.

A L S O__T O D A Y Let's get this straight By Scott Rosenberg T A B L E__T A L K Netscape vs. Internet Explorer: The battle of the browsers continues in the Digital Culture area of Table Talk - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y Starship trouper By Janelle Brown Douglas Adams' new "Titanic" game is just the tip of a multimedia iceberg (04/30/98) Getting MUDdy with Xena and Hercules By Moira Muldoon A new online game lets fans of the TV shows explore their textual fantasies (04/30/98) Revenge of the early adopters By Andrew Leonard Angry DVD owners didn't like a new video-rental technology -- so they fought back on the Net (04/29/98) Betrayed! By Evan Marx A writer's engagement unravels -- thanks to a telltale e-mail message (04/28/98) Epistolary romance, digital style By Jenn Shreve E-mail has changed how we start relationships, how we keep them going -- and how we wreck them (04/27/98) - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE 21ST CHALLENGE ARCHIVES - - - - - - - - - - _______

- - - - - - - - - - - - - J U D G E S '__C O M M E N T S : In this Challenge, we asked you -- in the wake of newspaper reports about a Microsoft master plan to drum up grass-roots support -- to submit phony pro-Microsoft letters to the editor. Over 70 of you heeded the call. As a whole, your efforts show great PR promise -- but unfortunately, many were so well done that we could not tell where praise ended and parody began. We favored those that went over the top, exposing unheard-of flavors of bias and cynical targeting to the publication. Our winner, the ingenious and prolific Fred Wickham, submitted several entries, befitting his day job as an advertising copywriter. Fred, run anything up our flagpole -- we salute you! W I N N E R Editor, New York Times: At the Iowa Writer's Workshop, John Cheever gave us this exercise: "You are in a burning building. You have time to write one letter. To whom? What do you say?" At this moment, I'm trapped in my burning fourth floor office. Even though I've never published anything, Microsoft has made these last years worth living. I cherish every moment at my keyboard. Thank you Microsoft Word and Microsoft Exchange Mail. Flames are licking at my phone jack, so I must now click "send." Please print my letter. My wife reads your paper. (submitted by Fred Wickham) H O N O R A B L E __M E N T I O N S Editor, Muscle & Fitness Magazine: Yours is among the 12 percent of American magazines never to have pictured Bill Gates on its cover. You think people only care about biceps, pecs, quads and the like? Why not feature the involuntary muscles, too? The Microsoft Chairman has a powerful peristaltic action. A CEO's ability to regurgitate and eliminate forcefully is crucial in today's hostile business environment. The stuff the Justice Department makes you eat! C'mon, do a Bill Gates cover. You know a real man when you see one. (submitted by Fred Wickham) - - - - - - - - - - - - - To the Editor: Do you want to know what that activist Judge Jackson's ruling has done to the little guy? Recently my pizza outlet was smeared with a lawsuit from Joe Bob's Deep Pan Platters on the charge that I was bundling my own sauce with the pizza I sold. Joe Bob's accused me of not giving my customers the freedom to lift off the cheese layer on the top of my pizzas, scrape out the sauce, and smear his competing sauce on the pizza before putting the cheese back on and eating it. A local court has now ordered me to sell sauce-less pizzas to customers who want them; by the time you read this, I'll probably be selling crusts. (submitted by Bennett Haselton) - - - - - - - - - - - - - To the editors of Soldier of Fortune Magazine/Washington Times: I am incensed by the unconstitutional persecution by Janet Reno's jack-booted thugs of the followers of Bill Gates' religion, the Branch Microsoftians. All the residents of Seatliwaco, Wash., know their neighbors in the secluded campus/compound as quiet, law-abiding citizens who keep to themselves and indulge in their harmless hobbies of making jerky, stifling competition and stockpiling large-caliber weaponry taped to the bottoms of their cubicle desks. In honor of Patriot's Day, I say it's high time for every red-blooded American to stand up to the governmental agents of the international socialist vegetarian Linux-GNU-Apache-Java-Netscape conspiracy, and lock-and-load for Bill! (submitted by Jim Allard) - - - - - - - - - - - - - Editor, the Watchtower: They stood at my door -- a neatly dressed man and woman. I thought them to be your shepherds, so insistent was their knocking. But they were not Jehovah's Witnesses. No, they were the lambs of Microsoft. They outdid even your most zealous cohorts with their exhortations. I was a skeptic. They turned me into a believer. Just thought you should know. (submitted by Fred Wickham) - - - - - - - - - - - - - Attn: Birth Announcements, the Covington Valley News: Mr. Bob and Alice Pim are proud to announce on April 14, 1998, at 6:15 a.m., the birth of their first son. Bob and Alice are also proud to announce that their son Bill has already signed a partnership deal with Microsoft in which he will only have to pay a small monthly license fee for use of the great CEO's name, and they encourage other parents to contact Microsoft's Child Names Program for more information on this exclusive arrangement. Bob and Alice Pim are innovators in the field of parenting and have produced some of the world's leading embryos. (submitted by Kurt Gray) - - - - - - - - - - - - - Thanks for all your submissions -- and check back in two weeks for the next Salon 21st Challenge. SALON | May 1, 1998 Charlie Varon is a humorist and playwright. His works include "Ralph Nader Is Missing" and "Rush Limbaugh in Night School." Jim Rosenau is a writer, editor and software designer in Berkeley, Calif. Jim and Charlie are also co-founders of the citizen group Californians for Earthquake Prevention and partners in Mockingbird Productions, which offers a full line of comic services.