Trying to Invent Our Own Party Game

Through the years, at all of our family get-togethers, reunions, and such, we've done the party game thing with games such as Trivial Pursuit, Taboo, Apples to Apples, Wits and Wagers, Scattergories, Pictionary... the list goes on and on.

A weekend or so ago with all my family in town, we went out and procured three relatively newer ones: Loaded Questions, Pass the Popcorn, and Would You Rather... All were fun in their own ways and got us laughing, joking, and poking at each other... and then it got me to thinking -- I need to come up with one of these games. How hard can it be?

Brainstorming, my first and probably best thought - MUSIC!!! - I wasn't aware of any party game out there using music as its focus. Many of us go online and play the 80s or 90s or 2000s music trivia quizzes and that's fun, but how about rolling all that into a party game? And then, there used to be the game show "Name That Tune", and why not steal some elements of that. And then on the 101 station (DirecTV), I flipped across a quirky little game show: Rock and a Hard Place, where the Bay City Rollers were taking on Leif Garret and cronies in a new little game show. One of the interesting things they did there was give one contestant a kazoo, and he had to play a relatively famous song with the little instrument for his other team members to guess. Something like that to throw in a party game would be really cool, fun, and would really garner the guffaws. Think about it! Your crazy cousin blowing on a kazoo to some Dionne Warwick, Ten CC, or Rick James tune at which everyone could guess and mostly get wrong. Everyone'd be rolling in laughter all the while punching the cousin for his utter lack of musical talent!

So maybe you could have cards where contestants guess at songs with four to six categories (i.e Lyric Snippet, Song Facts, Kazoo Tune, and we'd have to think of a couple more), and you'd have a color-coated board path corresponding with each of the categories. You could have cards, or better yet - game versions, with differing types of music (i.e. classic rock, pop, country, alternative, etc.). The board would have a path to the Grand Stage where we'd need a cool final game twist for a person to win -- we'll have to think about that.

Alright, so I've gotten the ball rolling. Can anyone help me out here? Or maybe you have a better game that's not about music at all. Use your imagination. I am looking for board games, for the most part, rather than something like bouncing-a-quarter-off-a-tabletop-into-a-shot-glass-else-you-drink type of fun and frolic. And I'll keep at it, too.

Surely... surely, we can come up with something fun and ingenious! Then, we'll patent it, and anyone who responded in the comments can become millionaires along with us when the game sales royalties start waterfalling in. Here we go!

Bests and Worsts # 1

Name your best and worst of the following:

The Best Kevin Costner Movie:

The Worst Kevin Costner Movie:

The Best Stephen King Novel/Story:

The Best Worst Stephen King Novel/Story:

The Best Seinfeld Episode:

The Worst Seinfeld Episode:

The Best Rolling Stones Song:

The Worst Rolling Stones Song:

The Best Saturday Morning Cartoon Character:

The Worst Saturday Morning Cartoon Character:

The Best Holiday Dessert:

The Worst Holiday Dessert:

The Best Movie/TV Cowboy:

The Worst Movie/TV Cowboy:

The Best of the Newspaper Comic Strips:

The Worst of the Newspaper Comic Strips:

The Best of Superman's foes:

The Worst of Superman's foes:

The Best Christmas Gift You Ever Received:

The Worst Christmas Gift You Ever Received:

That's ten and enough for this round. Feel free, if you want, to add the whys and whatfors regarding your choices. Those tidbits are generally fun to hear.

Greenery

Little add-on game I guess I'll try. This could bomb big time - but... I have to be okay with that. I'm gonna list three green veggies, and your job is to rank them as you like them from best-to-worst, and then ADD ON two more green vegetables that are missing from the list - and then everyone has to re-rank again, adding ones we didn't have before. Now, by "green vegetables", what I mean are: vegetables that are COLORED GREEN.

Example:

turnip greens - green vegetable (they're green)

turnips - not green vegetables (they're some shade of off-white or sometimes yellow)

So carrots, rutabagas, squash - out, out, out. Green onions - in. Most other onions - out.

Get it? We'll see how many we can get to -- and see who likes what and who hates what -- before our heads explode. Or we get bored, which may have already happened for some of you. Sorry, if that's the case. Nonetheless...

This game sort of fits in with The Realm's current golf-putting-green decor. I know what you're thinking, and I'm thinking the same thing: STUPID COMPUTER GAME!!! At least you didn't wake up thinking that you'd see this stupid computer game here at The Realm of Possibility. Certainly, you may have thought you might see some variation of a stupid computer game as we've had lots of those... but this one? Never!!! Still, you have to play, because Mommie always told you:

EAT YOUR GREEN VEGETABLES!!!

