Game of Chance or Game of Stats?

In the world of games, one game dominates over others in all the categories:  length of play, level of competition, thinking skills, random chance, negotiating ability, number of versions, and the innate tendency to destroy friendships in a single roll of the dice:

Since the 1930s, people have been playing this game, rolling the dice, buying properties, and just hoping everything turns out right.  I mean, after all, it involves dice, so it's just a game of chance.  The only thing that's determining if I win or not is if the dice send me to Boardwalk with a hotel on it, right?

The nefariousness of your deed can never be undone.  Mr. Top Hat is probably ruined for life!

Wrong.  Very, very wrong.  In fact, you can build your hotel on Boardwalk and still lose the game.

"But I've got the best spot in the game!  It's the most expensive!"

Yes, it's the most expensive, but you don't understand!  The other blue spot...the one you need to make the monopoly to build the Boardwalk...It's evil...but in a completely different way!

When my parents first started teaching me to play Monopoly when I was nine, they taught me two equally important truths:  Boardwalk is the most expensive property, and Illionis Avenue is the most landed on property.

"Pfft!  Yeah, right!  How in the world is that?"

Because, my dear randomly praying and rolling, friend, Monopoly is more than a game of chance...it is also a game of statistics.

Here are the ten most landed on spaces in Monopoly:
1.  Illinois Avenue
2.  Go
3.  B & O Railroad
4.  New York Avenue
5.  Reading Railroad
6.  Tennessee Avenue
7.  Pennsylvania Railroad
8.  St. James Avenue
9.  Water Works
10.  Kentucky Avenue
Boardwalk is only the 16th most landed on property (not counting all the spaces; just the properties).  Park Place is the least landed on space.  Although I don't know exactly how the stats were calculated for any other space, I can explain Park Place.  The most rolled number with two dice is seven.  Park Place is seven spaces from "Go to Jail."  Because "Go to Jail" immediately sends you backward to jail, Park Place is landed on less than any other Monopoly space.

A handy dandy chart for the visual learners out there.

One note I will make is that some websites don't have Go on the list because it isn't a property, thereby altering what #10 is.  Also, other sites claim Go To Jail/Just Visiting is the most landed on space (due to the 3 Doubles rule, Go to Jail space, Go to Jail cards, and simply rolling and landing on "Just Visiting"), however, I tend to see this as kind of like a two-headed, one-bodied Siamese twin space.  It's got two different things going on, two different purposes, but they're still joined, causing people to perceive them as one space.

Now, here are my tips to playing a good stat based game of Monopoly:

Tip #1:  You WANT to own Illinois.  Statistically, it's the best single space to own in terms of other people landing on it.  You can get here by both dice roll and by card.  Therefore, if you own Illinois, you want to try to scoop up the other red spaces too, if possible, because then you can collect more rent when people land on Illinois.  Also, notice that Kentucky is on the top 10 list, and, although it's not on my list, I do need to point out Indiana ranks just below Kentucky statistically.

Own these

Tip #2:  Don't freak out because Go is only the second most landed on space.  Notice the key term here is "landed on."  You will pass Go more times than you will land on it.  Of course, there's always the chance that you'll land on income tax and never see your $200, but you're statistically more likely to land on other spaces.  Statistically.

It was the best of times

It was the worst of times.

Point #3:  Your best monopoly is the orange one.  Look at the list again:  New York, Tennessee, and St. James all made the Top 10.  I call this the "Jail Row Monopoly."  Yes, Parker Brothers was somewhat kind and placed a Community Chest seven spaces from jail, BUT what are the rules for jail again?  Either pay $50 OR roll doubles.  Let's check where the doubles land you:  Electric Company (never too painful because it's only the double 1's), Virginia, St. James, Tennessee, Free Parking, and Chance.  That's what makes owning the orange so good:  you have a one in three chance of someone who rolled doubles out of jail landing on your property.  Furthermore, if they roll low doubles, they still have a chance of landing on the oranges.  Rolling double sixes sends them to Chance where they can either be sent back to Jail, sent to St. Charles, or sent to Go, leaving the possibility for them to land on your oranges quite open still.  So best individual card to own:  Illinois; best monopoly to own:  the oranges.

This monopoly is so awesome, Etsy suggests framing the cards and hanging them on your wall.

