My 13 hour flight just got delayed 7 hours, I’m stuck at my second airport, and I dont think I’m gonna make it. I have some movies and audio books on my phone, but really only anticipated having to burn the flight time via napping and some media, not 7 hours leading up to it, and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna mentally burn out on passive media.
- I have media on my phone - movies, shows and audio books, but I can only do about 2-3 hours at a stretch before I burn out on those things.
- I have wifi and power both on the ground and on the plane, although I’m sure the connection once we get going isn’t going to be performance enough for online games.
- I have a phone and headset but didn’t bring a laptop because it was just extra bulk I didn’t think I’d need. I don’t have a switch or steam deck or anything neat.
- I have access to the airport lounge, so drinks are free, and I get free drinks on the plane. I don’t want to get wasted or have to pee constantly, so my plan is to jim lahey it.
- I’m intrigued by mobile games, but every one I’ve tried has felt too gimmicky with gambling or freemium BS mechanics. Also tried started valley but it never got me hooked either. I have an android and will buy games if they’re worth it.
- I’m open to any other ideas that could somehow mentally (or physically while on the ground) stimulate me.
- I’m a dude in my 30s with a family and kids, but I’m currently traveling solo.
- I’ve already killed 2 hours on a plane and 2 more on the ground (my planned connection time) doing nothing, I was saving my media trying to avoid burning out on shit before I get on the plane.
- I suck at sleeping when on the go.
- I’m on my 3rd mimosa and bored as fuck.
Help.
Unfucking your email. Find all the newsletters from worthless sites and block / unsubscribe. Sightly productive, and brainlessly easy.
In a similar vein, go through your photos and clean up all the extras and outtakes that you don’t want anymore. Also, star your favorites so they’re easier to find later. This can take hours if you’ve put it off for years.
Tell TSA your username. They’ll find something for you to do for 20 hours.
Those are for later 👀
Loving the Lahey reference. Might try exploring the airport with a few drinks in your head.
Getting two birds stoned at the same time
Frig off, Ricky.
I want to upvote you but your upvotes are at 69 and I don’t want to ruin the magic
Not trying to be a contrarian (it just happens!) but boredom will not kill you. In fact, I challenge you to sit and be bored for a good few minutes. It’s good for you. I’m terrible at it myself, but that’s what being a dopamine crack addict will do, I guess.
If you’re out of ideas for things to do, try mindfulness meditation (Waking Up is an app with a bunch of free lessons to get you started) - very little woowoo, just pay cursory attention to something, then when your mind inevitably wanders off, just “notice” and be, well, mindful. It’s like an antidote for boredom, in a weird way, and studies have shown that for whatever reason, it’s good for you.
Myself, I read books for any “random short term downtime”.
Can confirm. The longest train I ever rode was a 44h long train. The first 12-24 hours push on your nerves: you’ve listened to music, read a book, eaten, slept, and haven’t much left to do. But slowly you come to understanding:“you don’t HAVE to do something”. This is when the therapy starts.
And it really does seem therapeutical. I scoffed a bit the first time I read about dopamine detoxes and stuff, but I’ve also, since then, caught myself being very nearly literally afraid of getting bored. That is insane.
I tried this mindfulness thing a few times, and just can’t seem to get the hang of it.
Does the voice in your head distract you?
That’s part of the point, you aren’t necessarily supposed to have an empty mind the whole time. I mean, if you can do that, great, but you aren’t failing if that’s not the case.
Imagine that your thoughts are buses, and your job is to sit at the bus stop and not get on any of them. Just notice them and let them go by. Like a bus stop, you don’t really control what comes by, but you do control which ones you get on board and follow. If you notice that you’ve gotten on a bus, that’s fine, just get off of it and go back to watching. Interesting things can happen if you just watch and notice which thoughts go by, and it’s good practice for noticing what you’re thinking and where you’re going and taking control of it yourself when it’s somewhere you don’t want to go.
Read a book?
Like, how desperate are you for stimulation that you’re making this sound like an emergency?
Or if you’re attention span is killed like mine, find an audiobook and listen on 2x or 3x. If you happen to have a library card, libby is usually great. Otherwise YouTube has some.
This! I recommend Red Rising as audiobook! (The first book is 16h and there’s a whole series of books, there’s a dramatized audiobook version I haven’t tried but sounds really fun)
also, Hail Mary Project is an amazing audiobook.
mild spoiler:
spoiler the sound effects of Rocky is amazing!
