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Things To Do During Lockdown

  

Category:  Entertainment

By:  buzz-of-the-orient  •  4 years ago  •  28 comments

Things To Do During Lockdown
There's no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there's no excuse for boredom, ever. (Viggo Mortensen)

Things To Do During Lockdown

Although it's easy to just sit in front of the TV and drink beer, it's possible to defeat boredom and cabin fever.  Take it from me, as I was in lockdown for more than two months, but always had something to maintain my sanity.

Read Books.  On an e-reader loaded with 244 books, fiction and non-fiction, that an old friend sent me I spent about a couple of hours many days reading ones I had not already read, and also re-reading ones I had read a few years ago.  Maybe it's because of my age that I found that much I had read before had been forgotten, and although I knew the general theme of the stories, a lot of the details were almost like seeing them for the first time.  That's what I've also said about watching a movie over again, because there is so much that we might have missed the first time around, or forgotten.

Watch Movies.   There are 7 cable TV channels where I am that show foreign (mostly English language) movies 24/7.  Although there's a lot of repetition, and the movies are at least 3 years old (which I understand is a copyright protection requirement) there is probably at least one movie of interest every day (as well as music channels where language is not an issue).  You're bound to have more access to movies than I have.

Keep Up With The News.  Although there is only one English language cable TV station here, CGTN (China Global Television Network), I also have access to many English language news web sites from around the world, including America, Canada, Israel, England and although the video newscasts on them are not always available to me, many still are.

Play Board Games.  You must in almost every case have someone with whom to play those games.  As my wife is not sufficiently bilingual, I had nobody at home to play my favourite game, Scrabble, but one does not need to be concerned about that to play Gin Rummy, Pennyante Poker, Backgammon, etc.  I try to keep my mind exercised by playing computer Solitaire. 

Students at Home?  They may be receiving lessons via the internet, and you can help them since they will not have the presence of a teacher. 

Learn To Cook Some New Dishes.   Cooking can take up some time and it's never been a boring thing for me, as I prepare almost all my own breakfasts and sometimes my own dinner if my wife decides to make  Chinese dishes that I don't like.  (Note:  We do not eat bats, dogs, cats, insects, snakes, pangolins, lizards or any other such wildlife).  All kinds of recipes are available on the internet, and even on thenewstalkers articles. 

Family Activity Games.   Try playing Charades, or Guess Who I Am, or create a Treasure Hunt. 

Indoor Hobbies.   This is the time to get more deeply involved in them, arrange and catalogue your coin or stamp collectiom, build some models, go through and rearrange your baseball cards, do embroidery, knit a sweater.  Maybe you're lucky enough to have the equipment to do pottery, or some other creative project.  If you're into photography, do some editing of your pictures.

Learn A New Word Every Day.   Using your dictionary, put aside 10 or 15 minutes to find a word you don't know, and learn what it means, and create a few sentences using it.

Gardening.  If you have a back yard, there's no reason you can't go there - Spring is coming, so prepare a plot and plant veggies. 

TheNewsTalkers.   I spend too much time a day on NT, but it can help cabin fever and boredom

Exercise.  It's important to spend part of the day walking around in your home, bending, stretching, etc.  Perhaps you know to do Yoga.  In Canada we had a treadmill in our basement and maybe you have an exercise machine of some sort.  I'll bet you have a skipping rope.

Meditation.  I know it's something most people never have time for, but now you do.  Just relax in a quiet place, close your eyes, and allow your mind to wander - conjure up happy moments of your lifetime.

There are probably a lot more things to do and if you can think of something to add to my ideas, please post them as comments. 


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Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
1  author  Buzz of the Orient    4 years ago

Don't blame me for the virus.  Even though I'm in China, it wasn't my fault. 

The author of the quotation, Viggo Mortensen, is an actor who played Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.

 
 
 
zuksam
Junior Silent
1.1  zuksam  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @1    4 years ago

I like Viggo Mortensen my favorite movie with him is Hidalgo. I also really liked A History of Violence, Green Book, and Eastern Promises among many others. He also had a small part in Carlito's Way.

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
1.1.1  author  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  zuksam @1.1    4 years ago

I've seen him in many movies that I didn't realize he acted in.  Of course I knew about the LOTR trilogy, and I knew he was the hippie father in Captain Fantastic, but I never realized until I now looked up his movie list that he was in other movies I've watched, such as Witness, Crimson Tide and Vanishing Point. 

 
 
 
igknorantzrulz
PhD Quiet
2  igknorantzrulz    4 years ago

i keep dropping AccccccccccccccccccciiiiiiiD

.

it's really slippery !

 
 
 
igknorantzrulz
PhD Quiet
2.1  igknorantzrulz  replied to  igknorantzrulz @2    4 years ago
i keep dropping AccccccccccccccccccciiiiiiiD

.

it's really slippery !

.

every time i tri n pik it up,

i TRIP !

