Stephens County Pro Am 2006

Driving in to Toccoa is a bit like going to the dentist.

You may like the dentist you have now, and your memories of past incidents may not be uniformly horrific, but there usually isn't much on the plus side of the memorial ledger to engender nostalgia feelings.

Driving in to Rose Lane, then, is a bit like meeting up with a friend who stood by you during a court martial or a unit you fought a war with. On the one hand, you have strong feelings of loyalty. On the other, those feelings are inextricably embedded in negative memories.

The course is windy. Very, very, very, windy. The kind of windy that when I was living in Toccoa I would have turned around and driven home. But I've driven six hours, so I guess I'm staying.

Despite the wind, I birdie three of the first six holes (and make a long putt to save par on another). And then...

...then the same old tournament same old. I hit trees a few feet in front of my tee pad. The wind carries me places I never shoot from. Despite putting well all day, I manage to turn a 3 down into a 4 over, and when I come back for the afternoon session, I have to play the long tees. I'm tired. I've driven six hours. My ankles hurt on a course that's a tough walk, and the holes get longer.

My agressive putting results in my first three putt on the opening hole of round two, but despite that and an out of bounds, I jump on the three train for some long holes and manage to put together a stretch of play. Then the wind blows up again and I go out of bound on hole 5 and take a circle 6. Pffft.

You know, I should be happy. Lot of good things are happening in my life. I just bought a house, my work year is drawing to a close. But I've been in a terrible mood all day. Maybe I just shouldn't play tournaments, I don't konw.

Last Monday, I was playing blind-draw doubles at OT Sloan with a payout of the top 3 teams. My partner and I shot a -10. Three of the last five groups to come in tied at -11. It's been that kind of Disc Golf year.

And the thing is, I putted well. I could have been an additional ten strokes easy. I try to tell myself that it was the wind, the layoff, the new hole configurations, but the truth is I'm Michael Chang slugging it out with Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras. Moving up to Masters level just means maybe that it's Jim Courier or Boris Becker. Maybe they don't hit as hard as Sampras, but they still hit harder than me. And I can make all the twenty-five foot putts I want, that still itsn't going to gain me strokes if they are to save par on 325 foot holes.

I try to tell myself that I've just got residual bad mood from a conglomeration of negativity that has been surrounding me recently. People saying they aren't in a bad mood who obviously are. Cruddy drivers on the road. Passive-agressive sulkers in many spheres of life.

Anyway, it's nice to see the course, even if the holes I remember nostalgiacally are being systematically moved, lengthened and replaced.

Round 1 (5664 feet) (Starting on hole 12)

3-3-3 2-2-2 4-5-3 3-3 (33)
3-3-4 2-4-4 4-4-3 3 (34) 67

Round 2 (6580 tired feet) (Starting on hole 11)
4-5-3 4*-3-3 3-3-4 3-3* (38)
3-3-3 3-6*-3 3-4-3 4 (35) 73

Dumbest Thing I've Heard at the Euchre Tables This Year

So I was playing a game at Hardwood (I know, Yahoo! has been slow recently).

My partner ditched the game, and after a brief wait, I went ahead with the robot partner...

To which one of the players objected that the game was unfair...

...because the robot partners never make mistakes.

More on going alone with 8

Well it is probably inevitable that having written on this topic it would come up in a game. Actually similar hands came up twice yesterday. The first is an example of an even more common example than the one previously mentioned.

My team was winning 8-5 on my deal. Queen of Spades was dealt and after calling and discarding, I held:

Jack of Spades
Jack of Clubs
Queen of Spades
Ace of Hearts
King of Hearts

My opponents led a low heart which was trumped by my partner. My partner led back a low club, effectively finessing my two bowers. If I trumped with the queen, I ran the risk of my opponent overtrumping with a king or ace. I took trick with one of my bowers and led out the other bower, but my opponent on my left now had ace protected. She played off a low trump and eventually had stopper.

If I had gone alone, I would have take first trick wih the ace of hearts and run trump, taking four points.

Of course--and this is an important point--there are configurations for both of these hands that would allow them to march (take all 5 tricks as partners for two points) but not march alone. So one can say, "hey, hindsight is 20-20."