Tip #4:  Hope for Boardwalk and Park Place but don't sweat it if you don't get them.  Seriously, I told you the stats for these two.  Boardwalk isn't ranked super high statistically (If it's 16 for properties, it's ranked even lower when the other spaces are counted in), and Park Place isn't landed on a ton really either.  If you own half of this monopoly but not the other half, don't go trading two pink properties, $300, a "Get Out of Jail Free" card, and your firstborn child to get it.  Instead, focus on putting the individual who has that space out of the game so you can get their card for free, plus the price of the mortgage, etc., etc., etc.

And so on and so forth and...sorry; random The King and I moment

Tip #5:  Think through your trades.  Even though Ventnor has a higher rent than St. James, trading it away to get St. James may not be a bad idea, even if it gives the other person a monopoly.  You have gotten a monopoly that is far more landed on.  Trust me on this.  Once, I traded my dad an orange for a green, completing both our monopolies, and got beaten.  Green is higher rent than orange, but Mom warned me it wasn't a good trade.  Because I wasn't thinking statistically, I lost.  Sometimes making a trade that seems like a step down may actually help you out in the long run, if you make a trade for the better statistical advantage.

Tip #6:  Railroads are important, but once again, don't sweat if you only have one or two.  Railroads being important should seem like a "duh," especially since Short Line is the only railroad not listed in the Top 10.  However, railroads aren't something really worth trading over.  I'm not going to pay you a bunch of money and hand over my Electric Company just to get my hands on B&O, unless it's the last one I need to own all the railroads.  If I've got two, I'm going to be content with two and instead focus on putting you out of the game and collecting your railroads that way.

Tip #7:  Only buy houses and hotels if you have lots of extra money on hand.  I'm not buying a house if it leaves me with only $283 sitting around in my hand.  I only buy houses and hotels when I feel secure about moving around the board without having to mortgage my properties and/or sell houses.  They're nice little upgrades, but since I can't sell them back full price, they can be an awful waste if no one lands on the property while they're there.  I don't know how many times I've put all these nice little houses on Illinois Avneue and then promptly landed on North Carolina Avenue with a house and had to sell back all my houses in order to pay Mr. Battleship rent money.  If I'd done it, you know, eight turns before, then I'm kind of like, "[sigh of frustration] Why did no one land on my property?" but if I just put those houses up and this happens I'm like, "Why did you do that, Katrina?  You are the worst Monopoly player on planet earth!"

All that beautiful lovely money, now sacrificed to the evil person who I used to love!

Tip #8:  May the odds be ever in your favor.  Honestly, in the end, Monopoly still does have many elements of a game of chance.  You can't force the dice to roll sevens or doubles when you need them.  Maybe statistically you aren't going to land on Park Place, but as soon as Mr. Shoe places his third house there, you do, and you're kicking yourself big time.  I know this is a very ironic tip in my post about how Monopoly is actually a game of stats, but Mark Twain's third category of lies is "statistics."  I can throw you statistics all day, but the dice don't have brains, and they don't know they're supposed to roll sevens most of the time.  So, yep, in the end, a lot of chance is still involved, but a knowledge of the statistics can certainly improve your game.  I can't promise you're going to go out there and kill everyone in Monopoly now, but I can say that these tips should help at least improve your game.  They improved my game at least.

Yeah, I was obligated to post this after what Tip #8 was.

BONUS TIP!
Tip #9:  Have fun.  It's just a game, but go out there and compete, but really have fun, enjoy yourself for a couple, few, seventy hours or so, and win.  And maybe, just maybe, try one of the hundreds of other versions available.

All the versions; all the possibilities; all the miniscule optional rule variations making each one different from the last!  It's brilliant!

P.S.  Also, I grew up without collecting money when landing on Free Parking, which makes me a dozen times more hardcore than most Monopoly players on this planet.  Not bragging or anything, though.  I am just saying, though, that money in the middle isn't in the rules.

Dog Heads on Elephant Bodies

Oh my stinking word!  I am so excited right now!

No, I'm not engaged.  Or dating.  Nor have I found out a guy has interest in me.  And, no, the Doctor still has not come to take me on wild adventures throughout all of time and space.  Neither has Sherlock texted me saying to come if convenient, and if inconvenient, come anyway.  And, sadly, I'm still waiting for Jack Sparrow to ask me to help him commandeer a ship.  I've been waiting even longer for my closet to lead to Narnia and even longer than that to crawl into a hedge and land on top of a Totoro.

