h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.myboot.com - It's a humor site. The best part of it is the movies section, humorous commercial and movie parodies, and some "so strange they have to be true" news clips. The very first South Park episode, the one that started it all, is also hosted there. One slow night at work, I browsed the site, and viewed an alleged Dutch commercial for an English language learning institute... and nearly peed my pants from laughing/embarassment (my boss was sitting right behind me when the music started, and is a bit of a fundamentalist, and the lyrics are very offensive). Then there's Tie-tanic, where the Imperial Fleet attacks the Titanic, and some howlingly funny clips from Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and... I could go on and on, so just check it out yourself.

There are so many, but I'll contribute a few.

http://www.brunching.com - the Brunching Shuttlecocks, of Santa Cruz, California. They make wonderful toys, including the world-reknowned "rock-paper-scissors online." Very gifted humorists.

http://www.internettrafficreport.com - the Internet Traffic Report. See what the average congestion and packet-loss is around the world. Dozens of routers world-wide are polled every 15 minutes. Can't reach a server in India? Take a look and see where the problem is.

http://www.slashdot.org - Okay, so they're already corporate giants. There are an awful lot of news sources out there for the wired community, but this is among the best. Updated several times a day, with well-monitored forums and a highly customizable interface.

http://www.segfault.org - More humor, this time tech-related. A sharp, bright, satirical look at the state of the art in technology. All are welcome to contribute. Unix-oriented folk will find this easier to follow than others. Non-Unix-oriented folk can follow along with the use of http://www.webopedia.com (see below.)

http://whatis.com - Sort of a tech-related Guide. If you can get past the arcane navigational interface, its very useful.

http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/atlas.html - A strong attempt at actually mapping the internet. Amazing stuff. Not sure how useful it is, but definitely amazing.

http://www.soda.co.uk - Another absolutely astounding java-enabled wonder to emerge from the U.K. The things these people have done with web toys defies belief. Just don't plan on getting any work done for a while, and feed the cat before you visit because you're likely to forget him for a few days once you've discovered "Constructor."

http://www.webopedia.com - What's a WAN? How about FMD-ROM? What the heck is Napster? If you need a definition regarding anything related to information systems, this is the site for you. Concise, easy-to-understand definitions plus links to some of the best tutorials on the web.

http://www.theonion.org - Still more humor, this time in the form of a newspaper satire. They've been around forever and continue to do a great job of making light of world affairs.

Happy surfing!

My recommended sites:

http://thornvalley.zinkproductions.com
-The- best site for Secret Of NIMH fans. Basically, it kinda got me into SoN and changed my life a bit/lot. If it's good 'nuff 4 me, good 'nuff 4 everyone.

http://members.xoom.com/Robin37/
Robin & Darien's Fan Fic Archive. For the SoN. There are two stories in here that were pretty influencial on my NIMHfandom. Couldn't get over Jonathan Brisby for a few weeks

http://www.ironmaiden.com
The most original site for a band ever. It's got new, plenty of music, fair deal of video stuff, links to great fansites, downloads, biographies. In fact I'm sure I still haven't found everything on it!

http://www.dangermouse.org
Whaddya mean Dangermouse is for kids? Seeing as there's vortually nothing on the 'net about DM, this is the best fansite you'll find.

http://www.watershipdown.org
A fansite. Got everything. But don't bother joining the mailing list.

http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Chateau/3511.index.html
The Animated Heroes Page. Great for furry fans. Vote for your favourite animated hero! A wealth of info...

http://www.slaytanic.com
Slayer fans will want to cruise over here...

My hands are tired now. More to come . Yes, MORE!!!

I can't believe I left this off first time around:

http://babel.altavista.com/translate.dyn - The BabelFish online translator. Wonderful for news articles on sites in non-English speaking countries. I hope there's not a copyright infringement there - its a perfect name for it.

http://nndm.8m.com/index.html
Bring Back Danger Mouse. What a brilliant cause! Everybody should visit this website and help BBDM!

http://home.swipnet.se/denim-and-leather/index.html
Denim And Leather is the home of 80s HM. It has a massive, yet incomplete, list of bands, a glossary and two fun games. Great fun if you're into HM.

And that's where I'll leave it.

http://www.mycomputer.com
masses of useful free gadgets for building homepages (counters, guestbooks etc)
http://www.bbc.co.uk
Because the BBC is great! Or, if you disagree, because the BBC was great!

Check it out before putting it up, b/c it may not be what you're looking for, but http://cirquedusoleil.com is the website of Cirque du Soleil, which is coolest.
English site is as http://cirquedusoleil.com/en/index.html.
French is at http://cirquedusoleil.com/fr/index.html, and
German is at http://cirquedusoleil.com/gr/index.html.

(the first address is just a hub from which you choose the language)

OK, here's a few of mine

http://www.straightdope.com - a question-and-answer column that will answer ANY question, from "where are all of the baby pigeons?" to "What is the caloric count in the average male ejaculation?". Informative AND humerous.

http://www.DarwinAwards.com - The Darwin Awards are given out posthumously to that person who did us the greatest favor by removing himself from the gene pool.

http://snopes.simplenet.com - The Urbin Legends Reference Page. Tired of getting "gang initiation" warnings in your intray? Or the poor child dying of cancer who wants to be in the Guinness Book Of World Records for the most business cards? Debunk them here.

http://www.snowplow.org/furiousgeorge - Furious George. A silly, adictive little game. Help this little monkey on his cross-country crime spree. You must have a warped sence of humor to appreciate this site.

http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/fresh.html - Red Meat. Quite the surreal comic. Printed in the print edition of The Onion.

Thanks for submitting this page, unfortunately I am just coming up to my MA exams and so I have been unable to do anything very much with it yet but I am looking forward to visiting the site and updating The Best Websites in the World in three weeks time!

Thanks for submitting these pages, unfortunately I am just coming up to my MA exams and so I have been unable to do anything very much with it yet but I am looking forward to visiting them and updating The Best Websites in the World in three weeks time!

Here are some of my favourites:
for doing your bit for world hunger
for learning about the Internet ,http://navigators.com>
for fun ecards
for cat lovers

If it's a bit of fun you're after then have a quick look at jardMail ( http://www.jardmail.co.uk ) they archive loads of funny and silly joke emails and seem to have just about all of them. I always find it's worth a giggle.