Euchre is a game of probability. My point with these two examples is not that going alone with eight points is the better play or always the right play, only that it is an acceptable play. There will be times when you choose a 65% play and it doesn't work, while in hindsight the riskier 50% play might have. That doesn't make it the wrong play. Also, don't forget to factor in who you are playing with and how well you know their tendencies.

Going alone with 8 points isn't always right, but there are legitimate reasons to do so with certain hands that have nothing to do with bad table manners.

Euchre Ponderings--Going Alone With 8

I've been reacquainting myself with life on Case's Ladder, playing Euchre in the Yahoo! advanced room. There is a lot less activity than there used to be.

I joined Case's in 1998, and it was a zoo. The amount of cheating was astronomical, but the competition was fantastic. I eventually made it to #1 in the Fall of that year, the week before starting a full-time job.

These days there appears to be about 20-50 active players, though there are a few more who pop in from time to time. Most of the people are friendly, but the playis uneven. As a result, I thought I'd write down some ponderings.

Back in the early days, there somehow developed this idea going around that calling alone with 8 points was considered rude or bad etiqueete, the equivalent of rubbing someone's face in a bad loss.

Let's see if I can put that myth to rest.

First up, if a hand is a lay-down, then who cares? But if it is a losable hand, then I don't care if my opponent goes alone. Makes it easier to stop him/her on those 1 in 1,000 times where it is a misclick or mistake.

But more importantantly, there are hands in which a loner can make it but the partnership might not march. In these cases, why should a person be penalized for utilizing strategy? Let's look at the following hand, for intance:

North
9, 10 Clubs
VOID Diamonds
A Hearts
K, 10 Spades

West..................................... East
J, A, K Clubs........................ VOID Clubs
A Diamonds......................... K, Q, 10 Diamonds
VOID Hearts......................... 9 Hearts
J Spades............................... 9 Spades


South
Q Clubs
Diamonds
KQ Hearts
AQ Spades


Now imagine North is dealing and the 9 of Diamonds is turned up. It is quite possible that it would be turned down (if N/S called it, they would be set). Now everyone passes to West, who calls Clubs.

GGA? Not so fast.
If East leads Diamonds, North trumps and the hand makes one point. South has no diamonds; this hand would get four points if called alone, but 1 if called as pairs.

Yes, West could be reasonably sure his partner would lead trump, if she has it. Absent that, it is conceivable that one might lead the suit one has three in, assuming it is best chance to hit partner's void.

So the next time someone goes alone at 8 and the other team complains, call it what it is...sour grapes.

March 2006 Viewing Log

*= a second (or later) viewing
3/3--Aristocrats (DVD)
3/3--Winter Light (DVD)
3/4--Casablanca (DVD)(Critic Commentary)*
3/6--Shampoo (DVD)
3/8--40 Year Old Virgin (DVD)
3/14--Equilibrium (DVD)
3/14--The Heiress (VHS)*
3/18--The Gleaners & I (DVD)*
3/18--Junebug (DVD)
3/21--Washington Square (DVD)*
3/28--Emma (VHS; Beckinsale/A&E)*

Not a thrilling month. Best viewing experience? Casablanca, I guess. Least favorite would have to be the Aristrocrats. I like some crude humor (like South Park), but I just found it dully repetitive.

Dogwood Crosstown Classic, Day 2

That giant thudding sound was me falling on my face in day two. Well, more like running out of gas. I was 10 over par my last 5 holes of the P.M. session. 72 Holes of Golf in 2 days finally caught up with me.

Ugggh.

Lessons learned:
Only play in single day tournaments.
If you've played a course before but haven't thrown the alternate tees, you haven't actually played the course before.

Dogwood Crosstown Classic, Day 1

Phew, two rounds at Zebulon. That makes a long day.

I had a goal of 63, and I made that on both rounds. Shot a 62 the first round and a 60 the second.

The only slight twinge was that I was shooting real well the second round that I could have been in the 50s if I had not taken a 5 on the last hole, 17, one of the easier ones on the course!

Oh, well, still played under control. Agressive. Made a few birdies. Didn't blow up. Took 4s on the long hole (3) twice, and on 9 the second round. Oh, I think I'm in like 7th place out of 10. So, hey, being a "Master" (over 40) means I'm moving up in the world--NOT!

