Once upon a post-war America,

the Book of the Subgenius was,

like, a really cool subversive

item for dweebs like us to show

off on their bookshelves. But,

by this point, the joke has

achieved a level of media

saturation akin to that of

Michael Jackson, where every

potential disciple has already

placed his or her sacrifices at

the altar. Bob, it seems, is

just another asshole hipster

with a groovy pipe, like Flavor

Flav. Still, we can't help being

pleased that someone's taken the

time to do justice to the Holy

One by building a first-rate Web

site in his honor. But who

knows? Maybe in a few years,

when the Sega generation comes

of age, they'll be allowed to

re-discover what we knew all

along: Sloganeering and slack

just keep on coming back.

Eureka! The folks at

Club PepsiMax must be sore from

all the back-patting that must

have followed this brainstorm: a

Web contest featuring a

private CU-SeeMe session with

Cindy Crawford as the grand

prize. Little do they suspect

that the real jackpot will come

when Cindy discovers that the

killer app of videoconferencing

is disturbingly tied in with the

concept of "hands-free"

computing. Is that a QuickCam in

your pocket or are you just glad

to CU-SeeMe?

Morse McFadden Communications is

threatening to periodically

update its Walls '95 site with

illicit photos of the

construction of Bill Gates' US$50

mil sea-side mansion. While we

couldn't think of a better

candidate for a little invasion

of privacy, we would hope a

schlocky gimmick like this would

at least warrant a live feed.

After all, the only compelling

payoff for our daily patronage

would come in the form of a

well-timed natural disaster.

Since neither we nor MMC have

the kind of clout necessary to

pull that off, we'll have to

settle for the slow-motion

tragicomedy of Bill and his

minions drowning in a sea of

greed, power-mongering, and

tasteless hype.

If it's a truism, it's only

because it's so true: the

chainsaw is the most viscerally

satisfying murder implement ever

conceived. Sleek, messy, and

unquestionably sexy, the

chainsaw is rivaled only by

mental retardation as a

sure-fire winning plot device.

These days, with Tarantino-style

gunplay in deep vogue, it's easy

to lose sight of the glory days

of splatter. But if a game like

Doom 2 can lay claim to the

title of biggest-selling

computer game ever (with its

only real distinguishing feature

being some righteous 'saw

action), who's to say a Web site

like Return of the Texas

Chainsaw Massacre doesn't have a

shot at a Webby?