How to Make 14.5 Hours Fly By...

I think it was technically a 14 hr 38 min flight, but even if you just call it a flat 14 hours -- it's still a long time to be trapped inside a hollow aluminum cylinder at 35,000 feet.  Thankfully, though, company policy dictates that I fly "Business Class", which gets you some pretty nice digs on United's 747-400s.  So what does one do to make the time go by?  Here's my list:

• Chat with your 'seat-mate', Bob, who travels about 10 times as much as you do (this is his 4th trip to Singapore already in 2010, and he's headed to China after Singapore... having just returned from Munich less than 2 weeks ago).
• Scroll through the entertainment system, to see if there's anything worth watching/listening to.  Decide you want to watch "Sherlock Holmes", but then decide to wait to start the movie until the flight attendants/pilots stop making announcements in 3 different languages over the intercom, every 2-3 minutes.
• Read the book of I Thessalonians.
• Take 2 Tylenol PM.  Sure, it's 1:30 PM Central, but it's 2:30 AM at your destination, so you need to get sleepy.
• Start watching "Sherlock Holmes" as your appetizer (bread & butter) before lunch (dinner? Fourth meal?) is served.
• Abruptly wake up to the flight attendant asking if you want the "assorted cheese/fruit plate" or the "cheesecake" for dessert.  You say you want the cheese, but then you think "Wait, why am I getting dessert -- I haven't even had my dinner yet!"  And then you realize that you actually DID have dinner... and the memory of the beef and the mashed potatoes starts to crystallize.  Boy, that Tylenol PM (okay, plus the glass of red, plus only 3 hours of sleep on Sunday night) will knock you out pretty quickly...
• Eat your fruit and cheese, pause the movie, put on the blinders, insert ear plugs, fully recline seat, and fall asleep for as long as you can...
• ...Which in this case, turns out to only be ~3.5 hours.  You're disappointed, so you try to fall back asleep, but it becomes clear that that is not going to happen.
• So you decide to trick your body into thinking it's morning time (which it is at your destination).  Black coffee...
• Finish watching "Sherlock Holmes", which you find very clever and entertaining.
• Pull out your laptop and try to play the new computer game that you bought on clearance at Walmart for $3 (Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Rebel Heroes).
• Determine that your laptop doesn't have enough horsepower to run the game -- everything happens in s l o w m o t i o n . . .
• Decide to put the game away, and do actual work for about 90 minutes.
• Get up, walk around, stretch, and look for the "mid-flight snacks" that are left out for our at-will consumption.
• Eat said mid-flight snacks.
• Select another movie to watch.  In this situation, you decide to watch "The Men Who Stare at Goats" because it sounds peculiar, plus, hey, it has Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges & Kevin Spacey in it, so it can't be bad, right?  You're wrong, and you don't enjoy the movie, but by the time you realize that you're not going to like it very much, you've already committed to it, and you're not one who can leave a movie half-watched.
• Try out one of the video games in the in-flight entertainment system; it's kind of like "Space Invaders", but you only last about 5 minutes before getting bored, so you decide to play around with the musical offerings in the system.  You listen to some "White Stripes" and "Led Zeppelin" in an effort to keep you alert and awake, followed by a listen of the first half of the "Pirate Radio" soundtrack.
• Decide to watch something else, but there's only around 2 hours left in the flight at this point, so you may not have time to watch another movie.  So you watch an episode of "The Office" (one you hadn't seen before, about the "Employee of the Month" scheme and "Scott's Tots" -- very painful [but enjoyable] to watch).
• You eat another light meal, and watch an episode of "No Reservations" with Anthony Bourdain.
• Finish up the flight by reading some more of "Going Rogue".  You really like the book, and you're almost done with it... and you keep thinking of all the people you know who need to read the book.  Unfortunately, those are all probably the same people who would never read it without some form of coercion or torture.
• Pack up your stuff as the airplane touches down in Hong Kong.

So, there it is.  Next time you need to fill up a 14.5 hour flight, feel free to follow the simple steps provided above...