Cool, Interesting, and Funny Websites For Boredom-Busting

Are you bored at work? Or bored at home? Do you just need a good time waster? Look no further than the internet. The internet is an excellent place to waste time and defuse boredom for a while. The following is a collection of websites that are excellent for that. Some are funny, some are fun, and some are interesting and informative, so choose what you want and read on.

Games:

1) Guess the dictator/sitcom character: http://www.smalltime.com/dictator.html

This is a smart little game in which the player thinks of a dictator or sitcom character and then answers yes or no questions about him/her until the computer makes a guess as to who the player was thinking of. Try it; you'll be surprised by it's accuracy.

2) Twenty Questions: http://www.20q.net

This is the classic car trip game, except the guesser is always the computer. It works in essentially the same way as the one above (both programs gather their data based on input by the people who play). It seems to be less accurate than the one above, but is still fairly accurate and pretty fun to play.

3) Someone Keeps Stealing My Letters: http://web.okaygo.co.uk/apps/letters/flashcom

This is a weird one. You have a fridge with a letters on it (A through Z with many of each in a variety of primary colors). There can be anywhere from 1 to 50 people all working on the same fridge (although if it's just one it isn't very fun of course), and everyone playing has the ability to move the letters around. So trying to make a simple phrase can be difficult if someone else wants that letter - or is just being ornery. Trying to make a simple word can even be difficult sometimes. But sometimes people all band together to create something. Once when I was playing everyone on the fridge helped spell Korea using all of the letters to create the word (small letters coming together to make the shape of big letters). It was great. Don't do this one, though, if you're easily frustrated.

4) Scratchpad: http://www.lunchtimers.com/games/scratchpad/pad_720_550.cfm?roomid=room1

This one is similar to the letters game, except you have more freedom because you can draw/write anything you want. Then people can add to it as they see fit. It can be kind of stupid (kids on the site generally just write obnoxious things) but sometimes it can be fun.

5) Tetris Showdown: http://www.lunchtimers.com/games/tetris/index.cfm
In this one, you get to play Tetris against other players and the computer keeps track of how many games you've won. You can also chat with other players.

Funny:

6) Break: www.break.com

Break is kind of silly and sometimes stupid or offensive but often quite funny. They have a nice variety of videos that people send in (some are commercials or bits of a television show or movie) that you can watch and rate. Most are funny, some are just interesting, involving some sort of crazy stunt, and some are simply videos of "smokin' hot girs" (as the website would say). Some of it borders on pornography or has nudity, but they warn you of these with a little headline beside the video's name reading "Not safe for work." Because they have a wide variety, there's pretty much something for everyone, and they have a search function that you can use to look up specific videos or subjects. This website is not for children.

7) Eric Conveys an Emotion: http://www.emotioneric.com

This guy is so cool. Basically, he conveys emotions (and the term is used loosely) that people request using still pics from a webcam. Some of them are simply his face, but some get more involved (for example: in acting out "girl magnet" he stands smugly on steps among girls who are being magnetically pulled towards him). The emotions run the gamut from "flirtatious" to "unctuous" to "bemused resignation" to "did I leave the oven on?" to "working on a tech support line, answering your 500th call of someone who claims he can't send e-mail." It's pretty funny. It probably won't waste a huge amount of time, but it's worth seeing.

8) Red Meat: www.redmeat.com

This site features a series of comic strips written by Max Cannon. They're odd, disturbing, bizarre, sometimes gross, but really funny. Not a good one to check out if you don't like weird or dark humor. But if you do, this is the site to go to. There are a variety of different characters that all have separate strips written about them, so pick your favorite and read them all. Me, I'm partial to Bug-eyed Earl.

Tests:

9) Color Quiz: www.colorquiz.com

This is kind of a neat little test in which the computer shows you sqares of different colors and you have to click on them, one at a time, in the order that they make you feel best. Then the program rearranges the squares and you repeat the test (\without trying to duplicate your previous answers). Then it gives you results based on the order in which you chose the colors. The results are fairly in-depth and have been known to be surprisingly accurate. It only takes a few minutes to complete, so it's a fun little test to do when you're bored and waiting for something or someone.

