Updated Monopoly game

I got a chance to play the updated version of Monopoly the other evening.  This is the one that has no paper money in play.  Instead, each player has a credit card-looking card which is used to buy properties and pay penalties.  It is also  used to accept payments from other players or from passing Go.  It looks very hi-tech and gives the game an up-to-date feel without destroying its ancient charm.  But right away we noticed several things:

1. It is much easier for little kids to play because you don't have to count money or make change;
2. There's  either total transparency (if the banker announces the new balance(s)) or total secrecy (if the banker does not).  No more hiding your money and  pleading near poverty.
3. It is easier for the banker to make a mistake by punching a wrong button than by handing back or accepting the wrong bill.
4. There is no audit trail.  Under the paper money system there wasn't either but the actual bills changing hands worked much better than a calculator display.
5. The connection between money and what it represents is stretched even further leaving almost no connection for the players.

Carolyn and I have devised the following spreadsheet to use with the game.  By logging each transaction, the participants get a better feel for the money impact of each transaction.  Thus, we hope to eliminate problems 3 and 4.  We'll have to see if anything can be done about the others.

Player[AVL1]  1 name		Player 2 name		Player 3 name
+/-Amt	Balance	+/-Amt	Balance	+/-Amt	Balance
Player 4 name		Player 5 name		Player 6 name
+/-Amt	Balance	+/-Amt	Balance	+/-Amt	Balance

The world of "no instructions"

Carolyn got an iPad for Christmas and like many electronic devices nowadays, it came with no instructions at all.  Hold it, there may have been instructions on how to charge the unit.  But as to how to turn the machine on or off, run applications (or as they're now cutely named  "apps"), or communicate with the world, the user is left to "intuit" the answers.  The interface is so natural and intuitive that additional training would be superfluous.  Ha!

I should have known this would happen 35 years ago when one of the more popular games on the  Apple ][ was called Blackbox.  The object of the game was to find out the object of the game and that in turn was to figure out how the Blackbox "worked" or treated input.  And while PC makers and their related software producers haven't exactly been perfect trainers or documenters, they don't assume you'll just "pick it up" as you use the hardware.

It influences the younger generation's view on life.  My son was teaching his nephew how to  use the Tennis emulator on Wii with the advice that the younger boy swing his racquet any way, any direction and he'd soon pick up what was happening.

I'm sure it's just  a sign of old age but I need a little instruction so that I don't feel like I'm flailing my tennis racquet in the air.

Traditions

We slept in past 8:00 this morning.  We turned on the TV to catch a couple hours of the Rose Parade.

There have been years when most of the day would be behind us by then.  Years when at 8:00 am on New Year's Day we were in the middle of volunteering at the Holiston Methodist Church breakfast, serving people who had come to see the Rose Parade.  (We were rewarded with curbside seating to watch the parade.)  We have fond memories of serving alongside Cindy and Larry as well as not so fond memories of watching one parade in a driving rainstorm.

There have been other years when at 8:00 we were preparing a pancake breakfast at our own church, attempting to start a tradition.  That tradition was interrupted this year with the demise of the ward activities committee and we will just have to wait and see if it is revived next year or really dies.

I'm convinced that some traditions are really important, others are just good to remember.