formed it into crack-like addiction for strategy gamers across the world. As another Game God Will Wright has gotten closer and closer to approximating and enhancing the mundane living of life with his SIM series, Meier's Civ games, including the awesomely ground-breaking Alpha Centauri, have allowed armchair Napoleons to come the closest they can ever get to personally fighting the sweeping battles of past empires and future societies. They transcend the limitations of simulated battle and empire-building in the confines of a computer to become something of wit, intelligence, complexity and above all, fun. From what we've seen in the very advance publicity for CivIII, it looks to again prove that in a market swamped by copy-catitis and me-tooism, the Meier name continues to be a beacon of quality and truly original gaming.  UPDATE:  This game rocks!!!!

The Font Pool      www.fontpool.com/
The search for the perfect font for a job is a personal thing, fraught with personal whims and fancies of the page in question...um....and...ah, forget it, just go here, they have over 1000 fonts in 11 categories. With the very handy option of determining the text and size of the provided font previews.

HTML Goodies      www.htmlgoodies.com
A great site for tutorials and examples of coding webpages, including a large repository of javascripts.

WebReference.com      www.webreference.com
Offering advanced web design tutorials and javascripts.

Ain't It Cool News      www.aint-it-cool-news.com
Absolutely, without a doubt, indisputably, undeniably, guaranteed, positively, cross my heart and hope to die the most incredible genre movie work-in-progress site ever created. And it's pretty good too.

Arrow in the Head     www.joblo.com/arrow/index.htm
With a title like that, you can make a fairly safe bet that the site isn't reviewing Christian movies.  And you'd be right, its focus is genre flicks, with a major in horror films.  Funny, entertaining and yes, even informative. 

AtomFilms      www.atomfilms.com
An invaluable repository for some of the world's greatest short films, offering dozens and dozens of choices available for streaming download. Features both animated and live-action fare, most under ten minutes, and spotlights such brilliant filmmakers as Bill Plympton, he of the undisputed animated classic "25 Ways to Quit Smoking".

The Cavalcade of Schlock      www.geocities.com/tyrannorabbit/index.html
What else is the Net good for, if not sites with fascinating text interspersed with random, but somehow fitting, images? Too bad the Web is littered with these pesky sites that focus on brilliant content over slick, ultimately empty commercial flash! How is a burgeoning information delivery system to support its own bloated, meaningless excess? Now. Where was I? Oh yeah, this is a cool movie review site.

CHUD - Cinematic Happenings Under Development      www.chud.com
Rapidly supplanting Dark Horizons and Harry Knowles' Aint it Cool News as the site du jour for advance word on what's coming soon to a theatre near you.  Plus, unlike AICN, this site is tightly designed, presented with polish and well-written.  Nothing against Knowles, his fanboy drooling was a refreshing change from empty studio-sponsored commercial review sites.  CHUD displays excitement and anticipation for its wares, sure, but it doesn't jump over that line into rabid fanboydom.  

Cinescape Online      www.cinescape.com
The second most incredible genre movie site ever created, companion to the great tree-killer version; serving up early news, reviews and pictures to peruse.

Drew's Script-O-Rama      www.script-o-rama.com
Saw The Matrix, and thought "Hell, I can write a better script than that!"? Well, good luck to ya, buddy! But for anyone else who might want see some examples of the craft, check out this large list of links to movie screenplays online. Has tonnes of TV script links too.

Eyes Wide Shut      www.eyeswideshut.com
All the behind the scenes info and plot rumours that reclusive director Stanley Kubrick usually allowed to escape from his sets.

The Internet Movie Database      us.imdb.com
Started by a bunch of students, now an incredible source of online filmography info. Covers over 170,479 movies.

Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension      jabootu.com
As far as I'm concerned, the best bad movie site on the net. Because it has a great sense of picking out the very best of the very worst flicks, and provides lengthy, and hilarious, tirades on them. The first review I read here was for the 1982 Barry Bostwick vehicle MegaForce, which provides ample evidence that we were lucky as a species to come out of the eighties alive.

