I am such a player

Who loves games more than I do?  Since there is no real way to quantify this, I will just go ahead and pick up the crown and wear it!  Queen of Gaming!

I love games.  Not mind games, not relationship games, no, not any of those things.  Board games, card games, all sorts of domino type games, dice games and the Big Top of the Heap game . . . . .

MAH JONGG!!

I love Mah Jongg.  This is a great game.  People who know how to play will always want to get a game going.  I have never met a single person who learned to play Mah Jongg and then said "Nah, never mind, not so much".  Of course, I wouldn't hang out with people like that and maybe that's why I have never met them.  But anyhoo, I will repeat myself.  This is a great game.

With this in mind, you might be surprised, even bumfuzzled to learn that my family will begrudgingly play with me about once every blue moon.  What!?  you say?  How can that be?  (all aghast and taken aback)  And that is exactly what I say!  What?  What do you MEAN you don't want to play Mah Jongg with me?

What gives with relatives doing this?  What gives with Evil Husbands and Ungrateful Children not wanting to play my favorite game with me?  That is what I want to know.  I think I should make a rule. A proclamation, if you will.  "If you expect to enjoy my home, my largesse; you might want to brush up on your Mah Jongg skills".  Ha!

Ok, now back to other board games.  Rachel Pie got us a new board game for Christmas called Wise and  Otherwise.  It is similar , no it is exactly the same as Balderdash but with really cool sayings from all over the world.  We played this many times over the holidays and had such fun with it.

We also played Jonathon's new Grateful Dead-opoly.  That was a fun game too.  I love all the Monopoly games and different versions of it.  I own about 6 or 7 different Monopoly games.  One from my childhood, one anniversary edition, one Texas version, another newer anniversary edition, I would have to go look at them to tell you the rest.  I love to play Skip-bo, Uno, Trivial Pursuit, Spades, Gin Rummy, heck, I will even play Solitaire for hours.  Oh, and games from my childhood; not only do I have my old Monopoly, but also my Life and my Twister.  The game of Life has changed over the years.  I don't care for the newer, up-dated, PC version.  My old one where you either choose well or end up in the poorhouse is much better!

Long ago in a smaller city, not so far away, Mr. Big Ed and I had some really good friends who had kids of similar ages to our own small fries.  Every Friday night we would get together and cook, eat, drink beer, play with the kids, then get them jammied-up and parked in front of a movie to fall asleep and then we would play games.  99.9% of the time it was Trivial Pursuit.  Oh, what fun that was!  With Mr. Big Ed trying to sneak off to find a dictionary or encyclopedia to look up answers while pretending to be going to the bathroom!  And our good friend, let's call her "Hot Check Lil" saying "I'll be right back" and then sneaking off and going to bed.  That left me and Mr. Hot Check Lil to battle it out for the weekly crown and the bragging rights.  Then we would scoop up our sleeping babes and take them home and get ready for next week.

I love Bunco and Farkle. And that comes from playing Yahtzee as a kid, I guess.  There are these new "gaming" stores that have all sorts of D&D games and such.  Anyhoo, these stores sell the coolest dice you can imagine.  Not just six-sided white with black dots.  Oh no, these aren't your Great Aunt Tilly's dice!  You should check them out.  (If I would sit and spend a couple hours on my new and fancier-than-fancy computer and learn how, I would post some photos of all these cool dice.  But since I haven't you will have to look for them your own selves.)

Staying at home (or going to a friend's) and playing games is such a great way to spend a day, or an evening.  It's interactive (as opposed to watching a movie), it's inexpensive, it exercises your brain, it works on your team-building skills, strategizing and even evil manipulations.

Do you play games?  Any favorites?  Any that you recommend?