Someone sent me this image this week and I thought it would be a fun way to end the work week:

Make it yourself by going to churchsigngenerator.com

Did you miss Gadgetress this week? Here’s what I blogged about:

• Toshiba won’t release netbooks in the U.S. — for now
• New free tool to quickly find best credit card deal
• Apple’s iTunes store adds Line Rider
• Finally, T-Mobile speaks: 3G Internet coming to O.C.
• Line Rider 2 games on sale today
• Modern-business card MeeID loves OC
• Digital TV discounts still available; Amazon starts selling converter boxes
• Update: Google Android phone out next week?
• The 15 most dangerous celebrities online
• Video: Ripping open Esquire’s digital ink cover
• Stump the PC Club: Diagnose powerless USB port
• Latest OC tech buys: Newport Beach hot for iPods; H.B. prefers $35 MP3 player
• AT&T offers free Wi-Fi to all broadband customers
• OC’s Averatec offers twist on computers

In honor of iGirl, here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

Everyone could use more laughter in their lives. Joke site Comic Wonder wants to help with that. The site has over 200,000 audio jokes for your listening pleasure.

But if you’re more of a jokester, the site encourages people to tell the joke yourself — and possibly win $2,500 if you’re selected as Comic Wonder of the Year. Weekly winners receive a Comic Wonder hat and $50 cash.

The 7-month-old site stresses that hearing a joke is much funnier than reading a joke. To compete, create an account, hit the “Call Me” button, and when Comic Wonder calls your number, tell them your joke. But if you’re not a very good joke teller, you can submit a joke to its “Joke Limbo” area so someone else can tell it. And win the cash.

In honor of iGirl, here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

You can create your own beast at BeastBlender.com, a site run by the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists. This flash-based blender offers body parts from an alligator, cockatoo, lemur and other creatures. I call my creation a “Allerhicomumode.” Scary, yes?

Past Hump Day timewasters:

• If OCRegister fought OCWeekly, who would win?
• Solve the virtual Rubik’s Cube
• Guess the Google game
• Become a shark, eagle or other endangered animal

In honor of iGirl, here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

Sorry, I’ve lost track of time in recent weeks and then I found myself picking fights at GoogleFight, a site that pits two sides against one another based on Google matches. It’s the perfect HDT!

Pick two people, two teams, two words and fight, fight fight!! The OCRegister trounced the OCWeekly by nearly 1,800 percent, based on Google hits. I guess that’s to be expected, considering that the weekly is smaller than the shrinking Register.

Compared to the LATimes.com, the Reg is only down by 33 percent. Are we really that prolific on the Web? Must be all of our blogs.

Anyway… GoogleFight is my latest time waster and yes, I’ve wasted too much time picking fights with other media companies and writing this post.

Try it yourself and type in your own competitors. And check out its top fights, recent fights and funny fights, like Google vs. waste of time. Guess who wins that round?

Past time wasters:
Solve the virtual Rubik’s Cube
A laugh a minute: New Yorker cartoons
Guess the Google game
The Infinite Cat Project

In honor of iGirl, here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

Have you ever solved the Rubik’s Cube? Here’s your chance waste time at your desk, thanks to 27Bobs.com. The actor-turned-software architect said he developed the Rubik’s animation to ‘experiment with parent/child relationships and user interaction on multiple planes and axis.”

If that’s too much to think about, just waste time on this already:

If you’re stumped or have to get back to work again, he also offers a cheat, which automatically solves the cube. Have fun!

Past HumpDay Time Wasters:

• The Infinite Cat Project
• Learn to type sideways
• Gimme back my letters!
• Send an upside-down e-mail

In honor of iGirl, here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I pretty much only read the cartoons in the New Yorker. The stories are good but soooo long and who has time? Sometimes, I don’t even have enough time to read the cartoons!

An easy way to get my New Yorker cartoon fix is to tune in to its Cartoon Channel online (free registration required). You pick the topic (animals, law, medical, business, etc..) and in a small window, a new cartoon refreshes every 30 seconds. I called this post ‘A laugh a minute’ because I’d say that only about half the cartoons are outright funny.

A tip from my mother-in-law who loves the funny pages: For those who want to waste more time, check out the animated New Yorker cartoons. These are short 15-second animations of existing New Yorker cartoons, including the memorable ‘Tastes like Chicken’ with diners staring at legless frog rolling out of the restaurant in a wheelchair. A sign in the background says “Try our frogs’ legs.” RingTales, which offers the animated cartoons, recently launched the same service for Dilbert.

