Weird things on the web

a small collection of bizarreries

Unfortunately, many of these sites have stopped working. Bizarre sites disappear even faster than the boring ones. But I'll leave the dead links here to encourage the development of a new art form. It should be possible to find them on the Internet Archive.

Qyp
To be found (if unstolen) in the Household Encyclopedia of Random Things. Every household needs one of these, specially when a fat-headed person is cooking Albanian food.

Roadnail Corporation
Did you ever wonder why roads don't blow away? It's because there are roadnails to hold them down. I read this on the Roadnail Corporation's home page in early 1998, and was skeptical about this — till I was visiting Vietnam a few months later: while waiting to cross a bridge in the Mekong Delta, I noticed a team of roadworkers busily nailing the road down. Unfortunately, most of the Roadnail site seems to have blown away, and recently I could find only one page.

Edward Lear Home Page

Edward Lear has his own home page - not far from his last resting place in San Remo, where the giant blue Ypotogloxia grows its lobster-like blooms, Marco Graziosi diligently tills the Learian soil. There's even a discussion group you can join, discussing Lear in limerick form.

When you're dead, where will you end up? With Edward Lear and Virgil, in Limbo? Or an even less desirable suburb? To find out, fill in this questionnaire, based on Dante's Inferno.

Cynsa Beans
A rather strange site, faintly disgusting. Who was Cynsa? Why beans? Coffee? Why not?

BME
The Body Modification E-zine, with gruesome stories and photo galleries of weird ways in which people change themselves. The question the site doesn't answer is "Why do they do it?"

One of the craziest large-scale projects in existence is Oedilf: the Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form. It includes 27,299 limericks so far, of which 14,466 are approved (were the rest too rude? or lacking in scansion?). This project looks to be deadly serious. "We are now working on all words beginning with aa- through bt- inclusive." Can you think of a word beginning with bt? If so, here's your chance to write a limerick about it.

Fridgehenge
Just as England has Stonehenge, New Zealand had Fridgehenge. Unfortunately, stones outlast fridges.

Nothing
Gary M's Nothing site. Includes: nothing quotes, plenty of nothing, thanks for nothing, nothing else...

If you're interested in nothing, nothing.com is an important site. "We start, then, with nothing, pure zero. But this is not the nothing of negation...."

For a journey into the void, press here...

   

The Perpendicular College
You've heard of lateral thinking? Well, this is perpendicular thinking. It's different. Take the entrance test to this college, and you'll see why. Sample question: "What is nothing? Why do we have so much of it?"

Who was Kit Kat?
During my endless search for the true identity of Kit Kat, I put the question "Who was Kit Kat?" to a dozen search engines. The number of results ranged from zero to 33,000,000, but nowhere was my question answered. Despite evidence pointing to a London restaurateur of the 18th century, I found this Kit Kat Shrine. It even has a votive tablet, on which you can leave a message. (2004: Sadly, the Kit Kat shrine has been bulldozed.)

text.jodi.org
Jodi has one of the bizarrest web sites ever. If a computer went crazy, this could be the result. But don't computers go crazy all the time? Could Jodi be a computer? If a web site had its own web site, could this be it? It's scary to even think about this.

MOLES
Were those questions getting too hard for you? There, there. Refer them to MOLES: The Meaning Of Life and Everything Society. It's so comprehensive that you'll never need to join anything else.

The Viennese Vegetable Orchestra
An orchestra that plays vegetables instead of violins "although where necessary kitchen utensils such as knives or mixers are employed". This is real! See www.gemueseorchester.org. After each concert, the musicians cook the vegetables, and eat them with the audience.

Rhiz-O-Mat Navigator
Do you find rhizomes delicious? If so, the Rhiz-O-Mat is for you. But I cannot be responsible for any particles of deleuze or guattari in your salad.

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