The year is nearly over and you likely need distractions from the 2023 dumpster fire. Cue my annual list of ways to not notice the news cycle and, of course, to not get your work done. As always there are a lot more than I can list here, but these are my current favorites.
- Watch TV from decades past. This site allows you to watch random clips of all genres from real TV shows. You can change the channel and you’ll arrive in the middle of a show, just like actual television. The nostalgia factor is tremendous and, to make it even better, you can choose other decades. Long live Fraggle Rock, You Can’t Do That on Television and the 70s musical version of A Christmas Carol.
- Fling robots. Rip them out of their conga line and see what happens. And the music is actually pretty cool.
- Peek in the hidden corners of Spotify. Apparently, there millions of songs out there, lonely and unplayed. Can’t guarantee any of it is good but it sure is interesting.
- Tabletop gamer? There’s an ambiance for that. You can even sort through genres such as fantasy, scifi, historical, horror and more.
- What if ChatGPT was a cat? Guess you’re going to find out if you click this link.
- Relive your glory days when typewriters were a thing. This typewriter simulator even lets you apply White-Out.
- Randomly travel to interesting & niche websites. It’s hard to resist a web page with a giant “Show me something awesome” button in the middle. Don’t resist; click away and see where you end up.
- Rickroll people. Maybe. An innocuous link shortener tool, but there’s a 50% chance the person clicking will be rickrolled instead of going where the link was intended to go (only once, thankfully).
- Reader’s advisory for the rest of us. Put in an author and watch an interactive map be generated, showing the authors most like yours.
- Find that outfit that character wore on your favorite show. The ultimate shopping guide to the same clothes worn by actors on hundreds of shows.
Want to see lists from previous years?
