These are fun things to jazz up your PC and spark up your downtime. Nothing in this section is exactly useful, but that's OK -- we're just looking for a good time here. (Note: some of these entries are quite old and might not be available any longer.)

Decorate your desktop with these neat desktop themes based on sports teams, art, nature, cult movies, or lovely ladies. Begin your makeover at theme.simplenet.com/, www.galttech.com/, www.themedoctor.com/, art.softshape.com/, or www.themesunlimited.com/. (Be warned that not all versions of Windows 95 support desktop themes (you might need Win 95 Plus!), but Win 98/ME/XP does without a hitch.) Or do a Web search for Windows desktop themes, or search the various download sites. New ones hit the market daily. Warning: not everyone who puts theme packages on the -ware sites knows what they're doing with their code, knows how to keep viruses out of their packages, or cares anything about copyright violations. Start by searching your own machine for a program called THEMES.EXE, especially if you're running an older version of Windows, or go one better by trying the freebie Desktop Architect from www.desktoparchitect.com/. It works well with every version of Windows except XP, and it even works for that system if you don't mind using the Windows Classic desktop. For more sophisticated XP themes, try the $20 Style XP from www.themexp.org/.

Don't forget, if you're running Win 98/ME, you should have a Desktop Themes option in Control Panel that gives you several themes to choose from. If it isn't there, double-click the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs icon, click the Windows Setup tab, and click Desktop Themes from the Components menu. Click the OK button, and Windows 98 will install the Desktop Themes. You might need to slip your original Windows CD into your CD drive.

Speaking of desktop themes, you can plug in any previously created theme using Desktop Themes from www.lss.com.au/lss/windows/dt/themes.htm. This utility costs $15 to keep, but lets Win 95 users without MS Plus! play with themes to their hearts' content. Wincycler, a $10 goodie from members.xoom.com/wincycler/, lets you "cycle" between themes (or sounds, or startup/shutdown logos, or wallpaper...it's multitalented) at regular intervals, and even converts graphics into .BMP files for use as wallpaper or splash files. Michael Holloway's Theme Freak is a $20 utility from www.come2mum.com/~cwhere/ that makes it easy for you to create your own themes. MiThemes is a free utility from www.plusthemes.com/free.html that works almost as well as Theme Freak (but requires Plus!), and costs nada. Plenty of themes are available and easily located with a search, but you might try www.top50themesites.com/themetools.htm and www.zdnet.com/downloads/ (click on the September 1999 issue and find the FreeLoader section). If you need Plus! for Win95, you can get it at the Top 50 Theme Sites noted above, from any major shareware site, or you can poke around Microsoft's site if you're feeling lucky.

Another popular way to dress up a tired desktop is with Webshots, a free service from www.webshots.com/ that downloads new desktop wallpaper to your PC at selected intervals. The Webshots Desktop utility also creates slideshow screen savers to ease the eye.

Tired of the same old cursors like the arrow, the hourglass, the pointing finger, etc.? Get 154 Cursors from PC World Magazine's shareware site at www.pcworld.com/software_lib/data/
articles/desktop/4334.html. The cursor files, all with .ANI extensions, include rolling eyes, drumming fingers, self-peeling bananas, etc. To get 'em up and running, unzip the file, place the cursors in your Windows, Cursors directory, go to Control Panel, double-click Mouse, click the Pointers tab, highlight a pointer you want to replace with one of the new ones, click the Browse button and scroll the list until you find one you want, and double-click it. Repeat the process as many times as you like. Remember, they are all animated cursors, and drain their share of system resources.

ASCII art has been around since the early days of DOS and probably before. It's the art of creating pictures from the letters, numbers, and symbols available on the keyboard. Lots of folks are still into ASCII art, and here's some places for you to go to dive in. First, check the ASCII Art Information page at users.inetw.net/~mullen/asciiart.htm, then scope out the ASCII Signature Museum at huizen.dds.nl/~mwpieter/sigs and classic artwork ASCII-ized at users.inetw.net/~mullen/ascii.htm. A program called FIGlet 2.21 makes large letters out of ordinary ASCII text. You can learn all about figlets and create your own by visiting www.figlet.org/. And one of the most amazing displays of ASCII art is at www.asciimation.co.nz / -- these guys have redone the entire first Star Wars movie in ASCII. Something to see, for sure.