List start - fav to least fav:

1) collard greens

2) green beans

3) green onions

Start adding green veggies!!!

ARG

At the risk of embarrassing myself by speaking about something of which I know very little, I present the concept of Alternate Reality Gaming or ARG.

This should not be confused with virtual reality or role playing games, though ARG may in some way owe some of its principles to ideas developed in these endeavors. Confused?

Well, ARG seems to pride itself on remaining elusive, even mysterious. It intentionally stays out of the spotlight, and yet snickers as it parades right before your eyes without you even knowing it's there.

So, what is ARG, and why should you care?

The short answer is that it's a cool multimedia scavenger hunt utilizing real world events in a secretive, highly sophisticated, conspiracy theory, secret agenty way. And you should only care about ARG, if you like fun and enjoy being in the in-crowd or if you are a writer.

Why a writer? Because the complicated structure, twists and turns, and ultimate resolution are very much like the well-developed plot of a great novel. A few novel writers have already realized this and are actively involved in developing new ARGs. And the best part is that ARG marketing is intentionally minimalist (called the This Is Not A Game aesthetic) and dependent on word-of-mouth and information sharing.

Intrigued? Curious? Check out the Wikipedia entry on ARGs or the trendy ARG headquarters at Unfiction.com.

Good luck finding a rabbithole and be wary of the puppetmasters!!

X Degrees of Separation (DugALugs's Game)

All credit to Doug for this one.

One of the cool things about going back and re-reading some of the classic standards laid out spectacularly by our own Diabolical Genius here in The Realm in his All-Time Favorite Realm Posts post, is that some of your -- you, our fair Realm denizens -- comments were golden. One such comment in the Cliches of the World post -- and that post is an outstanding example of our commenters making The Realm of Possibility far better than it could be with just Ken or me rambling -- was from our pal, DugALug who suggested a game that will probably remind you, of the old Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon exercise. I'm gonna lay out Doug's comment, in its entirety, right here for game instructions and examples:

Rich/Ken

Here is an idea for a post. How about calling it something like X degrees of separation. Start with an item/object/person/place Using one commmon word from the current state for the seed of the transitioned state. Here are two examples:

1) Bart Simpson
2) O.J. Simpson (The Juice)
3) Juice Newton
4) Orange Juice
5) Orange Julius
6) King Julius Caesar
7) Elvis Presley (The King)
8) Lisa Marie Presley
9) Lisa Marie Simpson (Bart's sister)

Or

1) Poison Ivy
2) Ivy League
3) Justice League of America
4) Captain America
5) Captain Cave Man
6) The Bat Cave
7) Batman

What do you think?

-Doug

Well, I'll tell you what I think, Doug. I think it's a great idea to try. So -- and this may be a bit of a departure from your rules, Douggie, but I think it might help the continuity of an ongoing Net game -- we can use one liners or characters from books, movies, TV shows, and then famous sayings, historical figures, lines from historical speeches, pop culture references, etc. to try to keep our connected separations going. Just one word has to match from the comment above. Also, like all these sort of games that we try, let's try not to post consecutively unless the game stagnates to the point someone feels like they have to if they want to try to keep it going -- I'll try to keep the comments moderated frequently so we don't have overlaps. This should be a great memory exercise for all of us, and let's try to get some clever references so it's fun!

I'll get it started in the first comment block.

[Ed. Note: Doug, if I've mischaracterized the game - just start it over in a comment, and tell us how it's done. Thanks, man!]

{Ed. Note 2: Forget the promise of trying to keep comments moderated frequently so we don't have overlaps.}

{Ed. Note 3: I will now embrace the overlap, intentionally posting a few of my own.}

Oh the Humanities!

High connoisseurs of all things artistic that we are here at The Realm of Possibility, I present the quiz you'll find below my bloviating. Prior to the couth that I now parade, back in the days of yore, I recall disputing with my 12th grade Humanities teacher, Ms. Flannagan, that people couldn't tell the difference between what passes for modern art and something a child might create. The following exam takes my assertion one step farther, and includes not only a preschool child but also an animal, that being an elephant from the Calgary zoo. Now that I've become more refined in my middle years, I have some time ago recanted my former position and stand squarely in the ranks championed by my former Humanities mentor. In an effort to prove the stance to which we hold fast, let me take no more time other than to, first, present the players - they shall be your choices for the pictures below.


Jean Miotte is a semi-famous contemporary artist who resides in New York, NY. Her work is displayed in many private galleries, and a few public galleries, including the famous Guggenheim Museum. She expresses herself with gestural brushstrokes and thick color pools, inspired by her inner conflicts.


