Apples to Apples (with a spin)

So picture this for me, if you will. I was sitting in my room a few days or so ago, hanging with a group of my good friends. We were all getting pretty bored, so we decided to play a few ravishing games of Bananagrams and, the instant classic, Apples to Apples. Clearly we enjoy our fruit-inspired games.

But back to the story. Bananagrams came first, and not everyone knows how beastly I am at that game. It's basically like Scrabble, but you play against your own words and everyone has their own "board". You have to form legitimate words before someone else gets rid of all of their letters before you do. You do so by "peeling" when you run out of tiles to make the center draw pile count lower. After there's less tiles left in the center draw pile than there are players in the game, you shout "bananas" and everyone checks your words for accuracy.

I am the God of Bananagrams.

After they played and I won the few rounds they did play, we moved on to Apples to Apples.
Now, I have one particular friend that shall remain nameless during the duration of this post (we'll refer to him as Friend #1); but he figured it'd be a good idea to turn the innocent game of Apples to Apples into some sick, demented version of "Strip" Apples to Apples, where he was the only one that removed his clothing when someone else reached the winning four card minimum.

Now, before you get the wrong idea here, let me go on.

My other friend is honestly pro at Apples to Apples. He plays the best cards at all of the right times, let it be known. (We'll call this one Friend #2.)

So basically, everyone agrees to Friend #1's wager, because there is clearly something wrong with this kid and we also know that Friend #2 will just own him so very badly. We all begin to play, and almost as quickly as we started, Friend #2 wiped the board and stole the first four rounds, leaving him with four cards; the winner of the round.

Off comes the flannel over-shirt. Well, this kept going on until Friend #2 won for the 3rd time, leaving our Friend #1 sockless and shirtless. He's freezing and getting pretty upset that he's being slaughtered at the simple game of Apples to Apples, so he quits and keeps whatever inch of dignity he has left of himself.

The whole point I'm trying to make about this story is that Apples to Apples was never meant to be played any other way than what the directions instruct. Never ever go against the instructions. I wish that the makers of Apples to Apples would write in fine print on their instruction booklet: 'Do not remove clothing while playing this game.' Honestly, it's just wrong to even get that idea in your head.

Clearly some people find this sort of recreational activity okay and even enjoyable, but I only went along with it because I love watching my friends become overly embarrassed. Never let your friends do stupid things, but when they refuse to listen to your better judgment, laugh as hard as you can when they make complete idiots out of themselves.

It's just another philosophy you can look at your life with if you feel necessary.

Skype

I'm addicted.

Honestly, where has it been all of my life? Skype is clearly an amazing tool!

The only reason why I had registered for it in the first place was because I could talk to my dad, my stepmother and stepbrother via webcam; he lives in Pennsylvania and it's something different than just talking on the phone in between staying with him in the summers and visiting during spring break.

Another plus is that I'll be able to use it when I'm in Pennsylvania this summer as well to see my friends on occasion, which will be really nice at times. Believe it or not, I do miss Iowa a little bit when I'm gone.

Well along the way, I found out a lot of people also have Skype and ever since I have been thoroughly entertained. First of all, even though none of us have the group video chat feature, hearing what we all have to say is funny in and of itself. It's an extremely convenient way to communicate with the people in my life.

Furthermore, I have become much closer to a lot of friends that I had either lost touch with or just hadn't talked to in a while. It's something enjoyable to do when you're done with everything for the night and you're just bored. God knows that the winter robs you of all motivation, and it's too cold to do much for long. How upsetting.

But seriously, when Clayton Sampson has an account on something, you just know that it's legitimate. There's no getting around that; you can't even try to deny it so please don't. Everyone knows that it's completely and totally true.

I can tell you that I'm more than likely going to be video chatting with Amanda Bennett and Tanner Bernhard tonight. There's no doubt about that.

I think that it would be a good time to go sign up for Skype right now if you don't already use this godly program: make your friends get it, too. You probably will not regret it.

Blogging

My first official blog, take 2.

I never realized just how tricky blogging could end up being, which just makes me want to post a good blog that much more.

What are you supposed to write in these things, anyway? I mean, the closest thing I've ever done to blogging is a website that I post my poems and short stories on; I haven't written a constructive 5 paragraph paper since last year in English class, so I'm not used to spilling out all of these words and turning them into complete paragraphed thoughts that come together to achieve a cluster of points. I need to readjust, I suppose.

No, but honestly, you'll come to find that as the weeks grow in number, my posts will grow in number, and ultimately so will my paragraphs. I have a lot to say and a lot to share about life in general, and the components that make it up. There's never one surefire answer to a single issue, so I'll share mine when I can.

In the mean time, call this blog my 'Get Out of Jail Free Card', just for you. We'll lay off of the controversial topics until next week, okay? I'll just take this time to introduce you to my blog instead.

Over the course of this semester, I hope to be able to unleash my feelings in a way that I haven't been able to before. I'm hoping that through this blog and its flurry of topics, I'll be able to communicate my values and opinions to you, and vice versa. Sounds incredibly cheesy, right? Sure...but that's what blogging is all about in the first place, isn't it?
Sharing our opinions through a network of web pages?

Sure thing. But we'll all get through it, one post at a time.