Top Five Ways To Kill Time Whilst Traveling: 2) StumbleUpon

Any of you reading this who have met me in the past few weeks will no doubt have been shown some random and quirky article I've found somewhere in the depths of cyberspace. 'Where on earth did she find this?' I heard most of you cry. Well, all from the power of StumbleUpon, the ultimate way to waste time, traveling or not.

But, it has been my saviour in my times of boredom here, so I could hardly miss it out of these posts. Stumble is a way to discover and explore the internet like never before. To set up your own personal profile, you complete a checklist, describing your interests. You then hit the Stumble! button, and it generates pages it thinks you will enjoy based upon your chosen interests. You then have the option to like or dislike these pages before moving onto the next Stumble, therefore giving the computer a chance to skim down your interests even more and producing internet gold for your enjoyment.

Sound good? Yeah, it is. I think it should come with a warning however, it has made me feel like I'm going blind sometimes. You can easily Stumble for hours without realising and before you know it, you've 'liked' 136 pages, god knows how many you've disliked, and it's way past bedtime.



Add a little more joy to
your tea break.



So I thought I'd share with you now the top five things I myself have StumbledUpon. There are just the quirkiest little ones I've found, the bigger and better websites that are now bookmarked are for later posts...



1) Teabag Coasters: These ingenious little designs make making a cup of tea even more delightful. As well as being the packaging for the teabag, these then double up as a coaster. You place you used teabag on said coaster, and voila, a little picture forms as the embossed part of the paper soaks up the liquid quicker then the rest. I didn't think there could ever be a wya to make a cup of tea moe beautiful, but here it is.

Some little people putting
out a candle.

2) Little People Art: A hideously cute little project by artist Vincent Bousserez, consisting of tiny little plastic men and women set up in various situations. These include window washing a watch face, riding a sledge down some kitchen paper and tiny men in biohazard suits checking out some suspicious looking cheese. Kind of makes you want to believe these minature folks come out and night an genuinely sunbathe on your belongings.

3) 4th Amendment Underwear: With all these protests going on about full body scans at airports invading personal privacy, stick it to the man by wearing underwear imprinted with the 4th amendment in metallic ink, therefore making the writing show up on an x-ray scan. This states 'the right of the people to be secure in theirs persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.' Airport security won't know what's hit them, and can hardly fight back in case of having another amendment splurged at them. Available in t-shirts, boxers, socks, bras and knickers.


Natural Architecture: 'clemson
clay nest' by nils-udo, 2005



4) Natural Architecture: Otherwise known as an 'emerging art movement that is exploring mankind's desire to reconnect to the earth, through the built environment.' Getting in touch with our natural side with funky spiral trees forming beautiful chambers, 'organic highways' made entirely of whole logs of wood, and ultimate eco houses. I always enjoy an attempt for humanity to join in harmony with nature, and this project is just down my street.

5) The Invisible Man: A chinese artist named Liu Bolin who paints himself, stands in points of interest and then takes a photograph of it, camouflaged and (almost) invisible to the untrained eye. Creative and also like a little game of Where's Wally (yes guys, it's Wally, not Waldio.) he's not exactly immediate in one or two of his photos actually, pretty good job I'd say. No website that I can find so you'll have to put up with someone elses blog, it seems, for photos.

Liu Bolin in disguise