Jackson Pollock was an influential American artist and a major force in the abstract expressionism movement. By the mid to late 1940's he developed a painting method which made him famous: dripping paint on large flat canvasses to create expressions of "unconscious imagery". Jackson Pollock died in Long Island, New York, in a car accident.


Kamala the elephant resides in the Calgary Zoo in Alberta, Canada. Kamala expresses her mood through a form of "finger (or, should we say, trunk) painting", using custom made brushes onto an easel mounted canvas. Some of her paintings have sold for over 2,000 dollars!


Ian Ford is a preschooler from the United States. He likes to eat paste (just kidding).

Please choose from the "artists" above which one you think rendered each of the seven following paintings:


Picture A:

Picture B:

Picture C:

Picture D:
Picture E:


Picture F: Picture G:

Now, I feel fully confident that our Realm denizens will each score 100% on this fine artistic examination, however, I'll just voice that we are on the honor system here, so please aim to make the choices your own and not to look at what commenters previous to you have committed themselves to so far as their decisions.

[Note: the above contest is a straight rip from the animation and web design company's site, http://www.your3dsource.com/. The answers to the quiz above are on this page here. Again, go to the site, if you wish, but please don't look at the answers until after you've posted the answers under our comments section. Thanks! Enjoy!]

Infomercialicious (including all $19.95/$9.95 Commercials)

Back in the neophytic heyday of The Realm of Possibility, one of the authors of this blog -- I'm not sure whether or not it was the talented one -- put up easily one of our Top 100 posts ever, that being Commercialicious. Okay, maybe it just got squeaked out of the Top 100, but it's doubtless in the Top 200 of our all-time posts.

Harkening back to golden days of yore, when we had a following at least seventeen (or sixteen or twelve or for sure at least one) times (or time) as large as the one we have now, I thought it was time to put up its ugly, red-headed, step-cousin (not that I'm an advocate of uglyredheadedstepcousinism -- I'm most emphatically NOT!!!): Infomercialicious.

However, this time, I'm not throwing out a list of 20 infomercials. I'm not giving anything but a couple to start us off and then it's up to all Realm denizens to fill up the comments with record numbers. That's right, this time, I'm actually going to try to engage the audience, especially any of the anonymouses out there. Just name one infomercial that you've seen per comment, and along with infomercials, let's add any of those commercials for product not available in stores that has an actual retail value of $6,749. 50 but you can get it if you call now for two installments of $19.95, and if you call in the next ten minutes, they'll throw in the Swiss Army Knife made in Greece and they'll cut the first payment to $9.95. You know the ones.

Alright all you Kevin Trudeaus out there, get all your Time/Life infomercials ready. Here are my first two:

1) Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special

2) The Perfect Push-up, created by Alden Mills (pictured right)

Let me hear 'em!

Versus

We make choices everyday. Some of them are big, important conscious decisions, and then there are these.

If faced (and you are) with having to make a choice of one versus the other, which would you pick?

Give us your preferences and the reasons why in the comments, and we'll use your answers and a very scientific formula to draw some interesting conclusions about your personality.

Good luck! And check back to see how you did.

1) Movie theater Junior Mints vs. Movie theater Goobers
2) Trip to the Beach vs. Trip to the Mountains
3) Elliptical Machine vs. Treadmill
4) Spring vs. Autumn
5) Milk Chocolate vs. Dark Chocolate
6) Interstate vs. Scenic highway
7) Savage tan vs. SPF50
8) Being sad vs. Being scared
9) 2 ten dollar bills vs. 1 twenty dollar bill
10) Birkenstocks vs. Crocs
11) Bad odor vs. Bad taste
12) Ripped pants vs. Wet shirt
13) Belching vs. Flatulence
14) Chicken salad sandwich vs. Tuna salad sandwich
15) Classic styles vs. Trendy styles
16) Old friend vs. New friend
17) Dolphin vs. Porpoise
18) Water slide vs. Roller coaster
19) Jules Verne vs. Robert Louis Stevenson
20) Goatee vs. Soul Patch
21) Being the recipient of a thoughtful gesture vs. Being the recipient of a compliment
22) Nap on the couch vs. Nap in a hammock
23) Holidays vs. Vacation
24) Aisle vs. Window
25) Slapstick vs. Wit
26) Logic vs. Emotion
27) Whipped cream vs. Cool Whip
28) High School Reunions vs. Family Reunions
29) ALF vs. ET
30) Canadians vs. Australians
31) Gifts vs. Gift Certificates
32) Jet skiing vs. Water skiing
33) Yardwork vs. Housework
34) Ostentatious vs. Precocious
35) Phone call vs. Email
36) Winning the lottery vs. Finding buried treasure
37) Sweating vs. Shivering
38) “Oh no, you di-unt.” vs. “Don’t even go there.”
39) Blue ink vs. Black ink
40) Ukelele vs. Bag pipes
41) Rainbows vs. Sunbeams
42) The sound of your own voice vs. The way you look in photos
43) Extremely firm handshake vs. Extremely weak handshake
44) Runny nose vs. Nagging cough
45) Packing vs. Unpacking
46) A hole in the toe of your sock vs. A hole in the seat of your underwear
47) Zoos vs. Botanical gardens
48) Trip to the dentist vs. Tax day
49) Awkward comment vs. Awkward silence
50) Too much Rich vs. Too little Rich

