Been reading a good book? Find a good article on the Web? Something funny happen at work? Now is the time to share it with everyone! I know what you're thinking: "Well, I already did this, and that's why I'm looking for something more interesting to do." But if you have a high tech job that nobody in your family understands, or if you read books that your wife will never touch, or if you just read a really cool article on Slashdot that nobody in the car will even get, share it with everyone! Books are especially fun, because they give you hundreds of pages of plot to discuss. Save them the time of reading what you're reading! Bore them to tears with an explanation of how you found a bug in the timer routine of your code! Talk for 15 minutes about the existence of wormholes before anyone has the courage to ask what a wormhole is. This can be quite fun.
Signs
Need conversation after spending 8 hours in the car with your sweetie? People can only talk about useful stuff for so long. Just run with whatever you see on the highway signs. Driving through Pennsylvania? Talk about Intercourse for fifteen minutes. See a Springfield? It's time to talk about the Simpsons! See a silly name like Conshohocken or Ho-Ho-Kus? Mock it for a little while. These are all fun tactics. Need more? Just make up stories about towns you pass. "Oh, Libertyville! That's where the Curling Hall of Fame is!" Spend enough time in a car and this will become quite funny.
It's a Tree!
Argue vehemently that the cell phone tower you just passed is actually a tree. Some towers are painted brown and green to resemble trees, but are very clearly towers. This is what makes the argument so much fun. Use your imagination and try to convince the person with you that you truly believe the tower to be a tree. It helps to completely fabricate your argument: "It was clearly a cellular pine! Why else do you think they paint cell phone towers brown and green? To look like cellular pines!" If you succeed in arguing that a brown and green tower is a tree, try arguing that a less decorative tower is a tree.
Cone. Cone. Cone. Cone...
When driving by a construction site, say "cone" every time you pass a cone. While this may seem really dull if the construction site is 5 miles or longer, you can really spruce it up by yelling "Cone Down!" or "Oh the Humanity!" every time you pass a cone that has been knocked over or flattened. As I write this, I do realize that this game is not at all fun if you are in traffic caused by said construction. If that's the case, I suggest you save this game for later. Otherwise, the people in the car will be ready to strangle you. (Then again, last time I played the "cone" game, the person in the car with me was ready to strangle me!)
