Rota

Cliff Game Greatest Hits

I was reading bla's comment about how the cliff game invariably turns to the people you are playing with, or people you know. The best cliff game Ta and our friends ever played concerned each other's parents.

It was totally gross, and awesome.

"I can't believe you wouldn't sleep with my dad."

I Play to Win

Here's the thing about me and board games: I play to win.

Here are my tips on how to beat your friends:

1. Pick the game. This is a crucial first step. If given the choice, I will always pick Trivial Pursuit, because I can win that most of the time. I will never pick Foosball, because I would lose. Simple!

2. Only play with people who are worse at the game than you. For example, don't play Trivial Pursuit with me.

3. Cultivate the idea that you are just having fun, just hanging out. You know it's a vicious lie, but the more relaxed your friends feel, the less motivated they will be to win. Then you can swoop in and humiliate them.

4. Avoid games of chance. The only weapons in your board game arsenal are (a) your borderline insane desire to win, and (b) being better than your friends. Chance evens the odds, exactly what you don't want.

5. Cheat.

6. Create distractions. Sometimes you will have to play will people at or near your level of awesomeness at, say, Candy Land. At this point, you're going to have to create distractions. Here are a few effective distractions:

• Reveal a long-held secret.
• Reveal another player's long-held secret.
• Spill something on your rival.
• Ask your rival a complicated, technical question about their job, then ask for explanations for the terms they use in their answer.
• Pretend to be confused about the rules - this has two purposes: first, it indicates that you aren't taking the game too seriously (obviously you actually know the rules by heart), and second, it forces your rival to think about something else, and maybe even question whether they are playing right.
• Move someone else's piece by "accident" and then pretend you don't remember where everyone was.

7. Finally, be gracious in victory. A simple, "In your face!" will suffice. No need for dancing or fist pumping. Your friends have been humiliated enough.

I hope this entry helps a few of you become better board game players. Obviously I've held back a few special techniques in case we ever meet on the field of battle - like Chutes and Ladders or something.

4pm, Friday

Friday 4pm is a good new bad news situation. Since I just work 9-5, unlike Ta, I am really close to total freedom and joy and fields of flowers and raindrops on kittens and stuff. It's going to be awesome. But it's only 4pm. You know? I'm so distracted by the sweet impending freedom that I can't really work. On the other hand, I can't leave. I find myself racing from website to website, wasting time furiously. Here are my random Friday 4pm thoughts:

1. Last night I did a yoga video where the yogi was a man from New Jersey wearing knee length acid washed jeans and Michael Bolton's hair.

2. I eat Wendy's chili almost every day for lunch. How long until I find a thumb?

3. Who used all my tissues?

4. Why do I always drink 2/3 of a glass of water, then stare at the rest until it's time for a new glass of water? Maybe I have an unconscious fear of an empty water glass.

5. I think that the decline of Adam Brody is the thing that makes be saddest in all the world. 

6. I still hope that someday I can live in a hotel like Dylan McKay.

7. The Colbert Report, I think, told me that 92% of Americans believe in God. I wonder what will happen to that number over time - it's apparently been going up for at least a few decades, but it can't really go any higher at this point. So plateau? Decline?

8. Secretly I don't understand fax machines.

9. In a drawer in my office I have: a small blanket, a suit jacket, 6 plastic forks and 7 plastic spoons, Aleve, an umbrella, crackers, eyeglass cleaner, cough drops, and a small hairbrush. Every day I wish I had something awesome in there, like a briefcase full of money, or a hamster disco.

10. I'm going to do the People magazine crossword. I have sunk so very very low.