Taking matters into my own little hands, I decided to create a new superhero - one that could stand in for Spider-Man on weekdays. So I squatted on the floor, got out the crayons and began. Never too good at drawing, it took me a couple of hours before the shape on the paper appealed to me. I christened him DannoMight, and flapped the paper before my parents. "What's it, Ma?" I asked.

"Is it a bear?" said mum. "No, I think it looks more like a bunny!" That was dad's assessment.

I cringed. The idea that my macho superhero looked more like a fluffy rabbit made me set the crayons aside. Permanently.

Now, years later, I surfed in on the Hero Machine, a Web-based application that lets anyone create superheroes straight from imagination, without being limited by mediocre drawing skills. To run the program, you need to have Flash 5.0 installed. Get a free download at Macromedia.com.

Though no longer entranced by superheroes, I decided it was time to give DannoMight the appearance he was meant to have.

With the Hero Machine, you can create superheroes by clicking on various categories and components. Categories allow you to determine a genre for the figure, like sports or fantasy. Components let you select from a ton of options for each part of the superhero's body like eyes, mouth etc, and costume pieces like headgear, coats and weapons. Choices are diverse - Even minute details like eyebrows come in twelve different shapes, while hairstyles are broad enough to accommodate Medusa's hair-do. After picking a certain shape, you can give it the shade you want, using the colour menu.

I settled on a male humanoid, and was pleasantly surprised that the options allowed me to fashion something that came quite close to the character I had imagined so long ago.

Unfortunately, as of now, there are mainly male figures, although the site promises equal treatment for "all genders" when the next version is launched.

That leaves DannoMight waiting impatiently for his female companion.

Football lovers, especially in Italy, have their own superhero: Roberto Baggio. And the player's Web site features a Flash game for users. Magical Kicks enables you to attempt free kicks from different angles. In order to score a goal, it's necessary to correctly determine three factors for your kick: height, direction and lift. The key is in getting good estimates for all three, with regard to your position.

The game has four stages, and scoring just one goal in each is enough to move you through to the next. In the meantime, whenever you miss, an icon of Baggio appears on screen to offer words of advice or contempt.

"Are you a little inattentive today?" it says, after a bad miss; "Check always the wind's strength and direction" to those who apparently did not; and when your shot is saved by the keeper, "Study the goalkeeper's moves: Nobody is invincible," says the man who probably learnt the truth of that last part when he failed to score from the spot during the penalty shoot-out against Brazil in the World Cup 1994 final.

Additionally, you can watch immediate replays for every shot you make, to see where you went wrong on the bad ones and to relive the good. Once you successfully complete all four stages, you are awarded the Passion Cup, while the site shows a tally of the number of goals, posts and cups you won. It's your chance to score a few virtual goals, if you're miffed about not being at the World Cup venue.

But while Japan and Korea seem inviting right now, one place that does not is Jammu and Kashmir. Turmoil overshadows the rugged beauty of the North-Indian state. However, for a group of bikers, the district of Ladakh is akin to Paradise, and "was built to impress man, bowl him over with its magnitude and remind him what an insignificant twit he really is."

Ride Now; Royal Enfield in Paradise is a Flash presentation of a bike route through this region and over the "greatest mountain highway that exists on this planet - from the Rohtang Pass in Himachal Pradesh to the highest piece of tarmac in the world on the Khardung La - a forbidding, rocky path carved straight out of some wizards-and-assorted-halfwits-type fantasy flick," according to bikers Joy, Goose and Gautam.

Click on 'Trip Mode' to begin following their journey to the world's top. Your first glimpse is of the Royal Enfield 'Bullet' (1993 model), capable of 115 kmph. Interactive maps of stops along the way help you chart their progress, and clicking on each spot brings up factual information.

Ride Now doesn't describe the impressions of the riders and accounts of their travels. Rather, it focuses mainly on the route itself and would be most helpful as a guide to those contemplating a similar adventure - one that would require a good bike and a strong heart.

But while a hardy bike can be appreciated easily, a strong heart's appreciation is not as effortless. To better understand that small, delicate organ which assumes such a pivotal role, visit Open Heart, for yet another Flash presentation, this one by a cardiologist. The site has exercises aimed at giving you "an interesting hands-on experience and good working knowledge" of the way the heart is organised and operates.

The first is a simple one, where you fit together pieces of the heart putting each in its rightful place. Rolling your cursor over each part gives you details of that component's functions. More interesting, especially for schoolchildren, is the exercise on constructing the blood circulation model. The process is split into five parts, and after reading each, the user has to arrange them in the correct order. Once done, click the 'Activate' button. If you've arranged them successfully, you'll see 'blood' circulating through a diagram of the heart.

Other features include a Heart Glossary and information on related diseases and their treatment.