Good. Now, she's probably gonna eviscerate me (eviscerate is such a good word -- use it often!) for this, but I'm gonna come to her defense.

A game is a game. And many people have just as many different reasons for playing. I'm pretty laid-back; I play to have a good time. I play for the journey, not necessarily the destination, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that I'm piss-poor (see? you use profanity sparingly and it has much more impact) at games and rarely win. But if I'm playing among friends, half the fun is seeing what you can do to others, and what ingenious travesties they can perform upon you. I don't necessarily mind getting utterly ruined in a game, because usually I'm not expecting to win. Or to even have a hope of winning.

But, I do have a sarcastic streak. Well, I guess sarcasm's not the right word, but I have a ... uh ... smart-assiness (couldn't be helped -- I'll be super clean on Sunday) to my behavior a lot of the time. It's happened before that this behavior has been construed as genuine sentiment (I'll pretend to be really annoyed, because in fact I'm a little annoyed, but instead of letting it get really bad I cut it off at the pass and try to turn it into a point of humor first, so it can be enjoyed by all). And a lot of the times, I don't realize that my "play-anger/angst/poutiness" is being seen as genuine, which only adds to the confusion.

So, my theory is that as we were playing, my joke-anger got out of hand and was seen as genuine displeasure (I soooo stink at Chez Geek -- and pretty much any other human-opponent game, for that matter). And so I think I was seen as a hypocrite when I called Ree on getting so upset over us ganging up on her.

I'm probably speaking out of turn here, but Ree's gaming personality is opposite mine, I think. She is out to win. Which is cool, and indicates an undercurrent of ambition and adherence to perfection that I'm way too lazy to have. But it also throws me for a mondo loop, because when I do my best to keep her from winning -- which is what I'm usually doing, because I have little hope of winning and she's so good at these games -- she gets very angry at not being able to accomplish what she wants -- which is to win -- and feels that we're all going specifically after her (can Lois write an even bigger run-on sentence of marginal grammatical integrity? find out next issue of Space Opera!). Which in a way is true, because by the time we've gone a couple of turns she's mere points away from winning, while I'm still trying to get rid of Lord Yahoo and earning zilch-o points from Power Outage Nookie (get the game; this'll make sense once you do).

But what's not true, and what I think gets lost in the shuffle, is that it's not personal. When someone pulls a major attack on me, I get a little annoyed and frustrated -- I mean, I'm human, and I have a rotten temper and get pissy when I don't get what I want. But I also laugh, because those cards are funny, especially when they're mean, and I enjoy the strategy and cunning it took to trip me up so badly.

So, I think Ree shouldn't have to give up card playing. We all have lots of fun. But at the same time, she should understand that ... well ... it's a game, and when I throw Student Loans around like there's no tomorrow, it's 'cause I'm trying to give myself a glimmer of hope for winning, and really I'm only delaying the inevitable. So just as much as I need to be called on joke-emoting too close to home, I feel Ree should see the humor when I hit her with Dude I'm Broke followed by Can't Handle it Guy followed by Burglary, because, dammit, I've only had one turn and she's already two points away from winning.

Okay. If you never hear from me again, it's 'cause she's put my corpse somewhere in the Meadowlands (stupid Continental Airlines Arena nonsense, please) for overstepping my bounds, which I believe I may very well have.

As for any other stuff happening in my life right now, it's just ain't that interesting. Except for the job hunt, which is pathetic enough to attract attention to itself. Nobody's even calling. I'd say I suck but someone'd beat the living snot out of me.