But there's one thing I have waited for even longer than any of the above.  The day I can publicly prove that I WAS RIGHT at Noah's Ark Preschool, and everyone who wouldn't play with me was WRONG!

Okay, so three-year-olds at first glance look like these cute little cuddly bundles of joy, right?  I mean, they're so happy all the time, playing their little games without a care in the world.  Oh let me tell you, even at that age, they have perceived notions of the world, and if one little girl dares to mess with that perceived notion, she will not get to play with the cool kids or go in the cool places.

Off to my first day of school, age 3

Lalalala, first day of school...age three!  Woo hoo, so exciting!  I'm going to make new friends and have fun!  YAY!  Oh, what's this?  Toy animals you can put together?  Yes, please!  I love animals!

Imagine a basket full of these things

Everybody sing (to the tune of "Dry Bones"):  "The red dog head goes on the...red legs...the red legs go on the...blue body...the blue body goes on the...red legs...the red legs go on the...yellow tail."  Oh yes, little Katrina has built something awesome.

See the back one?  That's exactly what I'd built.

Well, guess who couldn't be happier with what she built?  That's right, little three-year-old me!  The dog was promptly named Genevieve from the Madeline books (huge Madeline fan as a kid--the books, the movies, the doll, everything).

This is what awesome looks like.

And I built her every single day I was at preschool.  First thing.  Important things first, you know, take off coat and stuff, and then immediately run to the basket of animal parts and put together Genevieve because every day at the end of playtime, someone would take her apart.  I wouldn't take her apart.  I'd put her away whole.  Don't ask how quickly the other kids picked up on this.  It was pretty stinking quickly.  And they would show me Genevieve and say, "I'm taking Genevieve apart now!" which would emotionally distress me.

Actually, the whole Genevieve thing was a big of an emotional distress.  Like I said, some kids just aren't accepting of those of us who are unique and different.  See, that awesome blue middle...was an elephant middle.  And you CANNOT HAVE A DOG WITH AN ELEPHANT MIDDLE!  Don't you get it, Katrina?  YOU CAN'T DO THAT!  And until you put a dog middle on your dog, you can't play with us.  You can't sit in the clubhouse under the slide.  You're stuck putting together puzzles and playing with the kids who actually don't mind.  Thank you forever to kids like Jeremy, Peter, Ricky, Todd, Willem, and others who were never too cool for me...even if Jeremy did make a big deal over taking apart Genevieve.  He loses points for that.  And, yes, everyone in that list was boys.  Most of the "This is the way it is" kids were girls.  One day, they even stole Willem away from me to make me put my dog the right way.  Oddly enough, taking my best friend into their group but not me wasn't even big enough motivation.

Me and my best friend Willem; we had to stop eating in order to have our picture taken; I don't have chubby cheeks...that's a mouth full of wafer

Yeah, talk about a weird child.  Take my best friend from me, and I still wouldn't conform to some societal norm.  Kind of like college.  I mean, a societal norm would have been to remove my key chain collection from my backpack after about the sixteenth person was like, "Clank, clank, clank."  Yeah, being able to put up with that began back at Noah's Ark Preschool.

But then you know what I found out today?  Okay, so that's not my own picture of Genevieve up there.  You see, the year I was at Noah's Ark was it's last year, so I got to take Genevieve home with me.  Two years later, Mom and Dad sold her at our garage sale, even though I tried to take her back and hide her so she'd never get sold.  But if that's not my picture of Genevieve...

SOMEONE ELSE OUT THERE THINKS LIKE ME!
 

I'm not alone in this world!  Someone else out there--who OWNS AN ELEPHANT HEAD--that means they could have the elephant body with the right head--PUTS THE ELEPHANT BODY ON THE DOG!  Let's look at that picture one more time, shall we?

Elephant body on a dog--random person on Internet, you are winning at life

AH, the sweet satisfaction after nineteen long years that YOU are not the only one in this world who puts elephant bodies on dogs.  This makes me happier than a tornado in a trailer park.  I could just burst out singing.

"The hills are alive, with the sound of AWESOME!"

And, if perchance, you are reading this, and you attended Noah's Ark Preschool in Racine, Wisconsin, during the 1993-1994 school year...NOTHING WAS WRONG WITH ME!

