Get away from it all with some Net fun

So we have a war, a recession, a strange Asian respiratory virus, a health service in crisis, woeful public transport, a new computer virus every month, and a Fianna Fáil/PD government. Can it get any worse?

I think we've all had about enough. So in honour of the start of the weekend - and after another grim week where most of us would rather avoid the news than read it - I offer some quality escape time on the internet.

Here are a few sites that are just plain fun - either amusing in their content or a joy to play with. And playing is the key word here - one of the nicest things about the internet is that it can return us, as adults, to the kind of joyful silliness and sense of playful discovery that we forget about once we come out on the other side of adolescence.

First off is an old, old favourite of mine (in internet terms, that is - it's been around for at least five years now, which is practically geriatric). The site is called Superbad (www.superbad.com) and it is an endless maze of online graphical fun. The site was created by (what else) a web designer in San Francisco, just for his own amusement, and he has kept adding to it over the years.

I first stumbled upon the site when writing an article eons ago on online "toys" for the well-known UK computer gaming magazine Edge, and Superbad fit the bill exactly. A disclaimer: alas, having written for Edge doesn't give me the gaming coolness factor some might think.

The editor asked me to do the piece because most gamers looked down on such online toys - not "real" games, don't you know - and because I was a hopeless, easy-to-beat-at-everything gamer wannabe, they thought I'd bring "an unprejudiced eye".

Each new page of Superbad offers you numerous directions in which you can go next, so linger over each; don't click away at the first link you find as there are usually more things each page will "do" as you mouse around.

Sometimes you seem to get fragments of a storyline but never enough for it to be a real narrative. The images are often hilarious. This is a great one for fiddling about with on a really boring day in the office when the boss isn't around.

A recent discovery is the personal site of British Web designer and photographer Andy Foulds (www.foulds2000.freeserve.co.uk). An extraordinary display of web finesse, this site has numerous byways including some very funny visual toys. Roll your mouse over the opening page to get an idea of all the things you can explore.

Make sure to check out the clever way in which Mr Foulds presents his own portfolio of work, and whatever you do, be sure to check out "The Economists", "Leader of the Free World", and "The Dancing Blair". Where does the guy find the time to create all of these things? If you think you hate the web animation tool Flash, this is a site to convince you of all its virtues.

If you are of a literary bent, have a look at the literary hypertext work called Twelve blue (http://eastgate.com/TwelveBlue/), by Mr Michael Joyce, one of the most accomplished authors of this curious and seductive genre.

Hypertext fiction and poetry are writerly explorations of the narrative possibility granted by technology.

Using hyperlinks, a reader moves in a non-linear way through a work. This produces layered, evocative readings that are different every time. Very post-modern.

You'll either love it or hate it, but do give this unusual form of writing some time to grow within your own mind. It's easy to dismiss it out of hand, but the longer you sink into it, the more intriguing it becomes - if you're reading a good author. If you like what you find at the site, Eastgate is the pre-eminent publisher of literary hypertext and there's a whole online catalogue to check out and order from.

While we're on a literary trajectory, have a look at Plumb Design's Visual Thesaurus (www.visualthesaurus.com). This is another project that has had some longevity (a lot of these online toys seem to get abandoned eventually, but the best get upgraded as new technology tools become available).

Follow the directions once the little Java applet loads. The Thesaurus offers a visual way of looking at how words are related to each other. Type in a word and suddenly a small, Web-like mini-universe of words appears, linked to your initial term. Roll your mouse around the various nodes in the Web and see how other words move in and out of your term's orbit. If caught doing this in the office, you can always claim it's one of your important writing tools.

For general amusement, you can't beat the Brunching Shuttlecocks (www.brunching.com). As the site says, "Pure and simple as a hammer to the forebrain." The Shuttlecocks have come up with such hilarities as the Alanis Lyric Generator, Your Roommate (yes, it goes on and on; that's the point) and Danger Symbols. There's little flash films, movie reviews and lots of other silliness as well.

And if you have the bandwidth, here's one of the best ways to spend - well, what you think will just be a few minutes and tends to turn into an hour or more: the Animation library at Wired.com (www.wired.com/animation/).

This is a treasure trove of animations using every kind of tool you can imagine, by real virtuosos of the art. You can choose how you view these animations by your bandwidth, so there are smaller versions for the 56k dial-up modem people, and greater glory for the cable, DSL and office leased-line people. So, my advice for the weekend is turn off the darn radio and TV and have some fun online. Enjoy.

Karlin's tech weblog: http://radio.weblogs.com/0103966/