Games Without Frontiers

We've been having a lot of fun with games this vacation. 

You need friends for this, of course, but with or without booze, it's fun. 

Telestrations is one of those. 

Think "telephone" but with one word and pictures.  

Well more than one word.  Each person alternates between the word, drawing a picture of said word, then the other person guessing what it is supposed to be, with the next person drawing it - and so on. 

Probably an easier way to describe, but I'm three margaritas in and two glasses of wine. 

Let's see if I can share an example. 

The original word 710 had.  He passed it to Morty who drew......

Hip.  O.  

....or so he thought. Dith's guess was.....

Yes.  That. 

This is what I drew from Dith's guess.  Though mine was plural. 

Jon accurately - from my description, but not the original word, was spot on. 

George?   

Semi on the mark of Jon, but not really. And I don't even know what the four extra things are. 

Nor did Rebecca who guessed......this. 

Yes. hippopotamus to Dick Pimples.  

Our sides were splitting - and it was only one of our rounds.  We'd have been having a rip roaring time without alcohol, but it's been a fun game to play. 

I highly suggest it all for you and your friends. 

Song by: Peter Gabriel

House of Cards

Yesterday I said I might be drunk.  Today (last evening) there was no "might". 

I'm in bed, well after hours, barely drafting this as everyone says "goodnight".  We had an incredible dinner and drank and played Cards Against Humanity to hilarious results. 

I did not come close to winning, except for the fact that I have the best husband in the world, along with the best friends. 

This could be a longer post, but you know..........alcohol. 

Song by: Mary Chapin Carpenter

This Too Shall Pass

People, mostly guys, of a certain age might know what is pictured here.

I can count the number of days I spent playing this. Literally.

It turns out single digits. When I got this, probably back in 1977 (?), it was all the rage.

Who wouldn't love something with the clunkiness of the first nerdy calculator that could only add / subtract / multiple / divide and only to eight digits and pair with with the excitement of football?

Well, my parents were early adopters of that aforementioned calculator (thanks 47th St. Photo!), and I had no affinity for the sport, so.........naturally, I HAD to have this. And oddly, my parents accommodated me. This was unlike them.

As a freshman, I was dying to fit in, which I didn't know at the time was NEVER going to happen. But in the failed attempt, a cool electronic gadget that people wanted, or wanted to be around, was my "in". Except, it wasn't.

Without me ever seemingly realizing it, this piece of gaming history went missing.   ........for maybe 30 + years. I'm sure at the time, I knew it was gone - but not sure if it was at my hand or some five fingered thief.

But somewhere at that 30 + year mark, at a Sunday dinner, I found it at my mother's house. Still looking brand spanking new. One new 9-volt battery later and it was as good as almost new.  ....and I still sucked at it.

And I shit you not, I immediately misplaced the Football I.

I wasn't even sure if it left my mother's house or if it made it to ours. Clearly it wasn't meant to be.


.......or was it ??

In the last week, we've been purging from the house. I don't know exactly where 710 found it, but he did.

So for like the 20th time in 43 years, I put in a new 9-volt and fired her up. 

It still works perfectly.

....and I still suck at it.


On a whim, I thought maybe I found a vintage game in which I could sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, even though it's not in the original packaging. As it turns out, I can sell it on e-bay from somewhere between $3.80  and $30.00.

Maybe I'll just look for it again in a decade and see if the value has gone up.



Song by: OK Go

What to Keep and What to Throw Away

How was everyone's holiday weekend?  I forgot to axe.

The weather was very un-May like.  Very cool, never breaking 60.  ...and that didn't include wind.

We had two outings - one family; one neighbor related.  Both fun.

The family one was a gathering to celebrate my niece's college graduation.  It was low key, but the most interesting thing was being asked to bring Petey with us.

This sister is the one who asked us to take Petey 11 months ago.  I think it was weird for all involved.

Petey had only been in that physical house for a month, but was seemingly familiar with where he could and could not go - at least according to their rules.  I didn't care where he went.  But he stuck to the kitchen, mostly because that is where food prep was.

Most interesting was how he got along with his (ex) brother.  He and Boomer played like they had never been apart.  Boomer is a little more territorial about stuff than Petey and let's face it, this was now Boomer's house.  But things went well with them.

Clearly my sister and her family missed Petey and were all over him with love. But us leaving was tough - for them.  I think my sister was on the verge of tears. But she knew he was going home with us and to a good home, and they are welcome to visit him anytime they'd like.

