Business trip need some time killing advice

[Corporate Drone]

Standard disclaimer that I browsed through a few pages in this and a few other sub forums and I think this both fits in with this sub forum, doesn't break its rules, and isn't re-asking a question I could have easily answered looking at the past (I think all the previous answers are stale, or were incomplete)

 

Problem statement; I have a business trip in one week where over a 3 day period I'll be spending approximately 20ish hours in airports and on planes in the contiguous 48 United States

I have access to Amazon, Walmart, Target, and at most $200 budget but prefer to spend less than $50 the less spent the better

 

Starting point; I have a Google Pixel 6A on tmobile, it has Steam Link installed, an 8Bit Do Pro+ and I do have a PC with a AMD 8600G+3060GPU+32GB of RAM along with a pretty huge library. I have two battery banks one is a Anker Power IQ 3.0 charger with 10000 mAh, one is a.... pxwaxpy? branded bank with "36800" mAh EDIT: I am seriously considering bringing my 2DS now didn't want to bring an extra device, but, it's probably going to be important

 

What things would you load up onto that phone and what would you do to pass the time?

 

TL:DR; I'm at my wits end with trying to figure out how to burn all the time I'm about to have on my hands. I just committed to learning about Steam Link I know it's not a new thing but it's new to me. I'm sure looking at all this you probably wonder how I could possibly have a problem given everything I already have but-

 

1) The Google Pixel 6A, at least the one I own, is a terrible phone. I've had it for about two years now and from the time I've bought it, it's had terrible battery life (about 10% of the battery per hour idling), it "silently" loses connection to the internet on cellular multiple times a day requiring a restart (there's no indication that internet has been lost other than the phone stops being able to do anything that requires a connection until you restart)

2) My own limited experience suggests using cellular at the airport is a losing proposition, and though tmobile, most airlines offer inflight wifi, I have access to a VPN through Private Internet Access, and I don't generally keep data that I would consider to be sensitive, I'm SUPER paranoid and just would rather not deal with wifi. Which means that there will be large gaps where I won't be able to use Steam Link

3) I have the two battery banks, the Anker will charge my phone pretty well, but when I tested it and from what I can tell, my phone just drinks electricity, and I expect that it will extend the battery of my phone by less than 6 hours- my current plan is to use it on the leg outbound, charge it at the hotel, then use it on the leg home. It sounds reasonable, but there are no guarantees in this life.

 

I'm giving some thought to breaking down and buying a Tablet, or a Handheld or bringing my 2DS, but I'm just not sure. I went in to setting up Steamlink because I have had to empty my bag into the bins at the airport and it takes like six bins if I do it the way the sign says (one layer, no stacking) and bringing an extra handful of cartridges and devices and nonsense just doesn't appeal

 

I downloaded Vampire Survivors directly on my Pixel, and, it's pretty playable, except I've already 100%'d the game once on PC, and find that the menus are hard to use on the small screen (usually, using the controller, it's impossible to tell which button is highlighted because it's so subtle and I have to use the touch screen for menus the controller for gameplay) I've tried playing Survivors of the Dawn using Steam Link and it's not bad it's just the game is wearing a bit thin because I'm 13 hours in which is where upgrades are really too expensive and enemies too challenging without them and really very little is unlocked yet. I don't think Brotato's DLC will release by that date and I have 100%'d Brotato in its current state. Though I like FPS games such as Borderlands, and I like RTS games like Command & Conquer, I find them unplayable with a controller gotta have a keyboard+mouse for those genres.  I do like casual puzzle games like Tetris, Solitaire, Freecell, but I find that these tend to be unplayable on mobile because of constant ad pushes on the Free tier and as a general rule, they're all free with microtransactions that are hard to stomach. Lego Hill Climb Adventure was fun for maybe 30 minutes.

