Challenged to Post, "Without Comment"

[It's been a minute since I wrote something here, but I thought I'd put this out there so I could easily reference it later should it become needed.]

Someone has challenged you over the next X days to post on some media platform pictures of:

 - Your favorite albums of all time.

 - The movies that were most influential on you.

 - The books could you read over and over.

 - The [some way of pretending to get random things] photo(s) on your phone. [1]

 - The food you blah blah blah . . . 

 - The place(s) you would yadda yadda yadda . . .

 - etc, etc, etc.

Let's be clear, I'm not opposed to these sorts of things.  I most likely am interested in what you might have to share.  After all, the reason we are ostensibly friends on whatever social media platform this is occurring on is because we both chose to be.  Thus, I probably care some amount about you and am interested at least on some level about who you are, what you care about, and other parts of you life.

But here's the supposed kicker, you have to post them, "without comment".  

Though I'm probably reading more dramatic emphasis into it than is really there, I always imagine it more like:

"I was challenged to post this, WITHOUT COMMENT!"  [Dum, dum, dummmmmmm!] [2]

But the question is, why?

Why wouldn't you comment?  What point is there to the whole thing if you don't comment?

Oh, here's some photo that seems important . . .

 . . .but I've no idea why.

Hey look, they like a movie that 90% of people like . . . 

 . . .  what a non-surprise.

They've read that famous book . . . 

. . . that millions of other people have read too.  

Complete non-shocker, and honestly, I don't care.

Of course if you were to comment then suddenly I do care.  Because now I know that the reason you picked that photo was because of [something meaningful and/or interesting].

Or maybe it wasn't.  Maybe you just like the way you look in that photo.  Or you just want to show the world your cute kid(s).

Maybe you just like that movie because of that one fight scene.  Or that one line.  Or because of that hot actor/actress is in it.  

And I suspect that's one of the real reasons people are so pleased to post "without comment".  Because they have nothing to say beyond, "I liked this."  Because their 10 things are completely banal and in truth uninteresting. 

A second reason is probably that after posting and commenting on 1 picture of their kid/dog/self/whatever that fulfills the requirement of this supposed challenge, they would really have nothing left to say on days 2 through 10.

A third reason, and most likely to most applicable is that people are lazy.

So, before I wrap this up.  Let me actually challenge you.

The next time someone "challenges" you to post pictures of whatever "without comment", I challenge you to completely ignore the lets 'o', 'u' and 't' in the word "without" and to post them WITH comments.

Because let's be honest.  One of the main reasons you accepted this "challenge" is that you were hoping people will think the things you picked are cool/interesting/say something about you, and/or that you want people to talk with you about it.  

There's nothing wrong with that, so skip the hoping someone will take the lame bait of a pic with no comments and start the conversation yourself.  

I for one will be way more likely to: 

 - pay attention

 - think about what you've posted for more than half a second

 - post a comment

And if the person who challenged you complains about your changing the rules, just reply to them with a link to this post.

Challenged to Post "Without Comment": D-

[1] - This is "Pretending to be random" because: A) if the randomly selected picture isn't something you want others to see; or B) isn't cool enough; or C) you really want to pick some other picture, we all know your just going to pick whatever you want.

[2] - That's a bad attempt at dramatic sounding music.

Days of Thunder & Real Racing 3

Days Of Thunder & Real Racing 3:

In case you don't know what one of these two things are, Days of Thunder is a movie made in 1990 about race cars. Real Racing 3 is a video game that came out this year and is also about race cars.

And what, you might ask, do these two things have in common besides the aforementioned race cars, such that they deserve to be rated together?

The answer?  Nothing, but here we go any way.

Days of Thunder stars the real life couple of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.  Back when Tom couldn't fail to make a hit movie and Nicole hadn't yet had enough of his brand of crazy.  It also has a slew of other famous stars: Randy Quaid, Cary Elwes, Michael Rooker, Fred Thompson, John Reilly and even Robert Duvall.[1]  Not to mention a ton of actual stock car drivers.

Real Raching 3, doesn't actually have any people in it.  Unless you count yourself steering the cars and thus has no famous stars [2] including Nicole Kidman. [3]

One big similarity between both Days of Thunder and Real Racing 3 is that neither of them has any actual plot to speak of.

You wouldn't expect RR3 to have one, it's basic premise is you buy and race cars around a variety of tracks so that you can make enough money to buy and race more cars around more tracks.