Wait a minute. Were #49 and #50 redundant?

Musicational Song Quiz

Last night, the 4th of July, as my brother, sister, brother-in-law, nephews and I were riding home from watching the fireworks displays around town, we were listening to a 70s, 80s, and 90s station, and believe it or not, we heard the song, Saturday Night by the Bay City Rollers. It had been waaaaaaaaaaay tooooooooooo long!

Side note: Fantastic "Bad 70s" song for Ipods and mp3s everywhere including for me (except I don't have an Ipod or mp3)
Additional Side Note for no real reason: The Bay City Rollers were the first guys I ever noticed, as a child, on the Teen Beat and other mags of that ilk. Before the Cassidy boys or Leif Erickson. Before any of the Gibbs. They were the first guys I ever knew in those mags. Not that I ever bought one. I didn't!!!

Anyway, my brother, Brett, who has commented infrequently on this site before, made the astute point that not only was this song fun music but that it was also educational for its spelling content. So it got me to thinking, what songs can you name off the top of your head (NO CHEATING on Google or other search engines!!!) in which words are spelled out? Let's brainstorm.

And I'm not talking about children's songs like The Mickey Mouse Club Song, Bingo, or The B-I-B-L-E (That's the Book for Me)... that's not what I'm talking about at all. No, what I'm talking about is music by professional musicians in the rock, pop, soul, R&B, country, etc. categories.

Right now, I can only come up with four, but I know there have to be more. My four are:

Saturday Night by the Bay City Rollers (spell out "Saturday" in the song)
Respect by Aretha Franklin (song title is spelled out in song)
Safety Dance by Men Without Hats (at the song's intro, "Safety" is spelled)
Gloria by Van Morrison (song title is spelled out in song)

I'll list any more I can think of in the comments.

Alright, who's got more? Wow us!

Update to Know Your Shakespeare # 2,371,839

UPDATE: Few entered, even less won. Astonishing. The prize was going to be a fishing pole whereby you could go out on either your real or imaginary boat and fish and dwell upon William Shakespeare's plays, sonnets, and poems for hours at a time. Probably a cane pole as we're monetarily starved here in The Realm of Possibility for the moment. Alas, no one guessed correctly.

William Shakespeare was Dog # 2. Thank you for playing.

Perhaps an easier contest coming your way soon. Such as: What the X is the 24th letter in our English alphabet? Or better yet, what is the fourth whole integer in a numeric line starting with the integer 1? But we'll see. We've got to get a contest here that somebody gets right sometime.

So keep on playing and please, please, please ignore my sarcastic barbs. As we know, only little, tiny, spineless, amoeba-like blog hosts throw sarcastic barbs at the very people nice enough to comment on their ridiculous posts.

------------------------------------------------------------

Which one of these dogs is named William Shakespeare? DON'T CHEAT!!!

One:............................................................................Two:











Three:......................................................................... Four:













Five:.......................................................................... Six:











MANY CAN WIN!!! Few will enter.

Will let you know who wins sometime before eternity starts. I think.

Movie Tag, You're It!

How well do you guys know your movie tag lines? Heck, how well do I know them? Tag lines are at the top or bottom of movie posters -- as opposed to movie slogans, such as "I'll be back!" from Terminator. Here's a quiz I got from this site, and quoting from it, here's what it says about tag lines and the quiz:

Taglines appear at the bottom of movie posters and in movie trailers. Taglines can sell the premise of a film, they can tease you with excitement, sex, violence, and scares, or they can just be funny. Collected below are the the famous and infamous, the funniest, and most groan-inducing taglines Hollywood ever wrote.

(Obviously, you can go to the site and cheat, but why not test yourself against the rest of The Realm to see who is the movie tag line king or queen? And, sadly, we'll also find out who the movie tag line joker is as well.)

Update: Since I don't grade on a curve and all The Realm denizens seemed to be failing, maybe I tested too hard - sorry Millie, since you've already looked. So now I'm including some hints.