An Easter Post

"Oh to see the dawn of the darkest day
Christ on the road to Calvary
Tried by sinful men,
Torn and beaten then
Nailed to a cross of wood."
--"The Power of the Cross" Stuart Townend, Keith Getty

I still remember hearing this song for the first time at Northland.  We were probably in our first or second week of classes, and I was learning a bunch of stuff, but one thing I looked forward to was the new songs we were learning in chapel.  As soon as I heard this song, I knew I wanted to learn it and remember it.  The song painted such a vivid picture of the day of Christ's crucifixion.  I could almost see Christ, struggling under the weight of a cross, needing the help of another.  He, the perfect man who had done no wrong, was accused of wrong by sinners and convicted for doing nothing wrong.  He was beaten beyond recognition and condemned to die the worst death imaginable.

"This the power of the cross,
Christ became sin for us.
Took the blame, bore the wrath,
We stand forgiven at the cross."

Wow...a perfect God took on my sin.  I know I'm classified as a "good kid" most of the time, but, honestly, I'm not.  I'm very selfish and prideful; I shoot off my mouth when I shouldn't; I argue when people don't have my exact views; I get frustrated and throw stuff.  Christ took all of that on Him, and He took my full punishment of death.  God hates sin, and He should by all rights kill me, but He doesn't because He sees Christ in my place.  Christ's perfect sacrifice and forgives me.

"Oh to see the pain written on your face
Bearing the awesome weight of sin
Every bitter thought,
Every evil deed
Crowning your blood-stained brow."

Do we really understand how terrible crucifixion was?  I'm sure not even the most graphic movie can do it justice because we all know it's just a movie--the blood's fake, and the actor is in no danger of actually dying.  But Christ was hanging on that cross, separated from God.  God is a Trinity--three people in one.  He, the God who can be anywhere and do anything, choose to live in one location on earth and die.  He could have rescued Himself from that cross, but he chose not to because He had the most important task in the universe--to give people a chance to live their lives in close fellowship with Him.  But in order to do this, He, the perfect God who cannot sin, had to feel the guilt and pain of human sin.  He was beaten and bloodied already--weak, and now he carried the weight of the world on his worn out body.

"Now the daylight flees, now the ground beneath
Quakes as its Maker bows his head.
Curtain torn in two,
Dead are raised to life,
'Finished' the victory cry!"

 As Christ hung there on the cross, sin staining the sinless, God couldn't stand to look at Him.  And so God turned His back on Himself.  God the Father cast darkness in the sky in order to blot out the sin staining His Son.  Sinless God--stained with the sin He wanted to save the world from.  Creation trembled under the horror of this paradox.  But, this was all because God was making a new way to allow humans to unite with Him.  No longer would people have to sacrifice lambs and bulls and shed blood.  Perfect blood had been shed.  The Old Covenant was over; a New Covenant was coming into effect; and to symbolize this, God tore the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from everyone else.  No longer did people need a priest to go between them and God.  Now, we can approach Him and talk to Him ourselves through prayer.  That was what was finished!  Man could now fellowship with God!

"Oh to see my name written in the wounds,
For through your suffering I am free.
Death is crushed to death,
Life is mine to live
Won through your selfless love!"

Because I, at age seven, confessed my sin to God and told Him I wanted to live in my life, I now know I have a guaranteed home in heaven.  Before I was born as a slave to sin.  Now I have chosen to be a slave to God, but this is not a slavery of oppression.  No, instead, I am free.  I serve God by choice because I love Him.  In ancient Israel, a slave could choose to belong to his master forever rather than be freed, and that is what I have chosen.  Unless the Rapture comes first, I will die one day.  However, my death really will bring me eternal life.  Because of my acceptance of God's gift of salvation, I will experience eternal life in heaven after I die.  On that day nearly two thousand years ago, God won the ultimate victory over Satan.  Yes, Satan still controls the multitudes of people who are unsaved, but those of us who accept Christ's sacrifice on the cross--the sacrifice He made because He loves every single person on this planet so much--should have different goals for our lives because we serve a new Master.

"This the power of the cross,
Son of God, slain for us,
What a love, what a cost,
We stand forgiven at the cross!"

