More Letters!
Late for the Party
And This Too Shall Pass?
Love the Man in the Uniform
A Morning in the Life
Give This Man a Flamethrower
Being "Sticky" Is Not Enough
Don't Me.Com
Under the Volcanoes
The Cyberslouch
e-Slacking
Stock-Suck

Just finished a mungo deadline, and as I sip on my green tea, I become aware of something that has been festering in my subconscious probably for a year or more: I can't stand people who have their own websites.
   In fact, I have never met anyone I really like who has his/her own website. Why is that? Could it be that highly skilled, articulate people who are fun to be around do not need websites to hawk their wares? Could it be that parents who don't excessively fawn over their kids do not need a website to prove their devotion? Or it could be that I have a deep-rooted distrust of any type of shameless self-promotion. I also hate that those one- or two-page family updates that one or two friends still send out every Xmas. They are so boring. Who cares?
   All of you out there who have websites: Why? Why are you paying $30 a month (not to mention registration fees) when you can get a free e-mail account? I suppose websites provide what Andy Warhol called the "five minutes of fame" that everybody's due in this media-happy society. I actually read somewhere that personal websites are becoming a must-have for anyone who's serious about doing business on the web. Network Solutions couldn't have paid to circulate such totally self-serving blather.
No, thanks. The only good reason I can see for personal websites is personal: if we use them as ALTER EGOS to explore all the liberating, and sometimes naughty, little things we fantasize about: like office sex (have your nanny.com contact mine); screaming uncontrollably for an hour; or faking your own death.