1) A comedy about fear of commitment, hating your job, falling in love and other pop favorites. Hint: Top 5 lists

2) A Masterpiece Of Modern Horror Hint: Red rum

3) A nervous romance. Hint: A neurotic, New Yorkian director

4) A tale of murder, lust, greed, revenge, and seafood. Hint: Listed as a favorite comedy on my Side-splitter post

5) All his life, Ray Kinsella was searching for his dreams. Then one day, his dreams came looking for him. Hint: Sports movie

6) Can two friends sleep together and still love each other in the morning? Hint: High maintenance Meg

7) Coming To Save The World This Summer. Hint: Ernie Hudson

8) Don't Go in the Water Hint: Dun-dun-dun-dunt... Dun-dun-dun-dunt... Dunt-ta-Dunt-ta Dunt-ta, Dunt-ta... DUN!

9) Ever wanted to be someone else? Now you can. Hint: A second John Cusack movie on this list so far

10) Everyone has one special thing. Hint: Markie Mark

11) Family Isn't A Word... It's A Sentence. Hint: Royalty

12) Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free. Hint: "Brooks was here." then "Red was here."

13) Five Criminals. One Line Up. No Coincidence. Hint: codepoke's comment

14) Five Total Strangers Team Up For The Perfect Crime.They Don't Know Each Other's Name. But They've Got Each Other's Number Hint: Tarantino

15) He is afraid. He is alone. He is three million light years from home. Hint: Ow-oooch

16) He Saw The World In A Way No One Could Have Imagined. Hint: Jennifer Connelly was in it.

17) His whole life was a million-to-one shot! Hint: A. Creed

18) How the future began. Hint: T.. R.... S....

19) In space no one can hear you scream. Hint: Dallas, Parker, Brett, c'mon this one's too easy

20) In Vietnam The Wind Doesn't Blow. It Sucks. Hint: War movie that's not Platoon

21) It's the hottest day of the summer. You can do nothing, you can do something, or you can... Hint: Mars Blackman

22) Just because they serve you doesn't mean they Like you. Hint: 16 year olds' minimum pay gig

23) Leisure Rules Hint: Ben Stein's first movie

24) Love Kills Hint: S & N

25) Man is The Warmest Place to Hide. Hint: Kurt Russell Sci-Fi

26) Mischief. Mayhem. Soap. Hint: Brad Pitt

27) Never give a saga an even break! Hint: Mel Brooks

28) Never let her out of your sight. Never let your guard down. Never fall in love. Hint: Cheesy songstress. Cheesy actor.

29) No One Gets Away Clean Hint: Don Cheadle's in it

30) Not every gift is a blessing. Hint: I See Dead People (there's a gimme now)

31) On The Air. Unaware. Hint: Not The Mask

32) Paul Sheldon used to write for a living. Now, he's writing to stay alive. Hint: Bates

33) Tea At Four. Dinner At Eight. Murder At Midnight. Hint: Dame Maggie Smith

34) The Day We Fight Back Hint: Firecrackers

35) The first casualty of war is innocence. Hint: _____, Halt!

36) The greatest fairy tale never told. Hint: Farquaad

37) The Man... The Music... The Madness... The Murder... The Motion Picture... Hint: Falco

38) The most devastating detective story of the century! Hint: Bob Woodward

39) The Story That Won't Go Away Hint: Magic bullet

40) The Ultimate Trip. Hint: This date and its journey has come and gone

41) They have a plan, but not a clue. Hint: Clooney

42) They stole his mind, now he wants it back. Hint: Governor of California

43) They're young... they're in love... and they kill people. Hint: They're outlaws

44) This time it's war Hint: Believe It or Not

45) We are not alone Hint: Which kind?

46) We could tell you what it's about. But then, of course, we'd have to kill you. Hint: Poitier

47) You Won't Believe Your Eye. Hint: Mike

48) In The Game Of Seduction, There Is Only One Rule: Never Fall In Love Hint: Dangerous Liasons of the Teenage Kind

49) This Summer, Evil Meets It's Moose. Hint: Boris & Natasha

50) If you see only one movie this summer, see Star Wars. But if you see two movies this summer, see... Hint: SNL

51) Be afraid. Be very afraid. Hint: Goldblum

52) Be Unafraid. Be Very Unafraid. Hint: Snadler's imp

53) Be Afraid. Be Kind of Afraid. Hint: Right Raggy

54) It's 4 A.M., do you know where your car is? Hint: Harry Dean Stanton

That's it. Just 54 of them, but at least it's enough for everyone to get at least some of them. I don't think anyone will get them all. Some of them are a little obscure, but most of them are movies you're probably aware of. Also, which one do you think is the best of all these, and which one is the MOST groan-inducing. Put all your answers in the comments so we can see just how movie-smart you are.