You might have expected DoT to have a plot, but you'd be wrong.  Okay, perhaps I exaggerate I little.  It does have a plot.  Here it is in its entirety:

Cole [Tom] is a race car nobody who convinces a car dealer to sponsor him as a driver.  In one season of racing, he wows the racing world and wins important races.  Along the way he gets into an accident and falls in love with his doctor [Nicole] and makes friends with a driver he started out being semi-enemies with.

Done.  There is no more plot to be had.  And I'm not exaggerating in the least.  Here it is boiled down a bit:

Cole races cars.  Cole gets hurt.  Cole meets girl doctor.  Cole makes friends.  Cole wins races. [4]

I'm pretty sure that is the initial plot treatment that they used to sell the script to Paramount in the first place.  The conversation went something like this:

Movie Person: Here's the movie we want you to pay for. [Shows the initial treatment.]
Paramount: That's it?  Hell no.
Movie Person: It will star Tom Cruise.
Paramount: Here's $50,000,000.  Let us know when you need more.

Since DoT is about stock car racing, everyone ostensibly drives the same car. [5]  Of course they paint them all different with big numbers so you can tell them apart.  And so that they can sell more movie memorabilia.  Since it is American car racing all of the tracks are a big oval.

In RR3 there are currently something like 48 different cars for you buy and race, including: Porsche, Audi, BMW, Dodge, Nissan, Bentley, Ford and Chevrolet. There are a bunch of different tracks and only one of them is just an oval. [6]

The change of cars and tracks keeps things interesting.  There are also a variety of different events to complete, only some of which are traditional "races".

In DoT all of the races are pretty much the same.  In fact if you pay close attention, you'll see that they keep repeating the same action in all of the races.  Including the "bad racers" bumping Cole, the various crashes and spin outs and even how Cole nearly wrecks but manages to stay in the race.  But of course, they change the cars and the numbers so you won't notice.

From a 'realism' perspective, one of the biggest problems with DoT is that the actual racing is pretty bad.  Cole can be in last place and somehow in just a few laps he can pass everyone in the race and get back to being right behind the race leader for some dramatic last minute passing to win the race. [7]

From a 'realism' perspective, one of the biggest problems with RR3 is that you win most races by several hundred yards.  The game claims that it carefully picks opponents to keep the racing challenging, but I think I can count the number of races that I had some dramatic last minute passing to win the race on one hand.

When DoT came out I happen to be working at Toys R Us and I can remember the frenzy among the car collectors as they tried to get all of the various replica models that were for sale.  There was one set of cars by Matchbox or Hot Wheels that had both the stock car and the trailer transport together.  Grown men would wait for hours around the store hoping that our next delivery truck would have a case of the cars in it and that the case would have the rare, limited edition, Cole Trickle black car. [8]

I wonder if those same fellows think back now and wonder what were they thinking? [9]

RR3 is completely free.  You can download it on your phone or iPad whenever you get a hankering. Of course you can spend actual money to get more "in game" money, but if you are doing that, you need to rethink your use of disposable income. [10]

RR3 also touts its "Real Time Multiplayer" technology.  Which supposedly is that the game records how you run a race and then when I run that same race, your car will be one of the people I race against.  Only, I don't think it actually quite works that way.  I say this mainly because I've run a lot of races in the game and I've never seen one single person drive at all the way I do. [11]  Neither have I ever seen another car suddenly go running off the road for no reason. Which is also something I do from time to time. [12]

The best part about RR3 is that you get to drive by tilting your phone or iPad like a steering wheel. [13]

The best part about DoT is Nicole Kidman, but I think I already mentioned that.

Despite DoT's lack of plot and general cheesiness, I find myself drawn to it every few years and I end up rewatching it.  And every time as it ends I think, "Man is that movie way worse than I remember."

Despite RR3's gaming flaws, I find myself drawn to it several times a day.  If you happen to play, send my an invite on FB. You get more money for racing against friends and I have my eye on a new Bugatti.

Days of Thunder: C

Real Racing 3: B+

[1] - Yeah, I have no idea how they got him to be in this movie either.  I'm assuming a boat load of money.
[2] - Unless of course you are actually famous, in which case, thanks for reading my blog, can I have an autograph?
[3] - Which is a shame cause she's a hottie.
[4] - Actually when you look at it, RR3 has more plot than DoT
[5] - Thus, "stock" cars
[6] - The Indianapolis Motor Speedway which is in America of course.
[7] -  Which begs the question if it's that easy, why isn't everyone doing the same thing?
[8] - I was actually offered sizable amounts of money by more than one person if I would "set one aside" for them.  If only it had been that easy.  I could have completed my Ninja Turtle action figure collection.
[9] - I suppose it is possible that they sit at home looking loving at the shelf that holds their complete set of Days of Thunder memorabilia and marvel at how rich their lives are.  Possible, but not bloody likely.
[10] - And perhaps go look at your Days of Thunder collection again.
[11] - Which is to say reckless and crazy.
[12] - Like say when a four year old jumps onto your lap in the midst of a race.
[13] - Hey, it's probably the closest I'll ever get to racing a Porsche so let me have my small pleasures.