In honor of iGirl, here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

I’m still tense from playing this time waster called “Guess the Google,” from New Zealand digital designer Grant Robinson. It’s a timed, flash-animated game where you see 20 images from Google and you guess what the search was.

At first, I found it impossible. But then I realized that I just needed to guess the simplest answer. Such as ‘pets’ for the image below. I swear I didn’t play for more than, urm, a 30 minutes. By the time I called it quits, I made it into the top 10 scores for the day. Woo hoo!

You get 20 points for the right answer and up to 20 points if you can guess the answer within 20 seconds. Keep in mind, you have to type the exact answer — no typos or other forms of the word.

Some cheats (don’t look if you want a real challenge):

The images often repeat themselves so if you play several times, you’ll recognize images.

Also, often, the answer is plainly written — in text. So if you see words show up in the images, chances are high that you have the answer right in front of you.

Who can best me? I know someone out there will…

Past HumpDay Time Wasters:

• The Infinite Cat Project
• Learn to type sideways
• Gimme back my letters!
• Send an upside-down e-mail

Just spotted this and had to share:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ha ha… I wonder what iGirl has to say?

In honor of iGirl, here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

The Infinite Cat Project: A cat looking at another cat looking at another cat looking at another cat looking at another cat looking at another cat looking at another cat… Do I need to go on?

You can even add your own cat — just follow the rules.

And if you’re really trying to waste time, check out The Infinite Cat’s games page.

In honor of iGirl, here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

I wrote about how to send an upside-down e-mail a few weeks ago and then I ran into the sideway screen. Hit the Ctrl+Alt keys and then either the left or right arrow. Your screen’s orientation will rotate sideways. You can likewise hit Ctrl+Alt and the down arrow and your screen flips upside down. The Ctrl+Alt and the up arrow key rights everything.

In the back of my mind, I knew about this Windows trick. But it wasn’t until Widget, my 5-month old, had her way with my laptop that I remembered it existed. I resorted to Google to find the cure and stumbled upon Eric T’s Internet Duct Tape, a tech blog. His post has 174 comments and quite a few are from people mention their kid did this.

Eric goes on to say that this feature was built into the Windows XP Tablet PC edition where flipping the screen is a useful feature. But Intel added the same feature to its video card drivers so if you want to disable it, you’ll need to get into the card’s menu.

But why disable it? I say try it on an unsuspecting colleague and stand back and watch the results. Maybe I should call this prank day?

(Attention Mac users: Widget doesn’t want to leave you out. She figured out VoiceOver, Mac’s screen reader. It’s Command+F5.)

In honor of iGirl, here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

I mentioned this on my blog way back when, but it’s a classic that I feel new readers should be exposed to: Just Letters Developed by Flashcomguru, this Flash distraction lets you rearrange retro alphabet refrigerator magnets. Fun fun, right?

But there’s more.

It lets other people join in on the fun at the same time. They’ll steal your letters, they’ll write corny phrases. Oh wait — that was you?

When I first blogged about this years ago, my Register colleagues had a mad time spelling out OCRegister (captured on right). If you’re able to manage something clever, send it my way to share with readers.

One parental warning: Lots of potty mouths in the room.

Yes, Hump Day Timewasters are the total opposite of the new focus of this blog but hey, I hear people love it. And I am very grateful to iGirl for maintaining this blog in my absence. So, in honor of iGirl, here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

Freak friends out and send them an upside-down e-mail. Sites like Flip, by Reverse Fad Productions, turn anything you type upside down. Just cut and paste the reverse text into an e-mail and you’re sure to get a ‘How’d you do that?’ response.

It uses Unicode, the computer “language” that assigns a number for every character. But beware, upside-down lettering doesn’t work with everything. Some e-mail and instant messaging programs I tried resulted in gibberish. But it does work in Lotus:

To waste even more time, visit the Hump Day archive.

Here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

Ever wondered what you’d look like as an endangered species?

Well, no I didn’t either, but morphing into an animal sure is a fun way to waste time.

The photo project, YouWild.org, is made by Defenders of Wildlife. The non-profit set the site up as a way to attract attention on the threats to animals such as wolves and tigers.

The transformation involves uploading a photo of yourself, choosing an animal and lining up your eyes, nose and chin with the animal’s same features. Then, a short video is created that shows your face’s transform into that of the animal’s face.

