We’re human. We need time off. Instead of showing you how to actually do something useful today, I’m going to show you some great distractions.

They’re coming!

This one is simple. Press Alt+F2 to bring up the Run Application dialog. Without thinking too hard, type in gegls from outer space and hit Enter. The controls are simple: Space to shoot, the arrow keys to move.

Need a companion?

There’s always the Fish applet that can be added to the panel, but why confine it to a small 20 pixel space? Right-click a blank area on the panel and select About Panels. Now, press the F key three times. That’s “fff”. Wanda the Fish will swim onto your screen and watch what you are doing. Try clicking on her now!

Protip: To kill Wanda (how could you?!) you’ll need to sign out and back in again, or alternatively kill the panel, but that may have weird side-effects. An alternate way to show Wanda again is to hit Alt+F2 and type free the fish.

Everyone’s secret ambition

At the top of the random list, it’s Zenity. Open your friend the Alt+F2 dialog again, and type:
zenity --about
Now, type in the word zen into the About dialog for a game of dress-up! Yay!

Mom, I’m out of money!

This one is my personal favorite, and is a great, friendly prank to pull on a coworker or relative. At the GDM login screen, type Require Quarter (with capitals) into the Username field and press Enter. If done correctly, there will still be a Username field, but it will be blank. Now wait for your unsuspecting victim to log in and… I’ll let you try this one out for yourself.