Blasted Computer Game

The wife and I had planned to go on a Navy tour of the Arizona Memorial today, but we had to postpone it.

Why? Because I got involved in a computer game last night and didn’t get to bed until 3 o’clock this morning. Consequently, this morning I woke up too late and I’m more sluggish than a slug.

That’s okay … we’ve rescheduled for tomorrow. The memorial is open all day; admission is free, no reservation is required, so there’s no loss of anything "real world" involved in this decision.

The game that consumed me last night is called Bejeweled 2 Deluxe, which I bought and downloaded a couple of years ago. Basically, you line up identical gemstones to accumulate points. Easy to play, fairly easy to strategize and set up your next move. A good game to keep a retired mind active.

I was on a roll last night. My previous high score was 861,936 gems, which I attained a couple of months ago. Right now, I have the game on pause – on level 44, with a score so far of 2,337,181 gems.

When I qualified for my top 10 scores list, I thought I’d keep on going to see if I could reach my previous high score. Then, when I exceeded that, despite my drooping eyes, I went for a million. That’s when it got silly. As you advance up the levels, successful moves result in higher scores. The game sucks you in deeper and deeper.

So, what started out as a short half-hour session turned into … are you ready for this? Seven hours.

My legs and butt were numb, and my vision was blurry when I finally called it a night. But y’know, that blasted computer game is just sitting there, teasing me with the 2,337,181 score and tempting me to add on to it.

Maybe another day. It’s not going away.