And, if you’re proud of your creation, the site allows you to save your video. Those are then sent to the site’s Hall of Fame where all the best morphs are displayed. Though my transformation into a shark (shown at the right in three steps) is interesting, I’m not quite sure its good for the record hall.

Here’s some other earth-friendly, free games also found online:

• Clean Up Your World with this drag-and-drop game.
• Earth Day – click on things that cause pollution and have fun while you clean up the environment.
• Free the Beach and save the environment by dragging the litter to its proper recycling bin.

Here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

This week’s waste of time puts you on a construction site, but no hard hats are required.

The online game is Tower Bloxx and it has the player build either one skyscraper (in the quick game option) or a city full of skyscrapers.

The skyscrapers are built with the click of a mouse or space bar as blocks of the towers sway from a crane and the player aims to stack the blocks on top of each other as straight as possible. Straighter towers mean more residents and more points. The single-tower game ends once you’ve let three blocks fall off the tower.

And for those always on the go: the game’s San Mateo company, Digital Chocolate, makes a cell phone version available for some phones here.

Here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

This week’s timewaster is a Web site created as a tribute of sorts to the artist Jackson Pollock. Jacksonpollock.org is a blank page that lets people move their mouse around the screen/canvas to create Pollock-like drips and splashes. Clicking the mouse changes the color and pressing the space bar clears the canvas. I used the tool to create the bit of art below.

Pollock was an American painter who created “drip and splash” paintings. According to a biography of Pollock by a site called WebMuseum Paris, he was “the commanding figure” of the abstract expressionism movement.

The jacksonpollock.org site was created by another artist, a 43-year-old Greek-born and London-based man, Miltos Manetas. According to the Dazed Digital (a site on which the artist is nominated for a Web design award), Manetas “explores the worlds of computers through everything from oil paintings of cables and hardware to video pieces featuring Tomb Raider and Super Mario, which he uses to comic effect.”

Manetas’ other sites include:

• stupidforum.com lets people write anything and save the message for all the world to see. Entries can also be deleted by anyone.
• 444theory.com The “FourFortyFour Moment” is when numbers on a clock show all the same numbers (examples: 0:00, 3:33, 4:44, 05:05). Visitors register and then simply choose FourFortyFour moments when their name and location should be shared on the site.

We’ll leave you with a quote from Pollock from his biography page:

On the floor I am more at ease, I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around in it, work from the four sides and be literally ‘in’ the painting.
— Jackson Pollock, 1947.

Here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

I know you’re out there. You’re the one at work with black pants covered in fur, wearing a turtleneck to cover neck scratches, busy scribbling notes on your pet calendar.

This is the kitty and cat (no age discrimination here) edition of the Hump Day Timewasters!

We’re going to start off with a pure timewaster sure to cheer people’s spirits even during the foulest of times. It’s Kittenwar! Don’t worry, there are no cats battling each other with claws and teeth. These Web cats are dueling it out to be named the all-time Cutest Kitten. Yep, these kitties will kill you with kindness — sleeping in bathroom sinks, sleeping on beds and yawning in the oh-so-cutest ways.

Just go to kittenwars.com and you’ll see two image of kittens. Stop, smile, laugh and then click on what you perceive to be the cutest of the two. Once you’ve wasted enjoyed a few hours of that, you can look at the winningest kittens, losingest kittens, newest kittens or even upload your own cat’s image. The site even has a presence on Facebook group and a MySpace page.

The founder of kittenwars, Fraser Lewry, also offers other great kitten sites: catsinsinks.com (like the name), the random kitten generator that shows a fresh photo of a cute kitten with every page refresh, and a similar site called The Daily Kitten that shows a new photo of a kitten every day at 3:07 p.m.

Other sites sure to make you purr include Catster, a cat-version of social networking site Friendster; Catbook, a Facebook application that lets you make Facebook-like pages for your cats; and ICanHasCheezburger.com , which shows funny cat pictures along with misspelled, yet comical captions (like the image at left from the site).

Finally, YouTube’s cat offerings are not to be missed. There are far too many for me to round up and mention here, but please add your favorites. A good starting selection includes: The Mean Kitty Song, It’s Oh So Cute — with a contrast of sleeping and frightened cats set to Björk’s “It’s Oh So Quiet” song and this round up of many famous cat videos into a hilarious minute and a half video.

Here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

Interested in seeing the Seven Wonders of the World but don’t have the time or money? Do it for free with Google Earth.

