Web sites provide soap boxes for venting

Looking for a soap box?

The Internet is, of course, largely a mechanism for venting and expressing one's opinion. But particular Web sites specialize in giving you a place to get it _ whatever it is _ off your chest.

Known as B-SH, the site http://ILoveToComplain.com, says it was created "as a way to vent to the vastness of the Internet."

Even its purpose is veiled in a complaint; the top of its home page reads: "Just what in the sam-hell is this site for? Was this made by hippies?"

Well, it would have to be angry hippies. The most popular B-SH on the site (which claims to have invented a "new four-letter word") is a spiel on rappers who deride illegal downloading of music yet rap about prostitution and robbing banks.

Others are less specific: "We live in a world of idiots. Period." And still others are genuinely emotional: "I hate cancer for taking my friend's life."

If you want to literally say your piece, you can go to Chinswing.com, a site currently in beta and developed by Dean Worth. There, you can upload an audio file of yourself giving a tirade, asking a question or sharing a commonality.

The idea is to do more than vent _ it's to start an actual out-loud conversation, a rarity on the Internet.

Chinswing's biggest problem is that sites like YouTube foster dialogue in audio AND video.

If you're looking for spirited debate, ConvinceMe.net (also in beta) offers a place for counterpoint to your point. You can post an open debate for all to join, and then rack up votes for your side of the argument. A recent thread on whether the government should legalize prostitution was convincing 39 users and prompting only 10 naysayers earlier this week.

You can also go head-to-head with another debater on, say, Catholic priests and marriage, the effect television has on society or anything else you care to discuss. The winner is determined by votes.

But if all of these sites don't satisfy your urge to express, and you still want to voice your unhappy state of affairs, there is one place to wish upon the Web. At wishood.com, you can list all the things you would like _ and hope someone grants them.

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Video OF THE WEEK: "Le Grand Content"

In one of the more artistic and savvy uses of the YouTube medium, "Le Grand Content" is a four-minute film that philosophizes on life through graphs and diagrams. Made by Clemens Kogler with Karo Szmit, it's narrated in a heavy German accent over eerie, discordant music. Instead of analysis of budgets, "Le Grand Content" includes things like a Venn diagram of taxes, death and spam _ all of which, the narrator says, "there's just no way around."

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DOWNLOAD THIS: "You Know I'm No Good," Amy Winehouse

The 23-year-old British soul singer Ais startling new talent, and her song has the ring of a classic. Over a nearly drum-and-bass beat and deep horn flourishes, Winehouse _ a brazen femme fatale _ lays it down: "I told you I was trouble/ You know that I'm no good." Her new album "Back to Black" lands stateside in March.

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EDITOR'S NOTE _ What's your favorite Web site? E-mail AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle at fcoyle(at)ap.org