OK, the oldsters among us just love classic video games. You can play a ton of them for free at www.play.vg/

Remember Spirograph? Well, the older folks do. Here's a program called Curve-O-Graph which lets you make spirographs on your PC. Free from users.chariot.net.au/~peabody/cag/curve_a_graph.html.

Add odd, spacey blips and bleeps to your system with Nullsoft's Beep. Free from www.nullsoft.com/free/nbeep/.

Think online gaming is hilarious? So do the folks at Dork Tower, who put out an online comic strip poking fun at the entire mileiu. Trekkies and anime amuse these guys as well. Find it at www.dorktower.com/

Norbert's Emulators, at web.utanet.at/nkehrer/jae.html, uses Java to provide web-playable versions of dozens of old Atari, Midway, Sega, and Nintendo games.

One of my favorite completely useless tidbits is Neko, the desktop cat. Find Neko95 from www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Haven/4173/, and watch the kitty chase your cursor around your desktop, scratch at the side of your screen, and curl up for a nap on top of an icon. Too cool. This site also contains fun image files.

Nap and Coffee is a neat little freebie that runs a small dialog box on your PC that makes it seem as if you're downloading a file, defragging your hard disk, performing a virus scan, or whatever works best to fool the boss or your mom. Plug it in, set the duration of the "progress bar" for however long you like, and sneak off for a nap, for coffee, or whatever makes you want to fake folks out. Snag it from kinkodev.nexen.net/main_eng.html?lang=ENG.

If you find yourself feeling more and more Dilbertized, fight back with the plethora of desktop jokes, toys, travel hints, prepackaged excuses, and other timewasters at ishouldbeworking.com/. Find loafing tips, links to a variety of e-commerce sites, and a "panic button" that gives you a productive-looking screen in case the boss wanders by.

A neat item that goes beyond the usual scope of timewasting goodies and practical jokes, HyperScore is a free program that lets you create surprisingly complex musical compositions. It's somewhat geared towards children, which means it's easy to use, as well as towards the adult non-musician. Find out more at www.media.mit.edu/hyperins/ToySymphony/musictoysscore.html, and read up on it at web.media.mit.edu/~egon/projects/hyperscore/.

Funny Voice 1.1 changes your voice (or anything spoken into your PC's microphone) into something bizarre. Connect it to your TV or sound card for even more fun. Free from www.graphics-tools.com/freeware/freeware.html.

Good Microsoft joke here: www.geocities.com/rcwoolley/. Trust me on this one.

MyBossSucks (www.mybosssucks.com/) is a great site to share your complaints about your ignoramus of a boss with the world, and to peruse others' horror stories. The site also includes a (somewhat) serious advice column feature, a list of excuses for ducking out, and a plethora of "inspirational" resignation letters.

In California, it is a misdemeanor to shoot at any kind of game from a moving vehicle, unless the target is a whale. In Alabama, it is illegal to wear a fake moustache that causes laughter in church. Go to www.dumblaws.com/ for lots more examples of idiotic laws from the US and other countries.

I'm always fascinated by human stupidity, the stupider the better. This site, The Darwin Awards, "honors" those nitwits who, through their monumental imbecility, have removed themselves and their substandard gene plasm from the world's genetic pool. (In other words, they've killed themselves with their stupidity.) As stupid as you may feel that you are, after visiting www.DarwinAwards.com/, you can't help but feel a little better about yourself.

Desktop Madness lets you computerize your March Madness NCAA basketball brackets. The demo version restricts you to one pool and five players, so bigger offices ought to shell out the $20 and register the thing. Runs on everything from 386s to Win9x and NT, and works well over LANs and WANs, offers customizable scoring, easily printable, and downloadable templates with the latest standings...they've covered just about all the bases. The guys at Working Class Software know what us college basketball junkies need. Check this out at www.wcsoftware.com/2000Web/desktopmadness.asp. Next season I'll be so ready....

