Remember this is not one of my jokes... and unfortunately I don't have a reference
to who it has been written by.
Boredom Breakers
This List Includes:
Things you can do with absolutely nothing
Things you can do with very little
Things you can do with another person
The amusement potential for each activity is denoted.
Things you can do with absolutely nothing
Push your eyes for interesting light show
(Amusement Potential: 1-5 minutes) See a variety of blobs,
stars and flashes. Try to make out things-is your
subconscience trying to send you a message? Can you control
what you see by pressing different areas with different
forces? Would it be possible to somehow see the same
effects on TV?
See how long you can hold your breath
(Amusement Potential: 4-20 minutes) Not that much fun, but
it sure passes the time. Play with a friend, or try to beat
your own personal best. Some tips: hyperventilate before
hand, and stay as still as possible. My personal best is
2:00 (exactly).
Try to not think about polar bears
(Amusement Potential: 1-5 minutes) This is especially
hard, because by trying too much, you remember what you
were trying to avoid thinking of. If you try too little,
you end up thinking about polar bears anyway.
Scratch yourself
(Amusement Potential: 1-3 minutes) Go ahead, scratch
yourself now. Even if nothing itches, go ahead. Doesn't
that feel pretty good?
Hurt yourself
(Amusement Potential: 1-3 minutes) What is pain? Why is it
unpleasant? There's nothing physical about it - it's all
in your mind. Plus, after pinching yourself for awhile,
boredom will seem nice next to being in pain.
Try to swallow your tongue
(Amusement Potential: 1-3 minutes) There's not much to say
about this one. It is possible.
Look at something for awhile, shut eyes, study after image
(Amusement Potential: 2-5 minutes) Another great time
waster. It takes about 30 seconds of staring to create an
after image, and the image is then viewable for about the
same length of time. Fun to combine this one with pushing
on your eyes.
Get yourself as nauseated as possible
(Amusement Potential: 5-10 minutes) Best achieved by
looking straight up and spinning around. Try to be so
dizzy you can't even stand up. This is also entertaining
due to the "makes boredom seem a lot better" effect (see
"Hurt Yourself").
Things you can do with very little
See what's in your neighbor's trash
(Amusement Potential: 20-30 minutes) You can learn a lot
about people by what they throw out. You might uncover
some dark secret about them. Plus, they might be throwing
out something with value that still works, like a VCR.
Watch TV, repeat everything said in Italian accent
(Amusement Potential: 5-10 minutes) Sort of entertaining.
Fun to pretend the people on the screen are actually
talking that way.
Call up people who write editorials you disagree with
(Amusement Potential: 15-60 minutes) I'm surprised no one
has thought of this before. Unleash your fury on the
person who had the nerve to write a letter like that! I'm
pretty sure it doesn't qualify as a prank phone call, too.
Make prank phone calls
(Amusement Potential: 20-60 minutes) Very entertaining,
but requires discipline. Remember - vulgarities don't make
a call funny, but getting the other person to believe a
ridiculous story will. Even more fun if you get a bunch of
people on the line using a Wonderphone and take turns
making the calls. One to get you started off: Call
McDonalds, try to make reservations.
Pretend all humans will die except for people in room with you
(Amusement Potential: 10-20 minutes) What would you do if
this really happened? Would the group stay together, or
would there be factions? Who would join what group?
Remember, there would only be power for a few days before
the plants ran out of fuel or broke. To travel, you would
always have to be near cars to siphon gas out of. Best to
do with people you know.
Step off a curb with eyes shut, imagine it's a cliff
(Amusement Potential: 2-5 minutes) To get any benefit out
of this one, you have to have a good imagination. Don't
step off immediately, build up to the jump. Study the
ravine below. Feel the winds at that altitude. Step off
and...AHHHHHH!!!!!
Burn things with a magnifying glass
(Amusement Potential: 5-30 minutes) Ants are always fun to
use for this, but burning the face of someone you don't
like, under some circumstances, can be just as
entertaining.
Things you can do with another person
Have a water drinking contest
(Amusement Potential: 5-10 minutes) While the competition
is fun, you probably won't feel too good afterward. To
give your event an old western theme, slam the cups upside
down on the tables after you have emptied them.
