Thursday, May 24, 2007

Games People Play (Thursday Thirteen #17)

The hubby and I love to play Scrabble and, in all these years, I’ve never been able to beat him. Not once.

It’s not because I’m not good with words. I am great with the words. In the last game we played, I opened with “GEISHAS” using all of my tiles and getting a 50 point bonus! JW plays with words like “FART” and “PEE” (just to taunt me because he loves the way I roll my eyes when he does that) and I can’t beat him.

After all of these years, two things dawned on me last night (when I lost yet again) that:

#1) We are not really playing Scrabble. He is playing me.
#2) The reason I can’t win is because while I’m great with the words, I’m lousy with the strategy. JW can read me as easy the Official Scrabble Dictionary. He sees my Scrabble “tell” and he takes full advantage.

I can’t blame him. I do the same thing when we play poker. JW is a great poker player in strategy. His weak spot is not having enough patience to wait out the cards. All I have to do is wait for his “run out of patience” mistake and make the move. (shhhh...don’t tell him! This is why I always have poker money in my account and he doesn’t :)

I just can’t believe it took me all this time to figure out that I have a bad Scrabble face. Which makes me wonder what the heck else I’m incorrectly playing in the Game of Life.

Today is Thursday Thirteen...and here’s mine...


Thirteen WAYS I COULD PLAY A LITTLE BETTER AT ALL THE GAMES OF LIFE


1. Like Poker...I always say that I can't cook. The truth is, I don't want to cook. Comparing to JW's poker game, I know the “rules” of cooking and I can certainly assemble the ingredients for a recipe. I am completely lacking the patience to stand there and stir.

2. Like Scrabble... I am great with my words, but not so good with the strategy of arguing. I wait far too long to speak up when I am upset about something. By the time I do, I am usually far too upset to be reasoned with.

3. Like Sorry! ... I know my last Thursday Thirteen was about “shitlisting” people. That rarely happens. I’m pretty good at forgiving people. In fact, sometimes I’m too good at it.

4. Like Trivial Pursuit.... While I may be good at the forgiving part, it’s the forgetting part that I don’t do very well at all!

5. Like Monopoly...if we're playing and you land on “Go Directly to Jail”, I expect the person I’m playing with to follow the rules and act accordingly. Sometimes I think things are this black and white when maybe there is actually a gray area I am missing.

6. Like Tic-Tac-Toe... I know that if I keep putting my opening X in the same place against the same opponents, I will keep playing the same game over and over. I should remember to try to move my opening X with people I seem to have trouble getting along with.

7. Like Charades... I do believe that sometimes I expect people to be mind readers by throwing out clues instead of just coming out and saying something. Obviously, this doesn’t work since I’m the only one who knows we are playing a game.

8. Like Solitaire... I prefer to do things on my own. If I ask someone for help, which is almost never, it’s a pretty desperate situation to me. I should probably learn to ask before it gets that way.

9. Like Pin The Tail On The Donkey... one of these days I am just going to accept the fact that there are things in this world that I don’t know a horse’s ass about and that’s fine. I don’t have to be able to do everything myself.

10. Like Battleship... A big part of Battleship is learning from your mistakes or incorrect guesses. Most of the time I do, but like with how I argue, some things just never change.

11. Like Chess.. In chess, you are supposed to protect the king at all costs and realize that some of the pieces are certainly more disposable than others. In real life, each one of us is our own king and I think I worry too much about protecting the disposable pieces while leaving my king wide open.

12. Like Checkers... Look before you leap. Enough said.

13. And just like Clue... I was given a big one yesterday! How on earth did it take me 41 years to figure all of this out? I told you, I can be dingy at times. Who said blogging wasn't just as good as therapy? Ohhhh, it must have been the psychologist in the office with my check :)


And just to play the guilt card...if you love me, please click here and vote for my blogging buddy, Jessica Morris. She is trying to get enough votes so that she can get paid to blog for a year and she's almost there. You don't have to blog or register or anything like that to vote. You just have to click!!!


Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!



23 comments:

Chris said...