Two more rounds at Cedar Hills tomorrow. I'm going to be dead tired.

Zebulon Community Park; Zebulon, NC
(http://www.radl.biz/Courses/ZEBULON/main.htm)
A.M.

3-3-4 2-3-3 4-3-5 (30) Out
3-4-3 3-4-4 4-3-4 (32) In 62

P.M.

3-2-4 3-3-3 4-4-4 (30) Out
2-3-3 3-3-3 4-5-4 (30) In

The Long Loneliness (89-109)

This section, "A Time of Searching," concludes Part I, also called "Searching."

There is something endearing about the way in which Day glosses over worldly events, indicating that they are of little or no importance. She will write for a page or two about a friend, thoughts about the mass, whatever, then let go in a sentence about how she got $5,000 for her first book or had been in love with a man for several years.

It is no doubt the cynical times that we know live in (or, perhaps, my own cynical nature) that makes it hard not to read these passages as an affected modesty. But I don't. There is a spiritual lesson here about what is of greater importance.

Then again, part of the nature of spiritual disciplines may be to learn not to despise the affected. Perhaps we know a feeling or emotion should be true, learning to act on that knowledge can sometimes bring about the state of feeling it to a greater degree than can simply waiting to feel, naturally, that which is unnatural.

In this section, Day speaks of some Roman Catholic friends and says, "I wondered why they never made any attempts to interest me in their faith" (106). The past tense is important here, suggesting that she wondered at the time, not merely in retrospect. I'm not sure what this meant. She states she went with them to mission but felt "outside." I thought while reading this of so many speeches through high school, undergraduate...so many sermons...about evangelism, about friendship. It is a hopelessly muddled topic in our age, and it seems the advice or instruction we get is always at a polar end of the spectrum: only the Holy Spirit can win people, our job is to stay out of the way; or, we are responsible for taking every opportunity to mention the gospel--speaking of "the" have you heard of "the" four spiritual laws?

I guess I don't find it strange that her friends did not try to interest her in their faith or that she did not perceive them as doing such. How many times have we tried to interest others only to be rebuffed, silenced, criticized, and told that religion is private? But that's a different time and so perhaps not fair to apply to her story. Yet I find it hard to believe that times are all that different of the polite (and less polite) ways of saying "keep your faith to yourself; I couldn't care less about it or you in areas where you are not who I want you to be or where you make me feel uncomfortable" have changed all that much.

I guess, then, what this chapter is making me contemplate is that for all those sermons, I'm unsatisfied with what I've heard or learned about evangelism. I'm still waiting to hear a theology of evangelism that makes sense to me, that is solidly Biblical (and not just reactionary), that I believe is timeless, like the gospels, and not just a justification of one's (or one's generation's) current practice, that frees people (Christian and non) to accept one another's decisions without making it a constant battle to force another's consent, logically or emotionally, or to shut another up.

Speaking of Peaking

Somewhere in the dustbin of hackneyed sports expressions that will be pulled out for March Madness is that of "peaking too soon."

I guess it is not always a good time to play your best game?

Exhibit A--I'm playing my first 40 and over tournament next weekend, The Crosstown Challenge. Two rounds at Zebulon Community Park and two rounds at Cedar Hills. I'd only played Zebulon once, last summer, and I'm pretty sure I was in the high sixties. I thought it would be a good idea to play it again before the tournament. The result? A 56.

Two days earlier, on a windy day, I shot a 56 at OT Sloan in Sanford, a course where I think my best score is like a 48. To be over par at OT Sloan is almost more embarassing than shooting a 56 at Zebulon is impressive.

But immediately I began wondering. Did I leave it all on the practice course? Was I peaking too early? Did I only have so many putts and approaches that I used up?

I did make a number of shots that I can't count on making with consistency. I took a deuce on hole #4 with a good drive (for me) and a long putt. I had quite a few upshots from 150-200 feet that I put to within putting range for a par opportunity. To do well at Zebulon, I need to drive well (for me). Course length is 6332, almost 2000 feet longer than OT Sloan's 4392. And I have to putt well--all of a sudden those 20 footers are for par rather than birdie. But I guess I can do it...I've done it before...unless I peaked too early.