10) The Politics Test: http://www.okcupid.com/politics

Are you confused or unsure about your political affiliation? Or maybe you would like to see where you fall on a scale of great politicians of the past and the present? Then take this test. It will offer you a series of statements in which you can agree, strongly agree, disagree or strongly disagree (so it's difficult to do if you do not have strong opinions about anything). Then based on your responses to the statements it will tell you your politcal affiliation based on social and economic factors. It will also show you a graph with famous faces on it and where you fall among the faces. It's pretty interesting and well thought out.

Music:

11) Music Recommendation: www.musicaltaste.com

Musicaltaste is a simple, easy to understand website in which anyone can join and recommend music. Joining is free and simple, and there are no ads affilated with the site, nor is it used for money making purposes in any way. It was started by a guy who loves music and wants to share with other music lovers out there. The community is still pretty small because the website is fairly unknown. Much of the music that has been recommended is somewhat obscure; however, there has been a good variety of music recommended, including world music and older music.

12) Song Meanings: http://www.songmeanings.net

If you're interested in discussing and learning about song meanings, this is a good one to check out. It's basically a forum that has songs' lyrics and then people discussing what they think the lyrics might mean. Some people's comments are not particularly helpful but many comments are enlightening, interesting, and thought provoking. Some people even give information that they read in an interview with the artist or something similar. There is a pretty wide variety of music on the site, although lesser known songs will not have as many comments.

Interesting/Random

13) Gender Genie: http://www.bookblog.net/gender/genie.html

This is a program where you can submit a bit of writing and it will predict whether or not the writer is female or male. This is not based on the content of the writing, but on certain words that statistically are used more frequently by men or women. I'm not sure about the accuracy rate; it has usually thought my writing to be male but that may just be my particular style. Check it out for yourself.

14) Postsecret: www.postsecret.com

This is the most amazing website. Someone created a project in which people were to send in a postcard with a secret on it. The rules were that it had to be on a 4 by 6 inch piece of material and that it had to be a secret - something that the writer has never told anyone. Well, the cards came pouring in, enough so that a book was created of all of them. Now there's a website where new secrets are posted every week. I'm amazed at the creativity of them all. Some people use art they made themselves as a background, some use photographs of themselves, some use photographs they found elsewhere, some use ads they found in magazines, some make collages, some use pictures from books, the list is pretty much endless. As for the content, some are funny, some are sweet, some are tragic, some are embarassing, some are angry, some are scary, some are happy. But they're all blatantly honest and vulnerable, and many are touching.

15) Fly Guy: http://www.trevorvanmeter.com/flyguy

This one is so cool. I barely know how to describe it. Basically, it's an interactive flash animation in which you can move a guy up into the sky using the arrow keys on the keyboard. Once he's up there, you can move him all around and make him interact with any of the crazy objects/people he comes across. But really, this description does not do it justice. Just check it out.

16) The Picture of Everything: http://www.howardhallis.com/artgallery/tpoe

This drawing, by Howard Hallis, contains many famous people, comic book characters, cartoon characters, musicians, and television/movie characters. It's huge, and the webpage allows you to click on smaller sections so you can closely examine them. It even has a character key so you can figure out who everybody is. Some characters found in the pictures include the Simpsons characters, the band Kiss, the bionic woman, The Shadow, Zok the Space Dragon, and the Pink Panther.

The Ultimate Boredom Ending Website:

17) Stumble Upon: www.stumbleupon.com

Stumble upon is a program that you can add to your toolbar and it will take you to the coolest websites on the internet. All you need to do is click "Stumble" whenever you want to see a new website and away you'll go. When you first install it, you can tell it your interests so it knows what kind of sites to direct you to (make sure you tell it you're interested in funny sites and bizarre sites, because those are the best time wasters). And don't worry - it's totally safe and spyware/adware free. Fun!!