Mr. Cranky Rates the Movies      www.mrcranky.com/
From The Abyss to Zorro, Cranky hates them all. Christ, the guy even pans Star Wars! Then again, I don't know who's crazier...Mr. Cranky, or the gang of misfits who regularly post in his message boards.

MovieFlix      www.movieflix.com
This site has so much going for it...finding a site like this is what makes the hunt through all of the useless, lame commercial pay-sites worthwhile. It offers hundreds of full-length, realplayer streaming movies, all for the low low price of bupkiss. Just pick a genre, click the movie and connection type you have (narrow or broad band), and then sit back and enjoy as the server dishes out your selection with no stuttering at all. The catch? All of the movies are either independently produced, or of an aging, B movie nature. But there are plenty of classics to find here, and some of my viewings there have consisted of Things to Come, Suspiria, The Asylum, The Last Man on Earth, A Boy and His Dog and Metropolis...to name but a few.  UPDATE: Unfortunately, this site has gone over to a gravely unfortunate "pay to play" scheme where you have to subscribe to see about 90 percent of what they offer.  Too bad.  Still a couple good flicks available for free viewing tho.

The Omen Chronicles      www.omenchronicles.com
What can I say, a really top-notch website dedicated to that creepiest of all big-budget biblical thrillers. Almost as refreshing as an electrified metal spear through the body. Too bad Mad Magazine's brilliant parody of the movie kind of knocked the stuffing out of it for me. BTW, that spooky nanny who hangs herself during Damien's birthday party? Jack Palance's daughter. Now THAT'S scary!

Rotten Tomatoes      www.rottentomatoes.com
This really has to be one of the more thorough, and well put-together, movie review sites on the net. It offers the most reviews for every new release, usually around 100 or so for the big movies, even though you probably don't really care what the Cleveland Plains-Dealer or St. Paul Pioneer Press thinks. Even with this sometimes baffling amount of information, everything is categorized and shrunk down to easy-to-digest statistics. I especially like their system of culling all of the advance internet buzz from sites like Ain't It Cool News and Dark Horizons, to give you a pretty good signpost of an upcoming movie's quality.

The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review       www.fortunecity.com/lavender/fullmonty/706/index.htm
As the title says, a collection of genre movie reviews.  Well thought-out, entertaining reads that put most commercial movie reviewers to shame with their honesty and insight.

The Sci-Fi Movie Page      members.tripod.com/scifimoviepage
A simply great SF movie review site, sporting hundreds of concise, honest reviews of both classics and more recent fare.

Stanley Kubrick: The Master Filmmaker      pages.prodigy.com/kubrick
The best source of information on the web about Stanley Kubrick, maker of some of the greatest films of all time. Concise biography and filmography, with many production stills and audio clips.

Star Wars: Welcome to the Official Site      www.starwars.com/
No guff, right? Contains an amazing amount of behind-the-scenes info on the making of the new trilogy set. Has info not just on the new movies, but the books, games, comics, and the original films. Get here and get excited.

THEFORCE.NET      www.theforce.net/
Awesome fansite, which tracks news on the new prequels and other Star Warsian info like a Corellian Swamp Hound. It's also the home of Troops, an incredible and hilarious SW parody video melding TV reality show Cops with Imperial Stormtroopers.

Trailervision      www.trailervision.com/
Trailers for movies that don't exist...but should. Excellent production values, hilarious storylines, and no-holds-barred content make for streaming video mayhem.

Underman's 2001      www.underview.com/2001.html
Exhaustive study of Kubrick's masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Welcome to Colony LV-426        members.tripod.com/CORP_HICKS/main.html
Terrific site dedicated to the great Alien movie series.  Now if only an angry xenomorph would jump out of the storage locker and eat those goddamn Tripod pop-ups.

Who Is That?      www.who-is-that.com
The name of that character actor dancing maddeningly just out of reach? Don't sweat it, this site has the solution, with a list (although I dearly wish it was larger) of those hardworking nobodies and the movies that surround their roles. Good career highlights are offered, along with often hilarious reviews of the movies. Not to be missed.

