So, you're stuck listening to a lecture from some professor who won't stop talking about his research papers or you've been called to some meeting where your boss wants to tell you about what's going on in some other department you've never heard of and don't really care about. What do you do?

Here's a few suggestions.

The Wu-Tang/Supreme Court Memory Game

Both a memory game and something of a personality test, the idea behind this game is for you to see which you can name more of: members of the Wu-Tang Clan or Supreme Court Justices. When they were both full, both groups had nine members. Interestingly, this game is one that never one that gets old, as there are members of both groups who are very easily remembered, and likewise, very easily forgotten.

For your reference (and a chance for me to play the game right now) here are complete lists of the memberships of both (at the last point they were full).

Wu-Tang: RZA, GZA, Method Man, Ghostface (Killah), ODB, Raekwon, U-God, Master Killah, Inspectah Deck
Supreme Court: Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, Breyer, Souter, O'Connor, Ginsburg, Kennedy, Stevens

I was able to name seven members of each group before I had to look them up this time.

Count the Crutch Word

You probably know your professor/boss well enough to know their crutch word -- you know, the one they use all the time to fill the pauses. It's usually something like "you know" or "I mean," but sometimes it's just something really weird. I had a professor not too long ago who used the word "inordinate," well, inordinately.

Anyway, the idea is to keep a tally of the number of times the speaker uses their crutch word. This is actually a pretty effective way to stay occupied while actually listening to what's being said, if that's something you need to do. It's perfectly possible for you to zone out while you play this game, too, just keeping your ears open for every crutch word.

More than 30 or so in an hour is a good score.

You can also count the number of times your colleagues use their crutch words if they speak up a lot. For you college students, counting the number of uses of the word "like" can yield huge scores.

"Hey, Will You Stop It?"

The object of this game is just as the title says -- get the person in the seat next to you to say, "Hey, will you stop it?" or some variant thereof.

You can do this however you want -- poking them in the ribs, breathing loudly, whispering their name under your breath repeatedly, rubbing their calf with your shoe -- anything you want. Just get your colleague to their breaking point and say the title phrase out loud (but hopefully not too loudly).

For repeated play, it might be best to not always sit next to the same person to play this game. And it's probably better to sit next to someone you don't know or who you don't really see yourself becoming friends with.

Quote the Hits

This game requires being able to participate in what's going on to some degree, that is, there has to be some class discussion or participation from employees in the meeting.

Now, what you need to do here is inject as many song titles into everything you say during the class/meeting as possible. Keep a count of the number of song titles you're able to throw in. If somebody notices you're deliberately talking in song titles, all the better.

Here's an example from an imagined philosophy class: "I Might Be Wrong, but I'd like to give Descartes the opportunity to Take on Me. He says that we can't know if it's possible to Let it Be, but I don't think that's The End of the discussion. When I drive my Little Red Corvette, with my friends In the Back Seat since I'm no Loser, I can feel the Sunday Sun. What More Can I Say?"

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