what did we do before cell phones? more importantly, what did we do before texting?
i can think back to a time when texting was forbidden in my household. why? because it was 10 cents a text! sending or recieving, it all cost a nice shiny dime, or two nickles, which ever you had. even 10 pennies. you had to make sure ever text was worth it. there was nothing more irriating than a one word text. it was like, seriously? i just paid 10 cents for that?! ten more of those and i could have purchased something from the dollar bin at target! (well, i guess back then target hadn't come up with the dollar bins yet. so no huge loss. but still, 10 cents!) sometimes, i could get away with not opening the message and just guess what the person on the other end of the text message was trying to say by the first 3 or 4 words of the text. it was really difficult and often times i was wrong. i could only get away with 3 or four text messages and responses without my parents noticing a surplus on their monthly cell phone bill.
cell phone providers finally got smart and stopped charging per text and created texting plans. really, if you're going to do any text plan, you might as well do unlimited. those little messages will get out of hand before you know it. you might think you won't use over 1000. but you will. usually the people that think they wont, do. anyways, once unlimited texting plans were created, a while new world was opened up to the human race. a new stream of communication.
now, i could do what i usually do and research this topic to death and present a bunch of facts that support my point. maybe even create a few controversial arguments about how texting is degenerating the art of communication as we know it, but i'm too lazy to do it today and i'm about to be on my lunch break. so i'll just say this:
texting is my link to the outside world when i am in the office stuck answering phones! without texting i would die of information starvation. without texting my social sphere would shatter around me and cause me to become awkward and unfriendly. my boss should be pleased with my desire to stay up to date on current events and have something to chit chat with the patients about. otherwise. i would lose my edge and be useless as a receptionist/front desk office assistant. with texting, life is good.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
solitaire
originally known as "patience" in europe, in spain known as "solitario" (yes, very creative) and in the united states known as solitaire is a game played by one person, alone.
it is believed by many people who are like me and try to find the origins of random, sometimes meaningless, but nevertheless well known things, that solitaire as we know it was probably played with tarot cards and probably the mother (or father if solitaire is like a seahorse) of all multi player card games.
to truly understand solitaire, as i strive to this day, we must understand the origin of playing cards. according to solitarecentral.com (yes. it exists.) playing cards were first introduced in italy sometime during the 1300s. probably some rogue italian man, probably named mattia battistini, who was destined to inherit his father's opera house but he wasn't interested in that sort of thing so he ran away and vowed to never return and while mattia battistini was never returning he met a strange old man and the old man took him under his wing and started to teach him many tricks and trades and shared an idea with him about a card used for entertainment. the old man probably taught and trained the runaway man many different types of games and together they stared the creation of playing cards. unfortunetly the old man died when they were digging a tunnel underneath a prison to escape (what? i didn't mention they were in prison?) and the old man gave mattia battistini a map on a circular piece of cloth that led him to a large fortune and mattia battistini used the fortune to get his girlfriend back (who has married his ex-best friend) and get revenge on all the people that had him thrown into prison and with the left over money he started his own playing card factory and thus the first playing cards were invented. (yes i know this sounds a lot like the count of monte cristo but key details will tell you that, while it is similar, there are very important differences in the two stories.)
so playing cards were invented in the 1300s. after their creation they became very popular in northern europe. the first known solitaire game rules were recorded sometime during the napoleonic era. as i suspected, napoleon himself played solitaire (or patience if your european) during his exile at st helena.
solitairecentral.com says he played it in his spare time, well, i was wondering, when you're in exile on an island dedicated to keeping you from society, what else do you have other than spare time?
the author of war and peace, tolstoy, also played solitaire. around the same time as napoleon. tolstoy even mentioned the game in a scene from his famous and incredibly boring novel. it's said that tolstoy used cards to make decisions for him in a "superstitious way". well, those cards should have told him to write twilight or harry potter or something. cards are working out to well for ya are they tolstoy?