God--the undying, forever living God--was killed that day.  But He rose again!  He paid the ultimate price of His life so He could rise again so I could live forever.  And all I needed to do to accept this gift was say I was sorry for offending Him with my sin and telling Him I wanted Him to control my life.  And He did forgive me!  And it is wonderful!  I am constantly in awe over what Christ did that day.  I don't deserve this, but I have it anyway.  Christ died, and then He rose again!  He ascended into heaven, and there He lives, constantly interceding for me to God.  He is the only High Priest I need to go to God--and He is God!  He did not stay dead!  He is alive!  That is why we have Easter.  I do not serve a dead God; I serve a living one!  He arose; the tomb is empty!  And that is what Easter is about!

My Top 10 Game Boy Games

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, is Katrina really doing two posts in a day?"
Yes, people of the world.  Like I said earlier.  It's my blog, I do what I want.  I'm not bound by the constraints of time and space.  Well, actually I am.  I haven't been whisked away by the Doctor yet.

Forever waiting to hear the whirr of a distant TARDIS

Anyway, I'm not bound by what people say I have to do or not do.  I mean, within reasonable limits.  Like, you know, I can't limit someone's right to free speech, no matter what ridiculousness clogs up my News Feed.

Anyway, we're not going to talk about that today.  Instead, I'm going to exercise my right to free speech by telling you my favorite 10 Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games.

Yes, I spent many a happy hour as a preteen and a teenager hunched over first my green Game Boy Color and later my silver Game Boy Advance SP.

"But your favorite color is purple.  Why are neither of them purple?"
Because one's green and one's silver.  There is no other explanation needed.  Honestly, people!

Anyway, I need to give a huge shout out to one of my best childhood friends Jennifer who introduced me to this world of video games and staring at a tiny screen for hours on end.  Okay, obligatory thing done.

Now, to get to the controversial part, where I rank my personal favorite Game Boy games, which, invariably, everyone will disagree with at some point.  For the record, Pokemon was evil, and I didn't know exactly what Legend of Zelda was, so you must immediately forgive any and all exclusion of those.

10.  Army Men:  Sarge's Heroes 2--Ah, the joys of shooting tiny little tan Army Men on the screen as your green army man is intent on winning some sort of victory over some sort of big deal (I was too busy pressing A during the talking parts
to actually follow the story line.).  Initially, I played as the girl character Vikki all the time.  Then I started getting to these points where I couldn't get past levels effectively, and my brother's were like, "Yeah, it's because she doesn't have this feature the guy characters do."  And I'm like, "Seriously?"  Really, Nintendo, let's think about this.  Forgetting the fact it's a girl character, why would you choose to make one of your playable characters not be able to get past levels?  I mean, really?  I have to remember what levels to use Vikki for and which levels to use the guys for?  Anyway, good game because it was probably my only combat-related game I had (no Call of Duty or Halo in our house); bad game for not making one of your characters be able to do certain things.

9.  Ms. Pac-Man--Why does this rank at only #9 when I really do love Pac-Man?  I guess it's because my Pac-Man love is kind of a genetic thing handed down from my mom, who is the main Ms. Pac-Man player in my house.  I wouldn't want to compete with her on anything Pac-Man related, at all.  However, it still gets listed this low because I just couldn't get the hang of it as well as I got the hang of other games soon to come on this list.  Sorry, Mom.  I'm sure for you this would rank a whole lot higher, but I'm just not as awesome as you.

8.  Hamtaro:  Ham-Ham Heartbreak--I literally waited months to play this game after someone sent it to me for my birthday, and I wasn't getting my Game Boy Advance SP until Christmas.  Oh, those five months of waiting were worth it, though.  Armed with nothing but a complete walkthrough they had also sent me, I took on the game starting on Christmas Day, and eventually messed up, even with the walkthrough, so I had to restart and play again.  I never even really watched Hamtaro, but I had a lot of fun playing this game and collecting words for the little dictionary who's words had gotten wiped out and exploring all the little worlds and playing all the little games and meeting all the other little hamsters.

7.  Mickey's Racing Adventure--The first Game Boy game I ever laid fingers on.  Using Jennifer's Game Boy on the ride down to Chicago, my fingers and eyes were opened to a new form of entertainment through this very game.  It was more than a racing game because you had to unlock other characters/shops and collect items to win more races and win more money to buy faster cars.  Then there was also the Pluto digging games.  I mean, this game had practically everything in it except for shooting and killing people.

