Thursday, September 18, 2008

Scrambled Egos

Facebook has alot of time sucking activities. While I'm not a big fan of most of the crap that's on there (Lil' Green Patch gifts?!), I do enjoy the puzzle games like Scramble (a Boggle rip-off), Pathwords (another Boggle variant), Word Twist and Challenge Sudoku. Pretty much every day, in the past 15 years, I've completed a crosswords puzzle, a Sudoku board or a word scramble. Quite often I will do more than one. Needless to say I very much enjoy puzzles and I have gotten quite good at them- if I don't say so myself.

So when my friend Andy first started to challenge me to some of the aforementioned puzzle games on Facebook, I delighted in kicking his ass from here to his apartment in Washington DC. It took a little while to get used to the online format and I had to hasten my answers as the timer makes a huge difference but once I got used to it, I started to beat my friends piddly scores at most any game.

That is until Cindy came along....

Cindy is an old friend of mine from my high school days. She was both a band geek and drama nerd like myself. I always knew she was a smart gal but I had no idea that she could consistently best me over and over and over again like she has in the past 3 weeks. Although, I will admit I started to bore of toying with Andy and my other friends in Pathwords, I am not amused by the predicament that is my current lot in life.

She is good, damn good. I have sqeaked out a few wins here and there, but she consistently beats my scores. Even in Sudoku she beats me and I consider myself to a very strong player. At first, I was in shock and thought she got lucky. After she beat me 3 times in a row I started to accuse her of cheating. How else could she be scoring that high?! Eventually my ire caused me to stop challenging her to any games. My ego couldn't take any more. But then she started to challenge me!! I felt like a mouse who gets batted around by a cat until it's ready to break my neck and leave me on the front porch.

At least the competition has caused us to push each other to do better. Andy has even marveled at how high my scores have been lately and that is a direct result of this super-genius bitch driving me to the edge of insanity. I'm a competitive guy and it's why I get so upset when I lose at poker. I want to beat everyone and when someone is clearly better than me, well, that is a huge beat down to the old ego.

While my initial reaction was to move on to easier prey, I've now decided to make it my mission in life (right after raising my children and being a good husband) to grab Cindy by the ankles and drag her down to the ground and smoosh her superior brainy puzzle-solving skull into the mud with me. If you think that sounds a bit violet, don't worry- it's a metaphor. Besides, she's a republican and she deserves it.

Oh yes, I will have my day, look out Cindy- I've started some intensive training and you're going down.

6 comments:

Mr. Odney said...

This post has thrust me into the third major depression of the week. Thanks, Brian.

Anonymous said...

I welcome the challege. I enjoy the competition. You force me to work harder and perform better.

But... did I ever mention to you that my husband is a fourth-degree black belt and we run a karate club?

Bring it on, baby!

And hopefully one of these days I'll make it to a poker night and you can take all my money and feel better.

*kisses*

Brian said...

Oh yeah?! Well, my children are both orange belts at Kenpo karate!!

Anonymous said...

Really? Where do they train? Ed Parker's style? I love when the little kids train. Beth trains with her Daddy. It's cute to watch. Then again, she started going to class when she was in the womb and went to her first tournament at 3 months. She's got no choice but to train.

Brian said...

Yeah Ed Parker- our instructor is Mike Corsiello.. Theyre not too serious with it, but it keeps them active and teaches them a good skill. Better than baseball which bored them and they arent all that good at.

Anonymous said...

I sent a link to your blog to one of my best buddies, Chris. His response was to tell you, "Some of her friends generally leave out the "genius" when refering to her."