Candy Crush Saga

Candy Crush Saga:  It's unlikely, barring your being a Luddite, that you don't already know what Candy Crush Saga is.  Which is not to say that you necessarily have played it, but at the very least you've been spammed by your friends and acquaintances who have been sucked in.

Hi, I'm Mr. B-Grades and I played Candy Crush. [1]

But it's important to notice the tense in the that previous sentence. [2]

I actually still like the game, but the owners/creators of it have beaten whatever joy there was to be had out of me.

Just in case, you actually are a Luddite [3] or by some other way have managed to avoid the game, here's a brief description.  Any time there are three or more identical pieces of candy on the game board they are removed (or crushed).  And new candy falls in from the top of the screen  You attempt to facilitate that removal by swapping pieces that are next to each.  Along the way the different layouts on each level and other obstacles make successive levels harder and more challenging.

Currently there are something like sixteen magillion levels [4]

The problem with the game is directly related to why the game exists.  And as any first year Econ student can tell you, all businesses exist for one reason and one reason only.

To make money.

And Candy Crush is made by a business [5] and thus is ultimately there to make them money. [6]

How do they make money?  By getting you to spend your real life dollars for their in-game bonuses.

Run out of lives?  Spend a buck and get your lives refilled.  Want to have the ability to create special candies that explode and in other ways assist your efforts?  Cash can do that for you too.

But wait, you say.  Isn't candy crush free to play?  Sure, but the people over there at King Games also want your money, so they have to balance making the game free and fun with making it hard so you want to spend money for extra perks.  If they make it too easy to play and win, nobody will spring for the bonuses.  If they make it too hard, you won't ever get hooked.

Which brings us to level 165.

Technically, there are several levels akin to 165 you will encounter first, but 165 was the straw that broke this camel's back.

The different layouts and obstacles do require you to use strategy to get past a level and on every level there is some amount of luck, but with good skill and a mere modicum of luck you can get past most levels in just a few tries.  But for some reason every so often you run into a level where it is essentially 100% luck.  Your skill doesn't matter.  Unless the game gods arbitrarily decide to give you the right pattern of falling candies, you are not going to win.

I suffered through several of these.  Some of which took me a few days to win. [7]  Then came 165.  A board in which your decisions mean little.  Where unless the game decides to make every other candy a blue one, you aren't going to win.

King games is hoping this will get you to shell out for bonuses to get past the level.

King games is wrong.

Candy Crush: C+  (Good concepts.  Fun levels.  Decent strategy.  All of which is ruined by a few rotten apples. [8])


[1] - The first step towards getting better is admitting you have a problem.
[2] - In case grammar isn't your forte, it was past tense, meaning done in the past, but not necessarily now.
[3] - Of course if you are a Luddite how/why are you reading this now?
[4] - All numbers are approximate.
[5] - King Games
[6] - For the record, I'm not a business and as such get no remuneration for these efforts.  Not that I would turn such things down.
[7] - Or more accurately to be given the win.
[8] - Whether those apples are the levels, the people who run the game, or something else, I'll let you decide.

Super Stick Man Golf

Super Stick Man Golf: Noodlecake Studios makes computer games.  In particular they make games for cell phones.  In even more particularness they make Super Stick Man Golf.

I came upon this game while searching through the free games section of the app store on my iPhone.  The game evidently wasn't always free, but I guess having made enough money on it the folks at Noodlecake decided to start giving it away.

Whatever the actual reason, I thank them heartily because I love this game.

No seriously, I love it.

Okay, not actually love love it, but I love it as much as you can love any collection of 1's and 0's being used to represent a small stick man whacking a tiny white circle around an increasingly bizarre set of courses.

The game itself is simple enough.  You are a stick man.  You play golf.  You try to get the ball into the hole in as few shots as possible.

