On entertainment ways to pass the time and occupy the mind.

We have had a Roku device for close to ten years now. Started in Bay Center, Washington. My first binge discovery was Star Trek The Next Generation. Up until that time I had been a Kirk and Spock loyalist and never took time to start watching Picard. Well … over the course of a few months we watched all 166 episodes of The Next Generation. That opened the floodgates.

The Roku offers us access also to the major networks’ news channels both national and the local affiliates in Seattle, Portland and Spokane. We have become picky bingers and are grateful to find a good one.

Our mornings also begin with NPR based out of the Northwest Public Broadcast station at Washington State University in Pullman which covers the Panhandle as well as Eastern Washington.

Reading and games. A good tablet will work fine with or without a wifi connection. We both have kindle tablets and years ago Lietta went on a free-book spree from kindle and now has over 2000 books in the cloud that she can download and upload with impunity.

She also introduced me a few months ago to the Blossom Blast Saga flower game and Candy Crush and with reluctance I started playing them. I found it mindlessly addicting and usually play until I’ve used up my five lives while listening to NPR or watching the Roku. The games are challenging and as any mental health specialist will tell you, games that make you think and plot out strategies are good for us old–timers who dance around a possible forgetfulness or even senility signs.

On my lap top I made a connection to the Steam web site and play a Microsoft video game I started on years ago: Age of Kings. Now there are several versions of that game style which offer the opportunity for solo games and are more demanding and satisfying than solitaire, hearts and spider.

You can play pre-built scenarios but what I enjoy most is designing my own scenarios with the computer as my opponent . Age of Kings is usually at a minimum 2 hours or so or depending on the complexity of design could go as high as 15-20 hours with a “save” mode that suspends play until you resume.

And then of course we have shelves that have things called “books” on them that once you get the hang of how to read them, are portable, easily read and don’t break if they fall off your chest after you’ve fallen asleep on your recliner.