SHT - Despite web woes, silly sites show surf's up

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NYPost

DESPITE WEB WOES, SILLY SITES SHOW SURF'S UP

By MARY HUHN

April 19, 2001 -- CREATIVE Web sites still rise to the top and spin around the world at Internet speed, even in this day of the dot-com doldrums, with consolidations, dead companies, layoffs, and cutbacks.

These sites - which are spread via word of mouse (through e-mails and links) - help restore Surfer gURL's sometimes lagging faith in the World Wide Web.

We've lived through a lot so far - the latest example of a site that caught the Web-surfing world by storm is PsychoExGirlfriend.com. Before that we had Dancing Baby; Mahir, the Turkish Guy; as well "Wear Sunscreen," a graduation speech erroneously attributed to Kurt Vonnegut that Baz Luhrmann made into a hit record.

Have you checked out DancingPaul.com, MulletLovers.com or MenWhoLookLikeKennyRogers.com? Those are only three sites that have kept me going when the harsh realities of Internet have got me down.

But two other sites have won my browser over and put a cyberleap in my heart.

This site, user.tninet.se/âprv247p/hatt/hatten.swf, is one of the craziest I've ever seen. It's a primitive, stripped-down music video of a song by an Arab musician, Azar Habib. It features cut-and-pasted people dressed in Central Asian garb (Uzbekistan is our best guess) with an ornate room as a backdrop. As the music plays, the images quickly change with photos of people moving in and out of the frame, a flying knit cap being passed around, Coca-cola bottles appearing out of nowhere and other assorted silly happenings.

On Jeeran.com there's a lively discussion of the Azar Habib site. Some prankmeister apparently took Habib's song, translated it phonetically into Swedish and made a video based on those words. This site has the translation of Swedish into English, as well as a translation of Habib's song, which is about love. The title, "Hatten Ar Din," sounds like "The Hat Is Yours," in Swedish. According to the site, in Arabic it means, "I Loved You."

While it's interesting enough to to know all this, you don't need to. This bizarre site and song itself is enough to keep surfers entertained.

Another cult video,which continus to rocket in popularity, is "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" (AYBABTU). While it's posted on a lot of mirror sites, one place to find it is at www.people.fas.harvard.edu/âpyang/base/allyourbase.swf.

AYBABTU also is based on a bad English translation, this time of a Japanese phrase from the dialogue of an old (1989) Sega Megadrive game ZeroWing.

It started out as a phrase posted on Web sites and posters. Then Kansas City computer programmer and part-time DJ Jeffrey Ray Roberts sampled the quote, added a dance track, and created the Flash animation video. He uses scenes from Zero Wing as well as familiar images plastered with AYBABTU words. Images include Bert and Ernie from "Seasame Street," "Star Trek" stills, Budweiser ads, the Surgeon General's warning on a box of cigarettes, McDonald's signs and the marquee at Madison Square Garden. You get the picture.

AYBABTU is all over the world.

Creativity still breaks through. The cream rises to the top.

Even if no one can make any money off of it.

Send e-mail to Surfer gURL at mhuhn@nypost.com

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001

Answers

http://www.e-com-con.com/

This site came out last November. I wish you could have seen it in it's origional form--it was almost believable, except for all the X-Files character names.

It was an elaborate promotion for the new Fox show, "The Lone Gunmen". I was going to post a link for it at TimeBomb as a joke for the gullible folks, but by the time I got around to it, the site had already been "updated".

If you click on "lost my password", you can read some of the email they received.

If you click on "login", it takes you to the LGM official site which has some cool animation and a little farewell to Joey Ramone.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001


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