I was discussing some web-findings with a friend of mine the other day and we wondered whatever happened to the woman who wanted to become (as best as I can remember) a “DBE amputee” with "TWIN BODY POWERED DORRANCE #5X STAINLESS STEEL HOOKS".
I remember reading over this woman’s website with sickening fascination. And her voice in my head kept YELLING the above phrases because they were invariably CAPITALIZED IN BOLD print.
Additionally, I remember the original “Hampsterdance” site. I even bought some sweatshirts from them. Alas, I can’t seem to find the site in it’s original state any more. Sure, there are others evolved from the original; but it’s not the same.
What have you noticed that’s missing from the ‘good old days’ of the web?
They guy who was going to cut off his own feet with a homemade guillotine. If i remember right, he had bad feet and wanted prostetics, but since he still had his feet, he couldn’t get them (and no doctor would amputate his feet.) So he decided to build a guillotine and cut them off live, on the web. I remember he was asking for donations, and kept pushing the date back because either he didn’t have it built yet, or didn’t have enough money to make sure he could get the prostetics.
My “favorites” were the one-two punch of lonely hearts parodies Romantic Mary and the Asian Prince. While they don’t have the gross-out value of shock sites you had to fear and/or admire the effort that went into them at the time.
Romantic Mary had a list of instructions you had to follow before she went out with you, and one of the items involved reading an series of essays on relationships that would cause the Time Cube guy to say “that’s messed up”, picking out key words and phrases along the way. I’m pretty sure it was a parody, at least I hope so. Google is only showing sites that are blocked to me, but I don’t recall anything pornographic about the site.
The Asian Prince started off as somebody goofing off on Geocities and expanded from there. Mostly talking about his exotic lifestyle, singing career, etc. Sort of like and earlier Icy Hot Stuntaz. In reality the photos were from some actor/singer from the 70’s and the joke played out, but for awhile it was inbox fodder from “new to the net” types.
[sub](No, seriously, I remember reading that a woman who dressed up as Tinkerbel read his sight, fell in love, knew they were destined to be together, and they went off and got hitched.)[/sub]
You forgot the triple exclamation points. Like you, I heard her screeching her love for the prostheses in my head. That screeching got louder and louder because of those damned exclamation points: “DORRANCE #5X STAINLESS STEEL HOOKS!!!” I recently did a search for her website and was somewhat saddened and rather relieved that it had disappeared.
The original “I KISS YOU!!!” website seems to have been taken down. I did find this: http://www.ikissyou.org/ which seems to be a reasonable facsimile.
You are all aware that the Wayback Machine can let you relive these experiences at almost any stage of their existence don’t you? In that sense, they are not gone at all.
I used to frequently visit a site called Punch Captain Kirk whenever I needed to relieve a little tension. IIRC, you could choose among punching Kirk, Michael Jackson, and other annoying celebrities. It’s gone now. ::sniff::
“Mirsky’s Worst of the Web” linked the dumbest, most useless pages that had been loaded that week. He just got overwhelmed, and is now a columnist for Scientific American.
Regarding Randy Constan, the Peter Pan guy, he is actually a very bright, pleasant, helpful person. Eccentric, but sane. My husband has exchanged several emails with him (related to computer troubleshooting, not to the Peter Pan fetish). Randy is not a Michael Jackson type (for one thing, his complexion is darker).