One of my favorite syfi is the expanse, also highly recommend. Dune and Iain Banks culture are also great.
Do you mean red rising? I’ve heard it’s good but haven’t gotten a chance yet.
Yes Red Rising. My phone doesn’t let me type good today.
He mentioned that he has audiobooks he was saving for the flight. I get the uneasy, jittery boredom aspect. Especially when you had a reasonable expectation of how your time was meant to be spent and that was disrupted. It’s just lingering frustration and anticipation for what you originally set out to do. For anxious or neurodivergent people that can cause a degree of distress. Especially for something that’s already as unpleasant/stressful as flying. Not that it’s life threatening or can’t be managed. But it’s easy enough to see how his language reflects that mindset, giving it an air of urgency. I’m not saying OP has anxiety or is neurodivergent but it can happen in people without these issues too to varying degrees. They’re just painfully bored. It’s not an emergency, but it can be difficult
I’d recommend reading Wikipedia
More content than you could possibly read, short reads typically, you learn stuff, and you can make games out of it
A game I like to play is to come up with 2 completely unrelated things, start on thing 1, and see if you can get to thing 2 on Wikipedia in 6 tabs or less, using Wikipedia links only
In a similar vein, TV tropes. It’s a well known time sink and you learn a lot about pop culture.
Best advice out of all comments! Wikipedia is strongly underestimated as a content platform for entertainments.
Do you play with the rule that the connection has to go both ways that is you can get from page A to page B in six links and that you can get from page B to page A in also six links? Or is is sufficient that you can find a path from A to B but not necessarily B to A?
Good lord I WISH I could get 20 straight hours where no one bothered me. That’s a fucking dream right there.
The most frustrating thing is when you get that time you want but no access to the things you’d like to do with that time.
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Go to the tech store in the airport. Buy a cheap chromebook. Open an account on Opalstack. Build a webpage from scratch. Learn a backend language like php or python. Learn git. Maybe set up your own Lemmy instance.
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Install Keyboard Designer from the android play store and take a stab at customizing your own keyboard.
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Leave the airport and go to a museum or swimming pool or poolhall. Be back in time to go through security.
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Dude, hustle up to the bar and drink 13 beers like the rest of us, and fall asleep on the plane during boarding, after you’ve reminded the gate attendant that you’re mentally handicapped.
Do you go with a catheter and a ziplok or just sleep it off in a puddle of your own urine?
I am not very helpful, but don’t kill these hours, befriend them!
Streetcomplete to contribute to osm?
Maybe it there’s a bookstore close by you can get a book? I’ve been really enjoying I am robot by Isaac Asimov. It’s sci-fi. It basically tells stories from a future where robots are more capable than humans will ever be. And to stop the robots from rioting there are 3 rules.
- Robots can never hurt people, or let them get hurt by doing nothing. (I’m translating from my first language if there’s any mistakes I’m sorry)
- Unless it interferes with the first rule robots will always obey humans.
- Unless it interferes with first and the second rule robots will always protect themselves.
One of the main points of the stories are how the robots get into situations where they hit an edge case or work around the laws.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shatteredpixel.shatteredpixeldungeon
Infuriating because you will die over and over again, but super satisfying when you figure things out and manage to win. It has a ton of replayability.
Yes to Shattered PD(a roguelike)
Or Box Stacker (physics sim)
For hours of other online boardgames, try out yucata.de(Spexxx, Hey that’s my fish, or Port Royal for easy start games)
Okay this looks great, snagging it to try out!
I’ve been hooked on Sudoku on my phone recently. LibreSudoku is a good Android app.
CrackingTheCryptic (Studio Goya on the Play Store) has some unbelievably good variant sudoku puzzle apps. No other sudoku app can touch them IMO. Be aware they are kinda battery hungry though due to poor optimization.
Related: I love their YouTube channel where they solve ridiculous puzzles
Yes it’s awesome
Yeah not a bad idea, I’ll give it a go. Not normally a sodoku guy but that’s normally because I never have free time to burn, seems like something up my ally.
Man I would love 20hrs to kill by myself. With 7 hours at the airport is leaving the airport an option? Like others have said. Read a book. Get your steps up. Try and do 10,000 steps walking the entire airport. Buy a notepad and draw the people our sights around you
Download unciv. It’s a civilization 5 clone with stripped down graphics but gameplay remains the same. You can kill an eternity with civilization games.
