Incidental Amusements

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they are suddenly no longer satisfied with how they spend their time. I imagine the internal dialogue goes something along the lines of, “I should do something other than drink beer all day,” or maybe, “I should just drink beer all day.”

Since the latter inevitably leads to the former, you eventually come to the realization that you need a hobby.

A hobby should be something that interests you, something with which you have a personal connection. The problem is that if you were really that interested in anything, you’d already be doing it and wouldn’t have this issue in the first place. So you start to look at other people’s hobbies for inspiration and this can be a little depressing.

From an outside perspective, others’ hobbies appear meaningless. It’s hard to imagine hustling down to the post office ecstatically awaiting the release of new stamps, eager to see what “novel” collection the United States Postal Service has devised (usually something along the lines of National Peat Bog Month). The real fun comes in when they make a misprint; imagine the hilarity that would ensue from “Beat Pog!” Endless hours of enjoyment.

If that idea doesn’t float your boat, take a cruise down to the local hobby store and pick out a random hobby. You could be flying a miniature airplane or constructing a miniature alternative universe where people still use trains to get around. A hobby is ultimately an activity that feels rewarding but has no real value other than the conversations you can have with other people who do things like collect coins.

My advice is to find a hobby you can easily drop as soon as you get bored of it, so you don’t wind up deceiving yourself into thinking that doing puzzles every day is fun. This means making a hobby out of destroying hobbies.

Collect some neat stamps and then lose them. Buy a kite and fly it into a tree. Ruin all your tiny train sets by causing horrible tiny train wrecks that will have grave impacts on tiny imaginary lives since they have no little cars.

If you don’t have a hobby, you shouldn’t feel pressured to find one because you could be doing something actually worthwhile in your life (like drinking beer all day). Find the best way you know to kill time and pursue it mercilessly until you’ve become an expert on the subject. Then you can have fantastic talks with other nonhobby enthusiasts like, “Well I had already clipped my nails and I wasn’t really hungry, so I just sort of spaced out for an hour or two.”

So climb a tree, fly a kite or try desperately to be funny despite your hangover. But if nothing interests you, don’t feel bad – you probably just aren’t that interesting.

Frolic in your boredom and look forward to regaling your children with tales of how back in your day, kids could waste every hour of daylight on the Internet.

(4/07/11) Incidental Amusements

There are a lot of things in today's society that we've grown to accept, but that in truth are pretty wacky.

Take gum for example. It's essentially a piece of rubber coated in minty flavoring that we gnaw on for hours at a time to give ourselves the illusion of eating.

Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with chewing on some strange composite material, but considering it was originally made to be a sealant I think they could've come up with a slightly more creative name than "chewing gum."

Next up: beards. Hair – on your face. Why does it grow there? No one knows, not even scientists or librarians, and they're pretty smart. My only guess is that when monkeys decided to take the next step and evolve into humans, they figured their faces would be cold.

Beards are most useful for stroking while deep in thought, but they can also be used to create a faux jaw line or to strain soup. Of course, their main function is to make wizards like Gandalf and Dumbledore look cool, so I guess it's possible that wizards invented them at the same time they invented chewing gum.

Then we have Nickelback. C'mon Canada, how could you possibly think that was a good idea?

We put floor mats on the bottoms of our cars, but I really don't see any difference between them and the regular car floor. If you have to vacuum them to clean them anyway, why not just vacuum the floor of the car instead and save yourself 30 bucks? But then again, without matching skull floor mats to go with your flaming skull steering wheel cover, decals, cigarette lighter and trailer hitch, your truck would just look feminine.

Finally, cows. What a stupid animal to eat. All they do is stand around stolidly and chew food that they've already eaten. What made us choose that gassy, mooing creature as our main food source while we've killed off the cool ones like buffalo, dodos and giant turtles?

Imagine driving down the road and passing a grizzly bear farm. Now there's an animal worth eating. Or drinking, if you happen to be straining your bear soup through your beard.

(2/17/11) Incidental Amusements

If you're reading this and you haven't seen Epic Meal Time on YouTube, you might want to turn away now. Your stomach may not be prepared for the recipe I'm about to share. Do the crossword, or perhaps peruse the comics.

For those of you with stronger constitutions, Epic Meal Time is a testosterone-fueled cooking show featuring dishes that would probably make even Arnold Schwarzenegger question his masculinity. With dishes like meat salad and the slaughterhouse Christmas special, the cast strives to create the most heart attack-worthy feasts, one slice of bacon at a time.

Because copying people with a death wish is always a good idea, several of my friends and I decided to make a tribute video featuring our own grease-soaked, artery-clogging creation: Frysagna.

Frysagna is the food that food would bake if it had any self-preservation instincts. I'm still avoiding the chicken nuggets in my freezer and it's been nearly three weeks since we grease-fried Frysagna into existence.

To make this dish of death, we deep-fried two bags of French fries and a bag of chicken fries and threw them into a lasagna plate before draping them with a whole bag of shredded cheese. As if that were not enough, we broke out the bacon – because apparently you can't have a manly meal without bacon – and used it to wrap … everything.

