Fun on the Internet

There was a time when inventing games to play with the resources at hand was a good skill to have.  It's want gave us stuff like Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon, which is how people would pass the time before IMDB.  The Internet has made that unnecessary as there is always some little flash game just a website away, or whatever bored.com will serve up or anything really.  But for what it takes, it also gives as there are a few news ways to make your own fun.

The Google Game

Type two words, no quotes, into the Google search engine and get only one result.  I haven't had much luck at this game in a few years as there are just too many word lists out there.  I consider it a pretty decent success to have under 500 matches.  Elocular (having but one cell or cavity; not divided by a septum or partition) and variegated (varied in appearance or colour) produce 492 results as of writing.  That's not bad. 

Plecular and variegated produce only one result on Google, if you've ever wanted to see what that looks like (providing this site isn't indexed before you check).  Only problem is, plecular isn't a word.  But it looks like it might be!

The Wikipedia Game

Head to Wikipedia and bring up a random article.  Then bring up another.  See if you can get back to the first one just by the links available on the pages.  It is surprising how often it can be done if you are willing to work at it.

Here's an example: St. Gabriel's Church (Manhattan) to Harpalinae

Harpalinae -> Violin Beetle -> Thailand -> Buddhism -> religion -> Roman Catholic Church -> Diocese -> List of all Roman Catholic archdiocese -> New York -> List of churches in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York -> List of closed churches in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York -> St. Gabriel's Church (Manhattan)

Ten steps, not too shabby for such unrelated things.