WORDPLAY/Archives/Screenplay - Sandman      www.wordplayer.com/archives/SANDMAN.intro.html
I heard a couple years back about this project, and I was looking forward to seeing it make it to the theatres, being a huge fan of the gothic comic series by the great Neil Gaiman. Seems the project is in turnaround now, though, as this script approved by Gaiman himself has been rejected by Warner Brothers. Oh well, we can at least read what it was gonna be like.

The 100 Greatest Comics of the 20th Century      www.geocities.com/mbrown123/greatest_comics
100 great moments in a much misunderstood medium.  Very well-written and intelligently compiled.  Follow the links at the bottom to some of the author's other works, it's all good.

Amazon.com      www.amazon.com
What can I say, it's the biggest bookstore on Earth. This is what all web-based commerce should be like: in-depth, interesting and interactive.

Dick's MAD STUFF, The Basics of Mad Collecting       www.collectmad.com/collectibles/basics.htm
I'm not sure why suddenly I feel the need to add all these links pertaining to MAD magazine.  Probably it's because I was a voracious reader of the rag growing up, and it helped me form the hard, cynical shell I've carefully constructed around my personality over the years, allowing the boiling magma of my hatred towards the world to remain undetected before the time comes to lay my vengeance upon society.  Er, anyway, this site features a cornucopia of MAD paraphernalia, including an amazing Pre-Mad section that shows just how prevalent the image of the nameless idiot was in various forms before being adopted by the MAD creators and dubbed "Alfred E. Neuman".  

The Discworld of Terry Pratchett      www.geocities.com/Area51/1777/
Discworld author Terry Pratchett fanclub. I like this site because it has a simple Pratchett bibliography, including little personal blurbs on each book, written by an actual person and not some publisher PR agent.

Doug Gifford's Mad Cover Site       www.collectmad.com/madcoversite
An archive of every Mad Magazine cover, along with plenty of information on general MADness as well.  Ecchh!

Douglasadams.com      www.douglasadams.com/
The official website of the author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the greatest book ever come out of the great publishing companies of Ursa Minor. Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike getting smashed in the head by a lemon wrapped around a gold brick.  UPDATE: Douglas Adams sadly left us in 2001.  So long Doug, and thanks for all the laughs.

Floor 42      www.floor42.com/
Finally, the answer to life, the universe, and everything. But what is the question?

Horrorking.com's Stephen King Page - Your Ultimate Stephen King Guide       www.horrorking.com/index.html
Lots of information here about one of our greatest living writers, and about all the stories that have made him so.  The highlight of the site, for me anyway, are the character indexes for every book. 

The L-Space Web      www.us.lspace.org/
And I thought MY site had a goofy name. However, this is the end-all and be-all of Terry Pratchett sites on the web. He's author of the great Discworld fantasy novels...think J.R. Tolkein meets Douglas Adams.

Marek Vit's Kurt Vonnegut Corner      www.geocities.com/Hollywood/4953/vonn.html
Great fansite of the great literary cynicist, in my opinion the finest writer who ever lived. Features some terrific images from the author's life, as well as the Kilgore Trout Sci-Fi Collection, containing both original and amateur Trout stories (including the chance to submit your own). While you're there, click on the Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum, which will whisk you away to some other awesome Vonnegut sites, including a new middle-name generator a la Slapstick. Tell them William Muskellunge-14 Hunter sent you.

The Official Stephen King Web Presence      www.stephenking.com
Up to The Dark Half, this guy wrote some of my favourite books. After that he lost it for me...but he's recently gotten back on track with Bag of Bones, his latest and I would say best book he's written in ten years. This is his 'official' site, so the info is barely above advertising propaganda, but it does have a very succinct bio written in part by his wife Tabitha, as well as a lot of goofily posed portraits of King, who let's face it...looks pretty goofy already.

Ad Critic      www.adcritic.com
Gigabytes of TV commercials offered up for streaming Quicktime viewing highlights this site. Doesn't really offer a lot of criticism, but it does feature a handy Top 10 list, and profiles the latest ads to hit the airwaves.

