Something weird happened to me yesterday.I woke up, drank coffee in bed, stood on the lawn and watched my dog pee, then sat down at the computer to work. Lo and behold, the internet was out for one reason or another. That little pixelated dinosaur sat on the screen, staring at me with its single-pixel eye. For no real reason, I tapped the space bar. AND THE DINOSAUR JUMPED. Not only did he jump, but he began running. He began running towards cactuses. When I hit the space bar, he jumped over them, which gave me points. My mind was blown. How, after all these years, did I not know that the No Internet dinosaur was a videogame?
When the internet came flowing back through the internet tube (or whatever it does), I Googled it. Apparently, the No Internet dinosaur is something that everyone knows about except me, and maybe you, if you didn’t know about the No Internet dinosaur. But in the course of my Googling, I found something else. Something awesome. Something even more awesome than the No Internet dinosaur, which lets you mindlessly tap-tap-tap the spacebar for as long as the internet is out. Microsoft is doing the same thing… but with a surfing game.
“For years now, one of Google Chrome’s most-loved Easter eggs has been the offline Dino game, something that’s even spawned real-life figures,” wrote Ben Schoon for 9t05Google.com9t05Google.com, a website devoted to tech stuff that I mostly don’t care about. “As Microsoft builds out its Chromium-based Edge browser as a Chrome competitor, it’s also showing off a Surf game that looks like a lot more fun.”
Admittedly, it’s not really a “surfing” game. It’s a person on a surfboard, sure, but that surfboard is more like one of those electric things that everyone kind of wants to try but no one wants to admit that they kind of want to try them. Microsoft Surf is a lot more involved than the single-tap No Internet dinosaur — instead of just a measly spacebar, Surf can be played using touch, keyboard/mouse, and even a gamepad, if you’re really invested in not having the internet for a really long time.
While I haven’t actually tried the game, you can if you have the Edge browser. Just type in edge://surf into the address bar. I, however, do not have Edge. I probably will not at any point in the future, because I’m too lazy to figure out another browser. And to be honest, if I’m without the internet for a while, I’d much rather go stand on the lawn and watch my dog pee on the lawn.