Your lists are great. I read your last one, too. I've been in a serious blogging funk lately so I hope you don't mind if I borrow your TT ideas! My mind is mush lately. LOL

The Rock Chick said...

Hi Chris,

Absolutely not! In fact, I'm flattered! Borrow away!!

Jessica

Melissa said...

GREAT LIST! What a great idea!
Once again thanks for stopping by and Happy Thursday!
Enjoy the holiday weekend!

Stephanie said...

This is a really great list, Jessica! It kind of makes me feel guilty! Like I should be doing better myself.

Thanks for having such a great TT!

Joy Renee said...

My husband and I stopped playing games together years ago. He was impatient with how long it took me to make my move. Which, it crosses my mind, must be related to the issue we butted heads over Tuesday which I blogged about Wednesday evening. He was helping me with something online that involved creating a username and naming a file. He said, speaking as a programmer, that I would never make it in the Computer or Internet world if I didn't get over needing to take five to fifteen minutes to create a simple alphanumeric string every time one was needed.

Happy bday to you and Oldest daughter!

you've got a gorgeous family.

thanx for the touching comment you left on my TT, 13 memories of my Dad and me.

Jen said...

Ooh, this is one of the better and most well thought out 13s I've ever seen!

Bravo!

I played, too :-D

Anonymous said...

I like this! Mine is about games too, but not as in depth as yours :]

impwork said...

I'm like many of the games in my collection... obscure unless your a games geek :-)

Anonymous said...

Now I like that list, Jessica. It's creative and "dead on." My husband and I play a card game called "Footsie," which is like canasta...what's your take on that, eh?

Jenny McB said...

The way we play scabble is to have a scrabble dictionary with us to "just look" and see if it's a real word.

You did a good job of tying all the games we play into all the games we play. A very thoughtful post.

Jessica Morris said...

What a clever idea for your TT!! And thanks for the shout out!! I got 52 votes today!! =) Still Faaaaar from 1st, but I am in 17th place right now!!
Thanks for your help!

Melessa Gregg said...

What a clever and well-written TT. I love Scrabble, but am not good with strategies either. Thanks for visiting me! (Hope your daughter enjoyed the HP quotes.)

Berni said...

Thanks for stopping by

What a great list. I hate playing games I am no good at remembering all the rules. The only games I would consider are Scrabble or Trivia as long as it is General Knowledge. My husband can't spell and I can't count so that lets out most games. He likes Cribbage but I can't count fast enough. So we have to rely on Slap and Tickle, we have five children!

PJD said...

Oooh, I like #s 6, 7, and 8. Particularly #6. Who would have thought tic-tac-toe would be so instructive? I mean besides for teaching NORAD computers that global thermonuclear war might be a no-win situation. But you've found the zen in the x's and o's, and it's deep, man.

Thanks for popping by my TT earlier today. And when do I get my "I Voted" sticker?

MommaBoo said...

I love your list and the name of your blog. lol

I like all of those games, as well as cranium, battle of the sexes and a special family game we play (involving cars, colors and the highway!)

Thanks for sharing you sweet comment on "OSOMOLOVE" as well.

Happy weekend & Memorial Day!

L^2 said...

Wow, what a fantastic list! Scrabble is my favorite game, and I tend to have the same problem as you. So, I can definitely relate to many of these, especially #8.

Thanks for visiting my TT!

Jeannine said...

What wonderful analogies! So life is a game to you then? :-)

Maxine Dangerous said...

You explained EXACTLY how I feel about cooking. Great list! :)

byoc said...

Wow, great TT list. Oh the games we play.

Amy Ruttan said...

Wow, love most of those games!! I love scrabble, and any kind of word game.

Happy belated TT, and thanks for dropping by mine.

Jessica Morris said...

Happy Memorial Day!!

Anonymous said...

My wife and son and I love to play Scrabble. Wife plays Literati on Yahoo! a lot so she always kicks my butt. She says good job on Geisha ;)

Anonymous said...

I suck at scrabble, and I consider myself a writer damn it...