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Blue Mountain

www.bluemountain.com

Most people are unaware of the fact that November is peanut butter lover’s month and national sleep comfort month, or that Dec. 15 is Underdog Day in honor of strong-willed boxer, Mike “The String Bean” Johnson. At bluemountain.com, however, such seemingly meaningless holidays, as well as the more well known ones, are days worth celebrating, specifically by sending a friend or loved one an e-greeting. For instance, Dec. 9 is “Weary Willie Day,” and according to the e-greeting, it was named after a character played by Emmett Kelly, who was born on this day in 1858. Recipients of such a greeting are encouraged to spend the day clowning around either wearing baggy pants or learning how to juggle. Nothing seems more pleasing than checking your e-mail to discover not simply drab black and white text messages, but an e-greeting complete with music and animated cartoons. Though traditional holidays are usually the ones more celebrated and decorated, bluemountain.com encourages its patrons of joy to share the unique characteristics of each day. Festive screen savers are also available for users to download for their personal computers or to send to others to enjoy. With the holiday season approaching, one has the choice between two different animated screen savers featuring snowmen on sleds and Santa Claus checking his naughty and nice list. On the seasonal note, bluemountain.com is not biased, offering a wide variety of “Winter Holiday” eCards to choose from. Represented are holidays such as Christmas and Hanukkah, in addition to Kwanzaa and Eid. One of the cuter holiday cards offered features animated penguins sliding down an icy mountain. Though a simple card that only features the message, “Have a Cool Holiday,” the e-greeting is sure to provide the recipient with a smile. With animated virtual greeting cards that can not only be personalized but also have voice messages attached, bluemountain.com seems like the optimal place to go to either brighten someone’s day or just say hi. In comparison to standard e-mail formatting, an eCard is much more personable.

Barbara McGuire Rating:8

E-greetings

www.egreetings.com

Electronic greetings are the perfect way to alleviate political angst. Disgruntled Americans tired of the presidential election muck can click on egreetings.com and select from 16 political cards featuring the White House hopefuls. In “The Political Pie Throw,” for instance, users can send an animated interactive e-greeting. With the click of the mouse, the card’s receiver can aim and fire a creamy pie at George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore. Egreetings.com allows users to send cards for virtually every occasion, such as the current presidential elections – all for free. From birthday to bon voyage cards, the site offers an easy and convenient way to remember special occasions. Site-goers can even propose marriage with e-greetings by expressing the classic sentiment of “I want to spend the rest of my life with you” complemented by a romantic setting sun, to a cute animated old couple with the message “Let’s grow old together.” A more unconventional card asks “Will you be my wifey?” and features music from the Next album “Welcome to Nextasy.” For users not quite ready for matrimony, the site offers love and dating cards, ranging from the earnest with “dreaming of you” to the daring with handcuffs and whipped cream. An interactive card also allows users to take a quiz to find out how romantic they are. Egreetings.com also has a large selection of musical greeting cards. Click on “Music Scene” and access an emporium of cards featuring artists like Whitney Houston, Christina Aguilera, The Wallflowers, and Kid Rock. The site also features fast facts about the musical artists, making great trivia for fans. Special contests are also available to the music fanatics who check out the site. Visit egreetings.com now to send Barenaked Ladies cards and automatically enter to win backstage passes to their New Year’s Eve extravaganza in Boston. The site offers nine different BNL cards featuring the Canadian band’s popular hits like “One Week” and “Pinch Me.” With links to sites like FTD.COM, CyberRebate.com, and MrsBeasleys.com, users can shop the egreetings.com boutique and send gifts or attach gift certificates to their card. Finally, lively flash animation provides attractive accompaniment to the user’s message. With enough color and energy to brighten up the computer screen, e-greetings are a simple way for users to brighten the days of friends, coworkers and family members.

Emilia Hwang Rating: 8

Message Mates

www.messagemates.com

Sex sells, but not when it’s silly cards filled with phallic symbols that make no sense. At www.messagemates.com, such greetings, which are meant to be funny, don’t always result in laughs. Covering various topics ranging from political satire to holiday humor, the greetings fall short of expectations. The cards are organized into various categories based on whether their content is “sexy,” “violent,” “cute,” “eww” or “sick,” and some even come with parental advisory labels. Users are able to send their cards with prewritten messages that are usually one-liner jokes, and are also given the option to create their own. When viewed for more than five minutes, though, the most the cards will probably accomplish is to bore the user. One of the more tacky cards offered on the site, features characters performing strip teases to holiday music. The characters, “Victoria” and “Stuart,” wish the viewer a “Happy Holidays SWINGER” wearing only strategically placed Santa hats. The greetings, however, contain only mildly perverse humor. They are given corny titles like the “Ice Queen Cometh,” and contain equally corny messages. For example, “Stuart,” the stripper from the Christmas greeting, invites the receiver of a card to “Decorate (his) tree.” Additionally, sometimes the jokes appear to have absolutely no point. One card shows the letters S-a-n-t-a being transformed into S-a-t-a-n, while jolly old Saint Nick is morphed into Lucifer holding a reindeer’s head on a pike. That’s it. That’s the whole message. Where’s the joke? The problem with the cards featured on messagemates.com is that they attempt to be perverted or violent, but in a PC way. Tame and censored cartoon characters are portrayed as dirty and funny resulting in humor that is often mindless and cheesy. Furthermore, the site itself is bothersome to navigate. It is too cluttered and busy, and there are too many hyperlinks presented on each page. With an excessive number of “pop-up” windows that quickly become irritating, messagemates.com makes selecting a card to send harder than the actual process. Basically, the cards featured on the Web site are not clean enough for your mom and not dirty enough for your friends, but, with immature and trite jokes, this site can be mildly amusing.

Sara Bamossy Rating: 5