Zebulon Community Park; Zebulon, NC

3-2-4 2-3-4 4-3-4 (OUT) 29
3-3-3 3-3-3 3-3-3 (IN) 27 (56)

Movies I Watched in February

Titles with a * indicate a movie I had seen before and reviewed:
Titles with a hotlink indicate a review available at http://movies.kenmorefield.com

2/2/2006: In Her Shoes (Hanson)(DVD)
2/5/2006: Hud (Ritt)(DVD)
2/7/2006: The Gospel According to St. Mathew (DVD)(Pasolini)
Run Lola Run* (DVD)(Twyker)
2/9/2006: Dead Man Walking*(DVD: Director Commentary)(Robbins)
2/11/2006: Screen Door Jesus (Davis)
2/12/2006: The War Within* (DVD: Director Commentary)(Akhtar)
2/15/2006: The Decameron (Pasolini)(DVD)
Wallace & Grommit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Park)(DVD)
2/17/2006: Mrs. Henderson Presents (Frears)
2/20/2006: Brokeback Mountain (Lee)
2/21/2006: The Crying Game* (Jordan)(DVD)
2/23/2006: The White Countess (Ivory)
2/26/2006: The Circle (Panahi)(DVD)
Pocahantas* (DVD)(Gabriel)

Best Viewing Experience--Hmmm. Probably the Crying Game. Best new viewing experience would probably be Mrs. Henderson Present.

Least Enjoyable Viewing Experience--Hud. Just didn't connect with it.

The Long Loneliness (83-88)

This section is entilted "Freelancing." Of particular interest to me was the way Day describes moving from a general religious sentiment towards a particular belief. She describes the role of art, particularly Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamozov in this process.

Day describes the recognition of religious longing in a way that reminds me of C.S. Lewis's ideas about myth. It's weird that the 20th century believes in instinct and naturalism more than religion but fails to incorporate man's almost instinctive religious/spiritual drive. Oh, I suppose it describes it intellectually as social conditioning (all those institutions brainwashing individuals) but really, as Day points out, there is a much more primal drive towards religious expression than can be explained as having cause in only political or social roots.

January Viewing Log

Films or videos I screened in January, 2006:

1/2: I Confess (Hitchcock) (DVD)*
1/3: Kingdom of Heaven (Scott) (DVD)
1/4: Last Days of Pompeii (DVD)
1/4: Ushpizin (Theatrical)
1/7: Ordet (Dreyer)(DVD)
1/9: Serenity (Whedon)(DVD)
1/16: The Squid and the Whale (Theatrical)
1/17: The Last Laugh (Der Letzte Mann)(DVD)(Murnau) *
1/18: Dominion: The Prequel to the Exorcist (Commentary Track-DVD)(Schrader)
1/20: The Squid and the Whale (Theatrical)*
1/20: Pride & Prejudice (Theatrical)
1/21: A Man Escaped (Bresson) (DVD)
1/24: A Man Escaped (Bresson)(DVD) *
1/24: The Man Who Planted Trees (DVD)*
1/26: The Lady Vanishes (DVD)(Hitchcock)
1/27: The Constant Gardener (DVD)
1/28: The Black Cauldron (DVD) *
1/28: Dekalog V (DVD)
1/29: Spellbound (DVD) (Hitchcock) *
1/31: Citizen Kane (DVD)*

Best Viewing Experience: A Man Escaped
Least Liked: The Constant Gardener
*Indicates a rescreening of something previously seen.

The Long Loneliness (67-83)

The two sections are entitled "The Masses" and "Jail." The latter is one of the more eloquent explanations of the spiritual effects of dehumanizing treatment.

