A monthly consumer guide for the terminally bored, sexually frustrated and ethically-challenged

I don't know what it's like outside of New York but it's certainly getting harder to find quality local access television on cable. Here in the Big Apple, Time-Warner cable allots a few of it channels (by law, not by choice) for public access (anybody who owns a camcorder can have a show) programming and they are usually filled with crappy talk shows and yoga-gurus. One of my guilty pleasures is Knit Bootie (Wednesdays @ 1:30AM CH. 17) a stalkers-wet dream of a show, where a lonely guy (who we never see) videotapes unsuspecting women walking down the street from his 2nd story apartment window. He gets both front and back shots while this truly evil gothic-stalker music plays in the background. It's a voyeurs delight. I can't make out what block it is (once someone does I'm sure he's busted). You'll find yourself glued to the television unable to click the remote. That's what so cool about this show. There's nothing pornographic about it except what's going on in your head. Contact: knitbootie@earthlink.net or call 212-252-3372

Have you ever heard a band or singer who was so bad that you had to bitch about it? Do teenyboppers piss you off? That's what the opening message states when you link to the YOUR FAVORITE BAND SUCKS website: http://members.tripod.com/smokepuppet/index.html Feel free to post your rants on the discussion forums or just read bitchy moans like: "I used to like alternative music. Til I realized its all a bunch of pussy bitches whining about shit. Then I got into metal, figuring it wouldn't be so pussy. Well, eventually i realized that metal music eats at least an equally big set of balls as alterna-rock crap does."

Ya gotta wade through a lot of "Limp Bizkit Sucks!" posts to get the occasional gem but its worth it. Spend an hour on this site and you soon realize that there's more Littleton's coming down the pike.

There's Trouble In Toyland on:

http://www.pirg.org/pirg/consumer/products/toy/98/deaths.htm A great site for keeping tabs on toy-related death statistics. Compiled from CPSC Reports By U.S. PIRG, this website lists wild and weird facts perfect for cocktail party conversation. Did you know balloons account for more choking deaths than balls or marbles? Did you know 11 kids died in the nineties by riding their tricycles into the pool? A total of five tots got trapped in their toy chests and suffocated. Too bad no "death by doll-sucking" statistics are given.

CD OF THE MONTH: Bjorn Olsson- "Instrumental Music" (Omplatten)

Instrumental musik... to submerge in.......to disappear through. Serious icy steel-cold ambient death-dirge Nordic lullabies for viking sled-dog funerals. Think "Maggot Brain" meets "Dark Side Of The Moon" on the tundra. With song titles like, "Vaggvisa For Flyktbenagna" and "Melankolins Langa Arm" this blue-eyed snowman means business. If Pink Floyd truly ventured over to the dark side they might have sounded like this. Turn off the lights, put your headphones on and picture the images. Who needs paintings with music this vivid.

TV SHOW OF THE MONTH: The Iron Chef (Food Network)

Get ready for the seaweed and giant eels to start flying as Ultimate Fighting Champion meets Julia Child in this cult hit. In Japan, Iron Chef is followed like a prime-time soap opera--just like Dallas or Dynasty was in the U.S.--except that it is a national obsession that is covered in the newspapers every week.

So what's the hype? Kaga Takeshi is the show's MC. He's sort of the Japanese Liberace. He portrays a wealthy and eccentric gourmet who lives in his castle with a small army of fine chefs. The character's chief pleasure in life is staging food battles between his honored Iron Chefs and premiere chefs of the culinary world. Each episode kicks off with Kaga revealing the surprise ingredient. The Iron Chef and his challenger then face off in a frenetic culinary battle against each other and the clock. They have exactly 30 minutes to make a complete three-course meal with the secret theme ingredient. The whole battle is covered like a boxing match.

The guest panel judges the menus to determine who is victorious and who is vanquished. If the judging seems unfair it's because being an Iron Chef is sort of like having tenure at a university; it carries a lot of weight and makes it difficult for the Iron Chef to lose. In the rare instance when the challengers win, they don't become Iron Chefs. In fact, no know seems to know how one becomes a kitchen samurai.

The show has achieved such cult status in the States that there is even a drinking game

http://www.ironchef.com/irongame.html

Iron Chef airs Fridays and Saturdays at 10:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m.(EST) on Food Network http://www.foodnetwork.com

WEB SAMPLERS: Here's what people are checkin' out each month on the web.

"It's time lapse movies of a guys teeth being rearranged by braces, taken over a two year span. If you haven't seen it it's quite surreal." http://www.caltech.edu/~pinelab/TimeLapse/ToothCam/toothcam.html

---submitted by Brian O'Connell

"Ever wish you could just rip a huge tuber at work? Wish you could pull a fat hit of the diggitty dookies da-da's while writing a research paper in the computer lab? Now you can with this weird website." http://www.aracnet.com/~lavatech/bong/freebonghit.html

---submitted by Ben Silver

"Go to http://www.phonespell.org/, type in your 10 digit and learn what your phone number spells. 'Nuff Said."

---submitted by Flaco

"There is a new portable MP3 player on the market called "The Personal Jukebox" with 4.8 gigs of storage space, meaning you could have about 80 or so hours of music with you anywhere you go in a palm sized walkman. Imagine all the live music you could take with you? There is also and stereo output so you can hook it up to your stereo and listen to your live music collection. And of course there is a car kit available, so take ALL your favourite shows on road trips, perfect quality, no tape or CD changing or broken cases... Anyway for a live music enthusiast like myself I have gigs of live mp3's and to have them all stored in one place without having to burn CD's, and be able to take it anywhere with me is very exciting!"

The web site is http://www.pjbox.com

---submitted by Trevor McCartney

MULLET'S GALORE: http://www.mulletsgalore.com/ It's nothing but MULLETS-Straight up back in the day hardcore ol' skool style mullets. Anybody who's ever worn their hair like a helmet will surely appreciate these far-out time-warped hairdo's. Actually, there more like hairdo'nts.

---submitted by Max Dawson

Check out "Robot Wars" on pay-per-view. It's a show about how people build remote controlled battle vehicles. Some had chainsaws on em and some had diamond tipped circular saws. The

shit was pretty wild.
http://www.robotwars.com
http://www.robotwars.co.uk/

---submitted by Rich T. and Mark A.

Submit your web samplers and other cultural degenerative picks to: chris@intransonic.com