The Box...A Homicide: Life on the Street page      members.aol.com/hlots98/index.html
Extensive coverage of NBC's now-cancelled cop series. It even covers the "Homicide Live!" stage show that cast members performed for charity for several years.

Buck-Rogers.com - The Buck Rogers Web Site      www.buck-rogers.com
This entry could have shown up under the movie or book listings, as our intrepid hero has appeared across many, many mediums over the years.  I put it under TV because of perhaps this site's most interesting offering...streaming complete episodes of the cheesy late 70's/early 80's television show staring Gil Gerard and Erin Gray.  Cheesy, yes.  But also strangely cherished by those of us that also remember plunking coins into Defender and then running home to beat our best score in 2600 Asteroids.  And holy crap, Erin Gray in a tight blue jumpsuit...hey, I haven't been in the bathroom that long, Mom!  There's also a lot of great information on the history of the character available here.  Beedeebeedeebeedee....what's shaking, Buck? 

Homicide: Life on the Web    userpages.umbc.edu/~jlempk1/homicide/index.html
Dedicated to one of the greatest TV programs ever created.

Nick at Nite & TV Land      www.nickatnite.com
Website for the classic TV show channel, featuring classic show profiles, TV commercials, shockwave games, and more.

PlanetSmeg      www.planetsmeg.com
Plenty of multimedia hi-jinks highlight this smeggin' good page, covering the great British comedy SF series Red Dwarf. Includes many Java games, an online 3D graphical adventure game, episode guide and character bios, latest news on the series and downloadable scripts. More satisfying than a chicken chutney curry vindaloo!

Rod Serling's Night Gallery      www.nightgallery.net
Submitted for your approval: one frighteningly good study of Mr. Serling's second anthology TV series. While it started off as a worthy successor to his fantastic "Twilight Zone", under pressure from NBC and series producer Jack Laird it rapidly degenerated into a lurid pot-boiler mish-mash. This site covers its entire devolution, offering plenty of sound and images. This IS the Night Gallery.

Satellite News      mst3kinfo.com
This online version of the official Mystery Science Theatre 3000 newsletter has plenty of offer, and is just as obsessed with grade Z movie information as its televised brethren. While it pretty much eschews the humour the show is known for, its serious approach to the subject matter makes it all the more frightening...er, I mean informative. It also offers what has to be the most complete history of the show ever created.

The Spumco Ren & Stimpy Archive!       victorian.fortunecity.com/russell/105/spumrs.htm
Great site saluting a great cartoon show, produced by animation pariah John Kricfalusi for a glorious four years on Nickelodeon before they muscled him out.  Everything you could ever stomach about the show, its making and unmaking, and the twisted freaks responsible for it.

The Starlost      www.snowcrest.net/fox/star.html
Can I be...of...assistance? This is the greatest Canadian science-fiction television series ever produced. Which isn't saying much.

Submitted For Your Perusal - The Rod Serling Sound Collection       www.angelfire.com/scifi2/serling
A scary big repository for sound files related to the works of Serling.  Not only "Twilight Zone", but his various television plays and movies, with interviews as well. 

TrekWeb      www.trekweb.com
Everything you ever wanted to know about Star Trek, and were too embarrassed to ask.

TVparty!      www.tvparty.com
Looking for a site that profiles a wonderfully eclectic collection of classic TV moments, available for viewing through Real Player? You found it!

tzworld.com - Everything that is Twilight Zone     www.tzworld.com
This site, IT'S A COOKBOOK!!  Wait, no it isn't.  It's an unsettlingly large MARTIAN!!  Er, a website I mean, dedicated to bringing you TO A HUMAN ZOO!  No, lots of information on TZ and it's illustrious creator, SOME GUY WITH A TYPEWRITER CONTROLLING ALL OF US!!

Visitor Home Page      www.enqueue.com/v
Remember "V"?  In my eyes, it was the greatest miniseries ever produced, and was a real watershed SF TV "event" back when the "V" and its sequel "V - The Final Battle" aired in 1982-83 on NBC.  The weekly series that followed it didn't fare as well, however, and was mercifully canned after struggling a year.  Both of the two miniseries' have now seen release on DVD, and they've aged remarkably well.  And here we have a site to do them justice, with lots of information and multimedia flourish.  But, don't forget...THE VISITORS LIE!   