 

I have a handful of ebooks to read through

 

I'm probably going to bring at least one paper book with me because that is the most obvious solution but again I just do not want to carry a whole bunch of nonsense

 

I'm also "that guy" who is a paradoxically extroverted introvert who will absolutely uncomfortably but also midwestern dad small talk to strangers to pass time but as you can probably tell if you're still reading... people do not want this and if I'm being honest I don't want to subject them to it against their will- for funsies if you're still reading count the number of replies to this thread that say some variation of "I'm not reading all that" or "I fell asleep reading this" and it will inform you why I need the maximum distraction possible

 

I do not drink and expect that drinking at an airport would be way outside of my budget anyway

 

What's the outside the box thing I can be doing to kill time

[Bananasplit_00]

Antiyoy is one of my go to timekillers. It's a very very simple indie game, I forget the classic game it is heavily inspired by but it is challenging and enjoyable imo.

 

Another thing would be picking up photography as a hobby. Buy a cheap point and shoot camera or something, or an analog camera even. Just anything that isn't a phone works for me. Try to really get some good snaps, think about the photos and composition and lighting. Or don't, just shooting whatever is around can also be really fun.

You can really plow a lot of time into taking pictures quite easily but it is also very easy to put down when you need to get on an airplane or in a cab or whatever.

[porina]

Personally I wouldn't assume the availability of data or wifi so I'd aim to bring games that don't require such. Switch or older handhelds with an RPG or other longer story based game. Low tech option is a physical book. Don't overload on gadgets. 

[saintlouisbagels]

I would load up emulators like SNES, N64, or Nintendo Switch. 

Other than that... do you like reading? Pick up a low effort Young Adult novel, or pick up a novel that has a streaming show adaptation (e.g. The Three Body Problem).

 

I've traveled from the US to Vietnam about 5 times in the last 2.5 years, meaning I've done 10 26hr flights+layovers. It's not that bad lol. If you're at a nice airport, just walk around. If you get bored reading a book or watching a show, then take a nap. It's not hard to pass time.

 

One trip, I watched 3 seasons of The Boys. Another trip was 2 seasons of Vox Machina. A different trip was Season 1 of House of the Dragon. I take a lot of naps lol.

[Blue4130]

I do long plane and train trips regularily, For me, it's an emulator and some "linux rpg iso's". Last one was FF6 after hearing Linus talk so much about it.

[Corporate Drone]

Anticlimactic update here;

 

I had shockingly good cellular service at the airports I was in. I had better service on my cellphone than I do at home or even on my wifi. 

 

I spent maybe one hour in total playing on my Steam Link on my phone using the 8BitDo SN30pro+ controller- as an FYI; on games that are optimized for XBox Controllers, you may find that you have to remap the SN30Pro+ otherwise the game won't work the way you expect it to (I find that the triggers don't ever work unless you remap them). Steam has a global remap feature that I never messed with, but I'm sure that you could fix this issue with like 3 minutes worth of work.

 

I spent most of the rest of the time listening to Behind the B******* on Youtube

 

I watched about half of of Godzilla VS Biolante which was on a thumb drive

 

I watched season 2 of Human Resources twice 

 

I spent a few hours on a Sudoku book

 

I spent almost 0 time reading the physical book I brought with me, less than three pages

 

I spent about an hour playing my 2DS which had Solitaire Overload in it

 

I have some JBL Tune Flex Earbuds and they were not especially comfortable for the amount of time I was wearing them, though I didn't ever change out the tips from the hard plastic ones, your mileage may vary. They were absolutely fine for listening to podcasts, and the way I used them- I basically only ever wore one earbud at a time and then swapped them out when they became uncomfortable- doing this meant that I pretty much never ran out of battery.

 

I appreciate all the advice you all gave me.

[Corporate Drone]

!!!! I can't believe I overlooked this.

If you look closely at the picture that shows the bottom of the heatsink, you can see that the right hand side mounting bracket isn't attached to the heatsink itself except for like 1 or 2 threads. I noticed this when I flipped the tubes around to the top.