A few days ago, I posted "The 5 Best Things I Spent Time on During Lockdown". As I mentioned in that post, I anticipated following it up with another post detailing the less enjoyable ways I occupied my time during confinement. This, esteemed readers, is that promised post.
If you read my previous post, you already have the gist of this one. Like most people, I tried to find new ways to spend my time during lockdown/confinement/quarantine/whatever you call it: some good, some bad, some painfully misguided. The pieces of media listed below all belong in the second and third categories, and they all share the privilege of being things I spent far too long consuming while imprisoned within the four walls of my apartment. As before, these terrible time-wasters will be rated with bread.
5. It by Stephen King
I can't really give this that low of a rating, as I didn't actually finish it. This is approximately my second or third time trying to finish King's great tome of a horror novel. It doesn't seem bad, exactly, but it was evidently too much of a slog for my quarantine-brained self to manage. Back to the library it went, only half completed.
Rating: a peanut butter and jam sandwich that you forgot about and now it's all hard and stale
4. The Pisces by Melissa Broder
I was excited to read this book. I really was, although in hindsight I can't remember why. It had been on my to-read list for literal years before I got the chance to borrow it in ebook form from my local library during the pandemic. I had expected a "bracing satire of love in the age of consumer capitalism" that was "bold, virtuosic, addictive, erotic". Instead, I got uncomfortably bizarre relationships, vaguely offensive allusions to lesbian sexuality, and a bathroom scene which haunts me to this day. I finished it, but only out of spite.
Rating: a fresh baguette that you accidentally dropped on the floor of the Metro
3. All Bad Cards
This is a Cards Against Humanity knock-off I played online with some friends during a lockdown games night. It has the dubious honour of being worse than the actual Cards Against Humanity game, which is saying something. However, it maintains CAH's ability to coax your closest friends into making jokes about r*pe and child abuse, among other upsetting topics. Somehow both boring and repulsive.
Rating: an "Elvis" sandwich of peanut butter, banana, and bacon (maybe other people like it but I think it's disgusting).
2. Sims 4
The higher they climb, the harder they fall - thus Sims 4 has gained a higher ranking than it truly deserves, simply for the sin of disappointing me. The Sims has always been an amazing time-consumer for me, ever since I was little, so I was excited to download The Sims 4 and wile away some quarantine hours in Simland. Unfortunately, it turns out Sims 4 is just Sims 3 plus good graphics and minus all the charm of previous instalments. Not a good trade-off.
Rating: veggie wrap but it's made with lettuce instead of bread and is filled only with more lettuce
1. Space Force
Finishing Middleditch and Schwartz, my number one best time-user during lockdown, left me desperate for more Ben Schwartz content. I was over the moon (so to speak) to find out he was soon to star in a new Netflix TV series alongside Steve Carrell and John Malkovich, Space Force. The series made me laugh until I cried, but only because I was forcing myself to laugh until it became physically painful for me to continue. Sadly, no amount of fake laughing could save this one. I'm sorry, Ben Schwartz.
Rating: a "toast sandwich" (two slices of bread with a plain slice of toast in-between)
