posted 2007/06/22 at 14:31
I could go with a number of possible lead-ins to the Friday Five here. For international football fans, today marks twenty-one years to the day that Diego Maradona made history twice, first with the "Hand of God" goal and then the goal that would later be named as the Goal of the Century, although ironically enough the former goal is inarguably more famous. This is also the birthday of Cyndi Lauper, my childhood love of whom I can directly trace into my getting into professional wrestling for the first time. I might also note the interesting juxtaposition of this being the birthday of both the recently-deceased 60 Minutes reporter Ed Bradley and Fox News' Brit Hume.
However, I can't help but lead in here by noting that on 1969.06.22 the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire, and the subsequent reporting on this event by Time magazine was, as much as anything, one of the primary catalysts of the modern-era environmental movement. What's important to note here, though, was that this was far from the first time that the Cuyahoga caught fire; in fact, the first recorded instance of the river catching fire dates all the way back to 1936. It took some 33 years for people to realize that if a river catches fire, there might be stuff in the water that probably shouldn't be in there that should be cleaned out. Even today the river is still polluted enough that the EPA identifies part of it as a "Great Lakes Area of Concern." So the next time one of Cleveland's sports teams chokes in the playoffs, just remind yourself, it may be something in the water over there. On that note, let's play the friday5.org Friday Five!
1. If you get the first choice of Monopoly tokens, which do you choose? If someone else chooses it first, which is your second choice?
It's been so long since I've played Monopoly that I can only remember that I usually pick either the wheelbarrow or the boot. I know I preferred one as a kid, but I can't remember which one. I have a Monopoly set out in the garage somewhere, boxed in with all my other board games and pen-and-paper RPG stuff that I've never bothered to search out since it got boxed up after the house fire. At this point it'd probably just be easier for me to bust out my copy of Monopoly for the NES.
2. What’s a board game you are especially bad at?
I barely ever play board games any more, except on the rare instance when Jeff comes over and brings one, and I have free time to play. Instead of responding with a particular game here, I'll have to say that I'm just generally bad at games that involve ruses or deceptions, because even though my expression in naturally emotionless and I have a great poker face, I put so much energy into keeping it up that I tire myself out quickly and can't keep it up for any serious period of time.
3. What board game are you particularly good at?
Again, I'll just have to go with a general category here and say trivia games, particularly games where the trivia isn't so, well, trivial. I have a "velcro brain" that tends to pick up all kinds of interesting details and keep hold of them forever, but the less useful the knowledge is, the less likely I am to retain it for a significant period of time.
4. How competitive do you get while playing board games or party games?
Too competitive. I tend to be a very anti-competitive person in most of my life, so when a situation comes up for my competitiveness to come to the forefront, like when I'm playing a board game, it tends to get kicked into overdrive. Heck, I'm still castigating myself for a simple mental error I made when playing one of Jeff's trivia games close to a month ago.
5. What’s your favorite board game? What’s a board game you can’t stand?
If I ever had a favourite board game as a child, it was either Monopoly or Life, depending on which one we actually had the pieces to play with. (Yeah, I was terrible about losing game pieces when I was young.) I kind of got out of board games when the dare-based games first started coming out, but had I been around for those, I probably would have hated them because I got picked on enough for all the dumb stuff I did by accident without being prompted to do more dumb stuff on purpose by a game.
1. I'm almost always the hat.
2. My daughter's [i]Tamagotchi no Ikiru Michi Ge-mu[/i], which I have never won at. Also Candyland, because I'm color blind. :-(
3. Battleship.
4. Used to be competitive, but family life has worn me down. Now I just want everyone to have fun, and if that means me tanking the game, then so be it...though I did trash my youngest sister at Monopoly last Christmas. ;-)
5. "SMATH", a scrabble like game that you play with equations instead of words.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon