Confessions of an Atypical Computer Game Addict

First it was Tetris, the first game to be exported from the Soviet Union to the US. It came in 1984, but we didn't get addicted until 1992, when we'd play on our Apple PowerBook, complete with a roller ball and an external floppy disk drive. (What a beast that was!) We'd sit at our desk in our dorm room, smoking cigarettes and playing late into the night. We were super tired at school.

Then it was Troubled Souls, played on a friend's tremendously large monitor with a tremendously good speaker system. We'd connect the bones to make circles while trying not to lose your beating heart. It had the best hypnotic music and hilarious message of inspiration. It was 1994 and it was the perfect game to accompany our gothly state. (There's a video of the game being played on YouTube. That music, really - it should have been released as a CD.) We were super tired at work.

Then came Scrabble on our first PDA made by Palm, which took the pain out of our Tube journey to work. We used the stylus that slide into the side, and it was very black and white. Then came Scrabble on our iPhone, which we're still playing, several iPhones later. But after spending so many years tired, we know our limits. So the following games are off limits:

1. Farmville, which was released in 2009 by Zynga. (Let's be real: it's also off-limits because it seemed totally uncool, and because all of those Facebook requests were totally obnoxious.)
2. Words With Friends, also produced by Zynga in 2009. You would think we'd be playing this, and you'd be right; it's our kind of game. But we don't have quite as much time on our hands as we used to...
3. Texas HoleEm Poker or any variety of Zynga Poker. (Are you sensing a trend here? You're right: Zynga is ruling the social gaming roost with 360 million players worldwide. That's, um, approximately the population of the United States.)
4. SimCity, which originated in 1989 and is now released by EA. (They also put out The Sims in 2000, which still holds the title of the best-selling game in history.) We were tempted by this one, at one point.
5. We're aslo avoiding Bubble Safari, Restaurant City, free Pyramid Solitaire, Klondike, Free Cell, Spider and most definitely, anything flying and angry.

Why? Because we've got to get in the shower!