After completely schooling me at NCAA Football 2006 on the PS2, my brother made the horrible mistake of trying to teach me to play his favorite card game, Cribbage. (Note, please, that my brother was playing the mighty Georgia Bulldogs, a team boasting two recent Heisman Trophy candidates and a National Championship, and he had given me the lowly Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, a team that couldn't find its ass with three hands and a sliderule. In the first quarter, I tried 4 passes: 3 went to receivers that I DID NOT throw to -- seriously, pressing triangle and watching the ball sail to the R1 or circle receiver gets really, really old very, very fast. Apparently the computer decided that my pressing the triangle button only constituted a suggestion -- and were not caught. The 4th pass was intercepted. I did not attempt another pass until the 4th quarter, when I went an entire drive calling ONLY Hail Marys, 4 of 5 of which were completed, resulting in my only touchdown of the game. In a fit of pique, I ran my linebacker into the offensive line before every future attempted play, preventing my brother from ever running a play again because the game was not programmed to prevent me from repeating the gambit as a real referee would do by ejecting players or ultimately declaring my team forfeit. So, to summarize, NCAA Football 2006, like all the Madden games on which its physics and rules are based, sucks balls.)

Now where was I? Oh, yes. The so-called "game" of Cribbage.

Cribbage, it should be noted, was apparently the invention of a seventeenth century poet named Sir John Suckling. After making up a shitload of completely inane and nonsensical rules, he reportedly passed marked decks out to the English nobility and traveled the country ripping them off for a small fortune. Though at first hearing, that anecdote may seem ridiculously implausible, once you realize that only a truly foolish individual would appreciate a completely random game such as Cribbage, you will recognize the likelihood of such a misadventure.

In case you can't tell, I think Cribbage sucks. But what else should I expect as the offspring of a poet named Suckling?

If you've never played Cribbage, I can sum it up thusly:

1. The Deal: The dealer deals everyone 6 cards and then everyone throws 2 of those 6 away.
2. The Play: Take turns turning over the 4 cards that you kept. Every time you turn over a card, yell out a number and then score yourself anywhere between 0 and 12 points.
3. The Show: Once you all have turned over all 4 of your cards, reveal how many ways you can combine the cards that you turned over plus the top card revealed from the remaining deck to total 15 points or just create some pattern that you find pleasing to your eye. Then give yourself anywhere between 0 and 29 points.
4. The Crib: Now the dealer gets to look at all the cards that were thrown away and repeat step 3.

I'd like to say that there is some sense to the game, but there simply isn't. A player is rewarded for reaching an odd-numbered 15 points or having pairs which can never add to an odd number. Triples are scored as multiple pairs but runs of cards are scored by the number of cards in a run, thereby rewarding a player holding a three-of-a-kind but comparatively punishing a player for having a much rarer Royal Flush. Playing a run is worth more points than having a run in your hand. You get a point for playing a card that prevents other people from playing, unless the added total of the cards played equals 31, in which case you get 2 points instead. Rhyme? Reason? No, not with Cribbage.

When my brother revealed a Jack of Clubs and with a chuckle said, "I get a point because this card is the same suit as the card that is on top of the deck," I was done playing.

There is a Star Trek episode titled "A Piece of the Action" in which Kirk tries to trick aliens who look and act like Al Capone's gang by luring them into a card game called Fizzbin. As one of my favorite episodes, I've seen Fizzbin played many, many times. Since Kirk's rules for Fizzbin change based on times of the day or days of the week, I always chuckled at the gullibility of the gangster trying to learn the game. Now the poor gangster seems that much more the sap to me; Fizzbin probably sounded like a likely game to him because he was probably a Cribbage player.

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I had the good fortune to obtain Super Bowl tickets this year. This time yesterday, I was sitting in the rain and gusting wind of the coldest, wettest Super Bowl in history. I tell you, there wasn't a dry eye in the house when the contest was over, and it wasn't because the Bears were trampled by the Colts, giving Peyton Manning his first NFL Championship. No, it rained and rained and rained. And then it rained some more. Trey and I briefly lamented not wearing raincoats to the game, but then we realized that those people who were wearing raincoats were just as soaked-to-the-bone as we were. Yet I still saw dozens of people in the fourth quarter who were still wearing torn, useless plastic bags as though they were life preservers and holding seat cushions over their heads like umbrellas. Fortunately for us, there was a stadium employee kindly warning us of a large puddle on the way to our cars. Most of the crowd walked through it anyway, as our shoes and socks had been completely saturated hours earlier.

