For better or worse, after a two-week pause on returning back to campus, UC Berkeley is officially back to in-person instruction! Other than an inevitable spike in COVID cases, you know what that means: lecture halls filled with computer screens lit up by the latest “Euphoria” episode, or students playing Fireboy and Watergirl instead of taking lecture notes. Though the mature decision might be to eliminate all distractions and stick to pen-and-paper notes, I say if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Here’s the Clog’s official list of slightly useless but fun things to do when you need a break from doing your homework or just want to procrastinate.
Wordle is a word puzzle game that has quickly risen to fame. The objective is sweet and simple: Guess a singular five-letter word. However, there’s a catch: You only have six tries to do it. Though originally created in Britain, Wordle is now playable in any language and has been steadily gaining recognition worldwide, even receiving notice from The Atlantic and the Wall Street Journal. However, while Wordle is arguably an exquisite game, it does have one flaw: there’s only one Wordle per day, so once you finish your daily puzzle you’re going to have to wait 24 hours for your next game. But don’t get too upset! There’s still a bunch of different Wordle variations and clone websites that you can play while you wait, such as Taylordle (guessing Taylor Swift-related words for all the Swifties out there), Sweardle (for guessing swear words) and Letterle (guessing a singular letter instead of a word. Is it stupid? Yes. Is it fun nonetheless? Also yes.)
Ah, the good old-fashioned word search. This word search website gives you anywhere from 35 to 55 unique words to find and keeps track of how long it takes you to find all the words. You can take your time and solve it by yourself, or make it competitive and race your friend to see who can finish the puzzle the fastest. If someone asks you what you’re doing, you’re technically strengthening your vocabulary for English class, right?
Go “Queen’s Gambit” mode and become the next Beth Harmon with chess.com. This website has online computers, chess puzzles and tactics, the opportunity to battle random opponents across the world and the option to play with friends online. Yes, you’re technically procrastinating, but you can feel productive and smart while you do it. Also, chess is technically a sport, so you can even say you’re being athletic.
BoredButton, possibly the most useless website out of all of these, is quite literally a website with a single red button that you can press when you’re bored. The button shuffles between a bunch of extremely random minigames, from discovering what random famous people accomplished at your exact age (apparently, 51 days from now, I’ll be the exact age Kendall Jenner was when People magazine proclaimed her one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world), to lists of the quirkiest gag gifts (anything from cat butt tissue holders to sock suspenders), to Flappy 2048.
2048 is a classic board-tile-style game with an objective to combine numbers until you reach the final number, 2048. While the old-fashioned 2048 game is fun, the new and improved versions are even better. The original 2048 game has been around since 2014, allowing ample time for the creation of hundreds of funkier versions to take root, including 2048 Reverse, Multiplayer 2048, Flappy 2048, Cupcake 2048, Pokemon 2048 and Doge 2048, among others.
Of course, as wonderful as the Clog’s procrastination master list is, use it at your own caution. It’s important to make sure you have a healthy balance between a 3 a.m. crying session at Main Stacks and some good old “doing absolutely nothing.” Good luck with your spring semester and happy procrastinating!