6.  Walt Disney World:  Magical Racing Tour--Woohoo, racing games!  This one ranks slightly above Mickey's Racing Adventure simply because trying to find all those special things got a little annoying sometimes.  Magic Kingdom Racing was a nice way to kick back, relax, and just race.  And race.  And race.  And occasionally unlock a new character.  But, still, there was something I just really, really liked about doing the whole racing thing all the time.  Also, I liked collecting all the coins and the fairies and popping balloons to see how I could harm the other racers...Yes, my childhood was slightly deprived of Mario Kart.  What tipped you off to that?

5.  The Harvest Moon Series--I'm sorry.  You really want me to break this up into five different ones?  Not happening.  Okay, so it's a farming game.  Don't look at me like that!  It's cool and fun and stuff!  And it was before your Farmville, so I was WAY ahead of the curve.  Basically, you could raise plants and animals, and in some games get married and have kids!  There were three games for the Game Boy Color and two for the Game Boy Advance, and I owned all of them.  The first Harvest Moon got us addicted to playing farming games, but it did this automatic save thing, so if you messed up, you were stuck with your problems (This was also the first one I played, way back in 2000, on the same day I played Mickey's Racing Adventure!).  I don't talk about the second one--it's my least favorite.  Harvest Moon 3:  Boy Meets Girl introduced marriage, but if you were a girl, the game ended when you got married, but it was still my favorite because I actually completed it as a girl!  (PARTY!)  The first one for Game Boy Advance was called Harvest Moon:  Friends of Mineral Town, and you could only play as a boy.  They made More Friends of Mineral Town, finally, though, where you could plays as a girl and get married and KEEP PLAYING!  Unfortunately, as much as I loved the last two, I never completed them because I'd lose interest after a while, and one of my brothers, knowing I hadn't touched it in a while, would save over my game BECAUSE THERE WERE ONLY TWO SAVE SLOTS!  Aside from that little annoyance factor, this was an awesome series, and my main reason for not breaking them up was the play was so similar in each one, they just can't really be divided into separate categories.

4.  Frogger 2--It's simple.  Get the frog across the streets and rivers, collecting all the gems as fast as you can, with
out getting squished by frogs or eaten by gators.  Or, you know, falling into the water or lava pits.  Or getting crushed my the lesser balls of fire or the greater balls of fire.  And in the end, the whole goal is to rescue those little frogs that just keep running away from home.  Frogger is honestly a terrible parent/uncle/babysitter/nanny/daycare worker if he keeps letting this happen all the time.  This gets ranked as #4 because even when I won it, I could easily always go back and play again and again and try to be faster and better than my brothers.

3.  The Little Mermaid II Pinball Frenzy--Don't ask how much time I spent on this game.  If someone else's name was on the High Scores, I would play and play and play on that board (Melody or Ariel) and setting (Slow or Fast/3 Ball or 5 Ball) until I had knocked them off.  If I couldn't knock them off, I'd clear the whole game, and then sit around and play the game for a week, barely putting it down until I controlled the high score table again...and had also restored all the mini games because clearing the high scores also deleted all the mini games you earned.  Yes, I was extremely competitive.  Am extremely competitive.  Plus, it had this cool "Rumble" feature that made it go all wibbly wobbly in your hands sometimes.  The sad part was we had to turn it off during the times we also had to play Game Boy with the sound off, which made it less fun.  Still, that was a small price to pay in order to keep playing and playing and playing pinball!  This was also my first ever Game Boy game I owned, so it always has a special part in my heart...or twitching thumbs.

2.  Super Mario Bros.--Okay, here comes the part where people get shocked about how this isn't my #1.  I talked about Mario a lot at college.  Well, duh, of course I did.  A lot of the people I knew were Mario people, and you talk about what they like.  Plus, obviously, if it's my #2, that means I did like it A LOT.  And I do.  There's something awesome about running around as Luigi (Yes, I was the oldest, but I preferred playing as Luigi), winning all the regular levels on your save (Another bonus:  3 save slots and 3 kids), then playing them all again trying to win the High Score/Yoshi Egg/Red Coins, then playing all the games on the Luigi picture when you unlock it, and finally playing the Boo Races.  I mean, yes, aside from my personal save, everything else was almost always a combined effort among my brothers and me, but that also made it fun.  We collected all those High Score and Yoshi Egg and Red Coin things working as a team.  Actually, there was one High Score we never could beat no matter how fast we ran or how many coins we collected.  That kept bringing us back, though.