This timewaster is a free-for-download application that allows you to zip around the world in 3D graphics. Start by traveling to your house — just type in your address and press Search. You can also look for schools, parks, businesses, landmarks and the sky.

The images used by Google Earth are taken every one to three years. The basic Earth is free, but Google also offers two paid options that offer more information, faster speeds and more detailed images.

Still, the free version is plenty of fun. If you’re looking for even more, the Google Earth Gallery displays free add-ons that show different information on the Earth — including a vision of the planet’s night light pollution, real-time earthquakes and the sites of Ancient Rome. And, if that’s not enough, check out the Google Siteseeing blog that covers all the strange and interesting things that can be found in Google Earth.

For information on computer specifications for the download, click here.

Here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

Got an itch to waste time, but only have 5 minutes? Well then, 5 Minute Videos is the site for you.

The video sharing site is like YouTube in that the videos are generated by the community, but the site is different in that the videos are mostly “how-tos” and all are five minutes or less. The site’s self-described philosophy: “everybody is an expert in something and has something to teach others, so why not share that knowledge for the better of the whole?”

Here are some suggested videos:

• Learn how to make your World of Warcraft character moonwalk.
• Watch a quick lesson on how to play Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” on a piano.
• Find out how to change the oil in your car.
• See how a thunderstorm is formed in this video by Britannica (screenshot at right).
• Understand what RSS really means.

Here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

This week’s timewaster might take a little more brain power than some of the other sites mentioned. But, who doesn’t love Scrabble?

But, rather than bugging friends and family to play while losing letter chips all over the house, Scrabulous is a Web site built for playing the game. It was launched in July 2006, and includes a Facebook version.

The Web site is free and allows people to play other players from around the world in real time. The site also offers a practice mode for playing by yourself or against a computer, along with options to save games and track statistics.

And, for all my fellow Scrabble nuts click here for the game’s history. Some fun facts:

• Alfred Butts invented the game’s first version — Lexico — in 1933 but the game did not take off until he added a board.
• Scrabble is sold in 121 countries and over 100 million sets of the game have been sold in 29 different languages.
• Butts began calculating the score of each letter by counting letters on the front page of the New York Times.

Here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

This week, on Christmas Day, folks can dress up the computer for the holidays by turning it into a virtual fireplace.

Rather than flip over to the TV station displaying video of a burning yule log, why not do it with a desktop or laptop computer by downloading this free screensaver that includes crackling noises from the virtual burning wood.

Here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

This week’s amusement from the “interactive toys” corner of artist Ze Frank’s Web site. The New York Times wrote an article about Frank, focusing on his experiment in letting anyone and everyone write a script for one of his daily video podcasts. That experiment earned second place in the TIME magazine’s list of top ten podcasts back in 2006.

But, for the purposes of wasting time, check out Frank’s online, interactive tools made with Adobe Flash, a strong knowledge of math and a mind for thinking outside of the box. Some highlights:

• Click here to view the embedded video.To use Ze Frank’s kaleidoscope tool, choose colors, draw lines and drag shapes onto a blank black circle. The tool will meld the shapes and drawings to instantly create an animated kaleidoscope-like image. The older, simpler version of this tool is here, the newer version is here.
• For the holidays, people in offices that allow sound can annoy co-workers with a visual carol maker. Just drag little elf heads, which represent notes and chords, to an empty black box. The elves will sing the song that you create. Proud composers can even e-mail their creations to family, friends and bored co-workers.
• A “string spin toy” has users scribble on the screen as that doodle-art is transformed into a 3-dimensional image. Old version here, new version here.
• And last, but not least, is my favorite – a 3D snowflake maker. For those who were entertained by the last snowflake maker I wrote about, this one is even better. It allows the user to create the snowflake as it spins in 3D. Even first-timers like myself can achieve some really pretty results (see my example at left).

Here’s another installment of our weekly endeavor to make you laugh, have fun and in all cases waste time.

Most people might not enjoy wasting time by learning. (Actually, I watch “Mythbusters,” “How It’s Made” and “Build it Bigger” just for fun.)

But, who out there won’t be excited to know that on the informative Web site HowStuffWorks, one can learn all about werewolves ?

The entry — hidden between information on engineering and science marvels — begins by saying “‘The Wolf Man’ did for werewolves what Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel ‘Dracula’ did for vampires. It set the rules for how werewolves are supposed to behave. ”

Now don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of purely educational ways to waste time on this site (I’d check out how atoms work first), but the werewolves do offer a lighter side we might need to get through the middle of a hectic and stressful work week.