In this competetive world, with its ever expanding internet community, only one company provides you with completely free, unlimited internet access: The company you work for. For those to whom this does not apply, my deepest sympathies and a hearty HA-ha! For those who do, I suggest a few of the following as ways to pass the time between arriving in the office and leaving for home¹.

This article has gone from 10 to 10+1 articles with the addition of Babel Fish Ping-Pong, as suggested by Cybernard in the forum.

1. The Internet Movie Database

The Internet Movie Database is an absolute godsend for the absent-minded obsessive and the terminally bored alike. A loosely worded search can lead to hours of fun, browsing through the titles which turn up. Double-meanings can lead to particular fun; for example the keyword 'Bondage' turns up a catalogue of hard-core pornography and a handful of worthy biblical epics².

On top of the basics, the database also features a page of memorable quotes from each film (occasionally misquoted), user ratings and reviews ranging from the prosaic to the hilarious, and a handy listing of the top and bottom 100 films by user rating. The latter is of course the far more entertaining. As is the hallmark of all good reference works, the greatest enjoyment is to be gained by following a chain of crossreferences from one entry to another, from film to actor to director to film. No actor will ever be able to conceal their early embarrassing films again.

Waste of Time Rating³: 9 (Cross-referencing is a pastime which can keep you going for ever if necessary)

Quality Rating⁴: 7 (Ocassional inaccuracy aside, it's pretty informative, and at times quite a laugh)

2. Sluggy Freelance

One of the many internet syndicated comic strips available, Sluggy Freelance is considered by most officianados of this particular artform to be the cat's pyjamas: Witty, dark, satirical without being political, but basically just damn funny. It's written by Pete Abrams, which I thought I should mention⁵

Sluggy Freelance chronicles the adventures of Torg, a freelance web designer, and his 'friends'. Said friends include Riff, a genius inventor and freelance bum; and Zoe, sporadic love interest to, well all the males in the strip (which is to say they are interested in her, not necessarily vice-versa), but more importantly source of vague normality⁶. Other regulars (ones who can't really be described accurately as 'friends') include Bun-Bun, a perpetualy enraged, homicidal mini-lop rabbit with a flick-knife and a powerful hatred of everyone and everything in the world⁷; Kiki the hyperactive ferret, who shares living space with Riff and his arsenal of ultra-high tech weaponry and is the only creature on earth to have met Bun-Bun but not fear him; Alyee, an alien from another dimension who used to eat humans like they were jelly beans, and who works as Torg's secretary; Gwen, Zoe's demonically-possessed former roommate; and Sam, former pathetic party-dude turned equally-pathetic vampire.

Ocassional appearances are made by Bun-Bun's arch-nemesis, Santa Claus and his elfin secret service, acid-tongued radio psychiatrist Dr Lorna, an assortment of mad scientists and zombies and an array of vampires, monsters, rampaging robots and hapless victims. I have yet to find someone who actively dislikes Sluggy Freelance, and all of the people I have recommended it to have loved it⁸. In a world of hatred and division, who can argue with that kind of unity.

Waste of Time Rating: 5 (A day or so trawling the three years worth or archived material, plus some back-reading now and then, plus a daily visit to the site)

Quality Rating: 9 (Mainly because I've decided nothing gets a 10)

3. Surfing and Writing Entries for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Did you think I was writing this at home?

Actually, I do a lot of my writing at home, where I have access to reference material, but I do all of my h2g2 surfing during my so-called lunch breaks. Of course, you know about this little distraction already, but I think it deserves a mention.

Waste of Time Rating: 10 (Until your brain is empty you will never run out of things to do, and you can always surf and cross-reference to your little black heart's content)

Quality Rating: 3-9 (It really depends on the individual)

4. Search Engine Pinball

My kind of sport, as it doesn't involve any sort of physical exertion. Write an entry in the box and watch her go.

Search Engine Pinball is a little like blind man's buff, being a combination of skill, natural ability and blind, stupid luck. Sometimes you'll find nothing, or at least but pornography; on other ocassions you will unearth hidden treasures, lost in the far-flung corners of the internet.

My personal favourite engine is Google, but others may prefer Altavista, Lycos or [URL removed by moderator]⁹. It does not matter too much; they all do largely the same thing. It can be fun to run the same ball through different engines and see the differences in what they turn up.

If there is an art in Search Engine Pinball then it lies in your choice of keywords. Being overly general gives you too much dross; being overly specific reduces your chances of finding anything at all. Phrases are especially difficult, and should generally be avoided, as they will turn up either nothing or only a very limited range of sites. That being said, a search for the phrase "death to the living"¹⁰ once returned a (tragically defunct) link to a transcript of a US Congressional White Paper. Unusual words are good, as they produce unusual entries without the need for excessive numbers of limiting factors.

