5.8.99

    T. and I are really the hippest people I know. We are on-the-go twenty-somethings living it up. Whooping it up. Creating a general ruckus wherever we go. Take last night, for instance. Round about 9 o'clock we were trying to figure out what to do and we decided to go buy a board game and some beer and... uh... play a board game while drinking beer. We're crazy, I tell you! Nuts! Jump back, Jack.

    We bought the "Genus IV" edition of Trivial Pursuit. In the store I read the edition as "genius" and was kind of hunting around for the "Gen X" edition I had heard about. In the car I realized that it was "genus" not "genius" and felt very stupid that I had been scared off by something calling itself "genius."

    Along with the board game we bought a Duraflame log ("3 Hot Hours of Flame on Flame Action!") and a six-pack of Full Sail Very Special Pale which has faint undertones of earwax, I'll be avoiding this hoppy horror in the future. Trivial Pursuit has undergone a face-lift since the last time I played. My parents have the first edition of Trivial Pursuit which came out in like 1984. It's a very sedate blue and we played the last time I was up there for Christmas. It was soooo hard because it's been fifteen years since the most recent questions. This one has questions as recent as 1998 and has photos that correspond with the categories on each one of the squares. I landed on Tiny Tim and Popeye quite a bit.

    A lot of the questions were really dumb and not very challenging. We had two questions on Flipper and Ghandi, the movie. The dumbest question had to be "Who was on the New York Times Bestseller list for A Light in the Attic?" A better question would have been "For which book was Shel Silverstein on the New York Times Bestseller list?" At least that's challenging.

    In the box was a questionnaire about just what type of person you are to buy this wacky, trivia game. Here's one that really displays the cunning marketing minds at work:

Does the recipient of this game collect any of the following?
1. Monopoly products
2. Winnie the Pooh products
3. Harley Davidson products
4. NASCAR products
5. Star Wars products.

Here's another one:

Was Trivial Pursuit Genus IV...
1. A surprise gift for someone
2. Gift requested by recipient
3. Purchased for myself

I am...
1. A happy person
2. A successful person
3. Hardly a person at all

    In the directions for the game I noticed that they don't call the game pieces pies anymore but wedges. Perhaps people were eating them? The Dura-log comes wrapped in paper with directions and warnings on the outside. After cautioning you that the log is flammable it goes on to note that you should "not remove Duraflame log from fireplace when ignited." Words to live by, I say.

    One final thing: I know that you are just going to run right out and play Trivial Pursuit with all your friends. If you do, make it a drinking game. I did this back in college once when I was at a cabin with some friends and the only thing there was a Trivial Pursuit game. I suggest you do this with beer.

1. Drink every time you land on "Roll Again"
2. Third time a player lands on "Roll Again" it's a social -- everybody drinks
3. When a player wins a piece of the pie (or wedge) it's also a social
4. If you cannot answer a question, you drink
5. If someone else can answer your question correctly, you drink again
6. If that person attempts to answer your question but gets it wrong, they drink
7. Everyone has the opportunity to answer your question except the card reader
8. When someone makes it to the center (or hub) and wins the game, you can do two things: either the person with least amount of pies or farthest away from the center must chug a beer~ or ~you do a sort of "train" where you all stand and the winner drinks his/her beer, the next person in line cannot stop drinking their beer until you do, the third person cannot stop drinking until the second and so on until the last person, (the one with the fewest pies), is dead. Just kidding. It's all fun and games till someone barfs on the game board. You have no idea how hard it is to get nachos out of the empty game pieces.

    Yesterday, I finished my contract assignment. I got to go home earlier as there was a power outage. I was so grateful for that as I didn't see how I could stand four more hours of grunt work. I have two interviews on Monday for more contract work. I hope the places are cool.

    When I got home, T. and I went to see The Matrix (whoa) which was really enjoyable. It's a very geeky movie and the special effects are truly awesome.

    In other news, it seems that most people liked the old "Featured Links" section so I will probably start that again. Thanks for the responses.