Coolest Guy Nominee 3: Dave and his 'zone'

'The Coolest Guy' is a quest to trawl the web for the coolest people in the world. Many people would think Hollywood is a good location to start looking, or our sports stars, which is fair enough. Here at UpShake.com , we believe that it is the unsung heroes who deserve recognition. People who believe they are cool, announce it to the world, but don't get the recognition they expect. Get nominees ONE and TWO.

Nominee 3: Dave and his 'zone'

David Podgor is the creator and maintainer of one of the internet's most popular websites, 'Dave's Zone'. Don't be fooled by the "Population:1" label on his very welcoming frontpage banner, I'm sure there is occasionally more than 1 person viewing it at a time. The thumbs-up pose Dave gives you upon entering his website no doubt encourages visitors to stay a little longer upon arriving. It is well complemented by two american flags which, by some feat of technical brilliance, Dave has managed to make appear as though they are being affected by some sort of intra-browser winds.

As you can tell by the web design of 'Dave's Zone', he is highly skilled in the art of HTML web design using many expensive design tools to assist his artistic visions in coming to life. So, "How do I design such a large undertaking of a website and make it look as good as Dave's Zone?", I hear you ask... Well, luckily Dave has incuded a section explaining the history of the zone. After reading the progress of his site I was interested to find that the site hasn't always gone under the 'Dave's Zone' moniker. There was a period of 5 years during which it was named 'Potomac Hobby Inc.', which I'm sure you all agree has none of the razzle dazzle of the current name. This and many more intriguing details on the site's history can be found here.

So what is it that makes this website a pure heroin-filled needle in the contaminated haystack that is the internet's countless personal websites? There are many gold nuggets I have found and I haven't even looked through the whole site. He has a delightful section on elongated coins which is the best resource on the subject I have ever found. From what I read there he has 57 of these coins, what a collection! And I thought my best friend in year 5 was impressive when he collected all the Tazos from chip packets. Dave is an accomplished photographer also. A section devoted to his shots of bridges, skylines and 'cool views' is also worth a look. This 'cool view' of a few buildings in the distance and uninteresting trees in the foreground is the best one I found.

Finally, the section on finding wild mushrooms needs no introduction. All I can say is that it changed my life.

"Think about how you feel after watching TV all day: you feel guilty because you’ve wasted the day and not accomplished anything, and the activity you did to help you relax only made you feel more stressed out. Next time the weather is nice and you have “nothing to do” try to go on a foray – anywhere with grass and mulch will do; your lawn, a parking lot – and then see how you feel when you’re done. If you are like me, you’ll never want to watch TV again."

Yes, I too am often stressed out by watching TV. Can anyone think of something better to do on a sunny day than wandering around a parking lot looking for mushrooms? I can only make one addition to improve that day- once you find the mushrooms, return to the TV and forget about your pathetic life by consuming them and enjoying the hallucinations. Perhaps TV will be less stressful when you watch Spongebob Squarepants.