This week's cartoon covers the intricacies in the Monopoly rules system. The local paper had this big story about games families play when they get together, with a clever picture of a Scrabble board and promise of reader input and everything. Turns out that the article was about things like white elephant gift exchanges and silly things like that. The reader input was a poll asking folks to pick which among four games was their favorite (most of which were even hinted at in the article). Not that there's anything wrong with the free-form parlor games mentioned in the article. They are heavy on social interaction, which is a key ingredient in a successful game in these situations. If you have a lot of people with some vocabulary skills, Balderdash is a good game to try. Apples to Apples is another game that gets people laughing and having a good time.

I just realized that Christmas is only two weeks away and I need to get my shopping done. I may or may not be back next week!