A detailed report

 The moment he awoke, Rock was asked to investigate a matter unclear to him from the start. It seemed to have something to do with the Super Bowl and perhaps the availability of his living room-den as an area to view the game. Whatever this was, he suspected a need for a detailed, precise report, so he started to make a list of each item in the front rooms of his house. The living room came first, but approximately five minutes in, Rock began to wonder about this assignment. The most recent Super Bowl was played two weeks earlier. Why would anyone need to know these things now? The first of the items on Rock's list was that he had a television, and he would also never understand why the presence of a television exactly where one had been since mid-October 2002 could possibly have surprised him.

Nothing would change

 Rock knew exactly what happened. He had seen this before. His life had been arranged so that nothing would ever change. For starters, no time would pass. It would remain dawn forever, just as it had been when he awoke in his living room-den, with little more than an idea of daylight east of his house. The television program currently on would remain on forever, which was unfortunate since he had fallen asleep a few minutes after midnight with his TV tuned to a forty-three-year-old rerun of The Love Boat. He wondered if he could find football, baseball, golf, heck whatever, on the set in his back bedroom. It was far too cold to let Joe out, and he couldn't find his bifocals.

Masters Tournament

 Rock's housecat Joe won the Masters Tournament, and Rock was the only reporter there. Shortly after Joe's victory, Rock was besieged by editors from the paper in Little Rock. They demanded a story and wanted it the moment they called. Although Rock was nearly certain he had interviewed Joe moments after the cat's victory was complete, Joe wanted out. Rock couldn't imagine how he had gathered quotes in the first place and knew he could get no more. For Christ's sake, Joe was a fourteen-pound cat. On the other hand, Rock knew he had comments from Joe somewhere and that it was essential he find them.

Gaming

 This gaming business was all new to Rock. He had only recently learned it had risen to the level of an organized sport. His relative ignorance aside, the paper asked if he would report on a gaming tournament in Little Rock. To start, he asked a twenty-six-year-old Little Rock Hasher named Baileigh, the only active gamer he knew, what she knew about the tournament. "The favorite is a former Hasher named Josh," she said. Rock knew Josh well at one time, but he had moved away years earlier.

Improvement

 It had taken Rock well over a year, but he confirmed that he had at last trained his racehorse Joe to stay put until he himself was prepared to get out of bed for the morning. Joe seemed at ease after two firm "nos" from Rock, whereas before, he would have marched right across Rock's head in order to rattle the lampshade and knock things from the nightstand. It was a substantial improvement. The problem was, Rock had a barn full of horses he would also need to train how to behave at or near daybreak. He decided to go ahead and get up.