.

but my boredumb leaves me speechless, 

so i got a speech writer, but it seems wrong that she takes shorthands,

like Trumps', but much larger

than his vocabulary she can't Spelll,

in witch case she casts it into the deep blue 

state of D Nile shedding crocidial tone deaf tears of moral fabricated ethix stitched by Parisians getting Plastered in Paris

Hiltons Hoe tell room with a view master 

sgt at arms bearing long short sleaves on a vest

ted interest in Bill gettin paid

on time

clocked in a record time with a tape of the recording on a disc slipped out back in no time

machine washed brain storm

clouding vision while she proof read watt i wasn't bright enuff to

RIGHT...?

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
2.1.1  author  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  igknorantzrulz @2.1    4 years ago

I would place your method of dealing with boredom to be a mix of "Indoor Hobby" and "Meditation".

 
 
 
igknorantzrulz
PhD Quiet
2.1.2  igknorantzrulz  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @2.1.1    4 years ago

then, after every time i TRIP,

find myself face down

in a grassy Field of Dreams,

with me sitting in the middle 

on a Bar Stool, saying I Toad

U,

Sew what if Buttons got stuck in your velcro zipper, 

i never liked that damn Dawg N E  old one way oar another

street where i was struck by opposing traffic i was all for, but i liked the Pontiac grill

where i smoked the Toad you so stool, carried buy a pigeon i couldn't a ford to cross, and all other creatures in the field were hesitant, to interact with me, but eye saw myself growin on them,

like a FungUs,

cause i am a FUn gUy

when i'm really high on anxiety dry like Canada gagglin geese as i gandered off into the distance i couldn't measure without a stick that was stuck in the mud pie i had encircled with my square root beer that i rounded off at the head i chopped, and put in a card bored box, as 

everyone whined like a clipped duo Nail dropped into a Pitt, as they X claimed a steak rarely herd

"What's in the box....What's in the box "

till a former indentured servant, now a Free Man,

Toad him about Seven

Eleven minus four a saint Bernard that was a Sin 

Bad to the Medulla, slithering like the Snakes she 8 in her head till 

Joe Walsh appeared, and Turned to Stone the Happy Gay peep holes that were viewed through it all till herd thundered enlightened my weigh too much, so as i could know longer wait, and the reign came down gettin my dream all wet and hot like the Knight Mayor i voted to have impeached in a cobblers Shoe Fly Pie,

that i cooled with a breeze from my bull whipped 

cream of the crop, dusted and dotted tell Tale told of another plastered hoarse heir plank, like a Ton of brick shit houses that stank, to be Frank, 

butt i wasn't asz

i was Iggy, and thawt i was gonna Pop,

a Sweet Tart,
Right N2O smiling toaster , but then

i A woke, then Bee was buzzed in and Cee

Dee, it's 

E,   Z to 

Wake and Bake when you R a Fungi living the wet dream i wood call a nightmare on Elm Street,

F i lived on Elm Street, but since i live one way on another Street where at the end, there Lies the Truth that cannot 

STOP,

so i did, and all rejoiced

the beginning of the END

i started

 
 
 
Trout Giggles
Professor Principal
2.1.3  Trout Giggles  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @2.1.1    4 years ago

He's writing poetry, Buzz

 
 
 
igknorantzrulz
PhD Quiet
2.1.4  igknorantzrulz  replied to  Trout Giggles @2.1.3    4 years ago

thank you

Deer, 

but i'm not sure i could be called a poet, unless someone called me one, as i believe that is how it works till it's laid off 

on others to decide what an individual does "get" out of, or what any does "take" from my incoherent babble buy the game for a Loser of Scrabble as i scraped my babble to skim over my new word 'Scrabble'.

.

There are certain things meant to be taken out of my scribble, cause from my mouths dribble, some hav a ball, while their are baskets full of others for whom my thoughts smother s.

As with all authors, the reader is free to take that which they find in writing, and use their imagination as to what it means to them, and their interpretation and perception is unique to those that think and seek, what i don't really hide, as i don't like tag s,.

.

As you've never read anything i've ever not stereo typed, as it can  be the Key whence Bored

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
2.1.5  author  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Trout Giggles @2.1.3    4 years ago

LOL.  I was referring to his tripping on acid.

 
 
 
igknorantzrulz
PhD Quiet
2.1.6  igknorantzrulz  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @2.1.5    4 years ago

LOL.  I was referring to his tripping on acid.

what...

i thought everybody was supposed to drop acid, as to get through the boar dumb of being sheltered in place

of

being bombarded without a place to shelter where rolling stones come at me whistling dixie cups (36 D) while screaming Give me Shelter

in a young woman's bosom

.

buddy 

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
2.1.7  author  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  igknorantzrulz @2.1.6    4 years ago

At least I'm happy that my trips were always good ones - never a freakout. "But I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." 

 
 
 
igknorantzrulz
PhD Quiet
2.1.8  igknorantzrulz  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @2.1.7    4 years ago

did the little  Byrds tell you ?

had one uncomfortable one on mushrooms years back at a heavy metal concert. Bad shrooms, as four outta 5 felt ill.

i remember throwing up the mushrooms in the concert venue john, with the head bangin music blaring and beating in the background, i flushed.