There are approximately 37 or so courses in the game.  Each is nine holes.  They are supposedly grouped according to difficulty, but I suspect they are more grouped according to some other characteristic.  [1]

Like all good games there are achievements to earn.[2]  Things like getting a hole-in-one or ending a course at ten under par or better.  There are also some goofy achievements related to some of the enhancements you can unlock. [3]

The enhancements are mostly special balls.  The ice ball will freeze a water hazard and thus allow you to avoid losing two strokes to a bad shot.  The sticky ball will adhere to any surface (besides water) and allows you to take your next shot hanging from the ceiling if that's what thrills you.  The super ball flies ten times farther and is consequently on fire.  etc.  etc. You get the idea.  There are also a couple of enhancements that change the course instead of the ball.  Like the hazard swap that makes all the water traps on a hole into sand traps and vice versa.

You can put up to seven special enhancements into your "golf bag" for any course.  Thus, you have to choose wisely.  Though a perfectly good way to play is just to take seven mulligans.  They let you undo your last shot and try again.

Anyway, back to my undying love for this game.

How much do I love it you ask?  Well let me tell you how much I've played so far.

The first time through I just played all of the courses and unlocked all of the enhancements and earned all of the achievements.[4]  Some of which are not easy.  Of course, I did all of this without using any of the enhancements save the mulligan.

Having done that I played all of the courses again until I had scored a gold star on all of them. [5]  Again, I naturally did this without using any enhancement except the mulligan.

Now I'm going through course by course and determining what is the lowest score you could get using the enhancements and then I am attempting to get that score. [6]  For instance, I've gotten a -36 on the Purple Haze course.

If you are dying to know how I'm playing each course.  Don't worry, I've got a chart I'm working on that will tell you which enhancement to use for each hole and what is the best score you can achieve.  I'll publish it once I've finished.

You might think I have a problem.  It's not a problem.  It's love. [7]

Super Stick Man Golf: A+


[1] - There are a couple of pretty tough courses in the 'beginner' set and some of the 'advanced' set are downright easy.  I'm willing to bet that they are actually pretty much grouped according to when they were made.
[2] - Okay like all games lately, good or bad.
[3] - Like sinking the flaming super ball into a water hazard.  More on that later.
[4] - Except for the multi-player ones.  Our relationship is a private one.
[5] - A gold star means you scored ten under par or better.
[6] - I'm calling it a success if I get within four strokes.
[7] - A love that will never end.  Or anyway, won't end until Super Stick Man Golf 2 comes out later this year.  Color me excited.

Pinatas

Pinatas: I want you to close your eyes and think of a pinata.  Picture a blindfolded child swinging a bat at the pinata.  The pinata moves out of the way as the person at the end of the rope makes it jump about wildly.  The child swings again and again.  The Pinata continues its merry dance until the randomness of its erratic movements and the swinging of the bat brings the two into destructive contact.  The Pinata explodes and a shower of treats rains down on the ecstatic children below.

Now open your eyes and face the reality of a Pinata.

They never, and I do mean never, explode into a shower of treats. [1] The children all line up and each take their swings, but even if they should make contact the Pinata holds firm.  Like a sadistic piggy bank refusing to give up its coins.  Eventually the kids and the adults get tired of the whole endeavor.

First, they stop pulling the rope at all, but even hanging still it doesn't produce any results.

Next the blindfold is discarded.  The children's interest is renewed, but rapidly wanes as even the benefit of sight produces no better results.

Ultimately we end with the pinata lying on the ground as one of the larger kids (or even an adult) beats the thing like the proverbial horse.

Should someone actually get lucky enough to breach the pinatas exterior while it is still airborne, no explosion of candy results.  Instead, if you are lucky one or two sad pieces of candy slide out, but no more.  More likely nothing falls out and the hole just serves as mockery while the pinata continues to hold fast. [2]

But before we completely turn away from the concept of a pinata in disgust.  Let's look at a few more facets of the endeavor.

First of all, who is really getting any joy out of the thing?  In reality the only ones are the adults as they laugh at the children swinging wildly and ineffectually.  In other words, this is mocking our youngsters while they fail at a task they have no hope of completing.

Secondly, about half the time the children end up getting the last laugh as one of the "helpful" adults in the area [3] ends up taking an essentially deserved shot to a vital area as little Billy starts swinging wildly before they can get clear.

And thirdly, now-a-days pinatas are made to look like our kids TV and movie heroes.  Not the villains, mind you, because that would make sense.  So instead of having them beat the tar out of evil doers and villains, we have them beat the tar out of Superman or Elmo or Curious George.[3]

In conclusion, while I would love to regale you with tales of pinatas past and multi-colored torrents of confections erupting from within, sadly I cannot.  Instead I can only tell you of one Dora.  Who having done nothing more offending than explored where her curiosity would take her, ended up with her head hanging high overhead while her decapitated body lay on the ground taking repeated blunt force trauma from a five iron.

