Free Entertainment Guide

[LadyM]

So by now you've probably punched yourself in the face enough to ditch cable....now what?  Yes, there's Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and Hulu Plus that cost $$....but they cost $$. 

For Freebies there's Hulu free, ProjectFreeTV.com, OTA channels, and any number of sites to catch a show on for free streaming shows, sports, and events.

But I'm not talking about those....in fact I'm turning off the TV for a minute (just a minute, please hear me out) and we'll try to engage some of our other senses outside of that giant Magic Box.

The Library - You know it, you love it, MMM talks about it frequently, so I'm not going to go into crazy depth here.  All I can say is, the place is incredible, and up until my recent discovery of MMM, I had all but forgotten what a magical place it is. In fact, it's even more magical now than it was when I was a kid. I live in Northern VA, and there are several counties around here that make up the "Metro Area" of DC.  The counties have reciprocal agreements regarding libraries, meaning I can sign up for FREE library cards across several counties if I wanted to!  I HAVE ACCESS TO THAT MANY SYSTEMS OF BOOKS!!!  NOT JUST THE COUNTY I PAY TAXES IN!!!  I can't tell you how wonderful that is.  I work in a different county than I live in, so I currently dig around the libraries of those two systems.  I can request books be shuttled over to my "home" library in both counties....ALL FOR FREE!!  What's more, both library systems now offer E-Books as well!  I can check out books for my kindle!!!  In 2 counties!!  AHHHHH!!!  I don't know if this is something that's caught on all over the country, and if it has then I'm the rube, but I thought that double and tripling my library resources for free was just about the best thing ever!  Check out to see if your local area offers you this reciprocal-county arrangement.

Blogs - Obviously you're aware of blogs, otherwise you wouldn't be here.  But let's move away from finance blogs and self-help blogs for a moment and just focus on blogs that serve no purpose other than to entertain. 

I personally love to laugh, so anything involving comedy is a WIN for me.  Sheer silliness is fun, especially when you're having a rough day.  Here are some of my favorites:  [HEADS UP: All of my selections involve some sort of swearing. If you're not into that sort of thing, there are other funny places out there that omit swearing....personally I think swearing is funny]

http://thebloggess.com/ This lady is fantastically funny and strange.  She posts weird stories and even weirder thoughts.  Give her a look.  Some of my favorite posts:
http://thebloggess.com/2012/09/i-rinse-them-out-first-stop-judging-me/
http://thebloggess.com/2011/06/and-thats-why-you-should-learn-to-pick-your-battles/
http://thebloggess.com/2012/06/if-its-the-weekend-this-must-be-chicago/

http://theoatmeal.com/  This dude is hysterical and I hope he never leaves.  An ex-webpage-builder-guy (I think) he has taken the hobby of drawing up funny little comics and turned it into a full-time business!  He's got one book on the market and another on the way.  He's a pretty big deal and here's why: He's used his clout to raise money for a Tesla Museum http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_museum - $1.3 mil to be exact http://www.indiegogo.com/teslamuseum?c=home, and he's just damn funny.  Go check out some of his comics! Some of my favorites:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/incredible_photos
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/dog_paradox
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/movie_theater_layout
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/ Hyperbole and a Half is lots of fun.  She's got a crude drawing style that only enhances her story-telling ability.  She hasn't posted in awhile, which saddens me (and I hope she's OK), but what she still has up is pure gold!  Some favorites:
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/10/god-of-cake.html
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/03/spiders-are-scary-its-okay-to-be-afraid.html

All of the above bloggers have links to their favorite sites as well, and those are pretty funny.  You have the potential to walk through the magical woods of comedy bloggdom and never come out again! And that could be cool!

Podcasts  Free audio entertainment!  What could be better?  I love listening to things because I can engage my hands some other way (drafting, painting, cooking) while still paying attention to what I'm hearing.  Sometimes I don't have time to stop and read a blog, but podcasts are great!  They are everywhere, and it comes down to separating the good from the bad. 

http://mikeomearashow.com/  The Mike O'Meara show!  I love these guys.  They used to be on the radio here in DC, until their station reformatted and kicked them to the curb.  What did they do?  They took all of their years of broadcasting experience and formed it into a podcast!  The outfitted Mike O'Meara's very own living room with high quality audio equipment, and they've been off and running ever since.  They have been doing their own show on their own terms in this format for nearly 3 years now, with no end in sight.  They are funny.  They support themselves with advertising, both on the website as ads and live-read commercials, which aren't long at all.  Most of their advertisers are quite topical and internet-based.  You can purchase BONUS content from them (I do, because I've followed them so long and want to support them), or you can just listen to their free daily 1-hour podcast.

http://bigoanddukes.com/  Big O and Dukes! They are another cast-off of the same radio station as Mike O'Meara.  They skew younger, but again, highly entertaining broadcast professionals who bring it above and beyond your typical podcast.  They have a free weekly podcast, as well as a bonus weekly show called "Reloaded" that can be purchsed.


