Summer ceramics at Ala Wai has ended -- I just have a few pieces left to pick up. I've decided not to enroll there again in the fall, but continue on at Iolani. I'll miss some of the Ala Wai people, but I can always go back and visit. Iolani is just so much better suited to the way I like to work, and the size and quantity restrictions at Ala Wai, coupled with the long breaks between sessions, really limit what I can do there. And two, sometimes three nights of ceramics a week is a bit much, considering all the other things I like to do.

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Kevin & I have logged over 2800 games of 40 Thieves on the home computer; Kevin even once fulfilled the prophecy of the collection's title: Solitaire 'Til Dawn. I've slogged through enough Tabby Cat on my Palm that I've acquired a noticable scratchy spot over the deal pile.

Solitaire does not require much skill. In those 2800 games of Forty Thieves, we've maintained a 6% average. It took about 25 games for each of us to figure out what we had to do to win at a consistent level. The telling point is that his strategy is a little different from mine, but we both win equally often.

Solitaire is not interesting. There are no alien worlds to explore, no clues to figure out. Nothing changes from game to game except the lay of the cards, but it's the same 52 cards over and over and over again. The craziest thing that happens is when the Palm interprets my command-U to undo as a command-L to change to a left-handed layout.

Yet it's hard to stop once you get started. You finish up some real work and say to yourself, OK, just three games. Ten games later, you're still at it, thinking about how stupid and pointless this game is and how much you really need to be doing something else. And the something else isn't even something you're dreading doing.

I think about all that time spent on solitaire and cringe -- 2800+ games is pretty pathetic.
- posted by Lori @ 4:49:00 PM | permanent link | |