books
Bookslut.com
This monthly 'zine digs in with smart book reviews and commentary, plus a highly readable blog that will keep you in the literary loop. The About page will get you acquainted with the site's silly side (and help you decide if these are the people you want shaping your reading list). To connect with other readers, head to the book forums on Salon.com's Table Talk.
collections
Whitney.org
Home of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Click on the Artport link in the lower right-hand corner to reach 'Idea Line.' Creator Martin Wattenberg describes his labor of love as a 'timeline of Net artworks, arranged in a fan of luminous threads, mapping lines of thought through time.' Translation: links to the works of more than a hundred digital artists. It's easy to get lost in this tangled index, but you'll have too much fun to care.
digital photography
Amazingmail.com
Upload your favorite digital image, turn it into a postcard and send it to all your friends. We know it’s a one-trick pony. It just does that one little trick so well. Head to Ofoto.com to order prints and more.
highbrow humor
Cartoonbank.com
Some 30,000 New Yorker cartoons and covers for sale. Matted and framed prints cost $195 and up, T-shirts are $30. We just like to browse, snicker and feel smug about the ones we get ¡X and just skip the ones that we don't.
movie reviews
Rottentomatoes.com
The New York Times' Stephen Holden rarely steers us wrong, but why put your precious Saturday night in the hands of one man? This site's 'Tomatometer' reduces dozens of published reviews about a particular movie to a consenus rating on a scale of one to 10, from rottenest to freshest. Skim excerpts from individual reviews or click on a quote to read the complete text. Each is marked with either a plump red tomato (the equivalent of a thumb's up) or a green splat (thumb's down) ¡X a handy visual aide. Plug your zip code into the Showtimes search engine to check local theater listings.
news parody
Borowitzreport.com
The king of the phony headlines is still The Onion, but Andy Borowitz' satirical take on current affairs rounds out the menu. Borowitz, a former Hollywood sitcom writer and acclaimed author of the just-released Who Moved My Soap? The CEO's Guide to Surviving in Prison (Simon & Schuster), writes and posts a new 'story' here every day (give or take), helping us to laugh at the dreary state of the world in spite of ourselves. Check the archives for our most recent fave: 'Iraqi Information Minister Vows Big Changes at New York Times.'
television
Televisionwithoutpity.com
Missed the season finale of ER? Head to this site for an indepth recap peppered with biting character observations and hilarious, insightful commentary that could only come from the most devoted fans. Covers dozens of prime-time hits, from 24 to The West Wing to cable series such as Six Feet Under. Recaps appear a few days after an episode airs.
your big break
Garageband.com
Thousands of unsigned acts come here to give their music away; if you review a song, you can upload a song for review. Listeners' ratings will send it up the charts ¡X or into oblivion. It's one way, at least, to find out if you've got what it takes to go all the way. Remember: that which doesn't kill you will only crush your ego.
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