Scratch

currently unfinished

Hey I’m so bored I’m typing up a guide/list concerning What to do When You’re Bored. Ahaha.    I hope it’s long enough to pretty much count as something I “made and created” since I like, wrote it but really I don’t know. Maybe it’ll help me out with my own boredom. Hopefully.
So yeah, it’s summer, and I find myself bored 93% of the time. Not wishing the same fate upon you, I’ve decided to create this thing.
Thus:

~What to Do When You’re Bored~

    1. Get a blog.
A great way to waste time is to get a blog and connect with fellow bored people. You can get a blogspot or a wordpress or a blogger…or if you’re going the more social-blog route, use the very popular tumblr. And there’s this new thing called soup too, soup.io, pretty random, yes. It’s not for everyone, though. I have a tumblr and soup and I only joined because my friend did. I’m not really planning to use it, because that sort of thing doesn’t interest me much, but she says it’s cool because you can meet people of similar interests.

    2. Get a pet.
A small pet—like a frog, toad, lizard, fish or mouse. If you’re adventurous and have the means, you should get a chinchilla or something unusual. You’ll have fun with a new pet, even a goldfish or a Venus fly trap! If you can’t buy anything, make a pet rock. They’re really weird fun. Decorate with paint, puff balls, googly eyes…etc. To go the stranger route, make a different inanimate object your pet    Like a paper bag that eats paper scraps (his name was Benjamin, and he was great), or a vending machine toy, or a hat. Still more creative, make yourself a pet out of clay, or draw on a FOOMI (a monkey-ish thing by kid robot, I got it from Aaron Brothers).
Edit: Concerns were expressed that it isn't a good idea to get a pet on a whim; I'd just like to agree and say that yes, you should learn about a pet's needs before getting one. Particularly pet rocks! (loljk) There's a topic for them now so you can share your pet rock here.

    3. Go geocaching.
Google it, or see this. Geocaching is one of the stranger and more suspicious-looking things to be doing, and you’ll need a phone app and a car to do it. (My brother, sister, sister’s friend and I tried. Failed miserably. We went like eight places and found nothing, but we did at least get Starbucks    )

    4. Make a jar of your summer.
If you go on vacation, or go any place really, take a pebble or rock from the ground nearby or at the actual place, depending on whether it’s indoors or outdoors. Later, label the rock with a number, and add it to a corresponding list. For instance, you will have rocks labeled 1, 2, and 3; the list might read 1. Edge of the Grand Canyon (true story, last summer); 2. The swingset at the park; and 3. Baskin Robbins.
If you collect all summer, you’ll have much more than 3 rocks in your jar and on your list. Be sure to pick a somewhat unusual rock, and the memories will be even better    The rock is of value because it’s the best kind of souvenir, a unique one—and then there’s always the convenience of no cost. I got the random idea to do this except I wrote the whole location of where I found it on the rock; then I read Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, in which something similar was done, and I thought it’d be easier to just have a numbered rock. 

    5. Be a fan of a random show.
It can be a show you’ve never seen before, but you’ve heard about; something you stumble upon, and have never heard of but it looks interesting; or something so strange or weird that it’s golden. For that last, I recommend you try RL Stine’s Haunting Hour or Bananas in Pajamas.

    6. Develop more skill at something.
Summer’s the time to get better at drawing, writing, running, cooking or whatever it is you like to do. If you can, sign up for a class, or invite over friends who like doing the same thing to practice with you. If you can’t, you can always practice by yourself—sometimes, you’re more focused that way. You can get books on the subject or look online for tutorials.

    7. Read a lot.
I’m becoming fond of Sherlock Holmes short stories and pretty much everything by Ray Bradbury. I extremely recommend every book on this list 

    8. Make a pinhole camera.
http://www.kodak.com/ek/US/en/Pinhole_Camera.htm I never made one, but always wanted to.

    9. People-watch.
Pretty self-explanatory.

    10. Play board games with friends 
For super geek points, play Scrabble or chess. Both are quite fun, though I suck at chess. If you can’t get anyone to play in real life, you can play Scrabble online at wabble.org. A cool thing to do is make your own board game, with a cardboard board and Play-Doh players.