Chicken nuggets, mozzarella sticks, and scallops were all enveloped in the meaty embrace of raw bacon and baked until they drowned in their own grease. Each layer of bacon-wrapped insanity was blanketed by a thick layer of shredded cheese.

Since we didn't have enough plates to hold our appetizers, I got a crash course in bacon-weaving as my eyes streamed tears from the grease permeating the air. While our bacon plates fried, we attempted yet another life-threatening experiment —filling a chocolate fountain with four boxes of beef broth to create a fountain of gravy. It actually worked until the pure power of disgusting managed to clog up its inner workings.

When our fried beast was done baking, we bathed it in a mixing bowl full of melted Cheese Whiz and threw our bacon plates, candied bacon and bacon scallops on top. The resulting monstrosity weighed in at a whopping 23,605 calories and 1,578 grams of fat.

Covered in evaporated grease and flecks of Cheez Whiz, we sat down to enjoy our meal. And by "enjoy" I mean "survive."

Five Original Boredom Busters

Bubble Shower - If you find yourself alone with nothing to do, a bubble shower can be a great experience. For this activity you will need a bath-shower combination, one bottle of bubble bath mix and some music. You may also need a sense of adventure. A bubble shower is created by pouring an entire bottle of bubble bath mix into the tub and then turning the shower head on at an intensity and angle that closely resembles gentle rain. At this point you should play some relaxing music in the background such as Enya or Andrea Bocelli. Then, lay down while the water falls from above and the tub fills from beneath with bubble filled water. A bubble shower can be one of the most relaxing experiences of your life.

Foretelling the Future with Facebook - What good could come from technologically illiterate 40- or 50-somethings joining Facebook? It may appear that these older generations are encroaching on our territory and making the site boring. This is not the case; older generations are in fact supplying us with great material for hours of entertainment, uploaded photos from decades past. What is needed for this activity is a Facebook account with access to an older user's photos, a group of friends and free time. Begin by clicking through the old photos. Start a discussion where everyone gives their opinion about how each person in the photograph looks and also gives their opinion on what they think the person looks like now. For example, I might look at a photo and say that the woman looks very beautiful, but think she probably lost all of her looks within five years and began eating at McDonalds every day. After discussion and potentially some bet placements, click on the tags to reveal the current Facebook page and profile picture of the person in question. There is sure to be some "oohs," "ahhs," gasps and laughs. The activity may seem mean, but you could be doing much worse.

Cash Cab: Geneseo - If you are bored and want to do something semi-productive, then Cash Cab: Geneseo is for you. You will need a car and a ballsy friend looking for a date. One person is the driver, and the other sits in the back seat. Drive around Geneseo until the back-seater spots a potential date. The driver pulls next to the hottie and the back seat contestant rolls down the window and gains the attention of the pedestrian. The back-seater must say, "Excuse me, can you help me with a question? I'm on a TV game show called 'Cash Cab.'" After the hottie agrees, the driver needs to ask a question to the two. The hottie provides an answer and then the driver, regardless of the answer, says that it is correct. The back-seater must say, "Thanks. You really helped. Can I get your number in case I need you for the 'mobile shout out?'" It's so ridiculous, and clever, that it might work.

The Text Race of Worth - If you and a friend are very bored, then this game is for you. All you need is two people, each armed with a cell phone. The object of the game is to receive a text message faster than your friend. Each person looks through their contacts and chooses the person that he or she believes will quickly respond to a text message. One rule is that the person chosen from the contacts cannot be someone you have spoken to that day. The two participants must agree on a phrase to send, and each person must type the exact same phrase into their message to be sent. Examples include, "Hey" or, "What are you up to?" Bets can then be placed on the outcome. The cell phones are then laid on a table side by side and "SEND" is pressed simultaneously on each phone. The first person to receive a response from that message is the winner. This game can be a great way to boost your self-esteem, or do the exact opposite. Choose your contacts wisely!

Listen for Lyrics - This activity will be fun whilst requiring some critical thinking. All you need is a good ear, some lyrical knowledge and an outgoing attitude. The object of this activity is to make a link between someone's everyday speech and the lyrics of a song. When you are in normal conversation with someone, listen to what they are saying and constantly compare their phrases and words with your knowledge of music lyrics. When they say something that matches a song lyric, you interject and continue the song by singing the rest of the lyrics. An example of this occurred when I was walking with a friend back from a party. He was talking about how he probably should not have gone out that night because he had a lot to do the next day. He said, "I have a lot to do tomorrow. I have to wake up in the morning …" At which point I interjected and sang, "'Feeling like P. Diddy. Grab my glasses, I'm out the door, I'm gonna hit this city.' Ke$ha!" It took a while to find the perfect setup, but when it happened it was worth it. The interjections must be timely and performed only when a worthy lyric is spoken. Otherwise you may come off as annoying instead of clever.