My PlayStation3 froze a few days ago, and won’t restart. It’s busted. According to my little brother the problem is fairly common, his own PS3 has been sent back to be fixed a couple of times. He thinks the optical laser is burnt out. Which would make sense. I’ve had the system for almost thirteen months now and I don’t think I’ve gone two days in a row without using it more than a few times.
I’ve had a PlayStation since 1996. The PS3 was a gift from my little brother. They’re a great way to turn your brain off, or at least the parts that only get in the way. There’s a surprising amount of clarity to be found in performing acts of great carnage while sitting in a comfy chair.
If I can convince Sony to take my PS3 back for repairs it’ll take another six weeks for me to get it back. This is going to leave a huge chunk of time I’ll have to fill somehow.
So my questions for this sacred No Post Day are:
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1. What are some things you do when you’re writing and you need some time to properly define an idea?
2. What activity, or activities, do you think I should incorporate into the new 20-30 hour hole in my week?
Bonus points if you can incorporate “freebase caffeine” into your answer, and extra special bonus points if you leave out “be productive”.
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...salted lithium. 
1. I just start writing. Sometimes that ends well, othertimes…well, not so much. It’s like sculpting-I need to flesh out the idea and push and pull it until it’s where I want.
You could learn to knit for some booties! Find some old baby furniture and refinish it? Find games on the computer and waste time like I usually do since most of those games you sent me are too hard. 😛 (and yes, I’m totally a girl about that)
Learning to knit kind of reeks of “be productive”, so no special bonus points for you.
I have to stop occasionally so I can sort out an idea… that’s what GTA IV was so great for. It let me concentrate the parts of my brain that only get in the way on something bright and useless, and let the tiny pieces that actually do stuff work stuff out.
Myself , I had to switch to the game “freecell”.
I’m too easily distracted so I find that I have to just sit down and write and write and write. Even if all that is coming out is crap. Then I go to sleep and rework it the next day when my brain is rested. I just read somewhere that sleep makes you smarter. Or something like that.
What about dusting off the old Playstation and revisiting some of the old games? Do you still have it? Do you have a dvd player? I just saw a great movie called “Nothing But the Truth.” It’s inspired by a true story about a journalist who reveals the identity of a CIA agent and is sent to jail for refusing to reveal her source. If your PS3 is your dvd player then forget I mentioned the movie. Books are a great distraction but a bit more active brain-wise. Have you read “Pillars of the Earth”? I’ve heard some really great things about it from my friends. Oh and I’ll try and remember to mail off a copy of the magazine. That’ll keep you busy for about 20 minutes or so…
Read. Meditative activities like walking alone. Cook. Daydream. Interview yourself out loud. Think about baby names. Play Word Twist and Scramble and FarmTown on Facebook. Download Snood and get totally hooked on it.
Go to your local library and borrow all their graphic novels. Or get a copy of Peggle. That’ll pretty much kill your free time for the forseeable future.
They must be free basing caffeine if they don’t just give you a new one. When ever my PS2 crapped out on me they just sent me to the store I got it from and the store took my broke one and exchanged it for a brand new one! Good luck with that.
Now as to what you can do with all the time, you could try and break the world record on the most hula hoops hulaed (?), I think it’s at 105 or 110 but you have to do this without freebasing caffeine before hand!
You still using your bike? Exercise would be a great distraction from video games—and healthier, for your body at least (and mind, imo)
Mark, you definitely get the bonus points for not suggesting anything productive, but ‘bats0711‘ gets both the no productive points plus all the freebase caffeine points as well. So… not that it’s a competition or anything, but it looks like the new person wins.
Hello Little Sister… I gave my PS2 away when our little brother bought me the PS3. I still have some of the games, which I was planning on surprising Thor with but she thinks the ones I already sent are too hard.