 Yesterdayland - Saturday Morning Cartoon Super Site      www.yesterdayland.com
Another great nostalgia site, giving you info and images on all of the great and cheesy cartoon shows you gobbled Sugar Frosted Sugar Bombs in front of as a kid on Saturday mornings.

AMG All Music Guide      www.allmusic.com
The online encyclopaedia of music.  Endlessly fascinating to read through, and eternally useful when you're looking for the discography of that particular band or artist.

 Amused to Death - Roger Waters / Pink Floyd      www.ingsoc.com/waters
Shrine to the greatest rock lyricist of all time. Either you get his scathing cynicism or you don't...those who do get to enjoy some of the clearest, most entertaining indictments of society outside of a Kurt Vonnegut novel. This site offers a good personal history of the man, but the complete list of musical forays and lyric transcripts reveals more about Waters than a mere biography ever could.

Floydian Slip(tm) - The Pink Floyd Experience      www.floydianslip.com/index.htm
When you get to heaven, and are ushered into God's office to be welcomed, music from Pink Floyd will be what's drifting out of his stereo speakers.  While trapped in the bounds of Earth, however, you can click to Floydian Slip and find everything you need to know about the greatest rock band ever. 

Live365.com - WGDG Classic Videogame Music     l
www.live365.com/cgi-bin/directory.cgi?autostart=gooddealgames
Streaming videogame music 24/7, 365. I'm listening to the Magical Sound Shower right now! Do a search on 365 for "video games" and you'll find dozens of other similar channels too.

Lost in the Woods: Syd Barrett and The Pink Floyd      www.geocities.com/vienna/strasse/2724
I used to bitch in this link about this site's colour scheme and the Geoshitty pop-ups that would bother you every click, but since I first wrote that they've cleaned up the site design and now it looks really cool. Plus, Geoshitty has once again refined the "bugs" they put on every page, and it's not quite so annoying anymore. And, as before, the site is still a fascinating treasure trove of information on Pink Floyd's original front man.

Moontaxi - Tour the universe of music      www.moontaxi.com/home.htm
A completely indispensable site, which offers free, reliable streaming music across every musical genre in existence.  Well designed, artful, and useful.  A breed of website that is becoming disturbingly extinct.

Defunct Amusement Parks      www.defunctparks.com
To me, there's nothing more spooky than an abandoned amusement park. Brightly designed concession stands and towering rollercoasters that were once the Mecca of scores of eager tourists, now gone to weeds and cracked asphalt, their buildings collapsed under the weight of years of neglect. They seem like forgotten Gods to me, once commanding the respect and awe of worshippers, now tossed aside like a used candy-floss cone. It also helps the ominous atmosphere of some of these places that probably every major amusement park has a death or two in its history. This site is an excellent index of these burial grounds for lost fun and magic.

DisneyWorld MAGIC!      www.disney.force9.co.uk
Theme parks are like videogames made flesh. Which is a pretty strained segue, I know, but what the heck! It's my page, and if I want links to theme park information I'll damn well put them up! Heh. Anyway, after succumbing to the crack cocaine that is RollerCoaster Tycoon, I decided to bookmark some interesting links on the subject. Most have to do with Disney right now, but they are not Disney Company sites, and more on other park makers will probably be added. This particular site features an inordinate amount of information on Walt Disney World, including ride test video, an exhaustive history, and other things mouse related.

rollercoaster.com      www.rollercoaster.com
This site truly lives up to its label as "The Web's Premiere Coaster Site!". Here is the place to go to find editor's reviews of these metal-hewn monsters of G-Forces, along with coverage of the parks that house them.

A Visit to Yesterland - The Discontinued Disneyland      www.yesterland.com
I've never been to Disneyland, only Walt Disney World. So I don't have the same intense connection with this site, but it's still a completely entertaining review of attractions lost.

