how do you relieve boredom?

i work at a job where there is huge blocks of down time, interspersed with short bursts of activity. it's winter now, so going outside when not working is undesirable, especially in -30C. i am looking for ways to keep my mind occupied...
so far, i have been attempting to teach myself spanish ( so far i am about 7 pages into my book, after 3 weeks of owning it... ), i do su do ku puzzles, which i am getting stumped on the "light and easy" ones...ummm...going to the employee gym only holds a small appeal as i do physical labour all day...most of the time i have ended up reading books, watching movies and or sleeping (yes i have the best job in the world).
any suggestions of things i can do that dont involve accessing computers (not allowed)?
thanks!!!

Reading sounds good to me, there are also card games. At a job I had in Saskatchewan in the -40C days we would play "31" it's a good game if you have lots of bored people around.

You could get a rubix cube, those are always annoying. But lately I sometimes get to the point where doing nothing at all is nice.

Actaully... I thought about it some more and how about you do THIS.

Jigsaw puzzles?

Jigsaw puzzles?

Quoting Brendan

Jigsaw puzzles?

Stealing ideas, are we?

singing or listening to music...

Start writing your own book/novel/memoirs. Do a correspondence course in something different (if your paying or doing it officially, you are more likley to do it than if you just try by yourself) and of course, start researching and planning lots of fantastically amazing long term travels/trips for the future!

Write letters to friends that you're not in contact with very often. Send them really weird funny postcards or just random articles from newspapers etc and put in it "Saw this and thought of you!". Keeps you entertained and your friends receive something funny that they will / or will not appreciate!

PS: If you're lucky you may recieve letters back and can read them during your work hours!