Have fun!

Three Wishes

Mm'kay, go ahead and mock this post if you want, but here's the game -- same as it was when we were kids with just a few groundrules.

You're visiting Tahiti or Fiji or Gilligan's Island and there on the coastline, you find a multi-faceted bottle. Upon uncorking the bottle, a genie pops out in front of you and thrice offers you your heart's desire. That's right, three wishes. Only, the genie warns you not to wish in certain ways, lest you be turned into a warted toad on the spot. The warnings and rules you are told are as follows:

1) No wishing for more wishes or more genies

2) No wishing for intangible ideals that genies cannot possibly deliver (i.e. world peace, eternal salvation - for anyone, eternal youth, living forever, living happily ever ever, and so on)

3) Whatever wish you desire, it has what the genie calls an "effect of one" - that is, should you have regrets you'd like to take back, people from history with whom you'd like to speak, places you yearn to travel, sick persons you wish to make well, etc., the genie can do those things, but only on an individual basis. With one wish, you may take back one regret, travel back in time to one certain date, travel to one country, heal one sick person. That's the "effect of one." One wish - one thing granted.

4) In the same vein, no run-on wishes. A wish such as: I'd like to live on Mars with my family and friends and there would be air and water there and shopping malls and Martian football... those types of wishes will turn you into a warted toad but quick.

5) While genies can take you back in history, they cannot facilitate talking to the supernatural or dead, so no asking for wishes to talk to angels or demons or dead people. To talk to the dead, you'd have to go back in time, and then you'd have to request that person -- and that would constitute two wishes by virtue of the "effect of one."

6) Obviously, material goods are in play as are team championships (subject to the rule of one), but just be careful what you wish for.

7) Lastly, NO WISHING FOR BETTER POSTS FROM THE REALM OF POSSIBILITY AS THAT WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE. Wish something like that and you'll be feeling a genie's teeth cutting through your amphibian-like neck.

Because, all people that are turned into warted toads will instantly be eaten by the genie. That's how genies survive.

Okay, Master, what are your three wishes?

One of Four

Just pick your favorite or one you like out of each of the list of fours below and put your choices in the comments --

Go Gos songs: 1) We Got the Beat; 2) Our Lips Are Sealed; 3) Vacation; 4) Head Over Heels

Gospels: 1) Matthew; 2) Mark; 3) Luke; 4) John

Season: 1) Spring; 2) Summer; 3) Autumn; 4) Winter

Teen Titan sans Robin: 1) Starfire; 2) Beast Boy; 3) Cyborg; 4) Raven

Old West Outlaw: 1) Jessie James; 2) Billy the Kid; 3) Doc Holliday; 4) Butch Cassidy

Old West Hero: 1) Wyatt Earp; 2) Davy Crockett; 3) Buffalo Bill Cody; 4) Will Bill Hickcock

Classic Rock Frontman: 1) Mick Jagger; 2) Roger Daltrey; 3) Robert Plant; 4) Ray Davies

Biblical Name Starting w/ "J" Not Jesus: 1) James; 2) Jeremiah; 3) John; 4) Joseph

Active Non-English Language: 1) Spanish; 2) French; 3) German; 4) Russian

Popular Modern U.S. Presidents: 1) FDR; 2) JFK; 3) RWR; 4) WJC

Popular Foundation U.S. Presidents: 1) Washington; 2) Jefferson; 3) Jackson; 4) Lincoln

Explorers: 1) Marco Polo; 2) Magellan; 3) Columbus; 4) Cabot

Middle Earth Beings: 1) Dwarves; 2) Elves; 3) Ents; 4) Wizards (Istari)

Action Heroes: 1) Arnold; 2) Bruce Willis; 3) Sean Connery; 4) Van Damme

Grisham Books to Movies: 1) A Time to Kill; 2) The Firm; 3) The Pelican Brief; 4) The Client

Food/Candy Rockers: 1) Red Hot Chili Peppers; 2) Lemonheads; 3) Goo Goo Dolls; 4) Smashing Pumpkins

Sci Fi Monsters: 1) Predator; 2) Species; 3) Alien; 4) Martians (from WOTW)

Bible Version Read Most: 1) KJV; 2) NIV; 3) NASV; 4) Paraphrased

Discount Shopping: 1) Sears; 2) JC Penneys; 3) Wal-Mart; 4) Target

Final Four: 1) LSU; 2) UCLA; 3) George Mason; 4) Florida

I'll put my picks in the comments. You do the same!

