Our Stories

Nolly Flip Underflip

So I'm checking out of Sam's Club Saturday with T.H.U.G. for Xbox and the cashier, a young guy, asks me if I play videogames. I guess he figured that this old dude must be buying a Tony Hawk skateboarding game for his grandson or something. So I said, "Yeah, I play a lot of videogames."

Couple years back I'd watched, and was intrigued by, Dogtown and Z-Boys. I mean, how did those kids physically do that? Later I'd been to Deming to do a photo shoot of Melanie Zipin. We talked some, and I learned that the song "Tiny Reflections" from her CD, Shades of Blue, is about the generational gap between herself and her son, Rafael. In the first verse, Melanie sings...

I'm walkin' thru the hardened mud
and the trash
discarded products and broken glass
tiny reflections of a misguided path

rebels on skateboards with their
music cranked up
preach death and destruction 'cause
hypocrisy sucks...

This is my only skateboarding game (well, not counting the incredibly cool Jet Set Radio Future). On a hunch I drove to COAS Books Sunday and, sure enough, scored the T.H.U.G official strategy guide for three bucks. Now I'm grokking skateboarding terms like Ollie and Nollie and Fake Ollie and Beanplant and Wallpush and FS Nosepick and Axle Stall and Blunt to Fakie.

Before I bought an Xbox in 2001, I played computer games on my Macintosh. Before that I played the arcades (Oh Tempest, how do I love thee? All those quarters!). Before that I played the pinballs in the local bowling alley. And before that I played cowboys and indians.

Games are an important component of any kid's life. So why shunt them aside as we grow older? I figure every new game is a chance to form new neural pathways in my gray matter. And that, my friend, is a good thing.

Worth checking out

The good folks at Schmidel & Wojcik tipped me off to Quiz Hub  last week. I asked Saaron, one of our fifth graders, to check it out. She was quite impressed with the selection of free PBS games. I later checked out the sample quizzes and found them fair to excellent.

The good folks at Schmidel & Wojcik tipped me off to Quiz Hub  last week. I asked Saaron, one of our fifth graders, to check it out. She was quite impressed with the selection of free PBS games. I later checked out the sample quizzes and found them fair to excellent.

My favorite online puzzle

I like to play games. Do you? If you're looking for a real challenge (and this goes for adults too), try the online games at Set Enterprises. I've only played Set - The Daily Puzzle, which, the first time, took me over an hour to solve. It's educational. It's fun. It gets your brain cells jumping! (There's much more info on this intriguing brain teaser, including complete instructions and examples, and even some Set math tricks, here.)

Other daily puzzles include Quiddler and Xactika, neither of which have I attempted. If you try them, come back here and leave a comment telling us if they're worth the time.