The next evening was at our friends & neighbors.  Just the four of us having salad, ribs, corn and apple pie.

Afterwards we played Bocce Ball.

I think I may have played one other time in my life.  We split up into teams - and we were not paired with our own husbands, which was fine.  Tom and I were way ahead and totally lost the lead - and the game.  It was fun and I tired not to be too competitive, which can be tough for me.

Overall, it was a low key weekend but one that will hopefully kick off summer-time weather soon.  As it is, nothing but rain in the forecast for next few days.



Song by:  Mary Chapin Carpenter

I May Know the Word

It seems that Words With Friends can be all-consuming. This isn't a good thing.

I find myself waiting for people to finish their turn so I get mine back - all so I can lose another game.  I suck at the game, but I keep trying. And yes, it can be a total time suck. I'm even starting games with - gasp - strangers!!!!

For g-d's sake, the game isn't called Words With Strangers!

Unlike Morty or Becky, I haven't yet played strategy, so it always leads to my demise. Or almost always. Usually.

You see, I'm happy just to get rid of some of my letters and not focus on if it is both a double-letter and triple-word score - all the while using my Q, J and Z in the same word. This is why I lose - big time.

I find myself trying random letters to see if they make words that I do not know. I can't remember which word I did come up with but Becky called me on it and asked if I was cheating. Trust me - if I were actually cheating, I wouldn't actually be losing by 100 -150 points per game. I mean, I suppose I could be a bad cheater.

As you can see in my image, I can't even get the easiest words to work in my favor. And if it did, it would have only gotten me seven frickin' points. But the PC Police stopped me dead in my tracks. Yet Morty gets 34 points for LAZE.

Do you want to know the word I did end up using?  Look at my tiles with all those 'O's. That along with the 'F' I was trying to use ended up spelling 'ROOFIE'. And it scored quite nicely, thank you.

Two nights ago, the game actually let me spell 'JISM'.  Yes, I can spell date rape drugs and the consequence from them, but I can't use the name that many of us have been called since 6th grade.  Unfortunately, I wasn't playing with a friend, just a random person. I can only imagine what she thought.  I don't know why I assumed it was a woman, I just did.

I do like how 'fag' "not an acceptable word" - on many levels. And clearly, before some of the militant homos get on their soapbox, you know I'm joking and all I was just trying to use up my letters. It's about winning - any way you can.



Song by:  Natalie Merchant

Games People Play

Oooh, last night was dinner and game night at a couple of friends of ours.

Fairly impromptu in its planing, it was just the four of us. A simple meal of chicken and veggies. It was really only supposed to be an early evening of dinner and conversation.

After dinner they asked if we wanted to play cards - and to be honest, that is a lost art. I don't know any card games. None. I think at one time I knew Hearts or War. All I know now is Solitaire. And as Karen Carpenter sings, "it's the only game in town." Forget Poker or Bridge.

So we decided on Scrabble. And as you can see - it is a deluxe, wood-grained Scrabble set, at that. Fancy-schmancy. One that rotates!!! We just have the normal/standard version at our house. We're not the fancy-schmancy gays.

Oh, and I won with a score of 136. That's like my bowling score. But hey - a win is a win. I'll take it. Not that I'm competitive or anything. As you can see - I didn't have any big big words, though I did make 'dogeared' out of someone else's 'dog'.

I really have no idea how high one normally scores in Scrabble. And I don't know how anyone else did. David never mentioned the score of the losers anyone else.

Dinner and games are just fine, but we just love spending time with David and James. We talk work, politics, entertainment and yes, a little gossip.

It is so our turn to have them over - and I think we'll do it in the next few weeks. We just started subscribing to Cook's Illustrated. I'm sure I can find something to conjure up for a decent dinner.



Song by: the Alan Parsons Project

For the Birds

I have a new obsession. I've had it for weeks now. Months actually.

Angry Birds.

It is all the rage - it has been, as it was the biggest iTunes application download of 2010.

Naturally, I downloaded the 'lite' version, since that was a freebie. You know how cheap I am. But I pretty much breezed through most of the levels from the time I first booted it up on the way from CLE to the time I landed at LGA.

It took Denton a while to convince me to put a crowbar in the wallet to spend $0.99 for the full version.

It might be the best 99 cents I ever spent. The game really soothes my OCD, while perpetuating it at the same time. It sounds crazy, but it is true.

