Jim Karpen Tips

Bored.Com is fun and useful

August 2000

Bored.Com is fun and useful. My brother suggested Bored.Com. I can't say that I was feeling bored, but I decided to check it out. Two hours went by pretty fast. I got hooked on a story about a guy who received one of those fake advertising checks in the mail. On a whim, he deposited it in the ATM at his bank-and ended up with $95,000 in his account. An error on the part of the bank led to his actually being legally entitled to the money. And . . . Well, I'll let you read it for yourself.

Bored.Com carries the tagline, "When you have nothing better to do." If you're bored, if your eyes are glazed from random surfing, you probably can't do much better than Bored.Com. Some of the sites are offbeat, a few are (unfortunately) crude, others appear to be quite useful.

Let's look at one of the latter: Snapfish.Com. They offer free photo developing. You mail them your film, and they develop it and print it on Kodak paper for free. Plus they post your photos online so that you can share them with family and friends. The site's sponsors cover the costs. They do charge $1.69 per role for shipping and handling. And they also require you to view your photos online-or they will charge you more money. (By viewing your photos online, you spend more time at their site, which satisfies their sponsors.)

One of the weird ones is NeoPets.Com. At this site you can become the proud owner of a virtual pet. You feed it, care for it, play with it, exercise it. And you can join in the community discussions with other virtual pet owners. How bored would you have to be to get involved at this site? Pretty bored. But who am I to judge? If you like weird, there is also a link to archives of "News of the Weird," a syndicated column that appears in newspapers nationwide.

Bored.Com has an affinity for Internet freebies and moneymaking sites. One interesting link says, "Make Money Surfing the Web." This site does indeed pay you for using the Web via a sort of profit sharing by taking advantage of affiliate programs. For example, if you sign up for a NextCard on my web site, I get $20. If you sign up for a NextCard on their site, they get $6 and you get $14. Ingenious idea. Seems like a good way for you to share the bounty. In many cases, you earn money just by visiting sites.

Other links include online karaoke and handwriting analysis, web cams, humor, satellite photos of your house, riddles, trivia, and optical illusions.

© 2000 by Jim Karpen, Ph.D. (#225)