Pinata perfection.

Pinatas: F

[1] - Or a shower of anything for that matter.
[2] - It's only a flesh wound.
[3] - Most likely its the one who spins the blindfolded kid around before letting them loose with a blunt weapon
[3] - Take that you simian freak!  And tell that yellow hatted man if he knows what's good for him he won't show his face around here!

Bubble Witch Saga

Bubble Witch Saga: I used to play a fair number of games on Facebook.[1]  But after the initial fun wears off, they get kind of tedious.[2]  When I realized how much time I was spending playing these things I quit and suddenly had time to waste starting a blog.[3]

Fast forward to a few months ago.  I'm sitting around bored with a few minutes on my hands and none of my Words With Friends games need me to continue dominating my opponents.  So, I decided to see what new nonsense FB had to offer.

Enter Bubble Witch Saga.

Ostensibly you are trying to help these witches get rid of the baddies, but it's really just a bubble shooting game.  You shoot up the screen trying to match colors to pop bubbles and get the board cleared.  There's nothing new about the concept[4] but BWS has added a few things.

The benign things are that they've added trickier bubbles in later boards.  Like bombs that explode if you don't get them off of the board fast enough or skull bubbles that cause you to lose a life if you shoot them at all. And these virus bubbles that infect everything and make you crazy.

The completely evil things they've added are that they've made it into a money generating monster.  You can buy potions that help you a minor amount with in-game coins, but they also have bunches of stuff that you can buy with real cash.[5]

If you run out of bubbles on a level you can buy ten more for 30 cents.  And that's part of the genius of their evil scheme.  Thirty cents is nothing!  I can just picture some sucker making that purchase over and over because it is such a small amount.  Of course at the end of the month you get your credit card bill and see that you've somehow blown $330 on imaginary bubbles.

Of course if you've got a sizable amount of money that you feel like blowing you can buy one of the charms.  There are at least 14 of these things.  I'm on level 85 and I've opened up that many and I'm sure there's more out there to be revealed.  There's one that adds three to the max number of lives you have and it costs a mere $9.90.  Another let's you see the next three balls that are coming into play instead of only seeing the next two.  That one will run you $12.90.

Are you kidding me?  If anyone reading this blog has actually been stupid enough to buy any of them, please call me immediately.  I have a bridge and a swamp to sell you.

But the award winner is the Charm of Immortality.  This will give you unlimited lives for a mere $79.90.

$79.90!

Please, please, please, please tell me that nobody has actually bought that.  They have to be kidding right?

If there is anyone out there that's bought it, please send me your address I need to come and slap you.[6]

Anyway, if you haven't guessed I'm addicted to playing the game.  Fortunately you run out of lives fairly quickly so it doesn't really take up much of my time.  Despite my lack of cash funded bonuses I've managed to get pretty far with just the free stuff.  Now if I can just come up with a game to milk suckers out of their money.  Maybe something about clicking a cow.

Bubble Witch Saga [The Game]: B
Bubble Witch Saga [The Scheme to Soak the Feebleminded of their Cash]: A+ [7]

[1] - Yes, it was me spamming you asking for some bricks to finish my hen house.
[2] - Sure, this time I'm collecting Terra Cotta Bricks and not just normal bricks, but in the end it's all just a bunch of clicking.
[3] - jk, I stopped playing FB games long before I started wasting time on a blog.
[4] - Snood players you can gloat about being there first if you'd like.
[5] - Let me be up front and say that I have not nor will I ever actually be dumb enough to spend money on something as stupid as this, but I can certainly image people who are.
[6] - You can press charges if you want, but when the judge finds out they'll just dismiss the charges and slap you themself.
[7] - An evil, evil, evil A+, but an A+ nonetheless.

