Things to do while you're stuck at home thanks to COVID-19
Unless your job is considered necessary like a hospital, nursing home, grocery store, gas station and a few others, then you are probably home now thanks to the current coronavirus pandemic. Maybe on unemployment or perhaps working from home.
So what is there to do while you’re stuck looking at four walls? Well there are a few things to occupy your time.
TV is obvious, and if you don’t have cable or satellite there are online solutions like Sling, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, IMDb TV and others. All can be loaded onto a Fire TV or Roku and watched on the big screen in your living room, family room, den, wherever you prefer to watch TV.
Amazon Echo is also a good choice. Play a game like Jeopardy; there are 12 new questions every day. Ask it for news or weather, or to play songs -- even better if you pay a few dollars for Amazon Music Unlimited. If you don’t it will still play most songs, just not all. You can also set up a free Pandora account, create your stations, and have Alexa play them.
Maybe you have an Xbox or PS4. If not then there’s no shortage of games on both Android and iOS. You can also game for free and, if you’re feeling nostalgic, then Stella is a popular emulator for Atari 2600 games and you can install it free then download ROMs from your younger days -- Space Invaders, Asteroids, Centipede, Pitfall and countless others. Plus Google has brought back its playable PacMan doodle. I’m not sure it ever went away, but it was announced again recently.
In case anyone has forgotten, reading still exists. Stores may be closed (you might be able get a book you want at Walmart), but online retailers are active. In fact, I just pre-ordered 2 copies of a book that comes out July first -- a paper one for my elderly mom who’s not good with tech and a Kindle copy for myself.
Parks in some states are still open, but with restrictions. There are no orders that I’ve heard of preventing a walk, run or bike ride.
Get creative with your time. Don’t think of it as a prison. We’ll all get through this, it just takes some perseverance and it will certainly take time, but we’ll get there. Stay healthy out in the world.
What have you been spending your time doing?
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