Trey and I arrived early in anticipation of the day's events. While that meant that we were parked close to the stadium, it also meant that we would have to wait for nearly an hour to leave once the game was over. There is much truth in the cliche, "First In, Last Out." To my disappointment, the $20.00 I spent on a corndog, pretzel, bottle of water, and a Pepsi didn't go towards paying for a quality parking staff. At least they were a very large corndog and bottle of water. Though I hate Pepsi, as the "Official Soft Drink of the NFL," it was the only caffeine that I could get before the game. I'd forgotten how awful it tastes! Thankfully, the rain quenched my remaining, unsatisfied thirst.

As my first visit to Dolphin Stadium (formerly Dolphins Stadium, formerly Pro Player Stadium, formerly Pro Player Park, formerly Joe Robbie Stadium), home of the Miami Dolphins, it was practically a trip to Mecca. We spotted fans wearing gear from 26 of the 32 NFL teams (Bills, Jaguars, Lions, Panthers, Texans, and my hometown Falcons were not seen), but after the Bears and Colts, the team far-and-away best represented was the Dolphins themselves. I even had the opportunity to watch Dan Marino, whom the locals all apparently simply call "Danny," working on the CBS pre-game show with James Brown and Shannon Sharpe. (It was kind of comforting to see how the town still fully embraces him: the stadium is on Dan Marino Boulevard, and the city is peppered with billboards on which he pitches everything from weight-loss systems to used cars.)

I cheered for the Bears, and Trey rooted for the Colts. I'm not much of a Colts fan for the very sound reasons that they have long been over-hyped, they used to be in the AFC East with the Dolphins, and they are quarterbacked by an ex-Tennessee Volunteer. (Sure, Grossman is an ex-Florida Gator, but at least he's incompetent.) By the second quarter, it became apparent that the Bears were horribly outclassed (as expected) and wouldn't be much of a challenge for the Colts. Trey and I had predicted at the start of the playoffs that any AFC team could take any NFC team in the playoffs this year, and after seeing the Bears' miserable performance in the Super Bowl, I still think that's true.

Watching the game with Trey proved insightful, if irritating. He made several excellent points about both teams' strategies and execution. After Devon Hester returned the opening kickoff for a Bears' touchdown, Trey pointed out that an opening return always boded bad things for the scoring team. He reminded me that the same thing happened in last month's NCAA BCS Championship game for Ohio State, who, like the Bears, tanked the rest of the game. Most amusingly, early in the 4th quarter, after Grossman completed 2 passes and was moving the Bears down field, Trey proclaimed, "if [the Bears' coaches] call another pass play here, they are complete idiots." When on the next play, Colt's cornerback Kevin Hayden returned a Grossman interception for a touchdown, icing the game, Trey got the meanest looks from some nearby soggy Bears fans, as though Trey himself had stuck the dagger in the Bears' heart. I laughed and laughed.

I'm resentful of the fact that Peyton Manning secured his Championship ring (and cemented his legacy as one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history) in Marino's hometown, but at least it rained on that punk's parade. Now I'm home, and I'm almost dry. It's certainly something that I'll have to do again. Next time, I'll be prepared: I'll take a snorkel.

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As I mentioned, I've been relocating to new digs over the past week. What stands out about the misadventure is that less than 2 hours after being laughed at over how diligently I was tying down the tarp on the trailer hauling my furniture, the darn tarp ripped in half on the highway. (As seen below. My brother took the opportunity to chuckle at my expense.) Fortunately for me, the weather waited until after the tarp ripped to begin producing rain. Mother Nature is a woman with a sadistic sense of humor.

At least the move is complete and my computer is now (mostly) installed and running in its new location. After over 7 years, I am physically no longer living in Athens, GA. I don't know what I'll do, living in a town with less than 1 bar/liquor store per citizen.

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Everything that I've thought about posting to the blog in the past few days has essentially amounted to little more than me whining about nothing important. (Not football or comic books; those ARE important.)

