Window Shopper

Yes, I admit it. I watch Texas Holdem on television. Frankly, I love the strategy of the professional players. This is high stakes poker since many of the tournaments have over a million dollars as prize money. They start out with 2000 players and narrow it down to the last nine. Then they take it to a final table. The play is fantastic. I love it.

When you see these men and women dueling it out for the top prize, it gets exciting. And the thing is, they hold these tournaments in all sorts of casinos with all the glitz like all those las vegas hotels. I saw a tournament recently where the last man standing (yes, man since a woman has yet to get to the top prize. They have made it to the final table though.) won a cool 12 million. That’s a lot of chips!

I asked myself what would I do with 12 million dollars. Easy, give a lot to the ministries that feed the hungry, then buy a house and new car. Very necessary right now. Share with my extended family. Invest so that my dollar can work for me. And last but not least, have some fun. I think that would work nicely.

The fact is, I start out a whole lot of my posts here with “when I was a kid”, so much so that I do not want to do that here, this time. So, when my niece was younger….HA!…she wanted to win. It did not matter what, she just wanted to win. The problem was that her sisters were all older than she and they DIDN’T want her to win…anything. Quite often, there’d be crying because she didn’t get to win a game. It got to the point that her sisters didn’t want to play games with her anymore.

That was a tough time for her. Well, she was desperate to win something. After all, all of her sisters could do it with various competitions and games. Striving to get the best score on all sorts of things, she could win and some things. Over the years, of course, she got a lot better at these things and she does win now, sometimes. It’s as it should be. But back when she was about 8, I think, she got a Rubis, excuse me, Rubics Cube for Christmas. We told her how to work the cube and what it took to get the colors all in the right places. One day, she brought out her Cube and gave it to me. She told me proudly that she got it all right. I took one look and knew just what she had done. She had peeled off all the colors and replaced them so that she got all the colors matching where they should be. Trouble was that those stickers no longer were sticking. *grin*

The long awaited Super Bowl Sunday is here! We have been actually looking forward to this since last year because we missed the last Super Bowl altogether. Gearing up for a game day is not the easiest in the world when you have thought of little else….well, other than the family, blogging, income, bills, pets and the weather, I mean….except the goodies and expecting the phone to ring right when the best play of the game comes on.

Ahem. So, we went to the store the other day to pick up the game day essentials like potato chips, dips, makings for the Frito pie we planned on making and a few other goodies that escape my mind at the moment.

The adventure was in Walmart, otherwise known as….if you love the product, don’t expect to see it ever again. We happened on an end cap that had a new form of Pringles! I usually do not get excited over potato chips. After all, they are just potatoes cut up into thin pieces, then dumped into grease to fry. YUCK! But I have a weakness for potato chips nevertheless. When suddenly, what to my wandering eyes did appear but a whole shelf of Pringles Extreme! Never having seen such a sight, I stopped and peered at the latest and greatest form…“Screamin’ Dill Pickle”!! Oh my!

If the product was anything like the name, I would be in snack heaven. I love pickles and add a favorite comfort snack food like Pringles, now that’s fantastic. So, we bought a couple of cans of the newest offering and took them home. These were supposed to be for the Super Bowl Sunday game. My curiosity would not allow us to let those cans sit. If we did and they were a disappointment, there would be nothing we could do about it. That would be the middle of the game when we opened them. NO! We had to do something and quick!

The plastic lid was removed carefully. The inner seal (which is the biggest pain to take off but I still am grateful since it means nobody has gone before us) whooshes off. There they are. Little chips stacked up nicely. I took one out, very carefully bit off a small portion and waited. It did not take long. BANG! Huge pickly chip taste straight to my mouth! It was as if a giant pickle was pressed into a potato chip, joining them together in a blissful taste.

Of course, we ate them already. Are you serious?!!! Yes, we did have to go back and get a few more cans. After all, we could then put them on a sandwich and be able to have the best of both worlds, pickle AND chip sandwich. WOW!!!

Yesterday, the fight for the Super Bowl prize went a step toward the winner. The Patriots won against the Chargers and the Giants were the winners against the Packers. I wanted to see the Packers against the Patriots. That would have been an awesome game. However, the game that will be fought on Feb. 3rd is going to be as good, I am certain.

We will be gearing up to watch the show ourselves. It promises to be a great match. But we have to get the right supplies for the game. Watching this on television has it’s major advantages to being at the game, you know. There you are at the game. If you have nosebleed section tickets, you can hardly see anything. But if you happen to be at home, watching on your big screen TV, seeing those guys thrashing it out on the field just like they have been taking testosterone boosters, tackling the guy with the ball. Yes, I admit it. I am a female who loves football but doesn’t do that great a job recapping the game. Sigh. So, I’m just going to go get the Cheetos and Pringles to squirrel away for the big date.

