Quote #23013: Rate Your Adolescence

How would you rate or evaluate your period of adolescence?  What has it been like, typical, atypical, etc.

“My period of adolescence has been atypical.  I do not do anything fun or out of the ordinary.  The most exciting thing I would do would be going to a movie and coming back home at a late hour.  My adolescence has been nothing but going to school and going back home, for the rest of the day, and have it all repeat the next day.”

– davepoobond

Bowling in Culture

Bowling is a sport that consists of throwing a heavy ball down a long impasse, called an alley, toward bowling pins.  There are a few different types of bowling, which vary in how many bowling pins are in place.  Ten-pin bowling, which is prevalent in the United States, consists of ten pins.  Ten-pin bowling evolved from Nine-pin bowling which is played in Europe.  Ten-pin bowling, however, is played around the world in championships and other amateur activities, making it the more common form of bowling around the world.

The origins of bowling can be traced back to places like Finland, Yemen, Germany, Egypt, and India (Tenpinbowling). Popularization came during the feudalism era in England, where there are records of King Edward III restricted his soldiers from playing bowling in favor of working on their archery skills instead (Tenpinbowling).  As bowling became more popular, it spread to the other countries of Europe, and propagated into the rest of the countries where the game is played today.  Variations of bowling play with the concept of how many pins are to be knocked down, or modifications to the score sheet.  (Wikipedia)

Bowling also takes place in other parts of our culture, like film and television.  Movies like The Big Lebowski and Kingpin incorporate the sport into its story, but in different ways (Findarticles).  The Big Lebowski portrays the game as an aside, more like a hobby that characters share in common while events greater than themselves are happening around them.  Kingpin is all about the game itself and the competition involved in it.  The bowling ball is infamous for its weight, and is featured as a “weapon” in Mystery Men.  The Hanna-Barbera cartoon “The Flintstones” also featured many occurrences where the main characters of the show would be bowling at various times during the series.

Even though bowling may not be a defining piece of world culture, it is one of the underlying aspects that create it.  Bowling is a sport that many people can get involved in, whether it be for professional league play or just hanging out with friends during a session of Nitro Bowling.

             Works Cited

“The Game History.” Tenpinbowling.org. November 4, 2007. http://www.tenpinbowling.org/view.php?page=the_game.history

“Bowling.”  Wikipedia.org.  November 4, 2007.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling

“Our List of the Best, uh, Top … Well Here Are Some Bowling Movies – Brief Article.”  Findarticles.com.  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCK/is_1_19/ai_71821872

Joe Camel Card Deck

I have this old deck of cards made by Camel Cigarettes — it featured Joe Camel prominently.  I thought they were hilarious though, when they featured Joe himself.

As you can see, a male camel dressed in drag is quite hilarious.  Also, having a shrunken head version of himself as a Joker is also a treat.

For some reason I was missing the Jack of Spades.

Quote #22977: This Service

“Well, I tried it fo free and decided it had value to me in my work.

I convinced my boss that the company should provide this to me to share large files with my customers.

He finally agreed and now after one use I it doesn’t work!!!!!!!

Thanks YouSendIt I can now eat crow and ask my boss to cancel the subscription!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

– From the YouSendIt forums

Candy Crush Saga (iOS): A Soccer Mom’s Review

This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Soccer Mom Dave

This is a satire about the way a certain “parent” would look upon a video game. It’s written as if it was for a site that was run by mothers who denounce controversial video games based on third party information rather than actually experiencing it themselves, and making rash judgments about things they have little knowledge about. The name of this “mother” is Soccer Mom Dave.

Developer/Publisher: King Games  | Soccer Mom Score:  0/10

How dare they.

They made a game based on candy.

A group of buffoons who have enough gall to create a game so delicious-looking that it influences my children to eat candy!!!!!! All of these developers who made this game will rot in Candy Hell – don’t they know that America’s obesity epidemic starts and ends with the media? Games like Candy Crush Saga influence our children to become stupid, fat, obese adults who want to eat more candy and junk food. Jelly, whip cream, gum balls, exploding candy, chocolate balls with sprinkles that turn everything else into exploding candy! What kind of a sick mind would think of this stuff?

Not only does this game appeal to children, since they put a little child in the game as the main “protagonist” but they also try to appeal to sexy fatherly men who wear suits, just like this butler guy who tells you how to accomplish all of these massively unappealing, evil puzzles while talking in a sultry voice. It is just perfect that this game is a “match-three” game – it influences our children and prospective husbands to always want to eat candy in groups of three, four, or five. Not only that, but you get rewarded for matching higher combos, implying that you will succeed if you eat more candy! What lies are they feeding the general public with their implications!? There are absolutely no disclaimers that this candy is Calorie-Free, or even Fat-Free! Eating candy will kill you. Also, dragons and talking robots do not exist. I don’t know why they even put them in this slow-and-torturous-murder simulator. The dragon probably has diabetes from swimming in sugar water too long.

As if my life wasn’t terrible enough before this game came out, for free, I now have to deal with my children begging me for candy and acting like the whip cream in the game. They hug my knees, and don’t allow me to move until I clear them out. The only way I can get them to leave me alone is by pelting them with candy, just like in the game, and then I can move more freely. Sometimes my children cover themselves with Jelly and the only way to remove the Jelly is by throwing multiple combinations of candy at the Jelly chunks on their faces. My children are also recreating the game board from Candy Crush Saga in our 10-acre backyard with 300+ levels, just like in the game. When my husband gets home, all he does is drink beer and neglect me and my children, so it’s not like he’s going to put a stop to this madness! I wish that I could hire a butler to escort my children around this hugely elaborate candy game that is evolving in my backyard.

And just like the real-life version in my backyard, Candy Crush Saga was probably play-tested by all of three people, none of them paid. What’s the point of balancing a game when you can charge people anywhere from a dollar to FORTY damn dollars to cheat on an unbalanced game? Instead of trying to make the game a “fun,” balanced, and healthy experience, they’ve created a death machine meant to extort money and make the obesity epidemic even worse! Candy Crush Saga takes over the minds of the sheep we call our fellow humans and bleeds them dry for “power-ups” that shouldn’t even exist in a balanced game. No wonder they made 300 levels – you will inevitably be stuck on level 30, and never be able to play the other 90% of the game unless you pay to cheat! The temptation is absolutely unbearable! My children, both with iPhone 5s, have spent nearly 200 dollars each on this game to cheat. In real life, cheating is free — all you have to do is skirt around your obligations and make the other guy pay for the hotel. This game doesn’t teach my children any valuable or “useful” lessons.

Why can’t they make Health Food Saga, instead? It would have relieved my potential stress levels immeasurably. They should have used Fat-free milk, Baby Carrots, Asian Pears, Romaine Lettuce, Cherry Tomatoes and Vitamin Pills.

To conclude, this game needs to be more like real life – STOP PUTTING DELUSIONS IN MY IMPRESSIONABLE CHILDREN’S HEADS!!! LOOK AT WHAT IT HAS DONE TO MY LIFE, MY HOUSE, AND AMERICA!!! BAN CANDY CRUSH SAGA FROM YOUR iPHONES, PARENTS!  THE RESISTANCE STARTS WITH YOU!