If you're looking for some wild inspiration on the Internet or just a good laugh, then pick up this book and get online today. Hours and hours of fun are only a mouse-click away with this book that lists the web's weirdest and wackiest sites...

500 Wild & Wacky Websites is one of those books that no one ever buys for themselves. It's the sort of gift that people purchase as a last minute thought for someone else. That's a shame, because there are hours of fun to be had flicking through this collection of some of the oddest websites that the Internet has tucked away.

The book is split into six chapters: Silly, Funny and Ridiculous; Gadgets, Gizmos and Novelties; Strange and Mysterious; Far Out; Celebrity Weirdness; and UFO's and Aliens. It manages to cram so many oddities into such a neat little package that you'll wonder how you ever managed without it.

While there are a lot of sites that you'll no doubt have already seen (The Subservient Chicken and the UK's official Aibo site for example) there are plenty you won't have (Fainting Goats or Celebrity Death Pools anyone?)

However, some of the weird links in this book sound more promising than they actually are. For example tveyes.com is apparently a site that offers to e-mail you when a word of your choosing is spoken on television. In reality it's just a TV show search engine.

There are also a few too many sites that are neither wild, nor wacky. Why, for example, is the White Houses's official website or the Internet Movie Database included?

A lot of the sites are also rather old and obviously haven't been updated for some time - not that that makes them any less fun to discover.

A lot of people won't buy this book, believing that there are numerous free Internet sites that showcase the latest odd websites from around the world. While that's true, actually finding one that's as impressive as this book is not as easy as you'd think. Most of the top ranked sites that link to odd sites are not very impressive - they don't have many links and most don't seem to have been updated for years (resulting in many links that no longer work).

This is one book I'd recommend you buy for yourself, leave on your office desk and go through page by page discovering one new website every day.

8

Darren Rea