In "The Masses," Day says of her friend Rayna:

She never met a Christian. This I am sure is
literally true. When we were at the university together, we never met anyone who had a vital faith, or, if he had one, was articulate or apostolic.
There were no doubt those whose souls glowed with
belief, whose hearts were warmed by the love of God, on all sides of us. But mingling as we did, in our life together, and in our life apart, with radical groups, we never met any whose personal morality was matched by a social morality or who tried to make life her for others a foretaste of the life to come. (70-1)

There is a lot here to think about: the use of the word "literally" to jar us out of the cliche to make the claim specific, the intersection of evangelism with personal relationships (ugh, passages like this make me hate the phrase "friendship evangelism" which seems to subsume the importance of personal connection to the use to which you put your relationship with the other person), the subtle but growing self recrimination of the social justice movement (or ideological socialism) as a thing separate from (though not necessarily incompatible with) faith in God.
It is this last point that makes Day's work so interesting to me. In this work we get an honest evaluation from within of a weakness of social justice divorced from a morality grounded in the recognition of a transcendent God. I recall Richard Foster writing in the Spiritual Formation Workbook about how various streams of the Christian tradition have had a tendency to be imbalanced by embracing fully only selected streams while neglecting others. This observation is sound. What makes Day's work interesting is that it is rare for people within a tradition or movement (as opposed to those who come after) to see and face those imbalances.
The jail section is very moving. I could quote the whole thing here.

I had no sense as I lay there of the efficacy of what I was doing. I had
instead a bitter awareness of the need of self-preservation, the need to escape, the need to endure somehow through the days of my imprisonment. I had an ugly sense of the futility of human effort, man's helpless misery, the triumph of might. Man's dignity was but a word and a lie. Evil triumphed. I was a petty creature, filled with self-deception, self-importance, unreal, false, and so, rightly scorned and punished. I was willing not only to say two and two were
five, but to think it. (79)

Earlier this month I screened the Robert Bresson film A Man Escaped, and I've been discussing it with some friends in another venue. Filmed in the 1950s, it uses prison, I think, as a symbol to contemplate existential dilemmas of the 20th century. Why strive to escape? Is freedom an illusion? What makes man significant if there is no freedom of choice? What do we mean when we say "breaking one's spirit"?
Day's passage here describes poignantly what has become a catch phrase lobbied about evangelical circles: brokenness of spirit. I remember a passage in the film in which Fontaine and Jost speak of what will come after the war. Fontaine insists that the Germans will lose and that there will be another world after the world of the current moment in which Jost will be held accountable for his choices. Jost says they will not lose.
In a mindset that can see only the present world, the ultimate good is survival. Day speaks of having no idea of the efficacy of the protest, only the need of "self-preservation" kicking in. What I find myself contemplating is how the "need to escape" and the "need to endure" are often in tension with one another. Early in the Bresson film, another prisoner tells Fontaine to stop trying to escape--he fears Fontaine will be caught and the whole cell row punished. The need for preservation pushes one to minimize risks, the need to escape may lead one to take risks that go against instinct where instinct is telling one what one needs to do to endure (and ultimately survive). This tension in the film, expressed by Fontaine's brief, "It's hard to take the plunge" answer of why he is hesitating, is what makes me see the providential nature of certain sufferings. Fontaine is sentenced to death; another prisoner is placed in his cell. Circumstances are changed in a way that is initially experienced as inconvenient or disappointing, and we feel God is against us or has abandoned us to the whims of fortune. Instead we come to see that the circumstance, while causing greater hardship for a season, ultimately helps Fontaine resolve some greater hardship or problem which he might not have been able to handle if left on his own or given what he, in his limited perspective, might think he wants.
Day, of course, does not escape. She endures. And she is eventually released, and the suffragettes are lauded for their suffering. It is not until later that she comes to remember that she was sustained by God in her brokenness:

I had no thought of religion these last days. I was very much of the world again, talking with others, reading and writing letters, and I no longer thought of the depths I had been in. To be so degraded was to be shamed and humbled, but I rejected the humiliation. I had seen myself too weak to stand alone, too weak to face the darkness of that punishment cell without crying out, and I was ashamed and again rejected religion that had helped me when I had been brought
to my knees by my suffering. (83)

The rain falls on the just and the not-yet just. Day is given the strength to endure. But Fontaine, by listening and being led, by accepting grace and not just receiving it, is given the strength to escape.

The Long Loneliness (51-67)

Hamlet, when asked by Polonious what he is reading, says "words." In his rogue and peasant monologue, he berates himself for only being able to respond to circumstances with words.

The pen is mightier than the sword, perhaps, but those who weild it often report of the impotence of words and the ways in which their use often fill our days in ways which make it appear we are doing more than we are.

