Dealer's Wheels
Ed. note: You can always tell that the semester is ending when a new post actually appears on Ye Olde Blogge.
I have a new obsession, and its name is Forty Thieves.
I have always been a Solitaire addict, and I know exactly from where that stems. My grandmother, Vada, used to play with (gasp!) real cards on the ottoman and I'd often hang over her shoulder watching every step. NOT, mind you, pointing out potential moves. We were told, very gently but very firmly, that this was not allowed if we were not in control of the deck. I love, looking back on it now, that they taught us about respect and fairness even in such little things.
I am also amused that actual card-playing is inextricably linked in my mind with both my grandparents' generation and camping. I've talked about this with Nik & Skye before, but it's very true that if you look at pictures of these massive group camping trips that the whole crew used to take (they were like mini-family reunions, with greats and grands and cousins and friends all rolled into one circular firepit), the cards were never very far...from the table, or from the booze. I often wish I had more of that on a regular basis now, and am really stoked and proud to see the Port-Couv crew carrying on the tradition in their own personal fashion.
Now, I have been a devotee of both Freecell and Spider Solitaire for years, pulling up a quick game when doing homework or needing an intentionally-induced fugue state from whatever worries have been weighing on me. It's somewhat like my love/hate relationship with Math. I've never been an upper-level mathematician; Trig was about where it stopped for me. But I adore things like algebra homework where your page ends up this precise and ordered set of information all laid out that you can logically follow down to the conclusion. The process of the ordering appeals to my own marginal OCD tendencies, and I think I particularly love Spider because supposedly every game is solvable, or very near every one. So you can restart and try again as many times as you can stomach to see if you can figure it out.
Which brings me to Forty Thieves.
Apparently it's actually very difficult to win. And for some reason, instead of frustrating me, it just entices me back, like the lottery, just in case this next time is the one that works. Worse yet, it's available on my Motorola Cliq phone (Android platform), along with the other two mainstays, so I can play it on the bus, waiting in line at Starbucks, lying in bed or whenever the urge strikes. AND it has a save state...so if I can't continue because it's time to drive, it'll be waiting for me exactly as I left it in all its elusive goodness.
I think I've won it twice in probably a good 40-50 attempts. Now *that's* replayability.
I have a new obsession, and its name is Forty Thieves.
I have always been a Solitaire addict, and I know exactly from where that stems. My grandmother, Vada, used to play with (gasp!) real cards on the ottoman and I'd often hang over her shoulder watching every step. NOT, mind you, pointing out potential moves. We were told, very gently but very firmly, that this was not allowed if we were not in control of the deck. I love, looking back on it now, that they taught us about respect and fairness even in such little things.
I am also amused that actual card-playing is inextricably linked in my mind with both my grandparents' generation and camping. I've talked about this with Nik & Skye before, but it's very true that if you look at pictures of these massive group camping trips that the whole crew used to take (they were like mini-family reunions, with greats and grands and cousins and friends all rolled into one circular firepit), the cards were never very far...from the table, or from the booze. I often wish I had more of that on a regular basis now, and am really stoked and proud to see the Port-Couv crew carrying on the tradition in their own personal fashion.
Now, I have been a devotee of both Freecell and Spider Solitaire for years, pulling up a quick game when doing homework or needing an intentionally-induced fugue state from whatever worries have been weighing on me. It's somewhat like my love/hate relationship with Math. I've never been an upper-level mathematician; Trig was about where it stopped for me. But I adore things like algebra homework where your page ends up this precise and ordered set of information all laid out that you can logically follow down to the conclusion. The process of the ordering appeals to my own marginal OCD tendencies, and I think I particularly love Spider because supposedly every game is solvable, or very near every one. So you can restart and try again as many times as you can stomach to see if you can figure it out.
Which brings me to Forty Thieves.
Apparently it's actually very difficult to win. And for some reason, instead of frustrating me, it just entices me back, like the lottery, just in case this next time is the one that works. Worse yet, it's available on my Motorola Cliq phone (Android platform), along with the other two mainstays, so I can play it on the bus, waiting in line at Starbucks, lying in bed or whenever the urge strikes. AND it has a save state...so if I can't continue because it's time to drive, it'll be waiting for me exactly as I left it in all its elusive goodness.
I think I've won it twice in probably a good 40-50 attempts. Now *that's* replayability.
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