    11. Donate rice for free.
While learning! Vocabulary words and the ending world hunger rolled into one, it doesn’t get much better than that    Seriously though, it’s quite cool: freerice.org 

    12. Write a letter.
There’s nothing quite like getting a letter in the mail. If you can’t send a real letter, for whatever reason, you can always send a lengthy email! Those are good too    If you’ve got no one to write to, write to yourself in the future at futureme.org. You’ll remember this day in five years!

    13. Write a novel.
Hey, it could happen    Since you’re out of school, you’ve got plenty of time to waste. For inspiration, listen to music. Go outside. Take note of the color of the sky. Look at things and try to think of ways to describe them. Look up idea generators on the Internet. Go through your closet and look over objects. You can really find inspiration anywhere. Maybe your motivation will come from participating in Camp NaNo. When you start, you can go on writing websites for help, or just post it here on Scratch.
If writing a novel by yourself seems impossible to achieve, find someone to collaborate with! Email a friend who likes writing and ask about it, or someone else online. Take turns writing chapters, or paragraphs, or sentences. Get together on Google Docs.
That may still seem too difficult, and that’s all right—writing is fun itself; even if you don’t want to write a whole novel yet, you can write a short story. Or you can try writing flash fiction. Maybe you can challenge yourself to write five paragraphs without once using the word “it.”
Whatever you end up writing, keep it for yourself; give copies to friends; try to publish; or tuck it on a library shelf for someone to find and enjoy.
You can also try my NI Writing Challenge or get your stuff edited by me if you want.
Or check out these cool places to share your writing on Scratch: Bookworm Studios and Scratch Writers Gallery.
There's also offsite places specifically for the authors of Scratch: Scratch Writers and StoryNetwork.


    14. Leave random gifts around for people.
I enjoy leaving plastic animals with post-its attached to them around campus. (A plastic boar, I recall, was named ‘Wise Old Beasley’, and he enjoyed television and pro golf according to his post-it. Another plastic animal, a blue-and-yellow fish, searched for someone who shared his philosophical outlook on life, while a sheep wanted a friend in likeminded conservatives.) 
So you can basically leave notes and toys like that. Make sure to make their stories as detailed, absurd and funny as possible.

    15. Count down the days until the next Ziggleworp Day.
Har har.

    16. Be creative with cardboard.
Make a time machine, a miniature house, a TARDIS or whatever strikes your fancy. They’ve got tons of old boxes piled at my Costco, and I’d assume other Costcos as well, so you can look there for resources. Or just in your pantry at home—maybe there’s some cereal you can finish off to have the box. Another place is your closet, for shoeboxes. And you can do a lot with one cardboard box.

    17. Trick someone with Peter Answers 
I used to do this at school a lot, and it was pretty hilarious, everyone thought I was some sort of magical sorceress    The website is here; for a tutorial—how to use it, read this.

    18. Create random avatars.
Here’s one avatar maker. Or, the hipster alternative numbers 1 and 2. You can search dolldivine for more random ones. They’re a fun waste of time.

    19. Start a collection.
Of anything—unusual stones, feathers, old ribbons, hats, foreign or outdated coins, things found under couch cushions, postage stamps and ugly lamps. Having a collection of something is great because you can get all excited about finding another, and show everything off to your politely interested friends as well. My mother collects spoons. Maybe you can get souvenir forks, or something. Do those exist? It’s generally a good idea to pick something slightly unusual, though not too difficult to come across.