Day writes of her early days as a journalist:

Life on a newspaper, whether radical or conservative, makes one lose all sense of perspective at the time. You are carried along in a world of events, writing, reporting, with no time at all for thought or reflection--one day listening to Trotsky, and the next day interviwing Mrs. Vincent Astor's butler; writing articles about the Navy Department's charges against Charles Schwab and other munitions makers, then stories about child labor in rural regions and in the laundries (one fourteen-year-old boy working ninety hours weekly). (65)

I suppose the key phrase here is "no time at all for thought or reflection" and that it is indciative of the way any task can fill our lives with activity--not just those that involve the production of words and yes, I'm thinking of teaching. The lack of reflective space within education is not new, but I wonder if it is increasing. I think back on my own undergraduate experience, and I wonder when I ever THOUGHT. Taking five classes a semeser, at times my recollection of it is one of accumulating information. But whether you are accumulating information to desseminate it (as a teacher or reporter) or report it back on a test--you are rarely trying to understand it, much less let it have a meaning in your life (at least to the extent that it affects your actions.

James compares the man who doubts to one buffetted about on the waves. Perhaps that is an apt metaphor for the one who is busy, too.

New Personal Best at Buckhorn

Is Raleigh discovering Buckhorn?

Was out yesterday, and there must have been 8 cars in the parking lot. Not crowded by Kentwood standards, but I've never seen that many at Buckhorn. Granted it was one of those days where you have to grab your opportunity to play (early January, before school is back in session), but still...

Got a new low, 51, from the white tees, and I hit the basket on three long putts. I did make pars on three of the four long holes, but I took a bogey on 17 (tree in my way for par putt) and 10 (approach got a roller and rolled away), which is to say, I left strokes on the course.

It felt good. I continue to putt loosey-goosey and agressive, which suits me. I did get a few good breaks on drives (you have to on a tight course).

I see there is a tourny coming up in February, so perhaps I will use it as the first in which I play Master division, since, yep, I get to move up to the 40 and over crowd.

Buckhorn:

3-3-3 3-3-3 2-2-3 OUT (25)
4-2-3 3-2-3 2-4-3 IN (26) 51

The Long Loneliness (36-50)

This section is entitled "University."

Day writes from a perspective of someone with a social conscience whose own hardship makes her keenly aware of the inequities that are part of life on earth.

Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of her description of university life is that she craved and went for the experience of independence rather than a degree. This attitude meant she attended the classes that interested her and from which she profited (or believed she did) intellectually.

In her early pages, Day captures the tone of zealous arrogance of youth and young adulthood, whether she describes religious piety or political certainty.

Really I led a very shiftliess life, doing for the first time exactly what I wanted to do, attending only those classes I wished to attend, coming and going at whatever hour of the night I pleased. My freedom intoxicated me. I felt it was worth going hungry for (44).

Earlewood/Chapin; Columbia, SC

Day two of my December disc golf holiday was a chance to revisit two courses I played several years ago.

Earlewood was a bit cold, but I shot a 59, and I didn't get many breaks. I putted well, but I hit many trees off drives. Not bad drives, just some bad luck. There are a number of elevation changes that make birdie opportunities scarce, and pars tough if you don't get solid drives. More of an old growth park in a downtown area; I like it, but I don't love it.

Chapin...well there is something about Chapin that just isn't user friendly. The first time I was there, I saw several players cheating at an Ice Bowl (charity event); I got sick on venison they but in chili; on one hole I find a crab that has been placed to bake on top of the basket (I put it back in the water); there are people who take multiple practice putts with others waiting. Last time I was here, I shot a 69 from the long tees. This time, I shoot a 56 from the short. I get a bad kick on the island hole, or I would have shot par. Still, despite shooting better, I'm glad to be done with this course. It's tedious.

Trying to decide whether to play Camden again on the way home (or maybe even Arnette in Fayetteville).

Woodward Park; Camden, SC

Christmas disc golf excursion got off to a good start.

When I left Buies Creek the winds were blowing very hard, but by the time I got to Woodward, it was high 50s and not too much wind. The course was okay. The short tees were a bit too short, and the long ones were pretty narrow through the woods. Being as rusty as I was, I expected to struggle, but I putted surprisingly well. The biggest problem was that I kept throwing the Sidewinder, but it went left too quickly. It took me about 7 holes to decide I wasn't throwing hard enough to turn the Sidewinder and I settled down.