Mini-Golf @ Pigeon Forge

Mini Golf (a.k.a. - Putt Putt) @ Pigeon Forge[1]: As state in a previous post, the Pook and I recently spent a few days in Pigeon Forge.  We picked that spot for three main reasons.  One of which was that they have a lot of mini-golf courses and the Pook had a hankering.[2]  So here are the definitive grades for the courses that we visited.[3]

Ripley's Old MacDonald's Farm Mini-Golf: Sticking with two of the Pigeon Forge traditions, this course is country themed and owned by Ripley's. In Pigeon Forge, if you aren't interested in looking at people shove nails up their noses, Ripley's is more than willing to take your money in a variety of other venues.  Including an aquarium, a world's record museum and at least six other attractions including one that's a 4D theater.[4]  


We visited this course first, mainly because there was a retarded amount of traffic and we were right beside it.  None of it's three courses were really difficult at all and they were very "luck" related.  A slope filled with gophers that make your ball pachinko down the hill is a good example.  Thus good and bad players alike won't have any trouble getting the ball near the hole. So it's fun to watch but doesn't require much skill. Lot's of large animal figures talk to you throughout in bad accents and make awful puns.  There's also a repetitive country instrumental song that plays constantly that will haunt your dreams for the next three days. (Cow Course: B: 40 P: 46,  Chicken Course: B: 34 P: 39, Pig Course: B: 40, P: 43)


Hazzard County Country Club: This course was located at Cooter's Place in Gatlinburg.  Cooter also has a museum, store and go-carts.[5]  We initially passed this by, but ended up rushing back when the sky opened up and started trying to drown us.  The course is indoors on the second floor of a building that clearly used to be house.  Thus the different holes wind down the hallways and in the rooms, which is sort of strange.  There's Dukes of Hazzard memorabilia on the walls throughout.  In the end we were glad we visited this course because it turned out to be one of the best.  There was no random junk on the holes but there were plenty of slopes and bumpers which meant you had to be skillful and not just lucky.  (B: 47, P: 52)


Hillbilly Golf: Originally I had no interest in playing this course that's located in Gatlinburg, but when the Pook read that you had to take a ride in an incline up the side of the mountain and then the holes wandered back down the mountains side, I was very interested.  When we were walking by and saw that one hole of golf cost $13 my interested evaporated.  You can save money by walking 50 yards back up the road to Cooter's.

Professor Hakkers Lost Treasure Golf: Two different courses are offered here.  You can take a mine train up to the first hole of both or you can walk up the stairs.  If you're into short train rides in a tiny mine car take the train.  If you want to beat everyone else to the first hole, take the stairs.  Lot's of decorations and such to look at, but most of the holes are just big putting greens without any obstacles, slopes or bumpers.  So kinda lame.  Of course the greens are large and the holes so far from the edges that you end up taking a lot of strokes.  (Gold Course: B: 55 P: 63, Diamond Course: B: 52 P: 55)

Adventure Golf: Two different courses that are a bit run down but don't let that put you off.  They were my favorite of all the ones we visited.  Very challenging with slopes, bumpers and obstacles placed in a way that required you to have skill and not just luck.  Also a lot of giant monsters and buildings give it good ambiance.  I highly recommend this one.  (Course 1: B: 43, P: 48,  Course 2: B: 46, P: 47)

Walden's Landing Firehouse Golf: The last place we visited.  Random animals and firehouse equipment decorate the two courses.  Unfortunately a lot of the time the right call was to completely avoid those and hit around them.  For instance on one hole you can send you ball through a loop-the-loop or you can putt beside it and get right to the hole.  The two best parts of this course were the following.

On one hole there is a ladder lying across the end of a ramp that requires you putt between the rungs to get your ball to the lower green.  The Pook upon seeing this said, "You know I'm totally going to hit the rung don't you?"  She then putted and hit directly on the ladder rung causing the ball to roll all of the way back to the start.  Then she did it again.  Laughter ensued.

As the scores I've listed at the end of each courses review reveal, I had won every round of golf we played up until this point.  On the phone with my mom[6] she said I should be a good husband and let the Pook win one[7].  Having dominated her on the first course and knowing that this was the last mini-golf we would be playing, the second course was the last chance she would have to win.  The round started with me choking on the first hole and taking six strokes to her three.  Rapidly the Pook increased her lead to six strokes by the sixth hole.  So, while I don't usually play to lose, I was happy that it looked like she would actually win a round.  Fast forward to the eighteenth hole and the score is tied.  Like a lot of courses the last hole was a goofy thing that you were supposed to do in one stroke.  You putted down a slope to five openings in the side of a box.  Getting the ball into the center opening counted as one stroke.  The openings on either side of that were two strokes and the outer two openings were three strokes.  The Pook went first and the ball rolled straight down the slope and struck the divider on the left side of the one stroke hole and didn't go into any hole.  So she walked up and putted it into the one stroke hole (thus counting as two strokes).  I lined up and prepared to putt.  If I made it into the one hole I would win.  The two hole would mean a tie and the three hole would mean the Pook finally won one.  I hit the ball and it hit a microscopic bump on the lip at the start of the slope.  The ball shot up into the air and flew to the left[8].  From there it landed on the edge of rail on the left edge of the entire green and shot straight into the one stroke hole. Sorry Pook, some things are just not meant to be. (Red Course: B: 42, P: 51, Yellow Course: B: 45, P: 46).