This is by no means a comprehensive "Free Entertainment Guide", but I thought I'd lead off with some of the stuff I look at/listen to.  Please feel free to add...I'm sure I've left out a ton of good stuff.

[kkbmustang]

Great Stuff.  I would like to add dooce.com for your reading enjoyment, as well as dog-shaming.com. 

[Paul der Krake]

NPR! It powers my alarm clock to get me out of bed in the morning, and my car when I drive to work. I very recently wanted to replace my deceased iPod nano for running, but picked up a $10 portable radio from Walmart instead.

NPR is awesome.

There are tons of old books in the public domain that are legally up for grabs for anyone with an ebook reader. I must have gotten around 300 hours of free reading in around one year of Kindle ownership.

[LadyM]

Good call on NPR.  I also like listening to baseball games on the radio.  To me it's m

Oh, Animals Talking in All Caps is hysterical.  http://animalstalkinginallcaps.tumblr.com/

Cat Scientists of the 1960s, also wonderful  http://catscientists.tumblr.com/

Bent Objects:  Fabulous, funny art from the mind of Terry Border  http://bentobjects.blogspot.com/

[PJ]

Here's another fun blog:  People I Want to Punch in the Throat

http://www.peopleiwanttopunchinthethroat.com/2012/09/peaches-geldof.html

[zoltani]

This cooking blog cracks me up: http://cookingforassholes.blogspot.com/

[kkbmustang]

OMG Zoltani- Funniest. Blog. Ever. 

[PJ]

"I was going to make chicken enchiladas but after an excessive amount of high-octane beer I decided to just throw everything in a fucking pot and walk away.  Unsurprisingly, it was fantastically delicious like everything else I make." 
 
LOL!

[kkbmustang]

I cried I laughed so hard when I read that one!

[LadyM]

I'll also add, if you have a Kindle or any other e-reader, there are Google apps that allow you to "push" web articles to your kindle via the magic of the internet and a wireless network.

I do this all the time.  In fact I send a bunch of MMM's posts to my kindle so I can read them whilst all snuggly on my couch, rather than hunched over at my desk.  It's also easier on my eyes.

The APP!

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/send-to-kindle-by-klipme/ipkfnchcgalnafehpglfbommidgmalan

[Ottawa]

Thanks for some great ideas!  I'll only add this one - not hilarious (most of the time) - but interesting scientific-ish journalism.

http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/

[Ottawa]

This cooking blog cracks me up: http://cookingforassholes.blogspot.com/

This is a great blog ! 

So far my favourite quote from the blog is:
 

“Is that a Pace salsa jar?”  Yes it is.  I’m glad you brought that up because it raises a subject I would like to discuss.  Every drinking glass and storage glass I own is from a product I purchased. From huge pickle jars to little clam juice jars my cabinet is a hodgepodge of assorted glassware.  I also save the lids for future storage.  It’s too bad you bought all those crappy glasses at IKEA like a sucker.

[zoltani]

Hell yes! 

My favorite jar for reuse as drinking glass is from Mole:

[kkbmustang]

I've started actually keeping all of my glass jars. They great storage containers and you can actually see what's in them!

[LadyM]

Thanks for the suggestion of Cooking for Assholes.  I'm enjoying that blog IMMENSELY.

I also realized something else I left out of the original post:  The RADIO!  The free airwaves still offer some awesome stuff, like local sports!  Since we killed cable, there's no way to watch the games, but i can LISTEN to the Nationals on the radio, and it's fabulous! 

The other perk of the radio is I still firmly believe the radio announcers are a million times better than the TV announcers.

[carolinakaren]

We are really enjoying the blogs you suggested!  I want to add something to the list for movie watchers.  Check out topdocumentaryfilms.com.  Some of the movies are older and not the digital quality we've come to expect, but still a good resource!

