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Wasting Time on the Web  -

As if you needed any help managing your free time, Sohcahtoa has coerced one of the Wildcat's web weenies into the light of day to bring you a few of his favorite time-wasting websites. Whether you're looking to burn an hour between classes or just can't bring yourself to write that last paper, we're here to point out the best websites to screw up your schedule. In no particular order, they are:

The Slap A Spice Girl Website:
 - A brilliant time-waster. Nothing sucks you in and satisfies your procrastination needs like this Shockwave game created by Urban75, a slick style/music magazine out of Brixton UK. Simply downloading the game is a great way to kill time, but once it's loaded, grab a chair. Hearing a whiny "letmetellyou whatIwant whatI reallyreallywant" turn into a resounding S-M-A-C-K as you administer a few well-needed beatings is more than fun, it's theraputic. The FDA should require fifteen minutes of this site per day, or at least one thirty minute session per week. Slap a Spice Girl also scores you on your handiwork, giving you an incentive to return later, as if you needed one.

The Onion
Anyone who calls The Onion a simple parody has failed miserably in their description. What this weekly produces is more akin to sniper-journalism, as The Onion simultaneously exposes the ridiculous nature of today's media while producing a slick and twisted pseudonews magazine. Think of a brainy Mad magazine with an agenda, or U.S. News and World Report's bastard cousin. No matter what you want to call it, it's entertaining and time-intensive. The back issues alone will ruin a month of your spare time.

University of Arizona Student Homepages
 - There's no end to the vast amounts of deeply personal and completely stupid information people put on their University websites, which is exactly why these pages are so fun. Prepare yourself for endless boyfriend, girlfriend and pet photos. The only possible use benefit you can get out of these pages depends on the odd chance that you might actually run into one of these people. Who knows, it might be fun to sneak up behind them and rattle off the names of their family, the age and breed of all of their pets and the name of the dork they were standing next to in the prom photo they thought they'd scan in for the rest of the world to see, but that's the only use I can imagine. These are good for an hour or so of mindless websurfing, possibly one and a half if you're hammered. It all looks the same after the first ten minutes anyway.

Project Denny's:
 - The ultimate in Denny's Restaurant worship, I can't tell if this page scares me or fascinates me. A tribute to the power of niche content, the author of this site has not only captured the 'essence of Denny's' in a website, of all things, but he's taken the word 'obsession' to a whole new level. Ye gods, anyone who has the time and incentive to create chronological, alphabetical and numerical lists of all the Denny's they have ever visited, not to mention write per-visit summaries and harass the managers for free merchandise, we'll just say they put John Hinckley Jr.'s obsessive qualities to shame. It's an interesting read, especially the user-contributed stories, and a total time-drain from hell. Interesting fact: The author lives in Tucson. Find him, buy him a salad and save his arteries before it's too late.

CNN
 - More time-intensive than time-wasting, the CNN website is always good for some quality procrastination help. Why bother waiting for network news when you can get it directly off of the feed? I have yet to hear a complaint about the speed of CNN's site, and they're always good for hunting down a reference when working on a paper at 4 in the morning. They could lose a few of the advertisements, but CNN wins kudos for picking out some good video and audio content, as well as their speed of delivery. With CNN, at least you can waste some time in a constructive manner.

Sex sites
 - Do you live in the dorms? Do you want to make friends? Are you broke? Wheel your computer into the hall, nail in this URL, sit back and charge $5 per half-hour. The award for the most worthless high-traffic Internet usage, as well as half the profit being made on the 'net these days, goes to the digital sex industry. No surprise, really. People have been indulging their weirdest fetishes via technology from the beginning of time. Not all of those cave paintings were of buffalo, you know. I'm just torn between telling you to expend your energies elsewhere and ordering you to take advantage of the situation. I wouldn't tell you to reap some profit out of those high-speed dorm links while you have the chance, now, would I?

Any one of the sixteen billion "Your Mama So-" jokes pages
 - They're not just for email anymore. Somehow, nobody ever really gets tired of these, and the "Yo' mama" thread has become the joke that launched a million webpages. Yet another great procrastination help, they still only merit three sentences worth of recognition.

GhostWatcher
 - Putting a new spin on a relatively old trick, the GhostWatcher site takes you into the home of the supernaturally squeamish June Houston. More precisely, you are invited into the spookier parts of her New York abode to keep an eye out for any supernatural occurrances via thirteen auto-reloading cameras she has wired into the Web. The pictures themselves get old after some of exploration, but the comments and images people have sent in are worth spending some time with. Somehow, being on the web takes a certain amount of spookiness out of the whole concept, but the GostWatcher site can still send a chill down your spine.

The WackyCrackHeads
 - I'm probably going to get assassinated for saying this, but the WackyCrackHeads have the coolest damn site I've seen in a long time. A weird mix of Drew Ross's comics and the WackyCrackHeads, whoever they may be, the WackyCrackHeads website is a digital spraybombing and comic book rolled into one. Subsections like 'Hit the CrackPipe' and 'The Church of Jesus Crack-Head' might sound juvenile at first, but this site will eat up some wonderful exploration time. Get the QuickTime plugin and a decent monitor, or don't bother at all, because the added effects put just the right finishing touches to an already mindblowing site. Personal favorites- the 'WackyCrackHeads vs. Hollywood Scientology' & 'Plymouth Rock/J.C. Saves.' Definately not to be missed, whether you have time to waste or not.




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