But I didn't want to do that. I don't want this blog to be nothing but me bitching about the same old things. (My brother has already chastized me for that once. I'm not giving him a second opportunity, that bastard.) So instead of a pointless blog entry about how much I hate something, I present to you, my adoring public, the most enjoyable game I've ever found on the internet: Whizzball.

Sure, it's at Discovery Kids, but that doesn't make it any less amusing. And just because it's been there for years doesn't mean that it's any less enjoyable. It's a good, simple time-waster; the sort of game that consoles used to provide but have abandoned in search of the next over-produced, under-developed, button-mashing, blockbuster movie-length presentation of T&A and boring-ass gameplay. >shakes fist at sky, yelling "Khaaan!"<

And for those of you who like your games a little deeper, I'll give you a bonus: The Battle for Wesnoth. This open-source, turn-based strategy fantasy game. You can't go wrong with that. It's fund to play, and it's a real challenge as well.

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My brother and I have a debate raging about whether it is possible to sell just about anything on eBay. Check out my listing for a human arm!

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This past weekend I was on I-20 eastbound, returning from a trip to visit my grandfather in Huntsville, AL, when my brother and I got stuck in traffic. As we passed the on-ramp from Oxford, AL, several cars decided to exit the stop-and-stop traffic by travelling the wrong way up the on-ramp. The ramp was unused and vacant; it was clear from the overpass that the traffic jam extended for the foreseeable distance, so no one was even trying to get onto the highway here anymore. Although I have no problem with exiting the highway along an empty on-ramp in theory, these idiots decided that instead of pulling a U-turn and driving up the ramp to freedom, they would pull into the merge lane and then back-up the ramp with the car in reverse. I worry about Americans when they think that driving a car against the flow of traffic on a high-speed one-way street is best accomplished with the car in reverse. (Forty thousand automobile deaths per year can't be wrong!)

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-----Original Message-----
From: Trey Stephens
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2006 11:52 PM
To: wriphe
Subject: Uninspired

Walt,
I think your ramblings are becoming cliché in themselves. Yes, TV sucks. Yes, Movies suck. Yes, everything sucks. We get it. Tell us something new.
---Trey

Trey, you want something new? Alright, fine: you suck.

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Two things on the agenda today:

1) No, I have not yet moved the character sheet to an easy to find location, Jeff. Sorry. (I'll get around to it sooner or later.)

2) A link to my brother's website can now be found on my links page. (Or, for you really lazy surfers, you can just click here.)

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This past week my brother chastised me for failing to update the site sooner than this. He told me that I was failing to do my established duty to entertain the half dozen people who visit the site regularly.

In my defense, I've been kind of busy. I've been trying really hard to complete the PS2 game Mercenaries. Determined to collect all of the bounties, I had a great deal of trouble with the 10 of Spades. I accidentally killed number 10 and couldn't recover the body that had fallen halfway down a cliff. That was irritating.

Also, I've been working on a script for a new The Movies movie about time travel. I've just about finished writing dialogue. I'll keep you posted regarding release dates.

And that's all in addition to the fact that I've been trying to finish Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged which I started reading casually on August 2 last year. I've finished two other books in the meanwhile that I've read only while on the toilet. I really love Rand's Objectivist philosophy, but she really takes her time redundantly driving a point home again and again.

Anyway, it's updated now. Are you happy yet, Trey?

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This past weekend, my brother and I were attacked by a spontaneously exploding tempered glass bathroom door that we were planning to install. (I blame witchcraft, I do!) My mother insisted that my brother go to the hospital to get stiches for his sliced hand. To cheer him up, I bought us Clue!, one of the very few "classic" board games that we didn't already own.

I had only played Clue! a few times, and I had certainly never won. Ever. So I was determined to win at least once. My mother, my brother, and my brother's girlfriend agreed to play with me. They were pretty good sports about it, too.

In the end, I made them play game after game for over 5 straight hours, until at last I won a game. I'm pretty sure that they let me win, especially since at one point my mother accused Col. Mustard of committing the murder in the Study with the Revolver when she was later revealed to have the Study in her own hand. But who cares how I won? I won! That's the important part. And everyone else was a loser! Ha! Take that, losers!

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