The Electric Postcard When it's your parents' anniversary and you can't make it to Tiffany's, send them a sweet, satisfying virtual greeting from The Electric Postcard. This MIT Media Lab site lets you choose a postcard from its eclectic collection, pair it with a personal message (complete with links and images), and address it to your favorite Web maven. Addressees receive an e-mail asking them to claim their gift at the postcard pickup window. Give it a try; everybody but the U.S. Postal Service is doing it. postcards.www.media.mit.edu/Postcards

The Gigaplex If you haven't yet realized that -plex is the suffix of the nineties, this tribute to the multimedia world of entertainment will drive the point home. Living up to its name, the Gigaplex links to a plethora of plexes: Filmplex, Bookplex, Musicplex, Theaterplex, Artplex, Golfplex, Photoplex, TVplex, Foodplex, Loveplex, and Yoga-plex, to name a few. Each area contains countless interviews, excerpts, graphics, essays, insights, news, audio files, and videos that will keep you more than occupied. www.directnet.com/wow

Interesting Places for Kids Until the day when preschool children are learning HTML before hitting the coloring books, this site is one of the best ways to guide your youngster through cyberspace. Interesting Places for Kids is a categorized list of fun, entertaining, and educational sites that Stephen R. Savitzky has compiled for his daughter, Katy. Links run the gamut of Web genres, from search tools to toys, music, films, and television. Be forewarned, however: Little Katy's Web pseudonym is Kathryn of Chaos. www.crc.ricoh.com/people/steve/kids.html

MCA/Universal Cyberwalk Since print ads, TV commercials, McDonald's tie-ins, and roadside billboards aren't enough, the major entertainment studios have now brought their enormous product promotions to the Web. MCA/Universal Cyberwalk, the pioneer of such sites, provides hype for each of its parent company's subsidiaries, including MCA Records, Universal Pictures, and Putnam Berkley Publishing. You can purchase videos, listen to audio files, read up on industry news, preview films, or check out Doc Brown's 1.21-gigawatt Back to the Future ride. www.mca.com

Mediocre Site of the Day For those who despise hyperbole, Jensen Harris's modest home page examines the middle ground between the Cool Site of the Day and Worst of the Web. The Mediocre Site of the Day lets you begin each morning with a new, strictly average Web page, then pore over the mass of flippant responses that it illicits. With such sites as 'Cleaning Flood-Soiled Clothing', 'Good Woodworking,' and 'The Guided Tour of Rammed Earth Tire Homes,' you will never lack mediocrity again. pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~jharris/mediocre.html

Mirsky's Worst of the Web If you are simply too average to see the humor in the Mediocre Site of the Day, this Mirsky-Style Productions page will boost your self-esteem with a journey through the Web's most pathetic sites. The infamous Worst of the Web icons, which are added almost daily, link to some amazingly painful examples of HTML coding, including 'Endangered Feces' and 'Nerds R Us.' Should you begin to find merit in such sites, you may want to partake of the Mirsky Drunk Browsing Test. mirsky.turnpike.net/wow/Worst.html

Mr. Showbiz Not since the days of Hedda Hopper has the entertainment industry been written about with such wit and aplomb. Starwave's Mr. Showbiz provides daily columns, features, and tidbits from some extremely sharp virtual pens, in addition to current movie, TV, theater, and music reviews, star bios, and Academy Award databases. Each piece is augmented with elegant graphics, audio files, and photos of your favorite stars. As you browse Mr. Showbiz with bottled water and a cellular phone, you'll feel as if you're in a booth at the Polo Lounge. Web3.starwave.com/showbiz

The Spot After graduating from afternoon time slots to conquer prime-time television, the soap opera has now migrated to the Web. The Spot chronicles a group of young, restless, and beautiful Californians who share a beach house and wear chic clothing. The housemates provides daily journal entries in which they relate their amazing adventures, complain about their unbearable hardships, and show off their bare midriffs. You can even interact with Michelle, Carrie, Lon, Tara, and Tomeiko by sending them fashion-conscious e-mail. www.thespot.com

S.P.Q.R: The Virtual Rome With its ionic columns, towering stone arches, and vestal virgins, CyberSites interactive Web game will bring you closer to ancient Rome than a college toga party. S.P.Q.R: The Virtual Rome lets you navigate the city's vivid, three-dimensional streets with the help of five wise and elusive characters. Getting used to the game takes a while, but once you learn its intricacies you'll be gallivanting about the streets of Rome as if it were your backyard. Your task, of course, is to save the city from imminent destruction using nothing but a mouse and keyboard. Beware the Ides of March. www.pathfinder.com/@@PhaM2uHPFgAAQJ18/twep/rome

The Squat If parody is the sincerest form of flattery, then the Squat exudes more adulation than a shelf of Hall- mark cards. This deadpan rip-off of The Spot supplants the California beach-house crowd with 'five hicks living in a trailer with a horse.' Earl, Woody, Cleitus, Valvoline, and Larlene provide Spot-esque journal entries that stay away from bare midriffs and stick to fine backwoods English. Should you become well versed in Squatterese, you may want to consider Cleituss' invitation to move in and help pay the rent: 'Yep, weese needin' your all's hep!' theory.physics.missouri.edu/~georges/Josh/ squat.