I do have a $39 DVD player that has outlived all the other, more expensive electronics I’ve bought since. Recently I’ve been collecting zombie movies… I have ten of them now. Last week (?) I picked up “Zombie Strippers”, “Trailer Park of Terror” and “Diary Of The Dead”.
Hi Zoom… all excellent suggestions, however ‘meditation’ and ‘meditative activities’ sound an awful lot like “being productive”. We do plan on starting the baby name debate in August, when my brother and I were younger we made a deal that the first of our kids to be borne gets to be called “Logan”. Our dog was Logan (berry). He was a kickass dog. I’m not sure how CSG is going to like our kid being named after my dog.
Hello Justin… “go to” see, now that just reeks of “being productive”. No bonus points for you. I don’t know if our library has graphic novels… I know you can order whatever they don’t have through the inter-library system thing. I really should walk over some night.
Hello bats0711, and thanks for commenting. Congratulations on winning all the bonus points. According to a blog friend you can now buy pure powdered caffeine in the UK, thereby skipping all of the processes in the YouTube. I told him about the video, so now he’s planning on smoking what he has. I’m pretty sure he’ll be able to beat the hula hoop record.
Hi bromac… I still have my bike. It’s sitting in my dining room. I totally agree with everything you’re saying… butbutbutbutbutbutbut…
Yeah, smacks of productive 🙂
Find a cafe you can sit in for an hour nursing one cup of coffee (can you actually freebase caffine?)
and read the trashiest books you can lay your hands on. (I do this a lot if the writing isn’t coming on…which lately is a lot)
Redecorate a room with a coat of paint (or two) just for ‘the change of scenery’
Sunbathe (not one I can do being ginger but hey…non productive)
Rearrange your music and make new compilation tapes/playlists/cd’s (I’ve spent many an hour doing this)
And OMG!!!! I’ve just read you’re gonna be a daddy. A thousand and one best wishes to you. But do all of the above ASAP because all that getting to be non productive pretty much dries up once the little one gets here. Weirdly though you’ll find you’ll not mind. Awesome news! x
WOW this day keeps getting better and better, I won. LOL
1. I listen to music for a while. It never fails to grease the gears of my mind. Obviously, no music yet today since I just wrote that tripe.
2. Go to a coffee house and watch the suits freebase caffeine. Then fuck with their brains. I like to ask if they have any regrets.
Okay – I made #2 up. I’m not that big of a douche bag. Well, sometimes I can be.
Hi Swirly… I’m glad you’re cool with me being unable to give you any bonus points.
Hi Jenny Jen Jen, you can indeed freebase caffeine. But that’s not really the point of the video, they’re actually teaching you how to freebase coke in a way that can’t get them busted. Go ahead, give it a try and let me know if it works. Your ideas are mostly totally unproductive, if it wasn’t for the “redecorate a room” thing we might have a tie here.
Hi bats0711, you’re still in the lead. Barring any future tries I do believe you’ve won this No Post Day Challenge. It’s times like this when I wish there was some kind of prize.
Hi BPL… unless it’s something like the entire Pink Floyd catalogue I can’t just sit and listen to tunes. I can listen to talk radio, as long as it’s sane. American-style talk radio drives me freaking nuts, although there was a nationally syndicated late night guy who had a show about conspiracies and aliens I thought was hilarious. When I was living in Ottawa (’89-’99) I had no TV, so there was an AM station I’d listen to at night that played the old 1940’s and 1950’s radio plays. Those were awesome.
When I was a young teenager there were some classical records in our house I could listen to quietly… I remember there was Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, and Swan Lake as well as some Strauss and a Mozart… weird, maybe I can just listen to music as long as it’s the right stuff. I definitely haven’t tried at all lately.
wanna waste some time? omygoodgollygosh… watch LOST all over again. i went through season one last week, season two this weekend, and i can’t wait to get home to get my teefs into season three. only, i’m more confused then EVAR. the relationships make more sense, but i have no idea what’s going on with the island. and i WATCHED season 4.
it has eaten my brians. yes, brians.