1.  Donkey Kong Country--Yes, THIS is my number one.  What makes Donkey Kong Country better than Super Mario Bros.?  Well, they're equally awesome in that they both had 3 saves for 3 kids, which was a HUGE blessing in a game for us.  However, I loved how I could switch between Donkey and Diddy whenever I wanted.  I liked collecting bananas and riding roller coasters.  I liked defeating the bosses.  I hated levels where the lights went out, but it just made it a race to the next "on" switch, giving it more difficulty.  I will admit, when I couldn't figure out why I never earned 100%, I did go online and check a walkthrough, but upon discovering all I needed to do was play it with each of the Barrel settings (DK and Continue) off, I was good to go.  I think I only checked in again when there was a sticker pack I couldn't find, but I basically completed the game all by myself without much outside help.  And that is why it is my number 1.  In a close race between Mario and Donkey Kong, this one always seemed to win out by just a little bit.

So, there it is, my top 10, which some may disagree with and some may love, love, love!  I spent many long car rides and many more long hours at home entertaining myself in this way, and that is basically a summary of probably way too much of my teenage years.

Bonus Shout-Outs To the Runner Ups, in alphabetical order:
Arthur's Absolutely Fun Day
Galaga
Pong
Toy Story 2
Winnie the Pooh Adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood

Sorry to these 5 for not quite making the cut, but I still loved you...a lot.  Like, a lot a lot.  Like, in a "I wish I hadn't told my mom it was okay to throw out my Game Boy games" sort of way.  Yeah, but I did, and now you're gone out of my life forever.

Making Some Changes

So...yeah, I haven't posted in about six weeks.

You know why?

I kind of got bored posting about Japan.

I mean, there's a lot more to my life than that.  I process about a kajillion random thoughts a day because my line of logic is like a dotted line.

It is all related, but sometimes you have to make these little jumps.

For example, I'd just spent the last few days watching The Lord of the Rings Extended Editions, and as I was headed to the library to return them, my thought pattern went something like this:

I don't really cry while watching movies.
Well, except Lord of the Rings:  Return of the King, and Pirates of the Caribbean:  Dead Man's Chest, and Veggie Tales' The Star of Christmas (watch it before you judge me!).

Mr. Nezzer

I never even cried when Old Yeller died.
Most people don't have The Star of Christmas on their stuff-that-makes-me-cry list.
Ebenezer Nezzer
Nebby K. Nezzer and Wally P. Nezzer
Nebby K. Nezzer
"The bunny, the bunny, oh I love the bunny."
Ooh, I just bought a chocolate Easter bunny earlier today.
Wait...how did I get here?

Um...yeah...that's how my brain goes.

Also, I'm not the only person like this.  The people I worked with at school were like this.  You try to have prayer groups, and one minute you're giving prayer requests and the next we're talking about eating possum.  Well, okay, it's not just people at school.  Last night at church, my prayer group was going fine, then we got talking about The Passion of the Christ (which I'm finally going to watch this Friday!), Phineas and Ferb, and my high school's gym among other things.  This is oddly enough normal for prayer groups, and we're fully grown adults--some with kids!  You know the worst part?  I wasn't always the one who initiated these random jumps, which means there's a lot of people out there who think like me.  Fear, future of the world.  When my generation comes into full power, the UN will start off by discussing rising oil prices and sooner or later, it will all devolve into talking about My Little Pony and which languages it needs to be translated into.

Trust me, if I ever turned on my TV and heard world leaders had been discussing this, I don't know if I would laugh or yell "YES!" or cry.  I would make it my Facebook status, though for sure.

Anyway, that being said, I kind of want to blog about more stuff.

Especially nerdy stuff.
Because in addition to being an MK, I'm also kind of a nerd.

Okay, I'm really a nerd.

So, I'm not changing the blog name or anything, and I'll still talk about Japan too, but mostly it's going to be me blogging about stuff.  Basically, anything and everything.

Why?

Because it's my blog, and I can do what I want.

Picture of Loki

 Also, because I'm Batman.

A Very Short Post About Valetine's Day In Japan

In Japan, on Valentine's Day, girls give guys dark or milk chocolate.  In exchange, one month later on March 14, they have White Day, where the guys are supposed to give the girls who gave them something on Valentine's Day white chocolate in return.

After college, I have a significant white chocolate deficit, despite constant explanations of what White Day is. ;)

Here are some pictures of Japanese chocolate to torment you: