Site of the Week -- Oct. 30, 2000
heir logo succinctly illustrates their Prime Directive--a frightened and haloed "sacred cow" sitting dead-center in a sniper rifle's cross-hairs. The pitiful bovine has good reason to be scared, for nothing (and we do mean nothing) is sacred to the jokers at hecklers.com, who celebrate the beauty of bad taste. And while it's not exclusively an SF site, servings of science fiction sacred cows are high on their menu. For example, if you've ever had a desire to control your own Captain Kirk, then you've arrived at Valhalla.
Clicking on the William Shatner Acting Simulator, one of the site's many interactive programs, will bring up a view of the classic Enterprise bridge. Pressing buttons on the keyboard below causes him to spout outrageous sentences in his inimitable style. Watch SimShatner's hairpiece fly at jaunty angles while he strikes his often-mocked melodramatic poses.
Sadly, this past August Obi-Wan Kenobi himself, Sir Alec Guinness, passed away. It was a dark day for fanboys across the globe, not to mention those in galaxies far, far away. But by clicking on Final Last Words, you can hear the dying thoughts of the wizened Jedi Master. And suffice it to say, they are not pretty. The Jar Jar Torture Engine will allow all "fans" of the most infuriating Star Wars character of all time to exact their revenge. And even the actors who only occasional cross over onto science fiction turf are not safe. Charlie Sheen starred in The Arrival--not to mention a few newspaper headlines in recent years--and now he comes to home computers everywhere. Tempt Charlie Sheen will give you the opportunity to offer this Hollywood bad boy various enticements to make him fall off the wagon in the worst of all ways.
Hecklers.com offers a wide variety of games, contests and clever animation gags, ranging from computer viruses to pop icons to political figures to sundries that are absolute non sequiturs. If you like humor that' s not just in poor taste--but rather jokes that make you feel as if something died in your mouth days ago, has risen from the dead and is seeking brains for nourishment--then this is the place to be.
-- Brian Murphy
Site of the Week -- Oct. 23, 2000
onor. Courage. Dignity. The ability to crush opponents with a mere thought. These are the qualities that Americans have looked for--and failed to find--among this year's presidential candidates. Until now.
Forget Bush and Gore. Forget Nader and Buchanan and all the others running for the role of your leader. There is only one candidate with the Force to do the job. Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith, is running for president, and promises to bring order to the planet (and the galaxy).
Through his campaign headquarters' web site, he offers a multi-pronged platform designed to end all destructive conflict on Earth.
Want family values? Lord Vader loved his son so much he dedicated the entire fleet to finding him, just so he could convince him to join the family business. Want zero tolerance for terrorists? The Empire reluctantly destroyed an entire world to show it would not negotiate with the so-called "Rebel Alliance". Hate the IRS? Lord Vader would force-strangle everyone in charge of the tax agency.
These and other stances are detailed on the campaign site, which also includes "alignment" tests to see if you should vote for the Sith Lord, campaign press releases, news articles, photos and a few audio files.
-- Kenneth Newquist
Site of the Week -- October 16, 2000
ell hath no fury like an engineer scorned. Mars fanatics furious at NASA for canning the almost-ready-to-fly Mars 2001 Surveyor Lander are rallying to save the mothballed craft with a site chronicling every aspect of its development.
The space agency scrapped the $150 million Mars Lander mission after back-to-back foul-ups with Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander. The first allegedly failed because of faulty measurement conversions; the second apparently crashed because of buggy software. Not eager to lose yet another spacecraft, NASA grounded the Lander and intends to fly two rovers instead. The rovers will use airbag systems to cushion their landing on the Red Planet, the same technique used by the wildly successful Mars Pathfinder mission.
Not so fast, the Save the Mars Lander organizers shout. In summaries filled with equal parts jargon and passion, they argue that Mars Lander is a fundamentally different spacecraft from the earlier Polar Lander, that any problems the two spacecraft shared have been fixed, and that not launching the remaining lander would be a near-criminal waste of taxpayer dollars. The site's petition urges NASA to reconsider the mission, and it has already been signed by dozens, if not hundreds, of NASA employees, industry workers and regular fans.
-- Kenneth Newquist
