SSDD = “same shit, different day”. I don’t have a lot to do today and what I could do I don’t want to do. Still in the “summer of my discontent” (from Mark Roeder, about the coming of age of a gay teen. Sounds familiar because of The Winter of My Discontent, a novel by John Steinbeck with the title taken from Shakespeare’s Richard III. We writers tend to borrow liberally from one another….please note I just put myself in a category with Steinbeck! ::grin::)
Never thought of boredom as being a modern phenomenon but Wikipedia says it is. It also quotes some modern philosophers and scientists on how boredom is an existential disease (“Guess what, Ma! I have an existential disease!”). Boredom has to do with lack of investment and lack of meaning. Here we go around in circles again. Back to mindfulness and Frankl.
Don’t worry. I am not going to start quoting Kierkegaard to you. What I do want to talk about is Bejeweled.
Now, I know many of you are not computer savvy and you are definitely not gamers. When I looked for computer games for the blind and low vision crowd, I found a couple of dozen of them. I did not even bother to check them out because I do not know my rear end from a hole in the ground when it comes to gaming. I gave that job to nephew #1. Hopefully he will take at least a cursory look and report.
What I do know is there are a number of free games in the Apple App Store and they can help to pass the time. I downloaded an old favorite on my iPad, Bejeweled.
I used to spend hours playing Bejeweled. It is basic and addictive. All you do is move different colored ‘jewels’ so they line up at least three in a row. When you line them up, they ‘explode’ and disappear and you look for more jewels to line up. The game is over when there are no more moves.
Did I mention it is free? Like everything else in the world that is ‘free’, someone somewhere is paying. In this case, the game asks for your age and – low and behold! – a whole series of ‘age appropriate’ ads run at the top of the page.
I was a little perturbed when I had a poor game and the ad for Alzheimer’s came up! I assume the ads are random; aren’t they?
Anyway, Bejeweled is free and only insults you sometimes. The visual discrimination required is a combination of color and shape. I have no problem with it. You can hook your iPad up to the TV if you need it to be bigger.
Got it? OK. Now who can beat 159,000 points?!?!?!
written 7/27/2016