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The suite of Hearts have a strange affect on me when I'm playing that card game on my computer. Not many people would deny that I seem obsessed with playing this game. Okay, so maybe I am. But, I'm obsessed by lots of participatory events and games. Especially ones that can be played from the inside of my house and ho-me.
I remember the exact moment the hook was set. Why would I not? It was an event that literally changed my life because it took an awful lot of time to play out that and other obsessions. There have been many days in the past that I've spent at least a couple of hours playing Hearts and MineSweeper.
If I spent that whimsical amount of time practicing piano I'd bet my bottom dollar I could make a comfortable playing piano and singing quaint songs for the rest of my life. But, did I practice the piano rather than playing card games and sech non-sense on my computer? No I did not! What a waste... eh?
I keep writing ridiculous comments like "What a waste" immediately followed by three dots (to represent "blah, blah, blah"), and then follow those blahs with an "eh". It's a deliberate affectation I deliberately. Forgive me if it offends you. The point of using this silly, repetitious addenda is to help me remember to do it in real time conversation some day and sound all natural-like when I mimic some French-Canadians to their face for the sake of humor... eh?
I like word games that employ regional accents that seem impossible to imitate. I cater to individual mannerisms that make people feel special, especially in their own backyard. From my perspective, my silly rhetorical efforts mean no more than chatty bird songs. It's my way of acknowledging their self-expression in order to talk to them in the same voice they use for self-conversation.
I guess its mildly perverse to enjoy watching my inadvertent victims do a double-take to understand what just happened to make them suddenly alert. All without them consciously understanding why. Slight-of-mouth as misdirection has a tendency to piss people off and cause them to question my motives. No blame. It also causes the unsolicited advice they unwisely use me as a tarnished mirror for gets lost in the shuffle.
This mojo is not to die for. It's only for petty tyrants. Sometime it causes some people to want to hurt you as if you've invaded their privacy at a level they ain't grokked yet. Granted, it's chancy to work that edge merely to get a glimpse of what it takes to get them to resort to instinct and ready to protect themselves at an animal level. I practice stuff like that mentally while I play mindless computer games as an aside. Nevertheless, I mourn my game losses if they're due to the lack of my concentration caused by abstractly engendered ecstasy. Fortunately, nobody knows.
I learned to play the computer game of Hearts because it was included with the Microsoft Windows Operating System that was included with the IBM computer I bought at their Raleigh Outlet before it was closed. It was one of their freebie games along with the game of MineSweeper. I became obsessed with both games because I'm a gullible fool.
A successful businessman who owned the company that subcontracted the mechanical portion of the barracks we were building (a virtual genius my brother worked for to apprentice his winning ways), stopped by my desk while I was playing Solitaire on my personal laptop. He watched for a moment, and then asked me, "Do you like playing that game on a computer?" I nodded.
His reaction to my enthusiasm (hypnotic state) was, "If you like that game, you'll become virtually addicted to playing Hearts.", and he left the room as if indifferent. He absolutely was indifferent. That's why he is such a successful businessman. He does what he wants to in the moment, and moves on to let his comments walk if they have legs. In the meantime I got addicted to a time-wasting pastime.
I became obsessed with MineSweeper because of sibling rivalry. The oldest rivalry in my life. My true nemesis, my older sister, two years older than me, sort of challenged me to struggle through the intimidating intricacies of learning to play the game. Once I got past the rudiments, and especially after I triumphantly won a game or two, my sister's challenge was meaningless. Soon, I was competing against my own best winning time, and I was a goner. Another obsession to get lost in and live my secret life unimpeded by the distractions of the external world.
I am is not the sort of person who can easily turn tail and walk away from what enchants me. I was born with the Sun and Moon in Taurus. Lucky for me, its the phase of the lunar cycle when the first sliver of a crescent moon appears. Experienced and wise astrologers (The Magi) say that the amount of light the Moon reflect upon the moment of a person's birth is the amount of conscious awareness they have to work with for their entire lifetime. Oh... shit! I got a very small piece of the consciousness pie. No wonder I'm always the last to know.
I am is lucky to have that much consciousness. For three days before the absolute conjunction of the Moon with the Sun (New Moon), and for three days after the absolute, dead-nut conjunction of the Sun and Moon, the Moon reflects no light at all. For 5-6 days a lunar month the people in the mid-latitudes don't see the Moon at all.
My finally realizing the simplest of astronomical facts encountered by my past obsession with learning astrology, are fun for me to contemplate as they pop in my mind in the here and now of my dotage. The Moon phases and their mythical connotations are some of my favorite things to remember when my brother and I go out walking for our health at night.
Honestly, I don't know what people do with themselves when they get too old to play golf or piddle around in their gardens or hire professional help to entertain them. I don't know what other old people do at all. I stay at home and mind my own business, because minding my own business is what I find to be the most amusing.
The Hearts game I play these days came on a CD full of card games. I bought the CD at the Apple Store not long after it opened in Raleigh. Maybe five years ago. I had to buy the game because practically nothing useful comes with the Mac operating system.
If you wanna use a Mac (and who in their right mind doesn't?), then there is what its users call The Mac Tax. It's like the pillows and blankets on the airlines anymore. You gotta pay handsomely for the extras. Not misers like me. I'm no fool, I buy a keyboard or mouse to keep me off their hit list, but it's not actually required that you go bat-shit crazy over Eyemages of Steve Jobs.
Just never forget you're playing with what a huge corporate, profit-making mentality decides what's good for their shareholder's bottom line, and you might survive and still use their stuff, without becoming a tofu-eating fanboi. Steve Jobs is not the magician behind the curtain. Steve Jobs is the curtain itself.
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I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
