Don't work -- watch this

Since we declared our fandom for Hyakugojyuuichi!, the twisted animation styling of one 14-year-old Neil Cicierega from Kingston, Mass., the e-mails have been pouring in about other animations that light your fires.

How could we help but spread the love? There's the ethereal, haunting Once Upon a Forest; the goofy spiritual satires of BuddhaJones; and the customer-service-hell of The Dough, which chronicles one Canadian man's struggle to cash a check.

We haven't had this much fun not doing any work at work since Peter Pan. Katharine Mieszkowski [12:20 p.m. PDT, April 25, 2001]

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The future of the Internet: Hyakugojyuuichi!

It came from nowhere. It made no sense at all.

And yet it's so strangely compelling, so unavoidably catchy that we sat through the whole thing, and couldn't stop whistling that inane tune for hours: Here, see for yourself, it's Hyakugojyuuichi!

Created with Shockwave, a Pokemon song in Japanese accompanies a deliciously random assortment of gyrating and bouncing images, like some kind of twisted children's singalong. Harry Potter's head dances and spins. Peewee Herman drives a wayward ambulance. Hello Kitty zips in and out of the screen. And a pacemaker beats a unearthly pulse.

Who created it? Where is it going? We don't know. All we do know is that its vaguely All Your Base quality signals the explosion of the ultimate Web form of self-expression -- whacked-out home videos like the indescribable Hatten file and the less original but still beloved Journey tribute, which reminds us "Don't stop believin'."

But what does it all mean? Our crack team of reporters is continuing to investigate, but all we can tell you for now is that the word "Hyakugojyuuichi," which is the title of the song that accompanies the images, is Japanese for the number 151. A significant figure to all Pokemon fans, of course -- as it refers to the total number of Pokemon creatures one is supposed to collect. As the song says: "151 friends is just right."

As for that, Hyakugojyuuichi is a new friend of ours.

[UPDATE: Several readers have speedily informed us that Hyakugojyuuichi was created by a 14-year-old named Neil Cicierega. A selection of his other animations can be found here.] -- Katharine Mieszkowski and Amy Standen [12:30 p.m. PDT, April 24, 2001]

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Satirists beware: The FBI is after you

With Friday's two-year anniversary of the Columbine killings inching closer, law officials' fuses seem to be shortening.

Just ask Karl Mueller. The Los Angeles Web developer exited his shower Thursday morning to discover a pair of unexpected guests -- from the FBI. They came, Mueller says, to interrogate him about his "Trenchcoat Mafia Homepage." Never mind that references to hating "blood-engorged ticks" give away the site as a darkly comic joke. Never mind that Mueller's parody site resembles others he's built, such as his spoof on Nike's responsibility for the Heaven's Gate suicides. Never mind that little piece of law called the First Amendment, which protects such forms of expression. The agents, Mueller says, didn't appear to notice or care.

"I tried to tell them that it was just satire but they didn't seem to get it," Mueller says. "They were trying to intimidate me. They were trying to get me to remove content that they felt was undesirable."

The FBI didn't comment in time for this story, but according to at least one First Amendment attorney, the agents had no right to bother with Mueller's site. No matter how high tensions rise, nor how justified the FBI's outrage may be, Mueller's site is protected by American case law, says Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Robin Gross.

"[Mueller's site] is obviously spoofing the hysteria surrounding the nation's reaction to the Columbine incident," Gross says. "As a form of political speech, it deserves the highest level of 1st Amendment protection." -- Damien Cave [3:05 p.m. PDT, April 19, 2001]

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Raymond Kurzweil's virtual blow-up doll

Ray Kurzweil considers himself a visionary. He writes often about the future, a time that he believes will be dominated by spiritual, sentient machines that will save the world from poverty and hunger.

In the present, however, Kurzweil seems intent on a bizarrely technological version of cross-dressing. On April 21, at the New York Music and Internet Expo, he is planning to present to the world his alter ego, Ramona -- a 25-year-old "virtual performing and musical artist whose voice and movements are provided by Kurzweil and transformed in real-time using motion capture, advanced computer graphics and audio processing systems."

There is nothing inherently wrong with Kurzweil's decision to create a virtual woman. Ramona's evocation of a person that Kurzweil could only hope to become with the help of technology will surely showcase the amazing capabilities of virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

But it's hard not to be disappointed by Ramona's debut. First Ananova, the newscaster with a body and eyes to die for, and now Ramona, an edgier rock-lover's wet dream. Couldn't some "visionary" please create a virtual personality that isn't a teenage male fantasy? Must virtual reality be used to create nothing more than computer-enhanced blow-up dolls? --Damien Cave [1:05 p.m. PDT, April 18, 2001]

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