As with all sports, there are risks involved in playing Search Engine Pinball. Primarily, the risk of discovering more than is good for you. I don't mean stumbling over secret intergovernmental conspiracies, just that there are things out there you might not wish to know¹¹. Also, the parents of the young and the young-at-heart should be aware that the game does turn up a truly staggering quantity of pornographic material; a sad indictment of our modern world.

Waste of Time Rating: 8 (Once more, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination, and by the effectiveness of the engine)

Quality Rating: 5 or 8 (Depending on personal factors, particularly whether or not you like porno)

5. Comic-Hopping

While I feel that Sluggy Freelance deserves a special mention, it is far from being the only comic strip out there. The joy of the internet comic community is its sordid and incestuous nature, which means that just about every strip out there contains links to at least three or four others which the author likes, and many are linked to one or more comics directories.

Two of the larger directories are FLEEN - Fairly Large Electronic Entertainment Network - and Keenspot. In addition, the Washington Post and Comics.com have their own comics servers, although these typically contain syndicated comics, which are frankly tame¹² by comparison to the net-only ones.

Waste of Time Rating: 10 (So long as you are willing to suspend your critical faculties, I believe it would be nigh impossible for any one person to read all of the world's internet-syndicated comic strips in a human lifetime)

Quality Rating: 1-8 (The available comics run the gamut of taste and quality, and like a box of chocolates you may see the name and the picture, but you can never be quite sure what you're gonna get)

6. Windows Shopping

Find yourself a nice little shopping zone and browse. Read the customer reviews, compare prices. You probably don't want to go giving out your credit card numbers over the office network¹³ but even if you decide to buy later, you've saved some online time at home by browsing at work.

Waste of Time Rating: 7 (You can browse for hours)

Quality Rating: 4 (You can look; but it's not quite the same if you can't touch.

7. Personality Tests and Quizzes

There used to be an online personality test which told you which character from Star Wars you were most like; or which character from Austin Powers¹⁴. The nearest I've seen at the moment is the games run on The Guardian Unlimited site, including the poetry moodmatcher, which dispenses a poem appropriate to your mood, and the horror movie test which tells you what your chances are in the event of your getting caught up in a slasher flick¹⁵.

Waste of Time Rating: 6 (You can burn maybe an afternoon on the Guardian stuff)

Quality Rating: 6 (Good - usually clean - fun, but nothing extraordinary)

8. Wax Poetic

The Guardian's books site, Books Unlimited also contains a games page, including the poetry playoff and the topical haiku competition. Pop along and make up a haiku; you can massage your ego by seeing your name and work appear on the web for all to see.

The Poetry Playoff would be even better for this. Only three poems go up a month, but if you make it people can vote for your poem to go on and compete again next month. Of course, the disappointment of losing could be shattering, so be wary if you're a sensitive soul.

There's also the Poetry Moodmatcher, which neatly combines this entry with number 7.

Waste of Time Rating: 4 (Not a great time-guzzler this one, but good for a few minutes each day)

Quality Rating: 8 (Amusing and improving; it's edutainment without the pain)

9. Cruising the Encyclopedias

The IMDb and h2g2.com aren't the only places to find information on the internet. It positively teems with virtual encyclopaedias, all of which can be browsed for a few hours distracting cross-referencing. Here's a couple of recommendations.

The big daddy of them all is the Online Encyclodaedia Britannica, with information on almost every subject under the sun. On a more exotic theme, The Encyclopedia Mythica contains a host of useful facts on all areas of mythology from all cultures.

Waste of Time Rating: 10 (The cows will be all tucked up for the night before you run out of material)

Quality Rating: 6 (Infotainment!)

10. E.Follow the Leader

Nowadays, it seems almost as if everyone - from Sir Ian McKellen to your aunty Doris - has a homepage, and what homepage would be complete without a page full of links. And almost every page linked to has more links, which will lead to yet more links!

Where would you like to go today? Anywhere and everywhere!

E.Follow the Leader is like the old childrens game follow my leader, except that instead of a small child, you follow a chain of links¹⁶ (a bit like the crossreferencing game or Search Engine Pinball). You can go practically forever, and if you do hit a dead end, you can always back up to your last junction and take a new turning¹⁷.

Once again however, a word of caution. Beware the pitfalls of pornography. It is everywhere, and people caught looking at it are often sacked.

Waste of Time Rating: 10 (Once more, hours of harmless fun)

Quality Rating: 5 (Highly variable stuff)

10+1. Babel Fish Ping Pong, by Cybernard

Drag-mark and copy any text you find interesting, and translate it in altavistas babel fish... and then back again to the original language.

Example: the above text translated to spanish and back to english:

Drag-it marks and it copies any text that you find to interest, and she behind translates it in the fish of Babel of the altavistas... and then again to the original language.