Widen Your World      home.cfl.rr.com/omniluxe/wyw.htm
As a dealer in nostalgia, most of my favourite theme park sites have to do with discontinued attractions at Disney, and this site is no exception. I believe it started out as a site dedicated to that perennial freebie "If You Had Wings", you know, the one with the blue moving seats and the deformed globe that would swallow you? It has since blossomed into an endlessly interesting study of other dead attractions at WDW, with great pictures and terrific narration. Just like seeing a picture of the original videogame Odyssey sparks waves of nostalgia, so did seeing snaps like the original RCA Space Mountain instil in me the same reaction.

Art Loss Register       http://www.artloss.com/
I'm not sure why found this site so compelling, with its exhaustive list of stolen artifacts from priceless works of art to ancient trinkets to classic toys, but I did indeed.  Perhaps it's watching the upper-crust get their just deserts, like the poor soul who left his Stradivarious violin in the back of his Rolls Royce in NYC and had it pilfered.  My heart bleeds.

Adbusters      www.adbusters.org
This quarterly magazine always makes for great reading when each issue finally arrives at the newsstand. It's a scathing indictment of the insipid advertising industry, published independently in Vancouver and without external advertising (although it's sprinkled liberally with its own spoof ads, such as the classic "Joe Chemo" campaign). The website is a simple archive of past essays, a collection of their spoof ad images, and other information to arm you against idiotic, careless advertising.

The Apollo Hoax    www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicapollo.html
There is an awful lot of evidence that the Apollo moon-landings were faked, committed by the United States government in order to desperately make a giant leap ahead of the galloping Soviet space program in the Space Race, and continue to have the daring exploits of NASA draw attention away from the growing bloodshed and ideological folly of the Vietnam war. This page exhaustively breaks down the photographic evidence and at the end one is left asking: Were the Apollo moon-landings the greatest television series ever perpetrated?

Are Apollo Moon Photos Fake?      www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/iangoddard/moon01.htm
A counter-point to the above moon hoax page, which provides photographic experiments which explain the anomalies conspiracy theorists have put forth regarding the official NASA photos and movies from the moon.  Hardly a scientific study, but still provides viable arguments against a conspiracy.  I also recommend you check out www.badastronomy.com, the main host for this page. 

Big Ear Radio Observatory      www.bigear.org
A now-defunct radio telescope the size of three football fields, "Big Ear" in Ohio was where the "Wow!" signal was received from space by volunteer Jerry Ehman on Aug. 15, 1977. Given the name from the excited one-word sum-up of the signal's impressive strength scribbled in the margin of the computer read-outs by Ehman, it remains the most promising SETI recording in the history of the program. Although the veracity of the "Wow!" signal has, of course, been questioned by the obligatory sceptics out to prove we're alone in the vast Cosmic maelstrom, judge for yourself at this monument to one of Astronomy's greatest moments.

Boogiedown Designs       www.boogiedowndesigns.fsworld.co.uk
Kick it old skool with this company's line of threads, designed to display your love of retro gaming by featuring classic company logos and product shots on high-quality clothing.  Show em you still care, order your piece of history today!

Don Markstein's Toonopedia      www.toonopedia.com
You'd be hard pressed to find a bigger, more informative and entertaining listing of comic book characters, across multiple mediums, from The Yellow Kid to Dilbert and back again.  Prepare to spends hours browsing.

DeeT's 70's page      dt.prohosting.com/70s
A groovy, solid and right on collection of 70's media files, from TV themes to commercial ads to record clips and much more.

CANOE      www.canoe.ca
The CANadian Online Explorer. The launching point for all news Canuck.

Chick Publications: English Chick Cartoon Tracts List      www.chick.com/catalog/tractlist.asp
Jack T. Chick's cartoons have become world famous (some would say infamous), mainly due to the fact that they are the most surreal, religiously reactionary comic strips you'll ever read. Of course, how could 500 million saved souls be wrong? Chick's site offers an archive of complete strips online, so revel in their bible-thumping, fire-and-brimstone zealotry.

Classic Gaming Expo '99      www.cgexpo.com/index.html
The CGE came and went, but the site is still a great read, profiling many of the original movers and shakers in the videogame industry.

