OK so your bored...what do you do, what sites to visit??

alrighty....the garden is coming along, too hot to be more compulsive about planting other plants, shrubs, trees, you sit at the computer, you check your mail and answer it all; you check daves garden and your favorite threads an hour used up....you start the same process, check your mail....NO MAIL...you check your favorite threads....no replys; you even look at other threads hoping that you will see something you have in common with those threads to engage you for a moment or 2....done; start the process over...no mail, no threads ....;

at this point i am going a little stir crazy....i check ebay and some favorites i have there...but that takes little time...what do i do then?? tell me your computer routines....am i the only one that does this....and need to get a life??

Sticks_n_stones, I feel your pain! With the pumpkin patch buzzing, I look forward to a few minutes to read, relax, and learn a few things about gardening. I'm with you, sometimes the above routine is a little too familiar.I guess when that happens, I could do some housecleaning instead....no that doesn't require any mental energy, ....I could fold the clothes...no mindless effort as well....uhm, that's it I 'll check the home page again! Yep...now that's thinking with the "noggin!"
;0)

i hate it .....i hate it when this site is slow...i hate it when my email has nothing....i hate when i have done all the checking and NOTHING....then what do i do?? when i am real desparate i check in on my cars forum....(yes i admit to doing that....that is getting really desparate)....but all the guys on that forum mainly...and they are all about zoom zoom....my car goes this fast ...my car goes that fast...yada yada; then i check a website about the doggies i own.....and it is about showing and breeding and love for the little doggies.....YAWN....so then i start the process over....YUK...i have cycled thru that routine way too much lately...I NEED TO GET A LIFE...

i take a stroll through my garden and then contemplate doing housework, then, thankfully, that feeling usually passes.

What else are you interested in? Here are a few of our fun bookmarked sites...

http://www.engrish.com/ These people post signs and labels from Asia - usually Japan - that were poorly translated into English. The results are often hilarious!

Do you like to travel? Here are some offbeat tourist attractions: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/

If you're into engineering - or re-engineering - these people (read: geeks) take common household objects and turn them into - well, other objects, usually containing lots of blinking leds. http://www.hackaday.com/

If you like movies, this site is very funny. They take popular movies and animate alternate endings for them. Be prepared to giggle. http://www.howitshouldhaveended.com/

If you are truly bored, here are 17 different ways to tie your shoelaces! Really! http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/knots.htm

Like Sodoku puzzles? http://www.4puz.com/?gclid=CO_MxquL_oQCFQkeHgod6VEx5g

Hungry? http://www.cooks.com/

Do you like to doodle? If you draw a picture on this program, you get one back that someone else made. (They are screened before they are released, so you shouldn't get a yucky one.) http://www.sketchswap.com/

Shall I keep going, or is that enough to start with? :-)

wow....how cool....that is a start but i hate puzzles and stuff; i don't love movies....i own 2 dvd rentals stores....i love gardening, my doggies, my car....when i start to think about it maybe that is my problem...i don't have alot of interests.....well, i just thought of another love ....antiques...treasure hunting....i will look at the above for a start...maybe i just need to broaden my horizon....

Look up all the plants you grow or have experience with in PlantFiles and see if you can fill in any missing details, add a comment, photo, or zip code report? That's what I do after I've read my mail and checked my favorite forums.

Or I just explore PlantFiles for plants that will grow in my zone and figure out where to get them and where I could plant them.

joan ....i do something similar to what you are suggesting....i look thru my gardening mags and find plants i love...then research....research ..research; also, i try to find new threads to get involved in to see what others are experiencing etc...

Have you seen http://www.cuteoverload.com/ ? They have dogs among other things..

If you like history, you can check out PBS' History Detectives site: http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/

And of course they have the Antiques Roadshow, too: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/roadshow/

My husband is a geek, so we have lots of techy sites, but no car ones. And we don't have any pets, so we're low on critter sites, too. :-)

Have you seen Josephine's Texas Natives site? It's GORGEOUS!! http://www.texasstar.org/index.php?pg=main

If you like reading, this site has lots of old, out-of-copyright books. http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

And this site has them being read out loud. I love hearing stories read to me, so I love this site: http://librivox.org/

And of course for general browsing, Wikipedia is fun to play with. Go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page and click "Random page" on the left. If you find an article that you think could be written better or says something incorrect, you can edit it.

marilyn.....what is your profession?? and/or why do you have all this information at hand.....amazing!!!!