[zoltani]

Thanks for additional ideas everyone. 

We end up listening to the radio quite often, both for music and news. 

Another thing we enjoy is playing chess, sure you might have to buy a board, but once you do it is free entertainment that also stretches your thinking.  If you are truly badass maybe you can even make your own board.

Does anyone have any homemade board game suggestions?  We were looking at board games this weekend, and man are they expensive!

[Daley]

Thanks for additional ideas everyone. 

We end up listening to the radio quite often, both for music and news. 

Another thing we enjoy is playing chess, sure you might have to buy a board, but once you do it is free entertainment that also stretches your thinking.  If you are truly badass maybe you can even make your own board.

Does anyone have any homemade board game suggestions?  We were looking at board games this weekend, and man are they expensive!

I actually made my first chess set as a child out of a checkers board, metal washers and three-quarter inch doweling, but we're talking other games. >.>

Go is both an easy game to learn and difficult to master... as an adult, I actually enjoy it quite a bit more than chess, in fact. Bonus? A game board is just a grid of lines 19x19 with two different colored piles of stones, each 181 deep. Unfortunately, it's only a two player game. Fortunately, it's a fun game to watch being played.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_%28game%29

Also, don't forget the humble deck of cards. They might not be board games, but there's a near bottomless pit of games that can be played with them from spades to euchre to bridge to poker and the dozens of other variants of games and the plethora of solitaire game styles.

[PJ]

Another thing we enjoy is playing chess, sure you might have to buy a board, but once you do it is free entertainment that also stretches your thinking.  If you are truly badass maybe you can even make your own board.

Does anyone have any homemade board game suggestions?  We were looking at board games this weekend, and man are they expensive!

I actually made my first chess set as a child out of a checkers board, metal washers and three-quarter inch doweling, but we're talking other games. >.>

Also, don't forget the humble deck of cards. They might not be board games, but there's a near bottomless pit of games that can be played with them from spades to euchre to bridge to poker and the dozens of other variants of games and the plethora of solitaire game styles.

 

I could imagine it being relatively easy to make a chess set and board - love the idea of using bits and pieces of hardware for the pieces, especially if you or someone you know have a workshop full of bits and pieces - washers, nuts and bolts, screws, etc.  I don't know that it would be particularly cheap, but you could make it as fancy as this one:
 
http://www.instructables.com/id/Cybergeeks-DIY-Chess-Set/?ALLSTEPS

Now, I feel compelled at this point to insert an OT but amusing wiki article about chess boxing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing.  Not a combo I have ever heard about or imagined before but I came across the link when I accidentally googled "chess" rather than "homemade chess". 
 
Back to game suggestions - it would be easy enough to create a cribbage board, and there are templates available online: http://cribbagecorner.com/boards/templates.  I recently "rediscovered" cribbage when my dad was in a rehab hospital following surgery.  When I was a kid, the murmur of my parents playing cribbage is what we would fall asleep to on camping trips :-)  Someone also gave him a chocolate Scrabble set, so we played that too.  I love this idea:  http://www.trendyblackguy.com/2012/01/words-with-friends-backyard-scrabble/. 

Also, not making but buying - there are those sets that contain multiple games - chess, checkers, backgammon, chinese checkers, etc.  Could be a great "family" gift - Christmas (and other winter holidays) are just around the corner ...

[LadyM]

Does anyone have any homemade board game suggestions?  We were looking at board games this weekend, and man are they expensive!

How about Lawn Jenga?  http://www.instructables.com/id/Giant-wooden-block-stacking-game-tower/

[I Love Cake]

ladymaier thanks for the Oatmeal one-am loving it!  I read the bloggess and I used to read hyperbole and a half-didn't she get a book deal and was busy writing the book? Can't wait to red some of the other suggestions.

[LadyM]

ladymaier thanks for the Oatmeal one-am loving it!  I read the bloggess and I used to read hyperbole and a half-didn't she get a book deal and was busy writing the book? Can't wait to red some of the other suggestions.

I thought she did get a book deal, but haven't heard from her in awhile.

Just saw this posted on the wall-of-shame and thought I'd re-post here, because it's a riot.

JUST IN TIME FOR FALL - The Hater's Guide to the William Sonoma Catalogue  http://deadspin.com/5959212

AND Catalogue Living - http://catalogliving.net/