    20. Get some insight into your future 
Go to Panda Express and get a fortune cookie. Or learn some palmistry.

    21. Keep a journal.
It can be any sort of journal—a place where you can vent, or log what you did that day. One interesting kind of journal is a dream journal: you write down the dreams you had the night before so you don’t forget. Leading me to

    22. Try to have a lucid dream.
Lucid dreaming is when you’re aware that you are dreaming, and can sometimes control the dream around you. Here’s how to have one.

    23. Try to decide on Dr. Pepper flavors.
There are 23.

    24. Make potions.
I used to do this a lot. Get a bowl or cup and mix together a lot of gross yet edible combinations—like ketchup, milk, and cinnamon—then, if you’re really strange, drink it. Or mix water, food coloring and/or glitter together in a bottle and label it ‘Invisibility Potion’, etc. Carry it around with you and produce it on handy occasions.
    25. Be a cruel human being.
By way of putting the following, more or less, on your answering machine: “Hello, ____ residence. Hi, it’s ____… Is that you? … I’m sorry, you’re breaking up…no, what? Sorry…what? You gotta talk more clearly, I can’t hear you. I said, I can’t hear you! … Hello? Is anyone there? … Listen, you’re breaking up…what? No, I…hold on…uh…Yes, I can hear you now…Oh! No. It’s not working again…uh…what did you say? Sorry, I just can’t…” (go on for like 15 minutes)

    26. Go to the theater to see something other than Harry Potter…
Dressed as a Harry Potter character. Scream, “Yeah, go Harry!” at the dramatic bits and completely ruin the experience for everyone else. (Me and my sister always wanted to, but we were never brave enough.)

    27. Craft a beautiful poem about the life of an inanimate object.
A penny’s story after its creation; a hamburger’s journey from In N Out; the woeful memoir of a broken toy.

okay bored now (ironically) i’ll add more later

SOUP SOUP SOUP SOUP SOUP IS THIS CLEAR ENOUGH FOR YOU TO READ SOUP???!!! SOUP PLEASE TELL ME TELL ME SOUP TELL ME!!!!!!!!!!! I HOPE THE LIST IS NOW READABLE SOUP!!!!         HOW IS IT SOUP??????? SOUP SOUP SOUP SOUP TELL ME TELL ME 

    28. Make your own website.
You can make a website with a site builder like Webs, Weebly or Yola; Webs allows you to build your own community/social network. You’ll need to plan lots of things—what will your site be about? Who will moderate it? If you think you’re ready, maybe you can learn some code and create your website from scratch! One great way to learn is to drop by Code Academy.

    29. Waste time on text-based games forums.
Including Scratch’s own.

    30. Use the phone to…
a. call up friends
b. laugh maniacally into (when telemarketers call)
c. ???
Another activity involving phones would be PrankDial—particularly Evil Operator. You enter two phone numbers into the site—two of your friends, or two pizza places, or whatever—and both phones will ring. Each person will pick up the phone, thinking the other called. (It’s really great with fast food places because they both ask what the other person would like to order.) You can listen to the first 30 seconds of the conversation, but that’s a good amount because people usually hang up in annoyance pretty quickly.

    31. Write poetry.
Okay, soup, I see how it is! You don’t like inanimate objects 
If you truly feel that the life of inanimate objects isn’t good subject matter for poetry, then you can of course write about anything.

    32. Make an elf village.
Using twigs, stones, flowers, clay soil and whatever other materials you can find just by going outside, create a little elf village    Me and my friend used to do this in her yard, and it looked especially picturesque because of the mossy rock. We made huts, wells, gardens…it looked pretty cool (until it rained D: because our structures were somewhat delicate). Another time, slightly different, another friend and I made a tiny treehouse between two miniature palm trees (like, real trees, but they were really small); this is equally fun if you happen to have a lot of wood and bits of brick lying around. The brick was just decoration. We made it a home for vending machine toys.

    33. Go kayaking or canoeing!
If you live in a place where you can, it would be a great activity    I’d love to, but can’t. If you’re lucky enough, though, here’s a place to start.

Last edited by Wickimen (2012-08-06 16:33:14)