Pick Your Favorite

Classic Video Game Rank 'Em

Best to worst or worst to best, you rank these games. And if I left some favs out, just slide 'em into your rankings. I purposely left out some similar ones (i.e Space Invaders and Galaxians which are a lot like Galaga and Pacman which is like Ms. Pacman) and included the one I thought was the best of like games. You don't have to do all of them; just rank the ones you know.

Ms. Pacman
Galaga
Frogger
Donkey Kong
Asteroids
Defender
Missile Command
Centipede
Q-bert
Pong
Dig Dug
Bosconian
Tron
Rally-X
Joust
Wizard of Wor
Tempest
Zaxxon

Do your best and have a BLAST!!! :)

Video Arcade

Know Your Shakespeare #3

'Tis once again time to get your Shakespeare on.

Name the Shakespearian play which this scene comes from.

Bonus points will also be added to your Realm account for correctly identifying the name of the character at the front of the line.

Answers on Tuesday. And, as always, please no wagering.

Shakespeare

From Madness to Sagedom

Behold! What you most likely cannot read above is the 2006 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship bracket. I'm sure many of you will be playing in your own office pools - for entertainment purposes only, I'm quite aware - but it's not like these games won't be being played within the Realm, now is it?

Yet here, alas, we may only pick for bragging rights. HOWEVER, we can still play, and the winner shall aptly be referred to as the REALM SAGE.

It's too much, probably, to ask to fill out a whole bracket, but how about noting your Sweet 16, Elite Eight, Final Four, Championship Game pairing, and ultimate Champion in the comments. You'll probably have to get an actual readable bracket off the Net or in a news rag.

For scoring, each team you name that has reached the Sweet 16, you get a point. Two points for those in the Elite 8, four points for each correct Final Four participant you name, eight points for any of the two you pick in the Championship and twelve points for the Champion.

All entries, of course, will have to be in prior to Thursday before the first games (besides the play-in game tomorrow) tip off. And just so you know, and you probably do realize, I'm laying my own title on the line here as the REALM SAGE. Of course, I don't think I'm in any danger of losing it as I'm sure I'll have the Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final Four, and the rest of them picked perfectly.

As always, trash talking is welcome... to a degree. Good luck in your -- for entertainment purposes only -- bracket contests outside of the Realm as well (unless you're in one of the same pools, er, I mean contests, that I am).

One Potato, Two Potato…

Ran across this article about a recent “Rock, Paper, Scissors” game. (‘Course we called it Paper, Rock, Scissors), and it got me thinking, which is always a dangerous proposition.

In our neighborhood growing up, all us kids spent as much time as possible roaming around in the great outdoors. There were seldom any pre-arrangements by phone, few organized play dates, and besides Little League, no formal, adult-led activities. We just played.

"Hey, Mom. I’m going out to play!!"

No destination given, no time estimate, and no description of our intended pastime. Times were simpler then. But truth is, we didn’t know, anyway. You might find us in any backyard, frontyard, vacant lot, street, or the woods that ran behind the neighborhood houses.

If you could find any of the other guys, and generally you could with the shrill, shriek-like signal (which sounded something like a strangled rooster who’d been sucking helium out of a balloon) that we used, you played until it was too dark to see anymore.

And the games? Well, there was no shortage of Nerf football, baseball variations with tennis balls, wiffle balls, paper and tape balls, etc, driveway basketball, and even street hockey. But when nobody was in the mood for any of these more traditional games, it fell to me as the oldest (or maybe I just took over) to suggest some less familiar activity or invent something entirely new.

Some of these games never had names. Some of them had obtuse names like Piggy, Pickle, and 32. And some of them were just descriptions like "one guy gets a Frisbee and the other guy gets a basketball and we count to three and then throw them over the house at the same time and the first guy who catches three in a row…" Well, you get the point.

But coming up with games could be a lot of pressure, too. And so, through word of mouth, school library research, and the occasional TV program like Vic’s Vacant Lot, I attempted to collect a bag of games to have at the ready.

I hadn’t thought of many of these in quite some time, but found many listed at Games Kids Play. I’m sure many of you were kids once and have similar remembrances of classic games like kickball, dodgeball, Red Rover, Pitch-Up and Smear (sometimes known by other names), and others described at the link.

But just in case I get called upon once again to entertain the neighborhood kids with a new game, let me have the rules to your favorites, especially if they were unique to your old gang.

BTW, me and a few guys are thinking about getting up a kickball league. And we’re doing away with the maddening boy-girl-boy-girl rule that Mrs. Orme made us play by in P.E. class. Let me know if you’re interested in playing.


