In case of aCUTE boredom…

Break out the awful puns cute, time-wasting websites. You can have virtual pets, virtual people, and/or virtual homes with virtual furniture and accessories beyond belief. There is nothing better for avoiding doing actual work than having virtual playthings. Ok. I’m going to stop using the word “virtual” now…

• GoPets: Create a cat or dog. Pick the gender and color. Doll it up with pretty clothes and feed it world cuisine. Download is for Windows only, unfortunately, but it gives you the ability to interact with your pet. Lay out a feast, pet it, play ball, or help it fish. Other pets from around the world will visit and interact with you, your pet, and other visiting pets and various items. Shells are the currency used. Free to join. You can pay to get extra bonus items and other perks. Very entertaining and possibly addictive. Cheaper and much less messy than real pets, although perhaps less cuddly.
• GaiaOnline: Make a female or male humanoid avatar. Costumizable and customizable. Join forums on every conceivable topic. No downloads required. Flash popup window allows you to walk around with your character, chat with other people in real time, and you can find gold (Gaian currency), flowers and other fun things around the world map. Flash interface works on Macs and PCs. Does not work on Linux, since according to my friend, Linux is only up to Flash 7 compatibility, and Gaia uses Flash 9. Addictive in the extreme. Free. Donate and get rare items or buy credits to spend on items for your character.
• NeoPets: Pick an imaginary animal to be your pet, from JubJubs to Wockys to Usuls and beyond. Play games and battle other pets. Earn NeoPoints to spend on items for your pet. This is the most low-tech out of these sites and seems to work on most computers, although it is full of images, so load time might be a while, and it does use Javascript. Less addictive than Gaia or GoPets visually, but the games are the most diverse and really quite fun.

If you are looking for good time-wasting sites, these three are pretty top-notch. Aside from procrastination though, they’re fairly wholesome as far as online entertainment goes (I think Gaia is probably on the low end of wholesome because of the forums, which can be great for dicsussion, but also can be used for bad things). Of course, because anyone can sign up, you should be careful of pervs and predators, but I think that the general age of my audience should preclude having to dole out those sorts of admonishments.