Now I am going to attempt to do some maths (wish me luck).
The Fellowship of the Ring is 208mins (228mins with additional credits), Two Towers is 223mins (235mins with additional credits) and The Return of the King is 251mins (263mins with additional credits).
Meaning, to watch the whole epic saga of the ring will take a whopping 726 minutes, including those additional credits.
Now we need to add the extended edition running times for The Hobbit trilogy: An Unexpected Journey is 182 minutes, The Desolation of Smaug is 186 minutes and The Battle of the Five Armies is 174 minutes. So all up that is 543 minutes equalling to 9.05 hours of pure hobbity goodness.
But wait, there's more.
Add in the extra 60 hours of bonus features and, all up, we're talking 81 hours. That's just over three days of non-stop Hobbit. Longer than a flipping long weekend.
This all got me thinking... it's a hell of a lot of time that you could be using to do all the other crap in your life.
For example:
1) You could move house
Three days is the perfect amount of time to uproot your entire living habitat and find a new roost.
You have more than enough time to box up all your pots and pans and dismantle your trampoline before moving it all to your new digs and unpacking and assembling it up again. You could even get cleaners through and hang new curtains!
2) You could go M.I.A.
Three days is about the right amount of time to go M.I.A. after a large girls night out.
You know the drill... you meet the girls after work on a Friday, have a few Sav's and then find yourself in a seedy bar down in the Viaduct.
A dodgy salesman you've just met buys you a couple more but then you get it in your head that you absolutely need a sloppy cheese burger from The White Lady burger van so you tell the girls you'll be right back and take off.
But on your way there you run into your ex, who is also out, and the two of you just kind of pick up where you left off...
The next morning you wake up and think, hey, maybe he wasn't such a bad guy after all and the two of you spend the rest of the weekend wining and dining and getting so caught up in the whirlwind of it all that you totally forget to text your worried friends back.
But by Sunday night those familiar old niggles have resurfaced and you discover that he hasn't grown up at all and really, what the hell were you thinking wasting your whole weekend with that jerk?
Well, something like that anyway... I mean, this is a purely hypothetical situation that I just made up and not something that happened to me last weekend.
And Adam, if you're reading this, you're still a jerk. Don't call me.
3) You could play golf
You could ruin a nice walk by playing a round of golf.
To play a typical 18 hole golf course takes about four hours. So, in theory, you could play 18 rounds of golf.
Watch out Danny Lee and Lydia Ko I'm coming for ya!
4) You could use those slow-cooker recipes
You could make three all-day slow cooked meals.
You know the ones. Those meals your mum is always going on about.
One of those "chuck something in the crockpot before you go to work and it's all done when you get home" type things.
While we are at it, here's a few of my favourites: beef tacos, melt-in-your-mouth pot roast and spinach artichoke dip.
Now, go impress your mum.
5) You could drive from Auckland to Invercargill
Forget Frodo! Why not live your own epic journey?
In the time it takes to numb you butt watching that boxset you could drive from Auckland to Invercargill three times(!) and still have four and a half hours to spare for toilet breaks.
It takes just 22 hours and 34 minutes to drive from Auckland's CBD heading south non stop to reach the 'gill. And the bonus is seeing that beautiful kiwi country side in the flesh, not just on one of those many LOTR Blu-ray discs.
