According to some statistics, the average adult in the U.S. spends 7.6 hours per day at work.

That means that almost 1/3 of your 24 hour day is spent sitting at a desk, in a cubical, in a building in an office park (for the lucky ones at least). A fortunate few of us actually produce a product or service that will mean something or affect someone’s life 10 years from now, for most of us, however, what we do during that 7.6 hours really doesn’t amount to much on the grand scheme of things. That is, unless we have fun doing whatever it is we do, and if you can’t have fun in the office at least try not to take being there so seriously. Which is why I, as well as many of you, are Dilbert fans.

What office in the US does not have at least one Dilbert cartoon thumbtacked to a corkboard that speaks to a familiar workplace condition, be it airhead bosses, clueless coworkers, or irate customers, any of which might give us cause to cry like babies if it weren’t so funny.

The situations portrayed in Dilbert speaks to us, and usually it says, "Dude, don’t take it so seriously!"

Some people really get a kick out of Dilbert and read everything published about him and ponder weighty thought about the spectacled character. ("What is the Freudian significance of Dibert’s upturned tie and how does it relate to the work environment? Inquiring minds want to know!")

Regardless of how deep your interest in Dilbert may go you are bound to like the Dilbert Animated Cartoons video podcasts available for free at the iTunes Store.

Dilbert Animated Cartoon

All of the usual suspects are there; Wally, Catbert, The Boss, Alice, and, course, Dilbert.

I’m not a fan of some of the voices used in the animation, but that’s just me -- you may not care at all -- and the short videos are just as funny as the newspaper counterparts.

There 22 episodes of Dilbert Animated Cartoons at the iTunes Store and you should know that there’s a commercial after each. I guess someone has to pay for all this digital goodness.

Go grab a bunch.

After you are done snickering at the antics of Dilbert and pals you may sit back in your squeaky office chair and ponder life beyond cubicle walls and water coolers.

Wouldn’t it be nice if your office had no walls and if your daily commute took you through some of the most breathtaking scenery on the planet? Wouldn’t it be great if you lived in Alaska?

I know I’ve often wondered what it would be like to trade 6 months of Summer for 8 months of Winter. My wondering stops when I realize that living in Alaska without a job is probably a death sentence for me. I’d freeze to death, get eaten by a grizzly, or both.

Still, I’d like to visit some day. While I wait for that dream to come true I can watch Alaska HDTV, a really good podcast available at the iTunes Store.

If you know anything about the great state of Alaska then you’ll know that it has a city there with my last name. Seward, Alaska was actually named after William H. Seward (someone in his family probably owned someone in my family back when slavery was popular). Mr. Seward was Secretary of State back in the 1860s and brokered a deal with the Russians for the purchase of the Alaskan Territory in 1867. Back then people thought the $7.2 million spent for the land was a waste and called the whole deal ’Seward’s Folly’. Of course we now know that Ol’ Bill had the last laugh because Alaska contains some of our nation’s more treasured natural resources. I’m not talking about oil, though there’s plenty of it up there. I refer to the millions of square miles of untouched natural beauty. $7 million was money well spent.

You can see a lot of what Mr. Seward bought for us in Alaska HDTV. There are well over 70 episodes, all of it shot in Hi Def. So go get some Alaska.

Maybe Alaska isn’t your cup of tea. Maybe you would prefer a job where you get to work with your hands. Way back before we had robots and the Chinese producing everything there were craftsmen, people who worked in a particular discipline or medium to produce items that border on art by today’s standards.

These people had skillz like you would not believe and were true masters of their crafts.

Maybe your fingers feel better covered in sawdust and wrapped around a chisel than dancing over a keyboard. If so you are going to love The Wood Whisperer, a series of podcasts available at the iTunes Store.

I remember wood shop in high school and I sucked at it, but it was fun. The Wood Whisperer reminds me of that class except that the host, Marc J. Spagnuolo, is serious about wood.

Watching the introduction episode made me want to clean out my garage and buy some woodworking tools. Of course, my fascination with woodworking would likely dissipate the first time I hammered my thumb, but watching someone who knows what he’s doing when he does his thing is always fun.

There are over 60 episodes of The Wood Whisperer on the iTunes Store so if you yearn to make your own dining-room set this is the podcast for you.

That’s going to do it for this week, but before I go I want to give you a heads-up about a new game available for the iPod; Monopoly.

Monopoly for iPod

Yep! that’s right. Monopoly. I can’t tell if it’s worth you time or not yet because I haven’t played it, but it sure looks good and I’m becoming a fan of the pass-n-play games that EA Mobile is putting out for the iPod these days. I have a feeling that, like Yahtzee, Monopoly may not be a lot of fun playing solo, but I could be very wrong. After all Scrabble is a blast in solo-play.

Check it out if you’ve got a minute.

OK, see you here next week.

More free stuff at the iTunes Store (with direct links):

Vern Seward is a writer who currently lives in Orlando, FL. He’s been a Mac fan since Atari Computers folded, but has worked with computers of nearly every type for 20 years.