Kill some time with these much needed distractions

Constantly being plugged into the news grind is mentally exhausting. Sometimes we just need to take a break, unwind, and do something fun. That’s why we’ve built up a collection of distracting time-wasters for when we need a break from being obsessively online. We figured you might enjoy these harmless rabbit holes, mildly addictive browser games, and internet curiosities, too, so we’ve been writing about them when we find them.

Can you beat our score in I’m Not a Robot or did you find a gem of an academic paper on motherhood and body horror on Horror Lex? Tell us in the comments.

The goal here isn’t to get engrossed in a game that you’ll lose hundreds of hours to, or become an expert on dialectical materialism. It’s to have a little fun on your lunch break, decompress between emails, or give you an interesting repository of art to dig through on a slow Sunday afternoon. So check back often to see the latest light-hearted (well, mostly light-hearted) time waster we’re passing around the office.

• 82-0 is the best basketball game, to hell with NBA 2K
• Mechanical Pencil is the new cross-section book.
• I’m beginning to wonder, am I a robot?
• New Art City is a free virtual gallery filled with beautifully bizarre art.
• Horror Lex is a free database of academic literature for horror nerds.
• Spotify Wrapped? No. Welcome to Tax Wrapped.
• I can’t stop playing this annoyingly hard color memory game.
• Binary Piano is an addictive way to make algorithmic music in your browser.
• Relive the glory days when MTV played music videos.
• A Swedish hot dog with shrimp salad is the most chaotic evil sandwich ever and I will hear no arguments to the contrary.