I had a rare entire day to myself on Super Bowl Sunday, so I figured I’d take the time to catch up on a variety of entertainment that I haven’t had a chance to watch, read or listen to over the past month before finally tuning in for the big football game.
For those who don’t know me, I have a bad habit of starting something and — even if I like it — not finishing it. My apartment is littered with books that are halfway read, video games halfway completed and my streaming services have TV shows that I randomly stopped watching midway through the fourth season for no reason in particular.
I once got a free review copy of a book from an author I admired and I didn’t get the review posted for nearly four years. It became a running joke with the author until I finally got around to publishing my thoughts on his work.
Anyway, my Sunday started by listening to an audiobook, the classic “Watership Down” by Richard Adams about a group of rabbits. With an 18-hour runtime, I wasn’t able to finish it of course, but I put a pretty good dent in the 1972 novel. The book isn’t due on my Libby app that I use from the Upper Sandusky Community Library for another 18 days so I still have plenty of time.
I thought it might be fun to continue a new video game I’d put on the backburner called Baldur’s Gate 3, in which I’ve spent well over 100 hours exploring the main story in a campaign with my brother. My brother wasn’t available, so I tried to continue a campaign on my own, but my internet was having issues and I wasn’t able to progress much in the main story.
With the internet out temporarily, I thought it might be a good time to finish watching a movie I’d picked up from the library, Stephen King’s classic “The Stand.” I wasn’t watching the newest version either, this was the 1994 TV version starring Rob Lowe and Gary Sinise that I hadn’t seen since I was 9 years old watching it with my dad.
Again, with it being nearly six hours long, I wasn’t able to finish it all in one sitting, so I turned to something new, a physical book from the library “Would You be Made Whole?” by local poet Gregg Friedberg. I got about halfway through his poems before once again I was distracted by my phone, which reminded me I only had about four days remaining to finish a digital ebook that I’d checked out.
Before I could even get started with my ebook, I got a notification on my phone from a YouTube channel about a new animated TV show called “Hazbin Hotel” on Amazon Prime, which is about the daughter of Lucifer trying to rehabilitate sinners and get them to heaven.
I’d heard good things about the show, but had become sidetracked by another project before actually giving it a fair shot. This time, however, I resolved to give it an honest chance ... and I was rewarded immensely for it.
I wasn’t aware the show was part musical, so when the daughter of the devil burst into song about halfway through the first episode, I was pleasantly surprised. The next thing I knew, I was totally engrossed in the show’s story, watching all eight episodes of the first season in a row and going back and listening to some of my favorite musical numbers from the series that were particularly catchy. I even soaked in some reaction channels on YouTube to see if other people had enjoyed the show as much as I had.
I found out the show’s creator had another series on YouTube that was based in the same universe, so I followed the breadcrumbs to that rabbit hole, getting an episode in before I started getting tired.
But what about the Super Bowl?
My beloved Cleveland Browns had fallen flat in the playoffs so I didn’t have any skin in the actual Super Bowl game, but I had planned to watch it for a bit. But by the time I looked at my watch, it was past midnight and the game had been over for hours. I hadn’t seen a second of it; not one play, not one advertisement and hadn’t heard a note from Usher’s halftime show.
I’d started the day with about eight different goals of books, ebooks, audiobooks, TV shows, movies and video games to complete, and I hadn’t finished any of them. I’d instead basically started (and finished) and entirely new series and now had an entirely other series that was now on my “to finish” list.
And despite having barely left the apartment all day other than to take out the trash, I was exhausted.
Who’d have thought relaxing was so much work?
