Whether it's to look at works of art, indulge that wicked sense of humour, listen to music, post pictures or simply air your feelings… there are a number of offbeat sites to keep you engaged for hours together. Geeta Padmanabhan lists some of them

Mmm…12 million users in record time, multiple write-ups about it. For the hype around it alone, you should log on to >Pinterest, the online pinboard. On this virtual bulletin board, you pin up your favourite pictures and admired images from across the web. If a photo strikes your fancy, you “repin it” — Pinterest lingo for posting — to your own board with a few clicks. You also get to curate collections under different current categories — fashion, recipes, special occasions, art and craft, and interior design. If these topics hint at female domination, wait. Male-oriented pinboard sites like Manteresting and Gentlemint are quickly joining the race. Pins range from common to cute, zapped to zany — the most popular being those not seen before.

If you've finished your pin-up pursuit and itch for some offbeat sites, there is no shortage of them. Here is a list to take away hours of your sleep. More strength to your fingertips!

Start with >http://www.mauricebennett.co.nz/tportraits.htm, a place that features lovely portraits of art and famous people. Don't yawn yet! All the portraits are made from toast. Buttered? We don't know. If you like bananas with toast, visit the Washington Banana Museum to gawk at all the frames of people eating bananas ( >http://www.bananamuseum.com/). Not weird enough? Then Mad-Martian Museum of Modern Madness is where you should be. Find out what it's all about at >http://www.madmartian.com/

It will be crazy checking this out in the middle of the night, but if you are the curious sort, there is this International Museum of Toilets. Do visit it at >http://www.sulabhtoiletmuseum.org/pg01.htm

Feel angry about someone who got away without punishment? Come on, we all have our secret list. Trawl Abuse-a-tron where abuse is given free. That would be >http://www.upstartx.com/abuse/

For owl figurines

If you collect owl figurines, this is one place you'll enjoy hanging out in: Martin's Owl Collection at >http://www.unusualmuseums.org/owl/ Don't give a hoot? Ok, sharpen your ears for messages aliens are getting out — >http://www.planettribes.com/allyourbase/video.shtml

For something downright silly, it is >http://www.ludd.luth.se/˜vk/pics/ascii/junkyard/creative/animations/macarena.html, a site where an ASCII (system of typed symbols used on the computer) figure does the Macarena. For wicked news-based humour, log on to >Fakingnews.com, where your daily anger about world happenings has a chance of cooling off. Example: Google doodle when Sachin scores his 100th international century.

If you had wanted to join Megaupload, the file-sharing site, and didn't, pat yourself quickly. With 150 million-odd registered users, Megaupload was one of the biggest file-sharing services (at one point, 13th most frequently visited) and earned for owner Kim Schmitz $42m in 2010. Caught in copyright theft and privacy law violation, it was shut down recently.

Think you have movie material? Shekhar Kapur and A.R. Rahman have co-founded Qyuki, a site that welcomes co-creation of original content. You could post your lyrics here, another visitor could score music for it and a third could be a publisher who packages it and takes it to the market. The technology platform is built in a way to distribute content through any device.

If in need of cheering up, try >etsy.com for all homemade and vintage stuff, >http://www.cracked.com/ for movie-based laugh riot, >http://www.fanfiction.net/ (if you are a movie buff this is addictive!), and listen to awesome music on >http://www.last.fm/. For “comic” relief, read manga at >http://www.onemanga.com/ (again addictive), flip through flikr for wonderful pictures by ordinary folks, >cockeyed.com, >retrocrush.com and >hulu.com for innocent fun.

Aibek Esengulov's >makeuseof.com does regular round-ups of cool websites and the latest is a 40-member list of “original, unusual, useful, free, and must-be bookmarked” web services. All are roadmaps to sites for searching in. Once there, click to BugMeNot, DailyLit, rateMyDrawings and a bundle of others you can learn from. And don't miss openDNS.

Fun for kids

“Mocomi is India's leading website for kids and families,” say makers of these colourful pages. Kids from 2-20 will find the children's games, stories, activities, videos, audio, 3-D images and experiments groovy, and parents can use the party ideas and outdoor games. It's quite a baby-sitter of a website. To broaden your academic and career horizons, navigate to >Gyancentral.com. There is plenty of info about studies/careers with a test attached. For soul balm, it's >wotwentwrong.com which claims to “help people find out why their relationship ended.” “Find out, Learn, Move on” is its mantra.

Finally the sensation of the season, the all-new Rajnikanth website that came with this punch dialogue: “Aiyyo.. That was unexpected...To keep browsing, switch off your Internet.” That's right, the >Desimartini.com site needs no Internet connection. At >allaboutrajni.com, there's only one way to enter the site — by “chopping off” the Internet connection. The entire world of Rajnikanth — movies, trivia, fun facts, quirky quotes — awaits you, all logged on to “Rajni power.” Stunt? Miracle? It's Rajni! Check it out!