Stare at the back of someone's head until they turn around
(Amusement Potential: 2-5 minutes) This works on the "I
have the feeling I'm being watched" principle. Conduct an
experiment-does this really work?
Have a "Who is less competitive" competition
(Amusement Potential: 1-3 minutes) Trying to win at this
will make you lose. Trying to lose makes you win which
makes you lose. Not trying at all makes you lose which
makes you win which makes you lose.
Pick up a dog so it can see things from your point of view
(Amusement Potential: 3-5 minutes) Think about it: your
dog has only seen the house from a viewpoint from 6" to 2'
high (15 to 60 cm for all you metric fans). It's never
seen the tops of counters, what you keep on your desk, the
tops of shelves, etc. Try looking at things from its point
of view, too.
Pull out a hair, stick in someone's ear
(Amusement Potential: 1-5 minutes) Best done to sleeping
people. Added challenge in having no one else around,
because then you can't blame it on anyone else. Try to beat
your record number of times before the person catches on.
Pour water in hand, make sneeze noise, throw water on back of
person's neck
(Amusement Potential: 5-15 minutes) Always a good gag. For
an even bigger reaction out of the person, act like you're
not sorry at all for what they think you did. Comment
instead on how big that sneeze was or about how there was
a lot of mucus in that one.
In reply to the above, the following was sent:
Hey while we're discussing biomechanics...
The eyes actually have an effective resolution of about 3000 by 3000 dots or pixels for all you computery people. Now, within this region, since some of these pixels are sensitive to light intensity (rods), and some pixels are color sensitive to either red, green or blue (cones), you can imagine how blotchy the picture would look if a computer monitor worked the same way. This reduces the resolution somewhat.
Now when the raw optical signal is received by the brain, the brain subconsciously interpolates the data that it receives to effectively enhance the image. So yes, those blotches on your face when you look in the mirror are actually there; they are not an artifact of the optical processes involved in the basic sense of sight.
Interestingly, the cones are concentrated towards the center of the eye. Since the rods provide the contrast and detect movement, you will find that you will notice movement of an object more if you are not quite looking directly at it - especially at night. Color is only available for about 60%-70% of your field of vision of 180 degrees.
This is also why that flickering neon light is ten times more annoying when viewed from the corner of your eye than when you are looking directly at it.
Here's another game to waste time with if you have a box of coloured pencils. Randomly pick up a pencil without looking at it, then hold it out in either hand at arms length to one side of you where it is outside your field of vision. Now slowly move the pencil forwards into your field of vision until you can determine what colour the pencil is. Experiment with specific colours. Amount of time that this will entertain you for depends on the size of your box of pencils. I guess 3 minutes for normal people. Several hours if you are a Macintosh user.
Caution: Do not poke your eyes with the pencils. It could be dangerous.
And before you purchase a kilo of bull's eyes from the butcher intending to smoke the cones in the eyes, chill. I here they are not hallucinogenic. Besides, bulls have black and white vision; ie: no cones. And they taste terrible.
Well, that kept me occupied for at least 10 minutes.
And in reply to the above:
Somebody say biochemistry?
Talking about Red, Blue and Green cones... did you know that while each cone DOES process individual colour information, that information is actually LOST very early in the processing of the data within the optical cortex?
Basically, the message that the inner workings of the brain receives is not "colour" in absolute terms, but colour _difference_, that is, the relative changes in colour within the area of a "pixel"...
THIS explains why you get after-images when you stare at something complex, and then stare at a plain colour (or close your eyes) - the difference in colour varies depending on the colour of the pixel you were initially staring at!
You might ask how we are able to stare straight at something and still see it if our sight works on colour difference? Simple: we can't. Our eyes are actually constantly flickering from side to side and up and down to give us a subtlely different perspective on a scene, so that the colour differences remain fairly constant, and we THINK we are seeing a still image... Artificial optical cortexes that have been developed based on neural network technology which stare straight at an image see it slowly fade into greyness, unless the scene changes...
Isn't nature wonderful?
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