Ripley's Old MacDonald's Farm Mini-Golf: B-
Hazzard County Country Club: A
Professor Hakkers Lost Treasure Golf: B+
Adventure Golf: A+
Walden's Landing Firehouse Golf: B

[1] Actually some of these are located in Gatlinburg and not Pigeon Forge, but the two are essentially the same place anyway.
[2]The other two reasons are that it is an inexpensive vacation and that it was in a different state than our children.
[3] These courses represent only a fraction of the choices available.  I don't think anyone actually loves mini-golf enough to actually play all of the courses in the area.
[4] Which makes it one D short of the 5D theater we saw in Gatlinburg.
[5] The entire place was a homage to everything Dukes of Hazzard.  Including a TV that constantly runs episodes of the show.  Having not seen one since I was a young lad let me tell you this.  Man are those bad.
[6] No I don't call my mom every day while on vacation.  Unless she's watching my kids, then I totally do.
[7] Yeah right.
[8] At which point I thought to myself, "Oh well.  I've lost this one."

First Game of Catch (almost)

First Game of Catch (almost): Just before Easter, Aldi had little kid baseball gloves on sale for cheap.  So we bought one to put in the boy's basket.  Being three and an American, it seemed past time he had one.  On Easter morning, after we described the point of the large black and brown thing taking up valuable candy space he replied, "I don't want it" and refused to even try it on.  Several weeks and a new baby brother later, I decided it was time to retry introduction of America's past-time.  Earlier in the day, while we were wasting time channel flipping I turned over to a sports channel that was showing a college baseball game.  The Bear was interested enough to watch most of an inning and I was careful to point out how everyone except the batter was wearing baseball gloves.  That evening when he started getting restless, I suggested that we go outside and play with his ball and glove.  I had retrieved my glove from it's storage place* a few days earlier and the ball and his glove were sitting nestled in mine near the back door.  He suggested we include his over sized plastic baseball bat and the batting tee he'd gotten for his birthday.  Having added those items we were off into the back yard.  Once outside, I set up the tee, but having seen real athletes on TV playing without a tee, he was no longer interested in using one either.  He suggested I set it on the patio and he told me I could leave his glove over there too as he didn't want it.  Hoping that watching me using mine would inspire him to don his, I agreed and we got ready to play.  I showed him how to stand and swing the bat and I backed away a few steps to attempt to toss the ball in such a way that contact of some sort could be made.  "You swing the bat and hit the ball and I'll catch the ball in my glove" I told him.  "But Daddy," he replied, "who's going to fall down?"  Befuddled I asked for clarification.  "Somebody always falls down" he told me.  I eventually realized that what he'd taken away most from watching baseball on TV, was that it involved a lot of falling down** and getting really dirty.  So for the next several minutes, I tossed the ball near him.  He swung the bat and never once made contact, but after each swing he would drop the bat, run a few steps in a random direction and gleefully fall onto the ground.  His glove spent the entire time lying on the ground.

First Game of Catch (almost): A+

* - The trunk of my car, naturally.
** - a.k.a. - sliding

Cryptic Crosswords

Cryptic Crosswords: If you look in a British paper for the crossword puzzle you'll find they aren't like the puzzles in American papers.  The U.S. version of a crossword is a simple clue to a word.  The British version of a crossword (known in the states as Cryptic Crosswords) are quite different.  Each clue consists of two parts.  There is still the clue to the word, but there is also a word puzzle that allows you to figure out that word. Part of the puzzle then is figuring out which part of the clue is the word and which part is the word puzzle.  If all that sounds a bit too, well for lack of a better word, cryptic, some of the best cryptic crosswords are done by The Atlantic Magazine*.  They have both a database of old puzzles from previous magazines and a guide to help you understand how to solve them.  For a slightly easier cryptic crossword (but still by no means easy) Games Magazine usually has two or three in every issue.  If all of that hasn't clued you into how I feel about them, let me be more plain.

Cryptic Crosswords: A+

* - Harpers also often has great ones as well.

