Time is running out - this is the last Driftnet for 1999. Looking down the list of things I intended to write about before the end of the year, I realise I'm not going to do much more than scratch the surface. Which makes me think, "Hang it, why not break with the tradition of keeping this column about one site or theme?" So I'm going to write about three places that have nothing to do with each other. All are simply sites that have amused me lately, for different reasons. See you next year.
Iwannabefamous
Today's famous person is Helga. Her lovely picture adorns the centre of the site's home page. She explains: "I wanna be famous because I just wanna be beautiful and famous. I wanna be a model like Naomi Campbell and all of these models. But it's hard because I live in a little town in Iceland!" Yep. Last time I checked, the dark-skinned were pretty rare up near the Arctic Circle.
Iwannabefamous has been trying to make people well known since October 21. It features "one ordinary person, like you" every day. To get your 24 hours of fame, all you have to do is fill in the form, explain why you have a burning need to be known and include a photo of yourself or your act.
The best part is its "heritage" list, which includes links to pics of all the would-be stars, alongside their explanations, many of which make fine reading.
"I wanna be famous because I'm very shagadelic!"
"I wanna be famous because I can make people happy by sharing my beauty with the world!"
"I wanna be famous because the people who are currently famous are doing a poor job!"
I wanna say two things about this site. 1. Given the number of people who probably stop by, you'd stand a better chance of becoming famous by sticking a photo of yourself to the nearest bus stop. 2. Famous is not what it's cracked up to be. I was famous for a few years back in the '70s (I was the white kid on TV's Good Times) and, let me tell you, it blew.
Britney's Spheres
Has she or hasn't she? I'm not usually the suspicious type, but was it just coincidence that, at pretty much the same time Pamela Anderson Lee removed her legendary implants last year, 17-year-old Britney Spears returned from a few weeks of convalescence looking like she'd offered them a good home?
The Britney's Spheres site contrasts five galleries of recent photos with earlier shots to show the dramatic expansion, and hosts a discussion area for those who wish to weigh in with their opinions. Its theories wing examines other possible explanations: sudden growth spurts, side-effects of the pill, aliens abducting Britney and implanting tracking devices without her knowledge, and so on. There's fan art - retouched photos that make our heroine look like an escapee from a Russ Meyer film - and other forms of parody, including links to the unsubtle Poingly song Britney Spears Had A Boob Job and the Britney Spears Breast Pump site, where a Shockwave game allows you to inflate her bustline.
Britney's Spheres is an example of the Net's healthy tendency to support dissent and subversion; to question what is thrown at us by today's entertainment-industrial complex. You can bet there's nothing about implants at the official www.britney.com.
eBay Weirdness Collectors Club
Leaving the word processor for a moment, I switch windows to Navigator, where the eBay site (to which I am quietly addicted) tells me it has 3,496,226 auctions.
That's a lot of stuff, any way you look at it. Bonnie Burton's site and mailing list celebrates the crunchy, difficult and bizarre odds and ends found at this auction giant. She sends out an "almost" weekly list of items currently up for bids.
"If you like scary, big-eyed dolls, taxidermy squirrels dressed like cowboys, velvet paintings and other weird things to buy on eBay," her club site promises, "then you'll feel right at home here ..."
Last week's list included the 1969 LP Christmas with Colonel Sanders, various Jesus ties, black velvet paintings of Richard Nixon and a monkey playing poker, a Letter Licker (a 1978 novelty tongue device), a clock made from a stuffed fish, a stuffed frog playing bongos, a two-headed crocodile from a freak show and (the one that inexplicably interested me) a full-sized phrenology head.
Remember kids, as one club member noted recently, don't drink and bid.
Iwannabefamous
Britneys Spheres
eBay Weirdness Collectors Club