One good example of a translation page is This translation page. Enter a common English phrase (or short paragraph) into the translation window, have it translate it into, say, French or German, then copy the resulting text into your clipboard, paste it back into the translation window and then have it translate that back into English.
Now compare the retranslated English to the original English. The results can be hillarious!
Some phrases you might try:
"gh" can have an "ef" sound at the end of a word but not at the beginning of a word.
Ride to live and you will live to ride.
The British are coming, run for your lives!
#2 Check out current internet searches
This may have uses besides amusement, it can give you some ideas for keywords and even whole new webpage concepts for your own site! One example of a regularly refreshed page showing current searches is Metaspy, which shows searches being executed on MetaCrawler. This site shows both filtered and unfiltered versions of searches. Beware that the filtering isn't perfect and some questionable searches do slip through, some quite disturbing, like "human testicle recipes"!
You won't believe what some people are looking for!
It appears that Metaspy is down, hopefully this is temporary. In the meantime you can see the top 250 daily seaches on search.com or you can see recent searches on Ilectric
#3 Do your own searches
Try entering some nonsensical phrase such as "frog juice" into a search engine and see what happens. You'll be surprised at what comes up!
You should be aware, though, that seemingly innocent phrases like "cat pictures" often lead to adult web sites, so watch where you're going. You can do it by going to YAHOO or GOOGLE or numerous other search engines.
#4 Look up your own name
Unless you are pretty famous, or have pages of your own, you probably won't find a webpage about you, but you probably will find several about people who have the same name. You might even find that some of them are related to you! For a beter idea of how many people there are with the same name as you, look in a white page directory such as Bigfoot.
#5 Play some online games
Think that BBS games are dead? Think again! Far from being replaced by the internet, many BBSs have installed Telnet ports so they can be accessed over the net. Now it is possible for people from all over the world to play in the same game without paying Long distance charges! Where can you find such BBSs? Well, I have a List of telnetable BBSs. These all have Legend Of the Red Dragon as well as many other online games. To access these you'll need a Telnet application. The current version of Netscape has one built in, but it's not very good. I recommend installing a third party program such as Netterm.
#6 View some webcams
The amusement potential depends on what is going on at the moment where the camera is mounted. Try PD Conner's cams (with audio!) or go to the Camzone cams, and you've gotta see The Kitty Cam!
Also try the TC homecams: Driveway swimming pool Front yard Backyard Kitchen Dining Room Liv rm 1 Liv rm 2 Liv rm desk Toy Train Downstairs
Downstairs desk Laundry room
Looking for more? Check out Webcam Central!
Looking for a better way to watch webcams? Try Webcam Watcher (it's free!)
It should be noted that unless you are paying for access, don't expect to see young vixens "au naturel", you're much more likely to see a grown man typing into a laptop while in his underwear!
#7 Surf at random
Just open your browser and put a random word or phrase (no spaces!) between "www" and ".com". For example, "www.tomdoit.com", and then have your browser go there. You'll be surprised where this leads you! Just be aware that, as with searches, seemingly innocent domain names often belong to adult websites! For instance, archie.com, which now reddirects to archiecomics.com used to go to an adult site, and if you think that facial.com is about makeup, guess again!