Kid's Games
Kickball

Game Time

Alright, how about a little post the whole family can enjoy? From the lists below, what are your favorite board games and why?

Classic Games
1) Aggravation
2) Battleship
3) Clue
4) Life
5) Monopoly
6) Parcheesi
7) Payday
8) Scrabble
9) Sorry
10) Yahtzee

Strategy/War Games
1) Axis & Allies
2) Chess
3) Diplomacy
4) Pente
5) Risk
6) Stratego
7) War at Sea

Children's Games
1) Candyland
2) Chutes & Ladders
3) Cranium Cadoo
4) Monopoly Junior
5) Operation
6) Trivial Pursuit, Junior Edition (or Kid's Edition)
7) Trouble

Sports Games
1) All-Star Baseball
2) Bas-Ket Game
3) ESPN All-Star Sports Trivia Challenge
4) Monopoly MIAMI DOLPHINS Collector's Edition
5) NASCAR DVD Board Game
6) Statis-Pro Baseball
7) Statis-Pro Football

Party Games
1) A to Z
2) Battle of the Sexes Card Game
3) Charades
4) Cranium
5) Loaded Questions
6) Outburst
7) Pictionary
8) TriBond
9) Trivial Pursuit
10) Other

Game Show Games
1) American Idol
2) Concentration
3) Family Feud
4) Jeopardy Board Game
5) The Newlywed Game
6) Password
7) Pictionary
8) The Price Is Right
9) Pyramid
10) Wheel of Fortune

(Anytime we can get a nice picture of Donny Osmond on a post, I think the post is well worth it. Dont' you?)

Mystery Games
1) 221 B Baker Street
2) Bakerstreet
3) Clue
4) CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - The Board Game
5) any of the interactive Murder Mystery games

Please, somebody stop me. Enough of the fun 'n games already!!!

Anyhoo, which games are your favorites to play on family night? What's your all time favorite? And the most important question of all: What all games have I missed???

Per the usual, my answers will appear sooner or later in the comments.

Board Games

Know Your Shakespeare #2

Calling all lovers of Will from Avon. Name the Shakespearian play which this scene comes from.

Bonus points for identifying either of the well-known actors shown performing above.
Hint: In the past, one has played a boy and the other a hood.

Answers on Friday. And, as always, please no wagering.
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Congratulations to Doug for correctly identifying "As You Like It". And two bonus points for recognizing Richard "John Boy" Thomas as Touchstone.

However, the other actor is Brian Bedford, who among other movie and TV roles was the voice of Robin Hood in the animated Disney classic by the same name.

I guess his voice might have been a little difficult to pick up in the photo, but hey, it was a bonus.

As You Like It

Dead or Alive?

Here's a macabre little game. Without using the internet to find the answers, can you pick the fifteen folks on the following list who are still among the living?

And as a bonus challenge, which of the dearly departed have been gone longer than 3 years?

[Sorry, for the delay in getting you the answers, but I've been debating which category I'd fall into as I've tried to stave off a virus.]

Here are the answers, and a link to Dead or Alive, the funky site that I used as my source. These are but a few of the many listed there. And if you're interested, they also provide the age of the listed living and the cause of death for the not-so-living.

Alive
Randy "Cousin Eddie" Quaid
Lyle Waggoner - of Wonder Woman and Carol Burnett fame
Jimmy "JJ" Walker - Dyn-o-mite
Juan Antonio Samaranch - former International Olympic Committee Chairman
Barry Livingston - Ernie from My Three Sons
Angela "Murder She Wrote" Lansbury
Joan Collins - from Dynasty
Gavin MacLeod - Love Boat's Capt. Stubing
Hayley "Pollyanna" Mills - Disney child star
Roger Mudd - former NBC News anchor
Donny "Ralph Malph" Most
"Cubby" O'Brien - original Mouseketeer
Adam Ant- punk rocker
Abigail "Dear Abby" Van Buren
Monty "Let's Make a Deal" Hall

Unfortunately Deceased
John Entwhistle - bassist for The Who –Jun 2002
Bob Kane- creator of Batman –Nov 1998
Junior Samples- from Hee Haw –Nov 1983
Bert Lahr - Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz –Dec 1967
Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes - from TLC –Apr 2002
Howard "Ernest T. Bass" Morris –May 2005
Frank Gorshin - Riddler from Batman TV show—May 2005
Willie Shoemaker – jockey –Oct 2003
Buddy "Jed Clampett" Ebsen –Jul 2003
Bob "Gilligan" Denver –Sept 2005
Richard Pryor –Dec 2005
Pat "Mr. Miyagi" Morita –Nov 2005

Dead or Alive