I got a deuce on the artificial island hole and hit a 15 footer to save par on 18 to keep me under for the round.

Woodward Park; Camden,SC:

2-4-3 2-3-5 4-2-3 OUT (28)
3-3-3 3-3-2 3-2-3 IN (25): 53

Classic Arcade Games: Over/Under Rated

I got one of those joysticks that you can plug into your tv to play classic video arcade games. Mappy sure was an underrated game. That got me thinking...

Ten Most Overrated Arcade Games

10) Defender: I just never quite got it.
9) Centipede: Okay, the only game my wife consistently beat me at (before there was Area 51 or Police Trainer), but still.
8) Frogger: Conceptually okay, but it should just be to get across the road, not into one of the silly houses.
7) Dragon's Lair: Yes, the animation was A+, but as a game, it really wasn't that interesting.
6) Gauntlet: "Wizard needs food, badly..." the first game I thought was designed to suck quarters rather than actually be playable on one.
5)Crystal Castle: Ick.
4)Tetris: A great game for a Gameboy. For an arcade game it was rather tedious.
3) Jungle Hunt: The most annoying game I could never seem to stop playing, maybe because there was never a line.
2) Galaga: I know, this is probably a controversial choice. Docking ships was a nice touch, but it was (and is) still too tied to the Space Invaders template for that late in the game.
1) Ms. Pac-Man: It's like the WNBA, I'm glad it's there and all, but it's really not that entertaining.



Ten Most Underrated Arcade Games

10) Time Pilot: A bit too repetitive, ultimately, but still a fun shoot em up.
9) Mappy: Not quite a classic, but a lot of fun with the doors being clever touches.
8) Arkanoid: Man, those pale blue "D" pills were annoying, but the Laser was fun.
7) Crazy Climber: Hard on the joysticks, but it was fun.
6) Rip Off: My favorite Asteroids derivative. One of the few games that was fun for two players
5) Q*Bert: It didn't hurt that I could turn the game over on a quarter.
4) Elevator Action: Surpsingly addictive little game with minimal graphics but responsive contrls.
3) Klax: Someday I want somebody in a South Park/American Pie type comedy to say "Oooooooo, Klax" right at the moment she...well, never mind.
2) Donkey Kong, Jr.: A bit early for the cute graphics, but a very playable game.
1) Buster Brothers: This game seriously rocked.

The Long Loneliness (26-36)

This section contains chapter headings entitled "Home" and "Adolesence."

One trouble that I had with the longer section is that the bulk of it contained a letter Day had written. Then, immediately after giving it, she says, "Written when I was fifteen, this letter was filled with pomp and vanity and piety" (34). Since I didn't experience the letter that way, I wanted her to explain what she meant, but she just sort of goes on to talk about other things. So, I was frustrated both that I wasn't sure what she meant and that she had apparently devoted two full pages to replicating a letter in full only to dismiss it as being unworthy of being remembered.

The most resonant passage in this section for me was in "Home":

"I remember even sad summer afternoons when there was nothing to do, and suddenly everything palled and life was dull and uninteresting. Our parents did nothing to offer us distraction and entertainment. We were forced to meet our moods and overcome them. There were times when my sister and I turned to housework from sheer boredom."

What's so resonant about it?
I've been thinking some in the last year about boredom. What is it? What causes it? Is it a spiritual and emotional condition? (There are hints in this passage that it is.) Is it environmentally prompted, temperamentally caused, or created by a variety of factors?

What is the relationship between economic class and boredom? I'm reminded of Jane Ausen's Emma as a literary example of the idea that boredom can be oppressively pressed upon anyone, regardless of class, by limiting the options of what they are allowed to do.

Then again, this passage reminds me that many of the things we do in response to boredom are merely diversions or distractions from it, and they may not address the underlying spiritual or emotional causes that are making life appear "dull and uninteresting." So, in some reverse way, is the lack of economic resources that forces Day, even at a young age, back on herself, a good thing? Solomon who was both rich and wise, takes a long time to get to the point where he admits that all things are wearisome.

Pondering.