Crazy Grandpa      www.crazygrandpa.com
I might be cosmically dooming myself to sunset years in a ratty old-age home with wallet pilfering and sadistic nurses, waves of roaches scurrying up the drapes, bedsores the size of baseballs from neglect, and dinners consisting of cans of Nine Lives cat food by linking to this. But when I come across sites like "Crazy Grandpa", who's very existence signals to me the singular beauty of the World Wide Web as a personal publishing medium for anyone with a scanner and an obsession, it's like an itch I can't scratch until it's posted. The question of the moral value of the content aside, for me the worth of a site comes down to one thing...as I'm flying through the Web at the speed of electrons through a coax wire, can a site bring me to a screeching stop and compel me to systematically click through its hypertext offerings? This one surely did.

Expert Builder      www.apotome.com/builder
I don't mean to rip off the friend of mine who runs this site, which features some amazing LEGO construction projects, complete with commentary and pictures. But I have to agree with him that there is a close correlation between playing with LEGO as a kid and having an early videogame console or computer. Like he says, it must be the simple logic of the things...either a block is connected, or it ain't.

Gameslice      www.gameslice.com/index.shtml
A revealing peek behind the curtains of the games industry. Gaming trends, designer diaries, interviews, reviews, company profiles and plenty more.

US Patent Full-Text Database Boolean Search      patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-bool.html
I dunno, that's a mouthful for a name.  Needs to be something snappier if it's gonna sell.  How about Patent Sending!  Or Patents R' US!  Invention Detection!  At any rate, try spending hours looking up famous, or wacky, patents. What else is a geek supposed to do on a Saturday night?

The Jack T. Chick Parody Archive      65.39.69.85/~weirdcrap/chick/
A hilarious antidote to the unrelenting zealotry of the above official Chick website. It's not particularly subtle, but then, neither is its inspiration.

The James Cameron Conspiracy Theory      www.konformist.com/mkkafe/jcameron.txt
I find it hard to believe that the mainstream media hasn't picked up on this absolutely astounding piece of investigative journalism. They're here!! You're next!!  UPDATE: The old link went down, this is a new pointer to a simple text file that isn't particularly easy to read, but it still fascinating if you slog thru it.  Some who may have been familiar with the old loudly designed page might think this one is actually an improvement.

LILEKS (James)        www.lileks.com/index.html
Man, you see an interesting site and click a few links, and soon you're hours deep in bizarre concept, hilarious writing and brutal social satire.  There is plenty to enjoy here, but I'll single out the two things that first drew me in on this site.  The Institute of Official cheer is a categorized collection of riffs on 50's advertising, and Ghost Ads, a collection of images of fading mural ads from days gone by.  But like I said, there's a wealth of other great stuff here, it's what the "Add to Favorites..." command was developed for.

Microsoft TerraServer Full Resolution Image Page      terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/default.asp
A rather startling searchable index of satellite images and aerial photographs, resolvable all the way down to 1.5 meters! Only a fairly small percentage of the globe is covered, and the images vary in age, but they do have a catalogue of famous locations.

RateItAll.com      www.rateitall.com
A handy shopping guide, allowing you to rate and comment on a very wide range of products and services, from mixed drinks to facial cleansers. And if you don't find what you're looking for, suggest an item yourself why don't you?

Red Meat - from the secret files of Max Cannon      www.redmeat.com/redmeat
If you're like me, you open the weekend funny pages and read them with a mixture of disgust and disappointment at how a once vibrant and often hilarious art form has turned into a wasteland of banal and idiotic strips by no-talent hacks. Thanks to the blessed Internet, however, everyone can enjoy avante-guard comics like Red Meat, sporting 50's nostalgia artwork undercut with a creeping subversiveness. Starkly funny.

roadsideamerica.com      www.roadsideamerica.com/
What can I say about a 600+ page site that provides such invaluable services as indexing every "Mystery Spot" in North America, as well as exposing the horrible scandal of early U.S. canine film-star Rin-Tin-Tin (he's buried in France!). Easily one of the most entertaining web stops around, and much less cheesy than the plethora of American road-side attractions it so lovingly profiles, with many online video tours and interviews (and clean bathroom facilities!).