A lot of people enjoy changing their arrow cursor to something else: gobbling Pac-men, Godzillas, pointing fingers, what have you. That's old news. However, Dynacursors 2.0 changes your cursor periodically without your intervention. Everyone likes surprises; surprise yourself with a new cursor every now and then. Free from www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Byte/6202/.

Think you're addicted to the Net? Take the online quiz at netaddiction.com/resources/test.htm -- according to one expert, only about 4% of Net users have serious addictions, while another 6% have mild to moderate problems. Uh uh, not me, doc, I can quit any time I want.

Star Trek fans, modify your PC to simulate the LCARS (Library Computer Access and Retrieval System) of the Enterprise, DS9, or Voyager. A variety of "Trekified" utilities are available free from www.bennisoft.com/.

Remember lava lamps? Want a virtual one for your PC's desktop? Try Lava Lamp 1.0.0.4, a freebie from www.gitd.de/de/gitddownload.html. As Chris the Lockergnome says, "lavalicious."

Cheap entertainment can be had at Stick Figure Death Theater, lurking at www.sfdt.com/. These are a small group of animated GIFs that, well, portray the violent deaths of stick figures. They're not too gross, and possibly just right for killing that office dead time while the boss is out getting a manicure.

Dumbentia-The Parody Place is a certifiably wacked-out Web site that parodies anything and everything, with various amounts of bloodloss. Check it out at www.dumbentia.com/.

Fed up of slow, badly designed Web sites? Pay $10 and get your revenge with Web Vengeance, a sick little goodie from Sega that lets you besplatter the offending Web page with virtual rotten fruit, fecal missiles, or Uzi bullets. You can even save the besmirched Web page and e-mail it to the unlucky Webmaster. It's no longer available from its former home site at www.segasoft.com/webvengeance/GetIt.html, but you might be able to order it from a games dealer or find it on eBay.

Slippery Mouse makes the cursor slip and slide all over the screen. Also comes with a sneaky little tidbit that starts off innocuously enough with the question, "Would you like some buttons?" The program doesn't seem to have a home page, but you can download it from www.homestead.com/tylersmom2/files/slippery.zip.

The Flatulator 2.1 is a left-cheek-sneak kind of program: when installed on the victim's PC, it opens the CD drawer at random (preset) intervals, makes a horrendous sound, and closes the drawer again. It can be set for minimum or maximum stealthiness, depending on how hard you want your victim to work to find and disable it. For the less gross-minded, it can also be programmed to emit less offensive sounds such as baby cries, kisses, yells, yawns, and laughs. But I know you guys -- you'll go for the gross every time. This jobber is free, but requires the Visual Basic 6 runtimes, also available at the home site: redrival.com/tabdown/flatulator/ (if you can't find it there, try www.totalshareware.com/asp/detail_view.asp?application=4756.

Fun with your Zippo. No, really. If you've got a Zippo lighter and you want to learn to play tricks with it, burn your way over to the Zippo Tricks page at zippotricks.com/. Many of the more difficult maneuvers are illustrated with video clips, which are interesting enough in and of themselves.

Fortress Personal Lie Detector 1.2h is an unusual piece of funware. It purports to be able to tell when a user is telling the truth. Scientifically dubious, no doubt, but the potential for havoc is definitely here (and recognized by the manufacturer, who includes a lengthy legal disclaimer with the program). $35 from www.digitalrobotics.com/fortress.htm.

TriaTrivia 1.1 is meant as revenge for those who have had enough of trivia contests. Download this one and find someone who wants to be a millionaire through their knowledge of useless junk. Unleash this on them and watch the fun start. Deliberately wrong answers to easy questions and cheesy prizes are only the beginning. $10 from www.triasite.com/.

Need to keep an eye on things? Put Eyeball 1.1.1.1 on your desktop. Yum. This and other "screenmates" are free from www.netspace.net.au/~nolet/.

Everyone has their favorite screensavers, and one of mine is Sherman's Lagoon at www.dnai.com/~fillmore/gallery/scrpc.html. Animated cartoon fish, you gotta love it. Want a more cutting-edge, dramatic screen saver? Try the 3D renderings, Desktop Dreamscapes, available from www.superxstudios.com/products/desktopdreamscapes/home.htm.