Why pigs have army helmets and TNT is beyond me. Nor do I understand why birds who can actually fly need slingshot launches, but who am I to know these things?

Normally, I can figure out the levels pretty easily. I get which birds do which special things and the trajectory you need to knock down structures and crush the pigs. I like how the pigs get black eyes when part of the debris hits them, but I hate when the swine become cocky when you don't kill them and they smile, showing their teeth to you, in that superior, "ha-ha", kind of way.

Bastard pigs.

There are about 21 different challenges on each level. Right now I'm on level six, so you can do the math yourself how much I've been playing since December.

Yesterday, I finally made it through level 6-14. Honestly, it had been like two weeks of on and off attempting to make it through. Using toucans are not the easiest bird to bring down pigs or their houses - whether made out of hay, sticks or brick. (see how I made a reference to the three little pigs there?)

I will admit being stumped on level 6-14 and even back on 3-15. When you say it or spell it out, it sounds like scripture passages. They way I was muttering 'g-d fucking damn it' when failing for hours on end to get past them, you'd being to wonder if evil was upon me. It was.

Admittedly, I used Goooogle to look up 'tips' on how to get past these levels. It worked for 3-15, but the biggie, 6-14, it seemed I was completely on my own. Those suggestions meant nothing. Nothing, I tellz ya.

But last night, I finally made it past 6-14....and now it's time to set the game down until my next flight, which is on Tuesday. It's time to join the land of the living.



Song by: Juliana Hatfield

Throw Me a Curve

Everything that's old is new again.

You can still buy Quisp cereal, if you look hard enough. They advertise for Fanta in the theaters. Morty still drinks Fresca. Spandau Ballet is threatening to come back on the scene. They (well, someone) are re-making that originally horrible g-ddamn movie Footloose.

It's like there isn't one new thought in the entire universe.

So I was not incredibly surprised to find this in the store the other day

Oh, how it made me smile. Impaling of little children be damned. To paraphrase that scene from Airplane: they knew what they were getting into, I say: "Let them die!"

Then I saw the little round red "disclaimer" near he bottom of the package. ROUND TIP.

You bunch of pussies! Man-up!

Grow a pair and put a metal spike on the bottom of a flighted plastic throwing object and let 'er rip!

I have yet to meet anyone who has been killed by a lawn dart (before the "accident, of course). Or anyone who has used one to kill. Though it would make a great CSI show. Probably the lesser Miami version, more so than Wad Vegas.

...but 'everyone's favourite lawn game'? Better than badminton? I mean, that has shuttlecocks. hehehe.


Song by: the Go-Gos

Cruisin' USA

Yes, I know you're thinking because of the title that this is going to be some kind of sex post - but you'd be wrong.

Cruisin' USA is a full-on arcade game, where players sit in a car seat and via video game, race from west coast to east, if you have have enough quarters or are a good enough driver to win free turns.

The first time I played this was at Jillian's Pool Hall. Slusser (that bastard owes me twenty bucks) and his then partner, Tom Q were in town. I don't know why and don't even remember if they stayed with us. I do remember ending up at Jillians, shooting pool, drinking beer and then Slusser got me to go 'drive'. I was horrible - probably because I was drunk. But the motion of the game made me queasy too.

Eventually, I got over that. Not during their visit, but with the multiple multiple times, per week, that I would go out drinking with my boss. We started driving drunk. A dollar at a time. Being a creature of habit, I'd always pick the same car and eventually knew the roads from the hills of San Francisco, through the redwoods and Chicago, that I'd eventually end up in DC partying in a hot tub on top of the White House with Bill Clinton. I kid you not - that is how the game ended if you won. Oh - and there were lots of scantily clad women in said hot tub.

But our lives change: Cruisin' USA games were eventually replaced by Cruisin' the World - which wasn't nearly as fun. My boss was fired. And I wasn't going out anymore - or at least to that degree. It's been years since I've played this game.

Imagine my surprise last night when my dream was about this. Over and over and over. The dreams wasn't as animated and I was following (or losing to?) Denton's BMW which was in the distance in front of me. I drove over a repeating loop of road that went through Hartford.

Now I've only been to Hartford proper twice. But on one trip, five years ago, I killed a day by walking a lot. It was a main road that went through downtown and up through some scary neighborhoods to Trinity College. Somewhere I had to pass a statue of Casimir Pulaski. This was all in the dream. Including a car crash and a police officer who was directing traffic around it.

I thought exercise was supposed to make you sleep better.