I'm a Player

Do you like playing games? I do. Board games, card games, trivia games, and all kinds of puzzles. One of the things we used to do a lot of when we were growing up was play games. Board games like Monopoly and Life were ok, but they tended to go on too long and Dad never let us win. Games like Tri-Ominos, Connect Four and Othello were good for recognizing patterns, and Rummikub was good for math. No Candyland in our house; think Mastermind instead. Man, I was terrible at that game as a kid.

We didn’t have any video games around, but Dad did manage an arcade for a while. We used to go in on Sundays and play games for hours. I remember playing some fire engine game with one of my sisters. We had a pool table, so I learned some of the basics for that pretty early too. Other than that, we played a lot of card games. Sure, we might have started off with the usual games of Go Fish and Old Maid, but it wasn’t long before we all started learning to play Euchre. Hearts came after that and eventually games like Oh Hell and a really fun version of solitaire. I can’t remember what we called it, but it was really something to see when all 5 of us would be spread out on the living room floor with our decks of cards and trying to play off each others build piles. Shanghi Rummy is fun too. Uno and Skip Bo are fun, but not as challenging.

Dad has been recording movies and TV shows for about as long as I can remember. He has hundreds of movies. From a pop culture trivia standpoint, it means I can hold my own when it comes to naming movies and actors. It depends on the genre, of course. I don’t care much for Westerns, although I have seen a good number of them. I also really don’t like horror movies. My sister sent me a web address to a puzzle that asks you to name 50 horror movies based on the images in the picture. Here is the link. I did what I could, but this area isn’t my strong suit, so it wasn’t long before I had to ask for help. If you decide to try it, good luck to you.

When Trivial Pursuit came along, it gave me a whole new way to feel equally smart (pink) or ignorant (brown). I thought that making the different editions of the game was a great idea. I have a movie trivia game that I love, although I don’t get to play it very often. My family also liked to play Pictionary. I think that game reveals a lot about another person. You really start to get a feel for the level of another person’s creativity and whether they are an in-the-box or out-of-the-box kind of thinker. I have also found that there is a difference between genders when playing this game. The short version is that girls rule. (Maybe we can just leave it with the short version.) Cranium is a fantastic extension of Pictionary and Trivial Pursuit (plus charades and the creative use of Play Doh).

I have some great websites for board games if you are interested. And with Christmas right around the corner, you need to start thinking of something, right? I think there is something weird about people that don’t like to play games. I mean it’s one thing to have a preference for a certain card game or board game, but to not play anything at all? Weird. One of the things I miss the most since moving is not being able to sit around someone’s kitchen table (even if it was mine) and play cards and have some wine and just chill (while winning).

These days I am basically limited to Sudoku. Once again I was sitting in an airport terminal waiting for my plane to show up and I ended up teaching a couple of people how to do one of the puzzles. It’s funny the way it happens. Someone near me will make some remark about how they always wanted to know how to do it, but it looked complicated. Once I start to show them how to do it, it always seems to capture the attention of other people around us. Not much to do that’s interesting while sitting in the boarding area, so I guess almost anything counts as entertainment.