Since this is ostensibly a basketball blog, I should mention that I watched a few minutes of the H-O-R-S-E tournament the first night it was on after seeing 80,000,000 people bash it on Twitter. It was fine. Trae Young was clearly hanging out at his parents' house or something, because a McMansion in Oklahoma with a bent-rim and a non-fully-paved basketball playing area? That was weird. And if there were any chance that this tournament was somehow related to actual on-court basketball skills, Mike Conley probably would not have won. Dude was shooting 40% this season.
But quarantine is about more than just finding ways to survive the basketball emptiness. It's about finding ways to survive the everything emptiness, and finally confirming that time spent on social media is the absolute worst time in the world. So what has been going on in my house?
Sure, I've been playing some NBA2K (the original, with Allen Iverson on the cover and with Steve Francis being a goddamn superstar) and some NBA2K15 (because I don't have a new video game system). Of course I've been watching some more TV shows than I normally would. I've even been watching Madden simulations because DraftKings lets you enter contests based on how those turn out.
Beyond the electronic slate, there's more. This past week we've undertaken a puzzle that shows an image of what appears to be a small Italian harbor town. It's painted, so it's not technically any town in particular, but it bears a striking resemblance to Riomaggiore. So OK we've started working on a puzzle. Great. We also started playing a dice game that we call "zonk." It's similar to the store-purchase game Farkle, but the idea that you have to pay for more than just the dice is nonsense. The rules are fairly simple: 6 dice. Roll all 6. Ones are worth 100 and fives are worth 50. If you roll 3-of-a-kind, those become hundreds: three 2s is 200, three 3s is 300 and so on. However, three 1s is 1,000. If you roll a 1-6 straight that's 1,000. If you roll a 1, 2, 2, 3, 6, 6 (for example) you can take the 1 and roll the other 5 dice. The idea is to score as many points as possible. If you manage to get all 6 dice usable, you can roll them all again. However, if you rolled 1, 1, 1, 1, 5, 5, you're holding 1,200 points, so if you roll again and get no 1s or 5s, you lose the 1,200. If you get another 1,000, it adds up.
OK, so that was probably very confusing, but it's a lot more simple in reality than it is to read. The upshot is that you normally play to either 5,000 or 10,000 points. If you get hot, this can be over in 3 minutes. So we've played a few games to 5,000 or 10,000, but with the added twist that this is quarantine and we're going to play 10,000 points at a time in a long quest to get to 1,000,000.
Zonk to 1,000,000. What a time to be alive.
The last thing we've done is the namesake of this post. My wife and I are vegetarians and we don't drink much milk for various reasons. She's a big fan of almond milk, and I only really use milk for cereal. But I eat cereal a lot, so we go through it pretty quickly. At a time when we're only going to the supermarket once every 2-3 weeks, I don't want to have to go to the store for milk. All that adds up to us making oat milk.
It's not something I ever thought we'd do, but the fun part of it is that it's because a few months ago I mistakenly bought regular oatmeal instead of instant oatmeal, so we've had like 4 pounds of oatmeal just sitting in our cupboard going mostly unused. Apparently all it takes to make oat milk is a blender, oatmeal, water, vanilla, and something like an old t-shirt to strain it all.
Wouldn't you know it? I have dozens of old t-shirts. Most of my wardrobe is at least 10 years old - it's FINALLY coming in handy.
On the downside, oat milk doesn't taste that good. It's fine. It's watery, of course, but it's just not that good.
And isn't that where everything in life is right now? We're all quarantined. It's fine. It's just not that good.
But quarantine is about more than just finding ways to survive the basketball emptiness. It's about finding ways to survive the everything emptiness, and finally confirming that time spent on social media is the absolute worst time in the world. So what has been going on in my house?
Sure, I've been playing some NBA2K (the original, with Allen Iverson on the cover and with Steve Francis being a goddamn superstar) and some NBA2K15 (because I don't have a new video game system). Of course I've been watching some more TV shows than I normally would. I've even been watching Madden simulations because DraftKings lets you enter contests based on how those turn out.
Beyond the electronic slate, there's more. This past week we've undertaken a puzzle that shows an image of what appears to be a small Italian harbor town. It's painted, so it's not technically any town in particular, but it bears a striking resemblance to Riomaggiore. So OK we've started working on a puzzle. Great. We also started playing a dice game that we call "zonk." It's similar to the store-purchase game Farkle, but the idea that you have to pay for more than just the dice is nonsense. The rules are fairly simple: 6 dice. Roll all 6. Ones are worth 100 and fives are worth 50. If you roll 3-of-a-kind, those become hundreds: three 2s is 200, three 3s is 300 and so on. However, three 1s is 1,000. If you roll a 1-6 straight that's 1,000. If you roll a 1, 2, 2, 3, 6, 6 (for example) you can take the 1 and roll the other 5 dice. The idea is to score as many points as possible. If you manage to get all 6 dice usable, you can roll them all again. However, if you rolled 1, 1, 1, 1, 5, 5, you're holding 1,200 points, so if you roll again and get no 1s or 5s, you lose the 1,200. If you get another 1,000, it adds up.
OK, so that was probably very confusing, but it's a lot more simple in reality than it is to read. The upshot is that you normally play to either 5,000 or 10,000 points. If you get hot, this can be over in 3 minutes. So we've played a few games to 5,000 or 10,000, but with the added twist that this is quarantine and we're going to play 10,000 points at a time in a long quest to get to 1,000,000.
Zonk to 1,000,000. What a time to be alive.
The last thing we've done is the namesake of this post. My wife and I are vegetarians and we don't drink much milk for various reasons. She's a big fan of almond milk, and I only really use milk for cereal. But I eat cereal a lot, so we go through it pretty quickly. At a time when we're only going to the supermarket once every 2-3 weeks, I don't want to have to go to the store for milk. All that adds up to us making oat milk.
It's not something I ever thought we'd do, but the fun part of it is that it's because a few months ago I mistakenly bought regular oatmeal instead of instant oatmeal, so we've had like 4 pounds of oatmeal just sitting in our cupboard going mostly unused. Apparently all it takes to make oat milk is a blender, oatmeal, water, vanilla, and something like an old t-shirt to strain it all.
Wouldn't you know it? I have dozens of old t-shirts. Most of my wardrobe is at least 10 years old - it's FINALLY coming in handy.
On the downside, oat milk doesn't taste that good. It's fine. It's watery, of course, but it's just not that good.
And isn't that where everything in life is right now? We're all quarantined. It's fine. It's just not that good.
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