Monday, February 5, 2007

Treehouses, Seahorses and Spongebob


Knowing the pinnacle of an oncoming sickness was approaching, I stayed home last weekend and entertained myself with boardgames and booze. Just kidding, but some of that cough syrup truly stomps.

My new favourite boardgame is the Spongebob Squarepants version of the Game of Life. Here is why I like it better than the regular Game of Life:

1. Forget the car, I get to be Spongebob Squarepants!
2. I get to live my days in a treehouse or a pirate ship - the Flying Dutchman no less.
3. Instead of hard-to-hold pink pinpoint kids, I get a nifty, cute-and-cuddly pet, like a seahorse or giant clam or jellyfish.
4. Who wants to be a travel agent? I'm now an ice cream vendor! (The fry cook pays the best by the way).
5. In the raffle, I can win a year's supply of bubble liquid or a magic conch shell.
6. $100 in the pocket for playing rock, paper, scissors using bubbles.
7. No special police officer rules - in this game they are treated the same as the mail carrier.

Here is why I don't like it better than the regular Game of Life:

1. I get to be Spongebob Squarepants.
2. Instead of getting life tiles for important things like curing the common cold or climbing Mount Everest, I get rewarded for delivering pizza, chopping my way through salami, or entering the Krusty Krab Krabby Patty flipping contest.
3. Instead of retiring to Country Acres of Millionaire Estates, Spongebob is stuck in the Shady Shoals Rest Home, which just doesn't sound like it's as much fun.
4. You only get to start the game with $500, which also just doesn't sound as much fun.
5. There are raffle cards, which is basically a lottery for kids.
6. The game is played in a place called Bikini Bottom. Think about that for a second.

Although the game states that the person with the highest net worth wins, I like to think of the Game of Life, all versions, as a way to live without care for a while. Who cares if the cave costs less to live in than the pirate ship? I WANT to live on a pirate ship, if only for an hour or so. And I love being the artist, the teacher, or the lifeguard, not the business owner. Business is for real life.

I don't want to make money, have kids, have a job, buy stocks or RRSPs or anything. The Game of Life is for fun, win or lose. Like him or not, Spongebob knows how to have fun. 1 life tile for frolicking through the flowers.






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