These are good ones.............. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/
http://www.myccr.com/
http://www.naturephotographers.net/
http://www.thejohnhiattarchives.com/

early bloomer

LOL Umm.. Well, like I said my husband is a geek and computer-ese is his native language. I'm not really a geek, but I can speak it well enough to get by. LOL We have TONS of bookmarks on all sorts of subjects. :-) I'm a stay-at-home mom, and before bunnies I worked in retail (which I don't miss at all!!)

Marylyn.... just how many of those bunnies do you have?

2.. Joy is 5 and Katie is 3. And they definitely bounce a lot. LOL

Marylyn- your bunnies sound happy and delightful!

sticks,

you sound just like me! i check this site:

http://sanantonio.craigslist.org/ but you can check it for your local area. It's a nice place to buy things cheap and pick them up near where you live.

tir...i have a twin?? how the heck do you not drive yourself nuts??

Sticks & Tir, you're one of triplets. I couldn't believe it when I read this initial post. It's ME! And I've thought the same thing...I need a life. I AM driving myself nuts. The dogs are getting a little annoyed too.

nema....do tell...!!! is your story just like ours?? doing the cyclical email checking......the cyclical thread checking?? do you do any other sites in this cyclical business?? if so we need to add them to our repitoire....any other activities in the cycle...?? (grin).....the only reason i am not going so insane tonight is that i had to work...OMG...work at a job today ....and it killed me...then come home and catch up on all my reading emails, threads, water the dang plants, kill mealy bugs etc.....; it wasn't as lesurely doing the cyclical work tonight cause i knew i had little time to do it .....and in between all of that i was not able to sit back and smell the roses which is part of why i love the gardening so much......my butt is glue to my chair tonight but i am almost too tired to cruise the web...altho that reminds me i have to go research a plant.......tell us YOUR story!!!

I have friends who check their emails like maybe once a week. I check mine every day (unless traveling) and on days off you can bet I'm checking 2-3-4-5---- times. =) I sell stuff online to now though so it has really helped with the angst of waiting on something new to happen. =)

Oh yes, oh yes. Do you see the time on this post? 3 something past zero dark thirty??? My internet has been OUT ALL NIGHT. I have sweats...shakes. Just as I was about to crawl up the stairs to bed, I thought, "I'll try just one more time".

My routine is the same. Check email. Check favorite forums on DG. Check email again. Go to ebay. Look for plants. This morning, before the dreaded internet failure, I found myself searching for windmills on ebay. Now, how that happened, I'll never know. Back to DG. No new posts. Where IS everybody??? Check the Garden Watchdog to get the dirt on evil plant sellers. Nothing. Back to email. Back to ebay. Same old searches...anthurium...nematanthus...hoya...cookie jar...and windmills??? Ok. On to the animal websites. Chow chows...Kuvask...macaws...back to DG. No new posts. I'm a pet groomer so I go to www.petgroomer.com. No...I don't want a job in Alaska. And there are only so many things you can do with poodle hair. Check Gardenweb. Nobody knows me there and if I post they just ignore me. Besides, you have to be a techie genius to post a photo. Look for pics of Vincent D'Onofrio on google search. I'm soooo in love with him. Bet HE has a life. Back to DG.

Here's the REALLY sad part. I have a laptop. When my dog hears the lid snap shut she jumps up because she knows that I'm FINALLY going to go to bed, take her out...whatever. How sad is THAT?

So what do we do? Is there some support group or something? Hello...my name is ... and I need a life. Poor Abigail (dog but she doesn't know it and I NEVER use that word), is exausted. She is eagerly awaiting that snap sound that signals that mom is giving up and going to bed. I can start again tomorrow.

Seeee??? I've ALREADY checked this thread again. I need help.

Uh, oh......I've stumbled across more sistas......

aka, owls.....Not the larks....hello, my name is Kristi. May I join?

Knolan, of course you can join ....especially since DG enables the bears to catch up with this thread after arising from hibernation.....

I can't get thru all the info here in a day, much less an hour!

LOL Nemat, LOVED your style of writing! Reminds me of Erma Bombeck. You could write a BOOK online with all that funny energy!!! That'd give you plenty to do in between checking email. =)

Love that you and knolan were both up in the wee hours! I've done that and been a lone ranger on Dave's. =(

I do need to find more sites to visit. Like I said...can't believe I still have family and friends who don't have email!!!! What is with that?! Hehe.

