March 2002

I tell you, there's scarcely anything that brings a bigger smile to my face than 3 inches of snow.

Except perhaps a well-worded 404 page.

Yes, you heard me correctly, a well-worded 404 page.

Not one of those dull, monochromatic pages which blandly tells you the type of server (Apache, IIS) and that the 'web page is not here' or some variation on that.

No, give me a singing and dancing 404 and I'm all over it. Heck, get a 404 like that and who needs the actual content of the site? Especially if the 404 gives you the infamous Hamster Dance or some variation thereof (I think the coolest variation of the Hamster Dance is the Dr Who Dance, but that just shows how odd I am, doesn't it?)

I saw a site which had the game Zork as its 404. I'd imagine more people probably go for the 404 than the site. If you're like me, it's just too fascinating to resist. Although it is certainly to be hoped that you are not like me, or even worse, like my friend Beldin, who, upon hearing of this site, deliberately went there and up the stairs to see if he could scare up a monster.

This, my dear reader, is not healthy behaviour. Scaring up monsters I mean. Well, playing Zork isn't exactly healthy behaviour either, if you like sunlight. Best to leave those stones unturned, as far as I am concerned.

But yes, I was talking about the joys of the 404. This is not the highway from Toronto to Newmarket, Ontario to which I refer, either, although that particular road has its own set of inexpressible joys.

Another 404 which has indelibly impressed upon me is the 404 which slowly, and methodically types its message onto the screen, in a tone of voice (a tone of typing? can typing have tone?) reminiscent of Marvin the Paranoid Android. Very creepy, but cool.

But I suppose at the end of the day, the most you can say about a 404 is that it needs to do its purpose, and that is to fill the holes in the internet. Were it not for 404s, the gaps in the internet would be chasms into which millions of bytes of bandwidth would disappear every second. 404s deserve our praise for doing the dirty job of standing in the gaps, knowing that any second their role could be over, any minute the page link could be removed, or the new content could overwrite the vacant location.

Spare a thought for your friendly neighbourhood 404. Or maybe check one out from time to time. Talk to your 404, and make them feel glad to have such a vital role in the maintenance and well-being of the internet. Who knows? You might just find yourself a new friend.

Oh, before I go, here's a link for you. Cool Link!