At its inception, the internet was a beautifully idealistic and equal place. But the world sucks and we’ve continuously made it more and more centralized, taking power away from users and handing it over to big companies. And the worst thing is that we can’t fix it — we can only make it slightly less awful.
Let your imagination go wild. Try to pose dilemmas with equally good, or equally bad, alternatives, and make the other person’s decision really difficult. They can be realistic or fantastic, sober or outlandish.
2. Twenty questions
One person thinks of something; the other person can only ask yes/no questions to deduce what it is.
First person says a line, and then second person has to come up with a rhyming line. You can make it harder by specifying a meter.
Roadtrip bingo
Before you leave, make a stack of different bingo sheets, with each square being something you might reasonably expect to see on a road trip. You can have themes like road signs, license plate states, chain restaurants, or geographical features. Make sure each sheet has a different configuration.
If the car has an automatic transmission, use the driver’s right hand and the passenger’s left. Don’t crash the car!
Madlibs
These were popular when I was a kid, but I haven’t seen them lately. You can buy the booklets very cheaply.
Pick something you know very well by heart, like the alphabet or the pledge of allegiance, and try to say the words in reverse order. Go for accuracy then speed. It’s challenging! “All for justice and liberty with, indivisible, God under, nation one, stands it which for republic the to and, America of States United the of flag the to allegiance pledge I.”
Scattergories
You don’t need to buy the official board game. Just choose a category and a letter, and see who can come up with the most things in the category that start with that letter. For example, you might choose “jobs beginning with M,” and come up with “maid, mason, mechanic, model…” Set a timer and keep score if you want.
These were popular when I was a kid, but I haven’t seen them lately. You can buy the booklets very cheaply.
Pick something you know very well by heart, like the alphabet or the pledge of allegiance, and try to say the words in reverse order. Go for accuracy then speed. It’s challenging! “All for justice and liberty with, indivisible, God under, nation one, stands it which for republic the to and, America of States United the of flag the to allegiance pledge I.”