This is a fun site: TrailerVision. The guy who launched this site has posted a lot of cheesy, wonderfully awful trailers for movies that were thankfully never made. All the Quinn Martin-John Woo-Quentin Tarantino-George Lucas film tricks are here in all their sleazy glory. Slide over to www.trailervision.com/ and look for new additions every Monday. Yeesh. And speaking of trailer trash sites, check out www.geocities.com/ausable2/trailerpark.html. Ye gods. Not for the easily offended or the kiddies.

Someone sick hangs out at Lizard Works (www.lizardworks.com/). Swapper Windows Prank from www.lizardworks.com/pranks/html randomly swaps the left and right mouse buttons on your victim's computer...comedy ensues as your target tries to figure out just what the hell is going on. Snoring Mouse starts sawing logs when the mouse is idle. Kilroy causes the famous balding fellow to peek over the edge of your active screen. Earthquake causes your windows to shake, rattle, and roll. Falling Icons causes all of your Desktop icons to tumble to the bottom of the screen, and Crazy Icons causes your icons to dart across your screen. And HaHa makes all of your windows...disappear. LW has more sidesplitters available for the bold or the uncaring.

Here's a Microsoft Knowledge Base article you won't want to miss. Fire this page up for your harassed tech support people and watch them giggle. I won't even tell you the title, I'll just give you the URL: support.microsoft.com/support/kb/ARTICLES/Q172/6/53.asp.

Another fun site is the aptly named Computer Pranks at www.computerpranks.com/.

Error95 1.94 is a clean and multi-faceted prank program that gives you numerous choices of what kind of fake error to inflict on your victim. Free from www.prohash.com/error95/, but a $5 registration gives you access to even more pranks.

Floppy Madness 1.00 uses the unassuming floppy disk drive as the source of hilarity. This program, once let loose on your victim's machine, checks their floppy disk drive every 60 seconds, or however many seconds you choose. This doesn't sound like much, but give it time. Not easily shut down, either (except by the perpetrator), so you can sit back and watch your victim turn blue as they try all their techie tricks to get this one to let go. Another fine freebie from www.rjlsoftware.com/software/entertainment/.

Error 1.1 is another classic of its kind, simulating unwanted disk formats that panic your victim into heart arrhythmmia. Free from www.sharewaresolutions.com/.

In the same vein, WinError from KitSOFT (available from www.pcworld.com/utilities/) puts up scary bogus warning screens that may send your target scurrying for technical support. Message Manager from www.rjlsoftware.com/software/utility/
message/information.shtml performs similar evil pranks on your target's PC.

Another minor but fun prank is screen flipping. UpSide Down 1.0, from www.iopus.com/overview.htm, turns your victim's screen upside down. It restores itself with a single mouse click, so it won't do anything more than make their stomach lurch one good time, but sometimes that's all you want.

If you really want to freak someone out, surreptitiously install FakeDelete 1.02 from www.rjlsoftware.com/software/entertainment/
fakedel/default.shtml. The program brings up genuine-looking screens that mimic deleting your Windows folder and all the files therein. Not to be used for people with thin skins who outrank you.

Windows Prank Kit Demo 1.06 is another one of those multi-featured prank programs. Simulate virus attacks, hacker invasions, Blue Screens of Death, and more. $8 from www.cosmega.com/.

Trick 1.0 is one of those "catch the button" prankers. Try as they might, your victim won't be able to click on the shutdown button to get out of this one. Free from www.proimaging.com/jamie/.

Gag Program 1.0 is simple and effective. It slips itself into the StartUp folder and from then on, causes Illegal Operation errors until removed. Better yet, it only costs $1 to register. Try it from www.sharewaresolutions.com/.

The Dialectizer is for spooking your HTML-savvy friends. Visit rinkworks.com/dialect/, enter your friend's URL, then call your friend over and have him look at his "translated" site. When he or she sees that their site has apparently been rewritten by Elmer Fudd or Bubba the Redneck (other options are available, including pig Latin, Swedish chef, moron, Cockney, hacker, and gangsta jive), they'll provide the afternoon's entertainment. No code is actually hurt in this process, but you don't have to tell them that. (I ran this on parts of my site and I can testify, it's hysterical. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit!)

