Tomor­row night, CBC will be host­ing a very spe­cial pre­sen­ta­tion of Queen Eliz­a­beth II’s 1953 coro­na­tion… in 3D! As a result, Canada Post’s across the coun­try are offer­ing free pairs of 3D glasses so you can enjoy the expe­ri­ence from the com­fort of your own home… but you knew that already, didn’t you?

While check­ing the Queen out in three dimen­sions is all kinds of patri­otic cool, there are lots of fun things you can do with those free glasses after the event. Here’s a few ideas;

• Make your own 3D movies/pictures — It may sound like a crazy idea that requires a fright­en­ing amount of tech­nol­ogy, but doing this falls under the “if they could do it in the 50’s, you can prob­a­bly do it on your phone” school of thought.  All you’ll need is a dig­i­tal cam­era and some photo edit­ing soft­ware.  Here’s a great tuto­r­ial to make images, and here’s one to make videos.  Videos are a lit­tle tougher — you’ll need two cam­eras and a basic under­stand­ing of video edit­ing — but it’s still well within the range of a DIY film geek.
• Be Biff Tannen’s friend for Hallowe’en - Back to the Future is the great­est film ever made.  It’s bet­ter than Cit­i­zen Kane, The God­fa­ther, and Soul Plane com­bined.  Name one movie bet­ter than Back to the Future, and I’ll hop in my DeLorean and make sure that it doesn’t get made.  Here’s a quick pic to remind you of how cool Biff’s gang looked, and how eas­ily you could be a part of it with your free glasses this Hallowe’en.
• Play 3D games on your iPhone - A num­ber of iPhone games in recent months have offered a spe­cial 3D mode that takes advan­tage of the old red and blue technology.  Both Crash Course and Ground Effect sup­port 3D glasses, but if you want to just fid­dle around for free, check out the trial ver­sion of Fly Effect Real 3D for the low low price of $0.
• Search out 3D images online - Just want to use your 3D glasses with­out hav­ing to bother clos­ing your browser win­dow?  No wor­ries!  Do a Google image search for “anaglyph” and you’ll instantly be deliv­ered to hun­dreds of dif­fer­ent 3D pic­tures to check out.  The same goes for a search of “3D” on YouTube.  Or even just stick “3D images” into your favorite search engine.  The results are seem­ingly end­less. My per­sonal favorite? These 3D images of the sun that NASA released a few years back.
• Fall asleep with them on, wake up FREAKED OUT! - On sec­ond thought, this might not be that great of an idea.  Maybe keep a spare pair in your pocket to slip on the next stranger you find sleep­ing on the bus.

Even if you’re not inter­ested in the Queen, there’s lots to do with a free pair of anaglyph 3D glasses.  If you haven’t yet, be sure to grab your pair at Canada Post — and let us know what cool 3D fun you end up hav­ing with them!