If you have waited until now to buy the toys, it could be a real stretch to get them. But, the top toys this year are varied but more or less predictable. First, the Wii is on top of the games list. Everyone wants a Wii this year. Hot item. Don’t forget to add the games! Next, you will find the PS3 console and the bundles that go with it. After that, XBOX and Nintendo with PSP coming up on them. These are truly hot items in the games department.

If you are looking to surprise the boys and girls with something a bit different, the word is robots. You will simply have to look for yourself because the list is rather long and varied on that subject. I will say that the stores have stated that they are down on sales this year so it is possible to get that really great robot toy at the last minute.

Learning and educational toys are hot as well. It’s a great idea to give your children something that will teach them what the schools will not. You can start with children 3 and up with the wonderful learning toys available.

Whatever you may be looking for, now is the time to get out there and find it. There are only a very few shopping days left until Christmas. As of this writing, only 5 days are left. Boy, time sure flies when you’re having fits fun, doesn’t it.

Happy Shopping!!!

When I play chess, it’s usually against the computer because I do not want to be beat yet again by either my husband or niece. So, I find a way to play the computer when they aren’t watching. The humiliation would be too much. LOL!

But, many folks would love to play online with other players instead of the unfeeling computer. Are you one of those people? Say no more. Play Chess Online at Yupgames.com where you have the option of choosing your opponent or just click on the button that says match. Then they will match you with somebody who is ready and waiting to play. I just got started looking around so I have not had the pleasure of playing there as yet. How about it? Your turn.

Yes, living is really easy in Arkansas, especially where we live since it is a beautiful area with deer roaming around in our front yard. But there is one huge danger if you are not careful, really careful. Golf balls. Yes, I said golf balls. Flying, dropping into your sunroof, clonking you on the head golf balls. Beware!

Where we live are a couple of golf courses, one that runs right across a major road in our village. Makes life interesting when you want to drive along on Sunday with your family. Bang!! A golf ball hits your windshield. No, it did not break it. This is my story and mine have happy endings, got it? The kids love to gather the golf balls so you stop and start gathering because the old duffers have been on the course again. The best part? Daddy can play tomorrow!!!

Okay, we talked about Monopoly, about the biggest selling board game on the planet but there are and have been others too. For instance, we have Boggle. Not a bad game. Been around a while. How about Scrabble? Now there’s a game that you can get the whole family to play. It takes some know how and a good dictionary to keep the fights down. LOL!!

So, are you planning on getting any board games this year? I have more, ya know. Cranium, Cube, Clue, Chess, Battleship (always a great game), Sorry, Candyland (is that still available?? I used to play that with my friends), Backgammon, Baffle, Jenga, Kismet, Checkers, Mastermind, Risk (that was one that I vowed never to play again. It would make me so mad, I’d lose it. Fun game.)

I ran across a game that I have not played in a whole lot of years but I loved it so much. Mille Bornes is a card game that you can get hooked on and it lasts for hours. A lot of fun for the family.

Think about it. Board games will allow everyone to play, most of them. It gives you a chance to be together on the big holiday instead of having everyone in different places.

When I was still a kid, my parents made sure I had some really good board games for Christmas. Then, when I wanted to play them, we played at least a couple of times all together. After that, I had friends who loved playing those games too. Board games might be passe’ or maybe not. I do believe that people are still interested in them because everyone can participate whereas computer games are difficult unless everyone is on their own computer.

So, what type of board games are still available? Well, of course, the old standard..Monopoly. That game alone has so many variations that it will take quite some time just viewing them. For instance, there is the standard game, the electronic bank edition, Spider-Man 3 Monopoly, Monopoly Jr. Disney edition, Disney Pixar Monopoly, Monopoly Spongebob, Monopoly Express, Littlest Pet Shop Edition, Monopoly Tropical Tycoon DVD Game, Monopoly, Here and Now and last but certainly not least, Monopoly Luxe with a $7,500 price tag. There are more, of course, but I needed to stop for a bit.

Anyone for Monopoly?

I have to tell you that I could not believe this particular game, although I should since so much out there in the market is crazy anyway, was available to sell. Now, I am not going to give you the link. You have to find that yourself. But this is great. The only problem I can see is that the thing would make me so hungry for chocolate while I was playing that if I did not have a fresh supply of chocolate, it would be time to head for the store…hopefully BEFORE the game started. If not, that game could be called because of chocolate lack. LOL!

Yes! It IS a real game. The way this one works is buy favorite chocolate properties, sort of like the old monopoly game, you collect chunks of chocolate. You can trade them in for chocolate factories. It’s deceptive in how it sounds…real easy, but you also need to suppress your cravings or get sent to Chocoholics Anonymous. Oh NO!!! This can be a chocoholics dream or something dreadful. ACK! Looks like fun to me. Ah, go hunt it up and give it to somebody for Christmas!!!