Fun And Games Monday

Well, it's time for Fun & Games Monday!

Thanks to Alex J. Cavanaugh for this cool blogfest!

Unfortunately, the computer I do my blogging on is part of a machine room that has undergone a quantum fusion meltdown. So, I am posting this with my phone. I'll try to do a proper post when things return to normal.

For now, though, let's have some Fun & Games!

My entry in this blogfest is about baseball. Baseball?? Yep, I know, it doesn't sound exciting, and it's not high tech and has nothing to do with science fiction or writing.

Let's go back in time to a summer of my youth. One day, friends and relatives all congregated at a local park. Everbody was laughing and joking and having fun. Somebody had an idea to play baseball. I don't think I had ever played before. But that didn't matter. It was amazing. Standing on the green grass under an incredible blue July sky, the sun seemed to smile on everybody. We all played hard, but the important thing was the "play." The important thing was to have fun. You know, it wasn't the end of the world if you dropped a fly ball or threw to the wrong base. What mattered was being part of the team and actually having fun.

No other sports experiences were quite as fun as that day. I'm all for healthy competition, but I think sometimes the fun & games part is forgotten in sports. But on that one perfect summer day, friends and family all joined together to play a game the way it was meant to be played.

Hmm, maybe I could work that into some kind of time travel story ;)

Update: Wahoo, the Mythik HAL 8999 computer is un-melted. Of course, I now have to rush like crazy to finish everything that was thrown off schedule by the meltdown. But I'll sneak in here now to finish this post. I will be checking out all the other Fun & Games blogfests as soon as I can!

The next game is probably my favorite video game of all time: Joust. How good was it? Good enough for me and my best friend to walk a mile in the snow to get to the only place in town that had a Joust machine. How can you go wrong with flying ostriches, pterodactyls, and a lava monster that would reach out and pull you in to the lava if you flew too close? The sound effects were amazing, including what is probably the funniest/scariest sounding pterodactyl ever. And I don't know if there was anything more stressful than rushing to gobble up all the ostrich eggs before they turned into evil ostrich riders. Long live Joust.

And finally, one of the greatest games of all time is Guess The Story Of The People At The Airport. Also known as GTSOTPATA. I'm at the airport, waiting to board my hopefully stress-fracture-free plane. A man and a woman meet and sit down next to each other. What's their story? In my mind, it goes something like this:

   Woman: "Did you get it?"
   Man: "Yes."
   Woman: "You weren't followed, were you?"
   Man: "No. But that dorky guy over there is looking at us like we are KGB agents or something."
   Woman: "Forget about him. He's just playing a stupid airport game. Give me the formula."
   Man: "Wait. You won't double-cross me again, like that time in Prague, right?"
   Woman: "Of course not. Now give me the formula."

Then I get distracted by an announcement that the plane will be five hours late. When I return to the game, the mysterious man and woman are gone!

Okay, that's it for fun and games! Happy Monday :)