I recall little mushroom pieces shaped like tiny demons, swirling round and round till the Tidy Bowl man came tearing in on a jet boat harpooning each and every one...

all true, except for Tidy Bowl Man hallucination.

didn't freak out, but not the best Trip for sure.

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
2.1.9  author  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  igknorantzrulz @2.1.8    4 years ago

The Byrds told me there was a time for everything under heaven.  A trip I remember was when I went to see Maharishi Mahesh Yogi speak in Toronto.  He laughed a lot during his Transcendental Meditation lecture, and when he started to laugh, so did I and couldn't stop.  TM was not for me.

 
 
 
igknorantzrulz
PhD Quiet
2.1.10  igknorantzrulz  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @2.1.9    4 years ago
started to laugh, so did I , and couldn't stop

had a few of those experiences.

once, at our local Watering Hole, 18 of us took a Trip

our bartender did not fare too well, but man did we laugh our asses off for the entire night, then through the next day.

.

not sure the bartender ever recovered

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
3  Kavika     4 years ago

I'm learning another language. I shouldn't say learning but trying to improve on one that I speak a bit of now. It's Chamorro which is spoken on Guam.

 
 
 
igknorantzrulz
PhD Quiet
3.1  igknorantzrulz  replied to  Kavika @3    4 years ago

people tell me i speak another language,

it's all Greek to me,

so i don't understand them

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
3.2  author  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Kavika @3    4 years ago

Are you planning to visit there?  IMO it would be more useful to learn French or Italian.

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
3.2.1  Kavika   replied to  Buzz of the Orient @3.2    4 years ago

In my business life I spent a lot of time on Guam. We had a pretty big operation there and that is where I first learned to speak a bit of the language. I also spent a lot of time exploring the island and scuba diving. 

Loved Guam.

The first Military Dog Cemetary is on Guam and dedicated to the Marine Dog companies that fought and died in the second battle of Guam. 

384

 
 
 
Citizen Kane-473667
Professor Quiet
4  Citizen Kane-473667    4 years ago

All great suggestions, but let me give you my list of things I'm doing/did to avoid boredom:

  1. Clean the carpets
  2. Fix the dishwasher
  3. Change a water heater
  4. Hang a potrack
  5. Replace exhaust manifold gasket on my truck
  6. Drill out and repair broken exhaust bolt on stupid truck
  7. Fix leaking bathroom faucet
  8. Fix sagging curtain rod
  9. Replace built-in electric stovetop
  10. Reprogram remote key fobs for daughters BMW
  11. Binge-watch "Money Heist" on Netflix
  12. Re-set railroad ties along side of house driveway
  13. Cleaned out carburetor and fuel tank on son's dirt bike
  14. Work on 92 Mustang LX convertible (had it running good but then it died again for another reason during test drive)
  15. Cleaned off kitchen counter.
  16. Restocked pantry, fridge, and freezer.

And I have only been officially "self-quarantined" for less than two weeks, lol!

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
4.1  author  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Citizen Kane-473667 @4    4 years ago

Have you had time to eat and sleep?  LOL

 
 
 
Citizen Kane-473667
Professor Quiet
4.1.1  Citizen Kane-473667  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @4.1    4 years ago

A little but I don't sleep that much to begin with...much to the wife's chagrin!

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Expert
4.2  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  Citizen Kane-473667 @4    4 years ago

I think my to do list is most like yours, except we are binge-watching different shows. 

 
 
 
igknorantzrulz
PhD Quiet
4.2.1  igknorantzrulz  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @4.2    4 years ago

i like to make to do lists of my to do lists,

and okassionally get something rarely well done, as i n joy almonds, and a warm pink center as i'm a vegan, from the pain in my neck up,

especially at meatings wear i always get into a beef, well, in tons of time to never not lift the wait i hadn't anticipated, cause i had,

 so much anticipation keeps me waiting on Heinz to catch up on bottle necks i  didn't have the time,

FORE !, i'm at the Mobile Gulph stationswingin with my Caddy, 

ALA Cart me away already, know ?

 
 
 
TTGA
Professor Silent
4.3  TTGA  replied to  Citizen Kane-473667 @4    4 years ago
Work on 92 Mustang LX convertible (had it running good but then it died again for another reason during test drive)

CK, you have to expect that result when your test drive hits 140mph.

Buzz,

What we really need to do is take a lot of showers, particularly using the special shower that you introduced.

320

 
 
 
Al-316
Professor Silent
5  Al-316    4 years ago

A great activity would be to call all of the old folks you know who can't out.

I've done it and it really cheers them up. Not all of them may remember who you are, but so what.

If you are one of the old folks, talking to yourself doesn't count. lol

 
 
 
pat wilson
Professor Participates
5.1  pat wilson  replied to  Al-316 @5    4 years ago

Great idea ! It's not like we don't have time.

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
5.2  author  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Al-316 @5    4 years ago
"If you are one of the old folks, talking to yourself doesn't count."

So I've noticed.   LOL

 
 

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