If you're like me, you spend almost your entire day staring at a computer monitor. Save a few meetings, bathroom breaks and lunch (though that's frequently eaten at my desk, too), I start to zone out a little if I don't do something to break up the day.
For me, it's not Facebook that's my diversion, and Twitter is mostly about work. If I need to take a pause from deep thoughts, I spend five minutes perusing a few old standby sites.
If you work in one of those offices where your IT people monitor and / or block your Web usage, then be forewarned: each of these 10 sites get a little "NSFW" from time to time.
On the other hand, if you have a laid-back office like I do -- where most of the wildly inappropriate links are being sent to me by my own co-workers -- then none of these will even make you blush.
Thus, I submit to you 10 of my favorite ridiculous Web sites, in no particular order, to break up the day:
Engrish.com: I've been visiting this site, off and on, for years. Something about poorly translated Japanese to English cracks me up.
AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com: We've all seen our friends' weird family portraits. This aggregates them all in one place -- and with snarky commentary, to boot.
TweetingTooHard.com: Apparently, I'm not the only one who wonders why anyone would care about random egomaniacs and their self-absorbed tweeting. This is site is too funny for following people addicted to Twitter, microblogging about how awesome they are.
DontEvenReply.com: A "Jerky Boys" for the digital age, the site follows the insane e-mail conversations spawned from phony replies to classified ads. So wrong, yet so funny.
ThisIsWhyYoureFat.com: A collection of sometimes delicious but always gluttonous recipes. And they're right, this is why I'm fat.
FUpenguin.com: I don't completely understand this Web site, but it makes me laugh. You can imagine what the "F.U." stands for, and its tagline is "A blog where I tell cute animals what's what." There you have it.
LATFH.com: One of the lesser SFW sites, "Look At The F*cking Hipster" pokes fun at the too-cool-for-school hipsters, knocking them down many pegs ... where they belong.
KeggersOfYore.com: Just a harmless little blog roll, chock full of retro party photos. More fun than it seems.
Highdeas.com: I'm not a stoner and never have been, but I still can appreciate their ridiculous -- and occasionally clever -- ideas. Here they are, all in one place.
TextsFromLastNight.com: A collection of absurd and inappropriate text messages, sent at that time of night when phones should be turned off. You can search by area code, too, which is especially funny if you want to see what kind of nonsense is being texted by your friends and neighbors in the 414. Definitely NSFW.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
