It's the holiday season; a time of relaxing, sleeping, hanging out, and having fun. So, let's back away from technology for a moment and have some fun learning cool tricks that are bound to impress your friends. These tricks all take some time to master, but as you have time off work due to the holidays; you should be able to get a few tricks down.

Here are some extremely cool but useless tricks you can impress your friends with.

1. Learn Pen Spinning

Originating in Japan, this hobby is taken on by many Japanese students in order to entertain themselves when bored. It's become more and more popular, especially with the high school students in the US and in Asia. Although pen spinning sounds rather easy to do (after all, it is merely the act of spinning a pen around in your hands), techniques have developed to make pen spinning a very difficult hobby to master. Here is a video demonstrating the pen spinning professionals.

Where can I learn Pen Spinning

The best place to go if you want to learn to pen spin is probably the UPSB (Universal Pen Spinning Board) which is a pen spinning forum. There, you can access video tutorials that give you step by step instructions on each technique. You can also watch user posted videos of them showing off their skills. If you're really interested in pens, you can buy or sell specially modified pens, and ask others for help when you're stuck with a trick.

You can also access the UPSB Wiki, which has a very detailed list of all the tricks as well as videos tutorials on how to perform the trick.

2. Learn Coin Manipulation Tricks

Coin manipulation tricks involve movement of a coin around your hand. This is very similar to pen spinning, but requires a different set of skills. Tricks start out simple, but the more difficult tricks may take weeks or months to master. If you're going to play around with coins, be sure you can invest some time into it. Nimble hands can also help.

Where can I learn Coin Manipulation?

Coin manipulation can be learned over at Coin Manipulation. Although the website itself is not pleasing to the eyes, it provides detailed instructions along with an animation to show you how a trick is done. Coin Manipulation has a massive list of different tricks and combos, and is all you will need to begin to manipulate coins.

3. Learn Lighter Tricks

Ever since Zippo lighters have been out and about, people have been playing around with these lighters. Most of them don't even smoke, so don't think you have to smoke in order to mess around with these lighters. Lighter tricks are very similar to pen spinning, and seems to be a combination of pen spinning and coin manipulating. The only downside is that you may get burned.

Where can I learn Zippo Lighter Tricks?

Unlike the previous two, there doesn't seem to be many step by step instructions on how to mess with the lighter. However, you can find a mass of video tutorials on lightertricks.com. You can also find many tutorials on Youtube or Metacafe just by searching.

There you have it; useless but totally awesome tricks you can use to impress your friends and family. Do you know of any other tricks that I've missed? Did you enjoy these tricks? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.