If you ever lay awake at night, beads of sweat rhythmically dripping off your forehead and your brain tormented with thoughts along the lines of: "What is the best Web site on the Internet? Facebook? MySpace? THERE ARE TOO MANY AND I CAN'T DECIDE!" then suffer no more. Follow this noble twofold path to attain a level of nirvana of which even Buddha would be insanely jealous:
Step 1: Type www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net into your web browser of choice's toolbar.
Step 2: Click on any one of the links and brace yourself for absolute enlightenment.
Shamelessly entitled "The Best Page in the Universe," the enigmatic Internet personality "Maddox" has amassed a following so large and so utterly dedicated that it threatens to exceed cultlike proportions. There's no in-between: you either love him so much you fear your heart might explode, or you rue the day he exited his mother's womb. Regardless of which end of the spectrum you represent, one thing is irrefutable: It takes guts to post your opinions (genuine or not) on a Web site where the first thing any given visitor reads is, "This page is about me and why everything I like is great. If you disagree with anything you find on this page, you are wrong."
Maddox doesn't just cross politically correct boundaries, he annihilates them - and then laughs heartily as he pees on the ashes. His political views are revealed in the article "Who would make a better president: Bush or a box of Tic-Tacs? An objective analysis," while "Attention women: Until your farts start smelling like cinnamon buns, quit bitching" offers a peek at his tongue-in-cheek support of patriarchy. Perhaps one of Maddox's funniest and most popular articles is "I am better than your kids," in which he ruthlessly critiques various children's artwork. Each piece is awarded an unabashed "F" with corresponding comments such as: "I've pissed patterns on snow that look more coherent than this," and "I could have sworn America's colors were red, white and blue. There's no yellow anywhere, traitor."
Maddox stays true to the preemptive contradiction of any opinion that isn't his own, and, like any adept cult leader, he maintains a zero-tolerance policy on dissent. The page on which he posts the hate mail he receives (and, of course, his hilariously over-the-top responses) reads: "Bullshit Hate Mail." One reader, offended by the "Christopher Reeve is an asshole" article, in which Maddox bashed the now-deceased Superman for being "selfish" and perpetuating the mentality that "nobody gives a shit about cripples until a celebrity becomes one," wrote Maddox an e-mail. In response, Maddox wrote back, "Since you like to piss and moan so much, I have a shampoo recommendation for you:" and posted a picture of Johnson's "No More Tears" baby shampoo directly underneath.
Although no one has really left "The Best Page in the Universe" without being at least slightly offended, Maddox should be taken with a grain of salt. His sense of humor might prove too subtle or too abrasive for some, but there's no denying that it represents a rising cultural undercurrent characterized by social parody and well-disguised sarcasm (a la the faux online newspaper "The Onion"). Moral of the story: Learn to laugh at yourself. Because if you can't, Maddox will - and then he'll write about it.
