Chess
Eager for an indoor hobby that could become a lifelong hobby, I downloaded the Chess.com app a couple weeks into the pandemic. I was quite young the last time I had attempted to play chess, so there was (and still is!) definitely a learning curve. The app has lessons, puzzles, drills, and even live games you can watch. You can also play against the computer or a friend. I got my mom and my boyfriend into playing as well, and it’s proven to be a great activity whether you’re across the room or across the country from one another. The Queen’s Gambit hitting Netflix this fall was icing on the cake. —Hannah Levitt, finance reporter, Bloomberg News
Virtual Escape Rooms
Since we ran a story about escape rooms going online this spring, I’ve beaten a handful of virtual versions with a couple of friends who are god-level escape artists. If you’re a crossword puzzle or Jeopardy! person and can handle a bit of cooperation, they’re a fun step up from Jackbox games that can make you feel, for an hour or so, as if you’ve also escaped our rolling global hostage crisis. Plus, you’re often supporting a small business that badly needs the help. —Jeff Muskus, senior features editor, Bloomberg Businessweek
Fresh Bread via Instagram
Traveling vast distances for excellent fresh bread is totally reasonable, and I would absolutely have committed to a trip to buy the sourdough at Neighborhood Bread. As luck would have it, the two bakers behind the business, which was set up on Instagram after both lost their pre-pandemic jobs, deliver their excellent English muffins, cardamom buns, and focaccia themselves. A few months into it, the nearly inconceivable luxury of fresh bread delivered to my door still hasn’t, if you will forgive the (unforgivable) pun, grown stale. —James Tarmy, arts columnist, Bloomberg Pursuits
An Amazon Alternative
I joined a book club so I would be reading anything else but the news after work. It was the Black Lives Matter protests, when the Buy Black lists were going around Instagram, that finally broke me of my Amazon cheapskate-ness, and I started ordering via Bookshop.org. The way it works, it can select a specific bookstore (Black-owned, queer-leaning, one in your hometown, whatever), and then the full profit from your purchase goes to them; or you can just shop and it goes into a general slush fund that’s evenly distributed back to save these small businesses. Yes, it’s more expensive, and no, shipping isn’t “free,” but it’s fast, easy, and one small step toward putting my money where my values are. —Justin Ocean, deputy editor, Bloomberg Pursuits
’80s Card Game
After exhausting pretty much every card/board/puzzle game we could find, my brother came home with this $5 card game from the 1980s. Phase 10 certainly has twists, We get extra competitive and just when you think you’re about to move ahead, someone trips up your game plan. We can play for hours, and we always laugh. (Also, it helps we’ve got Johnny Drum bourbon in our glasses.) —Margaret Sutherlin, audience development editor, Bloomberg Media
Coffee Bean Subscriptions
I started ordering fancy coffee beans during lockdown as a mini splurge. That upgrade in quality gave me something to look forward to every morning to break up the daily slog of all things 2020. And now it’s become a staple of my new WFH routine. Totally worth it. Bonus: You’re helping out a small business at the same time. Many places, such as Square Mile (in the U.K.), now do subscriptions and will ship to you; in the U.S., there’s Time and Tide. —Sarah Muller, deputy managing editor, EMEA, Bloomberg News
Sports Radio
I started listening to sports talk radio back in March, which is obviously ironic since, well, nobody was playing. The irascible Joe Benigno—a famously testy, long-suffering, die-hard blue-collar fan—emerged as my go-to voice on WFAN 101.9 FM in New York. “The toy store is closed,” he said in his broad New Jersey growl the day after the NBA season was put on hold. Instead of March Madness, he and his co-host Evan Roberts devised a separate tournament, The Benigno Bracket of Pain, which forced him to rate, often hilariously, which sporting event had caused him more grief over the years: the Mets’ trade of Tom Seaver, say, or the double-overtime Jets loss to the Browns in the 1986 playoffs? Leave it to a lifelong Jets, Mets, and Knicks fan—inoculated by tragedy, accustomed to misery—to help put things in perspective. —James Gaddy, editor, Bloomberg Pursuits
Down Dog App
The Down Dog app has saved me this year. They had a sale early on in the pandemic and for $40, I’ve been able to practice five days a week since March. I’ve lost 30 lbs, even with my pandemic-break baking habit! —Aeriel Brown, photo director, Bloomberg Businessweek
Gardening, With a Virtual Assistant
Going full-on geriatric, I tackled the mysterious plants lurking in my back garden, which I’d neglected ever since moving in seven years ago. Though my late father was an avid gardener, I am a neophyte. I was able to identify and research what was what by taking photos with this handy app called PlantSnap. I went rather snap-happy this summer looking for new plants during a vacation in Cornwall. I killed a few hydrangeas along the way and puttered around obsessively battling slugs, but I now know the difference between rhododendrons and azaleas (sort of). —Stephanie Baker, senior writer, London, Bloomberg News
Audible Subscription for Celebrity Memoirs
All right, so there’s no subscription to Audible specifically for celebrity memoirs. But I recommend that’s what you use it for. I’ve found that I’m so addicted to tuning out with podcasts about the news, I need an escape from my escape. And listening to a celebrity prattle on about themselves is like listening to an old friend jabber for a few peaceful, mindless hours. Start with Tina Fey, Rob Lowe (seriously), Mary-Louise Parker, Mindy Kaling, Michelle Obama, Jessica Simpson, Demi Moore, Tiffany Haddish, Jessi Klein, and Carrie Fisher. —Chris Rovzar, editor, Bloomberg Pursuits