The Random Burper (free from www.rjlsoftware.com/software/entertainment/burp/default.shtml) is a little goodie that makes your victim's PC burp once a minute. Even better, it cranks the volume up to Maximum, lets fly with a belch that makes cubicle walls shake, and resets the volume to normal. Hours of fun. RJL (have you noticed that there are a lot of listings from RJL Software in this page?) has released the companion piece, Random Farter -- ideal for high tea with the vicar, or loosening things up during that big board meeting.

Another, less disgusting offering from RJL is the deceptively simple Rotate 1.00. What does it do? It randomly flips and/or reverses your desktop. Hours of mindless amusement from www.rjlsoftware.com/software/entertainment/
rotate/default.shtml.

"Game of the Century" is one of those classically evil practical joke programs that scares the hell out of the user. They crank the game up, and after an innocent start-up dialog box, it tosses up a realistic-looking Explorer window that asks if it should begin deleting all files on the C: drive. Of course there's no way to say no. After several realistic screens telling the poor sucker that Windows can't find any files on the drive, a "gotcha" screen pops up advertising Telstar's "Virus" game. Unfortunately, Telstar has given its games to another vendor, and no longer supports these programs, so you'll have to find this prank program at hotfiles.zdnet.com/cgi-bin/texis/swlib/
hotfiles/info.html?fcode=0014UJ.

As seen above, practical jokers abound in the computer world, and there's no reason you can't be the joker rather than the jokee. The following are files available from www.zdnet.com/downloads/, mostly freeware collected from various unsavory sites around the Net and presented here in order of odiousness from the slightly annoying to the heart-stoppingly funny (for you as you watch your prey spend half a day on the phone to technical support and weeping onto his ThinkPad).

Fun.exe puts up an innocuous splash screen and a "Click Here" button that won't allow you to click it - it dodges your cursor instead. Error 1.0 includes 3 error messages that you can plant in your victim's StartUp group to simulate dire computer problems, but after a bit it blows its cover with a "Just kidding!" message. WinTrick annoys its victim with phony error messages and one irritating beep after another.

Joke.exe pulls the old "DOS is reformatting your hard drive" prank with a high degree of realism, enough to make your victim choke on his Big Mac. Super Fred is a collection of "Desktop Buddies" that sends cartoon Freds strolling around your target's desktop, tracking digital mud across text files, making nasty gestures, and otherwise interfering with good, honest work. Dr. CPU masquerades as an innocent, rather sophisticated benchmark program, until it starts giving realistic warnings of dangerous radiation leaks seeping from the machine. WinPrank is similar to Error 1.0, but more sophisticated, with a variety of faked goodies to send your victim into spasms.

For your buddies who won't let go of DOS, FakeDOS sends them to a fake DOS screen, then refuses to let them out while supposedly wreaking havoc on their system. FakePad is an ersatz replacement to Notepad that only produces error messages while the user tries to call up file items or type. Joke Wallpaper changes the wallpaper, or the startup/shutdown screens, of your victim to whatever funny or nasty screens you choose; visit www.jokewallpaper.com/ for a collection of screens to inflict on your victim. WinOza 3.2 is a whole 'nother deal. This program, once installed on the machine of someone you really detest, will make their screens shimmer and twitch, send their cursors careening over their screen, cause open windows to flee the pointers, jumble the control buttons, and consume so much system memory as to cause a real system lockup. It even tells you how to run a "stealth" attack from the Registry so that angry victims perusing the StartUp group or the WIN.INI files get nowhere. Prepare to look for another job after you infest your boss's PC with this one.

Still can't get enough? Find the April Fools' Page on the Net at www.aprilfools.com/, which can send your victim jokey e-mail ranging from the mildly amusing to the downright libelous. And the last, most evil one is The Avenger's Handbook at www.ekran.no/html/revenge/. We're not talking practical jokes here, we're talking terroristic pranks that will ruin your victim's PC along with his mental state and may require you to retain a lawyer. Fun is fun, but don't do something you can't get out of, and don't try to blame me for your antics with any of these programs.