This is the full story of an award, and my reaction to that award.

The Making of a Page

On Wednesday morning, July 16, 1997, I received e-mail from someone who (directly or indirectly) works for Sauza Tequila. The e-mail "congratulated" me for winning an award.

I almost had deleted the e-mail without reading it, because by its subject line it looked like spam. But I read it, and at first I was pleased -- I thought they were awarding my entire site with something that would give me more visibility.

When I realized they had only honored my Vanilla Ice page (which is just one line, I created it on a lark back in April '95), I was less pleased. It didn't really seem harsh enough to be a "Harsh Site of the Day."

When I checked out their site I was even less pleased. Not only was it a sleazy commercial alcohol promotion page, but they were just poking fun at most of their harsh sites of the day -- in what I thought was an annoyingly smug way.

I had two days, since the e-mail said I was the Harsh Site of the Day for Friday, July 18.

So I asked my friends on antiweb what I should do to respond to this "award." At first, I just was going to make a parody of their award badge or make up some Top Ten list of why Sauza Teuquila is best used as a lens cleaning solution. Just something to tweak them.

After some discussion, I took Jody Cline's advice: she said I should add a picture of an ice cube to the Vanilla Ice page. The ice cube would lead to a new page containing my reasons for not drinking alcohol, and perhaps show some of the ways alcohol can disrupt people's lives.

I was very busy and didn't have time to prepare the page in advance. But when Thursday turned to Friday, I checked out Sauza's site. It was a little after midnight, and sure enough, they were linking to my Vanilla Ice page. I had to finish what I was working on, but then I stopped working and threw together a quick page at 1 a.m. or so.

(The original version of the page was pretty simple, just one image, some of my thoughts on alcohol, and a couple of links. The part that took me the longest was getting a good picture of an ice cube to use as the link on the Vanilla Ice page.)

I kept modifying the secret page a bit, by adding more images and text. I was still working on my book and I was on a deadline, so I didn't have too much time to work on my secret page. But I was able to surf a little, looking for some facts about alcoholism and drunk driving to put on the page.

At 3:45 a.m., I had finished making the page the way I wanted it. I did some more work on other things, and then composed a mass mail to my friends to let them come by and watch the fun. I also verified that Sauza was still linking to me.

I checked my logs; there hadn't been that many visitors. Three people had come by before 1 a.m. and seen the original Vanilla Ice page, without modification. Later on a few people had seen the Vanilla Ice page and followed its new link. Maybe five people saw different versions of the new page before I had finished it, and about eleven more saw the finished version as a result of Sauza's link to me.

I went back to work (if you're curious, I was co-writing an HTML book for Sybex, called HTML 4.0: No experience required) and by 5 a.m. or so I was getting tired. (I work at night since it's easier to not be distracted.) When I went to bed at 6, Sauza was still linking to me.

I got up at 1 p.m., and checked my mail. A lot of my friends had replied. But I read some e-mail sent between 9 and 10 a.m. saying that Sauza wasn't linking to me any more. Sure enough, when I went to their site, they had switched my Vanilla Ice page link for a link to a gynecology page.

Oh well -- they saw what I'd done and they pulled the plug. I was too harsh for them.

I worked until 4 p.m. or so, and then decided to update the alcohol page and let people know that Sauza had removed the link.

Later in the day, I decided to let a few other groups and organizations know about the story, just in case they were interested. And I made this new page with a history of what happened...the day that I outharshed "The Harsh Site of the Day."

Update: Wednesday, July 23

And an off-the-cuff submisssion to the HotWired tips resulted in a phone call from Wired staff writer Dan Mitchell. Nice guy, very straightforward--he just wanted the facts. I honestly didn't think he'd write it up for Wired News. But as I worked last night through to this morning (you think your hours are crazy?), I noticed a couple of comments coming in about the page.

Hmm, I thought, who's linked to me here? On a hunch I checked out Wired's News page, and was amazed to see my name in a story by Dan Mitchell.

Thanks for reading the full history. Comments have all been positive and supportive, so far, but I'm open to hearing whatever you have to say. I'm planning on creating a feedback page as soon as I get a moment, so let me know if you want to have a public comment or just stay private.