The nominees for Most Annoying Thing On The Freaking Web are: Banner Ad, "Punch This Monkey and Win $20"; Spam Introductory Sentence, "Look, we don't want to waste your time ... or ours"; Chain Mail, "Forward this to 10 people and win a trip to Disney World"; MIDI File, "Smells Like Teen Spirit"; Moronic Newsgroup Greeting, "Hey there all you peeps."

And the winner is... "The Sopranos." Go figure.
 

Old hipsters never die; they just go digital. Timothy Leary no doubt entertained notions of downloading himself, turning his aborted online suicide into some kind of flesh-to-impulse ascension: Leary.exe. The online version of Bay Area-based 'zine Bunnyhop fancies itself the same way, but is frozen in transit -- suspended halfway between indie retailer and Internet café. It is still published in a paper edition, available at your "local hispster hangout" (a regional list of those is thoughtfully provided). And it is still funny/sexy/brilliant, presenting "Record Haiku Reviews," interviews with Lou Barlow and Lisa Palac, and a survey on Tori Spelling's rack with the kind of straight-faced, anti-establishment slouch that has become its own limit. (Yes, silly rabbit, advertisers learned to use 'zines to sell to that hard-to-fathom hipster demographic -- about four years ago, as near as I can tell, when Velocity Girl's "Sorry Again" was used in a Volkswagen ad. How's that Passat holding up?) However, there's hope. Bunnyhop offers "web exclusives" - stuff that never appeared on paper. All they need to do now is put up a complete archive, slap a $4 password on it, and they'll enter the now. In the ether of cyberspace, everything seems to keep so much the fresher - and nothing can burn.
 

One time I was watching Univision at my favorite tamale joint. It was some sort of children's variety program, with puppets and people babbling at each other in Spanish. I understood maybe one word in 20, but I knew that even if the proceedings were translated into colloquial Californian English (which I speak fluently, bra), I still wouldn't understand much of what was going down. Then, suddenly, a couple of men came out from behind the curtains, holding boxes of Cap'n Crunch cereal. I almost jumped out of my tortilla - the Cap'n! He's global! They led the live studio audience in an effervescent sing-along honoring the Quaker product, bouncing the boxes up and down in perfect tempo. "Wow!" I said. "I wonder why they're doing that?" "It's because the rest of the world thinks Cap'n Crunch is President of the United States," said my friend Quiggle. "They love him." Only now, with perspective, do I realize that Quiggle was only-half right. The Cap'n isn't just the ruler of the free world; he rules the whole world. After all, what has Clinton given us? Nothing but heartache. The Cap'n gives us a brilliant sugar buzz that lasts through lunchtime. Read about him, and other crunchy, milk-covered also-rans, at "The Empty Bowl," a wonderful, wonderful site devoted to the best meal of the day. Cap'n Crunch, deliver us unto Happy Hour.
 

The Passenger won't be here forever. Sorry to say it, but it's true. Eventually, I will catch a ride and make a break for that higher plane, and you'll be linked to a page redirecting you to low-priced hotel accommodations. When that happens, I don't want you to get angry or depressed. Instead, I want you to think of the good times we've had, visiting sites populated by such fabulous characters as the Duct Tape Guys. They don't sell duct tape; they aren't made of it. They just ... really want you to use it, because it's cool and useful and a striking blue-silver. Make a prom dress out of it! Use it for automobile bodywork! Relax a spell in a hand-made duct tape hammock! Yes, my friends, these are the good times. Tape them down and never let them go.
 

Billed as "a haphazard collection of intellectual frippery," Postmodern Village is a primo, A-number-one example of what happens when your college education goes terribly right. I nearly burst my appendix laughing at PMV's visual tribute to Martin Van Buren, "the cutest president in the free world" (next to Cap'n Crunch, of course). The East Westerly Review, a collection of poetry and essays, also reads beautifully. Why are we making our youth labor under a hopelessly-out-of-time university system? Let them use sites like these as a dissertation. Of what I don't know, but by God, they deserve a few letters after their name for their labors. And they should also be given my job. I am, supposedly, a journalist.

I'm tired. I wanna go home and drink wine and eat me a meatball sammich and watch old tapes of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" (the golden Joel Hodgson-era, bi-otch). Next to nobody reads this stuff at the bottom of this page. Hi Dianne, hi Bryan, hi Dayvid. Some other cool people read this column once, but I didn't get their names, otherwise I'd ask 'em out for drinks.