Words With Friends

Words With Friends: WWF is just Scrabble on your phone, iPad or other electronic device.  And when I say "just Scrabble" what I mean is that it's all of the awesomeness of Scrabble but with the added bonus of being: portable; you can play multiple games at a time and you can play against people all over the world (or just against the same four people you see every day).  It is slightly different from Scrabble in that the bonus squares are arranged differently and I assume (though I haven't checked) that the letter distribution is different as well.  Also the list of two letter words is slightly expanded (or one might argue updated).  The different arrangement of bonus squares seems to increase the amount of points you earn on average, but once you realize that the scores are just going to be higher in general, that's no issue.  Perhaps the biggest issue I have with it is that there's nothing to stop you from trying out words until you hit on something good.  If you put down a bad word the game says "Sorry _______ is not an acceptable word" and then you get to try again.  No loss of turn.  No loss of points.  This means that you do tend to have games where you see pretty obscure words.  Which means either the person you're playing against is a much better wordsmith that you gave them credit for or they were just putting down letters that seemed good until they struck gold.*  Like most apps there's a free version with ads or a pay version without.  I paid $1 for the download and it was money well spent.

Words With Friends: A

* - Technically I guess there are two other options.  They could be flat out cheating.  I mean the Internet is also available on the machine they are playing on.  Or they could be really bad spellers and they got lucky.  (Paw: Hey Maw, how you spell 'faker'?  Maw: Wha's that?  Paw: Yunno, Johnboy says he's too sick to do chores an' I says, quit bein' such a faker.  Maw: It's spelt just like it sound, "F  A  K  I  R"  Paw: Yep, that's it.  I got 28 points fer that 'un".)

Draw Something

Draw Something: This is a game you can get on your cell phone and possibly other platforms.  It's basically a version of Pictionary in which you pick a word from three choices (supposedly one easy choice, one medium and one hard).  You then draw something on your phone and your teammate then attempts to guess what you've drawn.  Sounds like fun and is mildly entertaining but it has several problems.  First of all, it isn't much of  a game as far as games go.  It's too easy.  There really isn't anyone you are competing against and there don't seem to be any rules.  When you guess a word, it gives you a selection of letter tiles to choose from and it tells you how many letters are in the answer.  You can then guess as many times as you'd like with those letters.  I find that often I can guess the word before my co-player even begins drawing.  There's no penalty for guessing wrong and there's no time limit.  There is a 'hint' button that will remove some of the extra letter tiles to narrow down your choices, but I've never had to use it.  (Though I've accidentally used it several times as the button for it is right next to the letters and it's easy to mishit it.) Getting correct answers earns you coins (1 coin for an easy word, 2 for medium, 3 for hard), but there isn't much you can do with the coins.  You start out with a limited number of color choices to draw with and you can buy new colors with your coins.  However, once you've bought two of the packs of colors you now have every color you'd ever need.  So gaining further coins doesn't help or gain you anything.  Because there is nobody you are competing against, there's also nobody to keep you from cheating.  You can draw pictures, but you can also write words.  (Which would seem to be against the spirit of "drawing something" but there's nobody to stop you.) I've seen others playing rounds in which they've all but written out the word to be guessed.  To give an example (which I'm making up on the spot but is pretty accurate to what I've seen), if the word was "Santa" I've seen people write, "Chris Kringle".  The words you get to pick from are pretty decent, though often the hard word isn't hard at all and the medium words are often laughably easy.  Sometimes the hard words are people's names and unless you are really up on current pop culture you may find you don't even know who some of them are.  But no worries you can just pick one of the other two words.  If you want to play for free you can download a version with ads in between turns.  The pay version is only a dollar and gives you 400 coins for free.  Which serves the purpose of making the collection of coins pointless that much quicker.  The pay version is also supposed to give you 1000+ more words than the free version, but either that's a lie or the game's algorithm for choosing words is very poor.  I've had the same word appear in multiple games and I've even had the same words appear in the same game. Finally the game also has issues with updating.  My phone will alert me that it's my turn in a game but then when you open the game or click on the notice to that it opens the game, nothing happens.  So, you know that it's your turn, but the game won't let you take it and there is no button you can push to force it to update.  If the game sounds like something you might like, I would suggest playing the free version for as long as it takes for you to get tired of it.  Also, I would suggest you avoid writing words and actually draw something.

Draw Something: C-

Addendum: Talking today with some friends I was reminded of a thought I'd had previously.  Draw Something is like hangman with pictures.  But instead of just six wrong guesses you get 26.

Second Addendum: In Draw Something's defense, there have been several updates and the game now seems to run and update smoothly.  The general problems with game play still exist.