We need to have fun. It is another holiday week. A time of the year you worship God again. The kids are home from school. We need to be thankful of what we have left and to spend time with the family. But How? We can’t drive anywhere, it’s too expensive. The Gas Gods are now raising the price of gasoline by 15 cents a day, close to $5.00 a gallon. We can’t fly anywhere, it’s too dangerous. The transportation Gods have only one air traffic controller in the tower for 15 hour shifts rotation that they can’t get enough sleep or are left alone to entertain themselves and watch movies instead of the monitors that help land planes so they land themselves. Or, they make planes larger than ever, larger than a 747 with wider wing spans but don’t widen the runways so that when they roll down the runway, they spin smaller planes around and damage fuel filled wings. Or, they cavity check my 6 year old with a full body weapons and drug frisk at the airport.

This year we need to stay home and play games. Throughout the years we have spent thousands of dollars on Play Station I, II,III and on Atari and games for small devices like DS and all the little computer plug in games and countless electrical game players that won’t even plug into any TV you now own.. All this junk changed so rapidly, you can’t even sell most of the things back to a game store. Try to find Candy Land there!!!!!

We need real games, games that last. Chess, one of the great board games, had it’s roots in India and 1500 years ago spread to Persia. If your board with board games, you haven’t bee to Gencon. Each year as many as 30,000 gamers go to Indianapolis to watch and play board games dusted off and opened on card tables for your pleasure. Pandemic, Rattus, Power Grid, Ticket to Ride Europe etc. games you never heard of since you are already sick of Life and Operation.

Many of the games are imports from Europe. Games like “Settlers of Catan” with players building rival colonies on a fictional island, has sold 18 million copies. No electricity needed for this kind of fun. People have lost all their social interactions. They play games alone on their newest battery charged things. Maybe kids would not be strung out on drugs and booze if they had places to go to, to just play board games. I know, I sound like I’m telling you to go to a senior center.

The best part of a board game over a video game even with a Bluetooth conversation is that when you win you can see the frustration on your opponents faces. Priceless. Video games now dominate the market. Board games now have on line and I pad versions. You move the pieces with your thumb on a screen. Ironically, the App game “Angry Birds” is now a board game.

Board games are an investment, If I buy a boxed game, I can still play it 10 years from now. No electrical problems. Board games have been around for thousands of years. Candy Land was originally made in the early days of this century to keep Polio victims happy since they couldn’t walk well. The new European games are unique because there is no loser, no one gets thrown out of the game. In “Piece of Cake” the goal is to simply get the most pieces of pie. The emphasis is on strategy and not on dumb luck. Each game takes about 30 minutes to solve. That’s enough time with the kids. Learning how to play with others is enough of a process in this competitive world of me first get out of the way mentality.