By Rick Devereux
Twiddling thumbs. Humming a tune. Fidgeting with your BlackBerry.
Some might call such activities time wasters, but they are more accurately things we do when we get bored.
For me, when I get bored, my eyes glaze over and I seriously do not think of anything at all. My wife does not seem to believe me when I answer, “Nothin’” if she asks what am I thinking about.
But I do have that special ability to turn off my brain.
It’s turning it on that I might have trouble with.
Here are some time-wasters for your enjoyment.
1) A complete time waster is going through email. I have some sort of mental disorder where I can’t have any un-opened text messages or emails. I NEED to open them up. The problem is most of my email seems to be about winning some foreign country’s lottery, improving my performance in bed (Hey, my wife hasn’t complained yet!), or some other unprovoked piece of junk mail.
And if it seems like Spam takes up the bulk of you inbox, you’re right!
A recent study by Symantec’s MessageLab Intelligence reported spam now accounts for 90.4 of all email. The scary thing is spammers are getting more and more creative in using different domains to send he unwanted emails, meaning it’s getting harder and harder for spam filters to know what’s junk and what isn’t.
2) If you want to waste your time, but in a way that will put a smile on your face, check out these adorable pictures of a baby chimp and baby tiger playing together. Awwwww.
3) While Facebook can be a great tool for keeping in touch with friends and/or family across the globe, and even re-connecting with people you never wanted to see again (seriously, there’s a reason I stopped talking to you after 7th Grade), let’s face it, Facebook is a time waster.
There are tons of tests when you’re bored (gee, I always wanted to know what Periodic Element I was. Now I know it’s Boron).
Christopher Beam and Chris Wilson with Slate.com put together a piece on President Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office as if it were published on Facebook. Pretty amusing.
4) Speaking of Facebook, make sure you know who can and can not view your profile. That way you know what and what not to put on your profile. This guy apparently needs a lesson on that topic.
5) CollegeHumor.com is a fantastic site if you are bored. You will laugh your pants off at pretty much anything on the site, and you will end up trying to read as many stories as possible, before you know it, you will have wasted half of your day there.
This little slideshow about Odd Man Out is my latest addiction at CollegeHumor.
