We live in a society where information overload is a common problem: media is flying at us from all angles all the time. On TV, at the Cinema, on the streets, in the malls, at the club, restaurant, gym, and even at the ski resort we are bombarded by advertising. Sounds and images are flying at us everywhere: on screens, billboards, through massive bass bins, printed on our pint glasses, on the papery edges of magazines.
Yet amidst all of this chaos it is possible to extract real, quality information and entertainment. All it takes to get started is a discerning eye, a clever network of like-minded friends, and an aptitude for sifting through rubbish to find that gleaming needle in the proverbial haystack. All you have to do is type in the url, name your distraction and it awaits. Whether you are craving a news article, a short documentary that will inspire your mind, or a mindless online game, there is a website to serve your needs.
For movies my latest finds are the documentary shorts on the Media That Matters Film Festival Website and Sprword.com. Both of these sites feature multiple sections that allow you to choose your poison: whether you are in the mood for a news article, a documentary short, or a feature-length doc, you can get your fix with the click of your mouse. Media That Matters is focused on shorts under 12 minutes in length, submitted by amateur filmmakers from around the world. If you are craving something a little less informative, wimp.com dishes out quality short films about.. pretty much anything. Extremely entertaining and completely random, I am in love with Rollerbabies and Rammstein vs. Cookiemonster.
If you feel so inclined to keep one of these movies, a brilliant little site called keepvid will let you do so without downloading any apps. You can choose to save your flick in high or low-quality, and all you have to do is copy the url and click ‘download’. Brilliant!
When you are looking to kill time without using too many brain cells, Farmiville is the perfect fix, and the only real limitation is the lack of a proper joystick for precision-controlled moves. My personal favs: Catapult Grandpa and Crush’s Summer Holiday.