With every passing year it seems more and more people are vocal about their dislike of “the race that stops a nation”.
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Whether it’s because of animal welfare concerns or a complete lack of interest in horse racing as a sport and the attention it’s given, the movement is gaining momentum.
Some have even adopted the hashtag #nuptothecup to broadcast their dislike of all things Melbourne Cup.
Whatever your reasons for not caring about today’s Melbourne Cup, you can rest easy knowing you won’t have to feign interest in fascinators, follies and the office sweep this year. We have put together a list of activities you could interest yourself in today instead of focusing on a horse race.
Each of these are things you can either finish in a single day or get pretty far in if you spend just one day.
Learn a new language
Duolingo is a fun and most importantly free website and app that you can download right now to start learning any one of dozens of languages. It takes no time to set up and the courses are short and fun to experience.
You can learn almost any major language including; Russian, French, German, Esperanto and even the language of the people of Westeros, High Valyrian. Lessons can be as short as five minutes all the way up to 20.
Help end world hunger
The website freerice.com claims to donate “10 grains of rice to the starving through World Food Program” for every question you answer correctly. The questions are relatively straight-forward and even spending a little time on this site could help change someone’s life.
Make extremely colourful and trippy art
With weavesilk.com you can quickly and easily create stunning works of art with just a click and drag of your mouse. There are some options to change things up like colour and the symmetry it generates. No matter what you choose though, it’s going to look amazing. Say hello to your new phone wallpaper.
Read the funniest emails on the internet
The website dontevenreply.com contains a menagerie of emails sent as replies to advertising spam. The author’s aim is to mess with people sending ads, confuse them, and even make them angry.
Supercharge your memory
memrise.com promises that you can learn vocabulary, languages, history, science, trivia and just about anything else easily using flashcard techniques that will stick in your memory and improve your recall ability.
Immerse yourself in some damn-interesting stories
A favourite of mine for a long time now, damninteresting.com has an endless collection of real-life stories ranging from crime, supernatural mysteries and even science. Every single one will hook you with their brilliant subject-matter and writing. You can rest easy knowing all those people out there watching some horses race are missing out.
Learn how to tie your shoes in one second
The irony is not lost on us that it takes a 51-second video to explain how to do something in one second, but this is the internet and good things come to those who wait. Think of all the things you could do now with the saved time.
Watch an amazing documentary
Documentary Heaven. Literally just hundreds of documentaries, all arranged by topic, all for free to stream.
Learn to say the alphabet backwards
Look, we don’t know exactly when this will come in handy but when the day comes you’ll thank us. We will just preemptively say “you’re welcome”.
Make everything OK
Melbourne Cup day can be overwhelming. But that’s alright, we’re all in it together and we have a solution for you. The website make-everything-ok.com fullfils its sole purpose well. With a single push of the ‘OK’ button you can magically make everything better.
Go ahead and give it a try and you’ll feel better in no time.