SCIFI.com      www.scifi.com
Web arm of the U.S. cable network Sci-Fi Channel, with breaking news, TV episode guides and reviews, sponsored online chats, steaming audio and video features, blah blah blah yackety-shmackety, ect ect.

The SETI Page      www.seds.org/~rme/seti.html
Acronym alert! Put together by SEDS (Students for the Exploration and the Development of Space), this is a compelling analysis of the SETI project (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). While it may not make full use of the Web's multimedia flash, and the background image may be teasingly videogame-like but distracting to the reader, this page and the accompanying links to other great articles in the archive will give you a quick and fascinating lesson on what could turn out to be Mankind's greatest discovery.

SFX Online      www.sfx.co.uk
The electronic equivalent of the great British SF rag SFX, with everything you need to follow the genre in any media.

The Smoking Gun      www.thesmokinggun.com
These guys dig up a ton of buried documents, police records, declassified papers, news clippings and other material to put out one of the more interesting informational sites on the internet. Their archive of actual wacky U.S. patents are hilarious...the penis exerciser is a classic.

Sound America      soundamerica.com
The value of this sound archive cannot be overstated. Let's see if I can find an appropriate adjective...lemme get my thesaurus...a brobdingnagian (that means huge...over 24,000 of them) collection of theme songs, intros, music and quotes from movies, TV shows, cartoons, and more...all in MPEG 3 wav format. You may need to update your MPEG 3 codec to hear them in anything but Media Player....which you can do at the Microsoft website. You'll thank me. Oh, and here's an update: they now features a WinAmp webcast radio station called SoundAmerica Radio that makes for great listening.

Topher's Breakfast Cereal Character Guide      www.lavasurfer.com/cereal-guide.html
I'm a cereal junkie. I could eat the stuff morning, noon and night 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year if I could get away with it. Not the Sugar Frosted Sugar Bombs either...I'm a purist. I like Shreddies, Wheatabix, Honey Nut Cheerios...sometimes I go hog-wild and buy a box of Honeycombs. If I want sugar on my cereal I'll put it on my own damn self! And I definitely don't want any of those chunks of Styrofoam cleverly marketed as 'marshmallows' added. So, grab yourself a bowl and surf this site...a huge list of breakfast cereals, both old and new, with box scan and product info. It's greaaaaaaaaaaaat!

Urban Legends Reference Pages      www.snopes.com
Ever hear the one about the guy who strapped a military missile to the top of his car to see how fast he could go? Or the guy who's been stranded in a Paris airport for ten years? Or all that nasty obscene chicanery that goes on in the background of Disney films? Explode those myths (or indeed, have them validated) at this site, giving serious analysis of all those weird tales that if they aren't true...well, they SHOULD be.

Warpfest98: Warp Those Crazy Celebs!      warpfest98.hypermart.net/warp1.html
This is another incredible little gem, that which makes slogging through the morass of utter crap on the net worthwhile. It is simple in its execution, but utterly compelling and really quite breathtakingly well-done. The fact that it can be so good while being smothered by the INCREDIBLY, LIFE-SHORTENING, HAIR-WHITENING, ANNOYING Hypermart ad pop-ups is a real testament to its quality. I'd complain about the midi songs that occasionally jump up and stab you in the ears, but they actually seem to enhance the whole effect after awhile.

Zelda's Mars Attacks Home Page     www.marsattacksfan.com/homepage.htm
In 1962, the Topps company produced the startlingly violent and graphic bubble-gum card set "Mars Attacks!", which immediately entered the realm of the infamous with its loving depictions of screaming people being burned alive with ray guns and family dogs being disintegrated.  After being understandably yanked off the market due to mass parental outrage, the set has since gained an immense cult status, culminating in the 1996 release of "Mars Attacks!" the movie, one of the few misfires by eccentric director Tim Burton.  This site holds up the tradition of details obsessed fansites by being an exhaustive study of the phenomena, including an image of every card in the set.  Have a look, and then boggle at the fact that it was ever produced at all.