Try finding some free games on the net... poker, backgammon, etc.

I'm right there with ya'll! I am hooked on mahjong

http://www.netives.com/Games/Mahjongg/Play.shtml

Engrish.com is wonderful! I've not been there in a while - thanks for the reminder!

I'm a big fan of Jennifer Shiman's animations: http://www.angryalien.com/
For another treat, be sure to check out her animation of Amy's diary: http://www.angryalien.com/amys_diary.html

I can also kill huge amounts of time...Err, learn a lot at these sites:
YouTube: http://youtube.com
Google Video: http://google.com/video

Blogs are something else I like reading. I have several online friends whose blogs I read every day or two.

nema.....i feeeeeeeelllll your pain...; i would die if my internet stopped...and it has...and of course(blankety blank) i am a very important person and i have VERY IMPORTANT corporate business to take care of on my puter so YOU"D BETTER GET A MOVE ON IT!!!! FIX THE DANG THING>>>>>>OMG THE WORLD MIGHT END......(GRIN) but i hate to not have my puter....; i did remember that i go looking thru ebay sellers that i might buy from or from buyer that were pesky to see what their feedback is like now....and then THEN look at the one that got KICKED off!!! and then, by golly when i lose my 20 more lbs...that i will never lose, what kind of life changing wardbrobe do i need to think about buying, but then again it wont be practical to invest in all that unless i do a face lift ......but hey, i aint going to do that i HATE the dentist....but then again i could whiten my teeth again and that would help.....arrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggghhhhhh

nema, i wish i knew what we could do.....in all seriousness.....especially when i have done my cycle a gillion times and NO NEW MSGS>.....No response on daves!!!!!!!....(thank god for daves..)i did actually find daves when i had another gardening web site that is beautiful but gets relatively little attention ....thus NO ACTION there at all....i asked some stupid question that was important at the time and it was like 3 days b4 someone answered.....anyway, i was doing my plant research since i got no answer on the other site and then i found daves....I HATE CHANGE, but daves seemed to be halfway interstign...and lo and behold i am a year resgistered....so all this cycle of bull hocky did something productive ....but i wish i could find more 'daves' websites for my other interests.....but no such luck....

games.......well, the reason i wont play them is that i feel as tho i am wasting time; i feel that reading stuff.....that it is productive....but by golly playing a game is not productive;

any one have some cool sites for crafts?? i found a great one but it looks like it hasn't been trafficed for a while and thus i feel as tho i am there by my self with no new ideas for my brain.....it was garden based and i liked the fact that it was but not alot of traffic

HEY WADDA YEW KNOW....i found a new site just now trying to find the above site that i will post from my other computer tommorrow.....it looks kinda kool...garden based craft stuff.....here is the link: www.gardenstew.com

Actually, playing some games IS VERY productive, especially the word games. Research shows it wards off losing ground mentally as we age, and is good for delaying dementia and Alzheimer's.

Yeah..crossword puzzles, number games even picture puzzles.... no not the 50 piece puzzle, but those 500 pieces and above! Using logic keeps the brain juices flowing and knowing!And for those of us who like to play in the dirt, even gardening helps to keep those brain cells thinking and those limbs limber! Oh... and raking leaves does not count as gardening unlike what my neighbor says.

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/to.html

The site has so many words that people confuse. I love playing Scrabble, too.

I love word games. Play a crossword puzzle every day that I can. TextTwist is another word game that I like. Maybe I'll stay mentally sharp forever! LOL
Lin

The Human Flower Project is a terrific site:

http://www.humanflowerproject.com/

I've been meaning to post the sites that Ilike to visit daily:

Old Farmers Almanac: http://www.almanac.com/

Live Science: www.livescience.com

and Snopes (to debunk the urban legend emails going around)
www.snopes.com

ok...so knolan....do you surf those sites everyday?? or how often do you go tothem....?? i couldn't get my brain wrapped around them....and was wondering how you went about surfing them??

They're just on my homepage on yahoo so the daily info is there for me to take a peek. Sometimes it's interesting, sometimes worthless. Nevertheleass, a good killer of time when I'm sitting there bored out of my wits.

I just can't get into internet games....I do feel guilty that I'm not "doing" anything so I just avoid them. Always trying to look up things to learn about though, that's how I found Dave's....just looking up plants.

This message was edited Sep 11, 2006 9:11 PM