So if any of you are like me, you're probably an incredibly lazy person. And I don't mean ordinary, run-of the-mill lazy - I mean you elevate it to an art form. There's nothing wrong with laziness, by the way, so don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Laziness - the desire to exert the least possible effort - has given rise to our most wonderful human ingenuities. If someone hadn't been too lazy to walk, we probably wouldn't have cars. If someone hadn't been too lazy to try and make a genuine connection with a woman, we probably wouldn't have such brilliant pick up lines as "Was your dad a baker, because your buns are out of this world!" The bottom line is that laziness keeps us sharp. Because of it we are ever-vigilant for the next thing that will make our lives easier and, in our own twisted way, richer.
In that same vein, I've recently found a Web site that has become my own labor-saving Mecca. Lifehacker.com, created in January of 2005, is a brilliant spot to find tips to make your life less draining. The advice and wisdom distributed on Lifehacker runs from the sort of esoteric thing that you'll only use once in your life to stunningly simple little ideas that you'll kick yourself for having never thought of before. For example, I've always been far too lazy to sit through movie credits in hopes of some funny after-credits scene - well, thanks to Lifehacker, I've now discovered MovieStinger.com, which tells whether a movie has anything worth watching after the credits. More than that, I was also turned on to Runpee.com. Tired of sitting in a movie theater staring sullenly at your emptied large soda while you furiously cross and uncross your legs, desperately needing a bathroom break but unwilling to miss any of the riveting action of the cinema?
Well, some latter-day Edison has solved that problem. Runpee.com lists all the movies in theaters and suggests points during the movie at which you should, well, run and pee, without missing anything too important or awesome. It even tells you how long you have until the movie picks back up again, and what you'll be missing while you're gone.
This is just one of the brilliant tips I found on Lifehacker, and I regret not having discovered this hub of labor-savers sooner. Other wisdom waiting to be mulled over by those bold enough to seek it out include things like "how to have fresh baked bread in five minutes,"and, my personal favorite, "amplify your speakerphone with a cereal bowl."
Some of the tips might not strike you as immediately helpful - but on that one absurd day when you need to amplify your speakerphone and all you have handy is a cereal bowl, all of the sudden you'll be MacGyver!
Eric Chianese is an English senior. His column appears weekly.
