10 BETTER Things To Do With a PC with No Internet

Recently DG of Speaking Freely ran a popular story that bubbled up on Digg and del.icio.us about what to do with your PC when you have no Internet connection. I read the article and was generally unimpressed by DG’s ideas for the lonely few who can’t get online.

Here’s what he said in a nut shell:

-Clean out and categorize your bookmarks.
-Delete programs you don’t use.
-Unplug your PC, take the cover off and clean out the dust.
-Write your next blog post.
-Run any maintenance programs you don’t have auto-scheduled.
-Write down your logins and passwords for all your sites, blogs, email accounts, Adsense, affiliate programs, where you purchased your domain names, etc. All that information is the key to your business.

That last one is really long, and the whole list makes me want to stab myself in the eye. Here’s 10 Better things to do with no Interweb (in no particular order)

1. Don’t do any of the things here.
2. Play one of your games. I know, some of them are online only but I’m sure you have a few that you can play in single player or offline practice. Game on.
3. Organize your Porn collection. While this task is very lame in the organizing sense, it usually leads to distraction and the excitement level rises sharply.
4. Create and Edit a Video. No you can’t upload to GooTube but you can shoot, cut and burn some movies while you’re waiting to get back in connection.
5. Listen to Music, Burn Some new CD’s. Yes this is an oldy but a goody but still presents some fun, listen to your tunes, burn some new mixes for the road and see what old music you can discover.
6. Photoshop some Images. Take some family shots and some of your friends passed out drunk and have some fun. You can’t get fresh material from Google Images or Flickr but you can have some local hard disk fun making new images for the Fark forums.
7. Screw around with Linux. You provably have 86 Linux discs burned sitting around from the last 6 months. Take some old hardware or if you dare your own rig and have some Linux fun. Create that media server you always wanted or attach those laser beams to your toaster.
8. Design a new Website. Fire up Photocrap once again or Fireworks if you prefer and create a new layout and design identity for your super popular Kevin Rose uber mega ultra fan site.
9. Watch TV . Yes this is a lazy one but for those with a nice TV card you can just fire up the old boob tube and watch some Family Guy and Stephen Colbert.
10. Hardware Upgrade. This of course depends on your access to new goodies but time spent offline can be spent buying and upgrading essential hardware.

That’s my list, I hope you like it and I hope you spend your offline time wisely.