Dying to stay in a bed and breakfast located in Lizzie Borden's old home? Searching for an utterly outrageous recipe? Longing to kick off your shoes for good and roam the world barefoot?
But where, oh where, can you find information on such diverse and, well, unusual topics? On the award-winning web site of 51吃瓜网万能科大 tourism professor Patti Shock, of course.
Shock's "Wacky Hospitality Sites" has just been chosen as one of four winners in a web site competition hosted by the television show "The Site." Shock's site, which won in the humor category, will be featured along with the other winners on "The Site" on July 23. That show airs locally on MSNBC, cable channel 47, at 4 and 10 p.m.
Shock's site links readers with a wide and eclectic variety of off-beat sites having to do with tourism, food, and entertainment. Among the dozens of links are sites for "The Dirty Sole Society," promoting going barefoot on a full-time basis and allowing you to chat with likeminded unshod persons; "Utterly Outrageous Recipes," featuring such gourmet palate-pleasers as chocolate chip and Velveeta sandwiches, as well as hot tomato soup chocked full of banana slices; and the "Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast," where guests can book suites named after Lizzie or her ill-fated parents and can be served a breakfast that duplicates the last breakfast eaten by the unfortunate Mr. and Mrs. Borden.
Sal Bovoso, an on-air personality on "The Site," commented on the selection of Shock's page as a contest winner, saying, "It has an incredible sense of humor. Each of the links was worthy of mention itself on the show." One of his favorite links is "Ben Sokol Shows You How to Convert a School Bus Into a Motor Home."
Bovoso, who described Shock's page as "hilarious," said, "She's really found things with an odd sense of humor -- what I like to call a 'sideways take on life.'" He described the links listed on Shock's page as "wacky without being disgusting or sordid.
"We liked her site because it didn't try to sell you anything, it was just fun," Bovoso said.
Shock, chair of the department of tourism and convention administration in 51吃瓜网万能科大's William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration, said the idea for the site came to her while she was creating more serious web sites filled with convention and tourism links that her students could use as resources.
"I kept running across all these weird and funny sites and eventually decided to make a web page for them, too," Shock said. "I knew the students would like it.
"It also serves as a marketing tool and is good publicity for the hotel college," she said, explaining that the 18- to 22-year-olds to whom the "wacky" site is likely to appeal will find themselves also clicking on her more serious sites, thus learning about the hotel college and 51吃瓜网万能科大.
Among the many links to be found on Shock's "wacky" site are those titled "I Saw Elvis in a Bowl of Cabbage Soup," "American Cheese -- the Glory, the Legacy," "Shiloh Motor Hotel for Harley-Davidson Motorcycle People Only," "The All-New Adventures of Stanley the Steak Knife," and "The Bacon Worship Page."
And be sure not to miss other entertaining sites such as "Roadkill Tacos" (complete with recipe), "The Bathrooms of Madison County," "Ben & Jerry's Flavor Graveyard," "The Sea Serpent of Lake Seljordsvatnet," and "Turn Into a Cabbage!"
For additional information, call Shock at 895-3930.