some variations of solitaire have strange origins. bill beers was in a mental asylum when he invented "cribbage solitaire". good ol' bill beers had plenty of time to come up with his own version of solitaire. the prisoners were not allowed to use traditional cards like the ones invented by mattia battistini because they could be used as a weapon, haven't you ever seen batman? so they had to use these thick tiles as their cards. my question is, what is bill beers doing in a mental asylum if he can create new versions of solitaire? my answer is, probably solitaire got him there. it's almost gotten me there plenty of times.
well, after this brief and incredibly factual and nonfactual-at-the-same-time look at solitaire's history, this is my conclusion. solitaire will drive you mad. if you don't win, you will keep playing till you do and if you win, you have to prove you're better and play again. it's a vicious cycle that i've been caught in pretty much all week. until i decided to close the little window on my computer and open up this blog post. if you must play a game on your computer, play minesweeper. do not fall into the evil clutches of solitaire, or patience. i have no patience for patience, and neither should you.
it is believed by many people who are like me and try to find the origins of random, sometimes meaningless, but nevertheless well known things, that solitaire as we know it was probably played with tarot cards and probably the mother (or father if solitaire is like a seahorse) of all multi player card games.
to truly understand solitaire, as i strive to this day, we must understand the origin of playing cards. according to solitarecentral.com (yes. it exists.) playing cards were first introduced in italy sometime during the 1300s. probably some rogue italian man, probably named mattia battistini, who was destined to inherit his father's opera house but he wasn't interested in that sort of thing so he ran away and vowed to never return and while mattia battistini was never returning he met a strange old man and the old man took him under his wing and started to teach him many tricks and trades and shared an idea with him about a card used for entertainment. the old man probably taught and trained the runaway man many different types of games and together they stared the creation of playing cards. unfortunetly the old man died when they were digging a tunnel underneath a prison to escape (what? i didn't mention they were in prison?) and the old man gave mattia battistini a map on a circular piece of cloth that led him to a large fortune and mattia battistini used the fortune to get his girlfriend back (who has married his ex-best friend) and get revenge on all the people that had him thrown into prison and with the left over money he started his own playing card factory and thus the first playing cards were invented. (yes i know this sounds a lot like the count of monte cristo but key details will tell you that, while it is similar, there are very important differences in the two stories.)
so playing cards were invented in the 1300s. after their creation they became very popular in northern europe. the first known solitaire game rules were recorded sometime during the napoleonic era. as i suspected, napoleon himself played solitaire (or patience if your european) during his exile at st helena.
solitairecentral.com says he played it in his spare time, well, i was wondering, when you're in exile on an island dedicated to keeping you from society, what else do you have other than spare time?
the author of war and peace, tolstoy, also played solitaire. around the same time as napoleon. tolstoy even mentioned the game in a scene from his famous and incredibly boring novel. it's said that tolstoy used cards to make decisions for him in a "superstitious way". well, those cards should have told him to write twilight or harry potter or something. cards are working out to well for ya are they tolstoy?
some variations of solitaire have strange origins. bill beers was in a mental asylum when he invented "cribbage solitaire". good ol' bill beers had plenty of time to come up with his own version of solitaire. the prisoners were not allowed to use traditional cards like the ones invented by mattia battistini because they could be used as a weapon, haven't you ever seen batman? so they had to use these thick tiles as their cards. my question is, what is bill beers doing in a mental asylum if he can create new versions of solitaire? my answer is, probably solitaire got him there. it's almost gotten me there plenty of times.
well, after this brief and incredibly factual and nonfactual-at-the-same-time look at solitaire's history, this is my conclusion. solitaire will drive you mad. if you don't win, you will keep playing till you do and if you win, you have to prove you're better and play again. it's a vicious cycle that i've been caught in pretty much all week. until i decided to close the little window on my computer and open up this blog post. if you must play a game on your computer, play minesweeper. do not fall into the evil clutches of solitaire, or patience. i have no patience for patience, and neither should you.
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