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Solitare ... November 26, 2005
How much human ingenuity is wasted every day on the pursuit of a higher computer solitare score? I am occasionally of the opinion that the game, not to mention a few other computer based games, ought to be illegal. Of course, you have to catch me when I'm at my most fascist or I will probably never admit to this opinion. Still, imagine all the things that would get done if Microsoft had never included that insideous, trance enducing program with their operating system. Have you ever noticed that you can be bored of whatever tedious but essential work you happen to be doing, start up solitare, "just for a moment," you tell yourself, and the next thing you know, it's three weeks later. Your cat has starved to death. Your children have ceased to return from school because you haven't fed them or even acknowledged them for at least two weeks. Your wife has long since packed up and moved in with her boyfriend. You can't stop clicking, even though you are beginning to grow weak from lack of sustinance and you are turning yellow because you haven't been to the bathroom in almost six days. And sleep? No way. You can't sleep until you win just one more game. Until you accumulate at least 500 points, no 1000, no... The only thing you can do is click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Does that cashier you saw at the supermarket last month want to sleep with you? She does if you win this game. No, you meant THIS one...no...THIS one. You might realize all of the sudden, but still much too late, that little Johnny, who now lives elsewhere with his mother, kicked you in the shin last week when you couldn't hear him whining that he was hungry. You might vaguely remember that your wife had at some point while she was still around screamed in your ear. Something about your boss calling to tell you that you're fired. Like you care. Click. Click. Click. You catch the three of them in the act. The queen smiles at you from between the jack and the king. She mouths at you to join them. Click. Click. Click. Now the king is on top of her, though, and her face is obscured in a 2-dimensional reality that, though you control it as a god, you can never enter. You are God of this reality, and your mouse pointer is your prophet, or maybe a demon instead, come to save or perhaps to damn the souls of an entire dynasty of card people. To tear them from the mire of a shuffled deck and give their existance meaning, order, even triumph, or chaos and death. Your call. Thanks to your efforts, somewhere between her husband and her lover, the queen is screaming in 2-dimensional ecstacy, inaudible to your now useless 3-dimensional ears. Click. Click. Click. You win! Pixelated fireworks! Flying cards! And oh, the ultimate, mind bending pleasure of the neverending positive feedback loop! Do you want to start another game? Deal again? Yes? Yes? Click. Your shriveled fingers twitch feebly upon the mouse. Your distended belly screams for water, but you ignore it. You know death is coming soon, and you almost stand up to fix yourself a meal, go to the bathroom, take a shower or maybe a nap, but the jack on the desktop eyes you expectantly. Your legs are too weak to carry you from the computer desk and into the kitchen, anyways. You can't have a sandwich until you win another round. And one more. One more. Deal again? Hell yes.
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