S. Worthen | Weblog

Sometime last week, I went uranium prospecting up in the Andes. Along the way, I saw a beautiful butterfly, which made me happy, and, being an intrepid explorer, discovered some Inca ruins. Oh, and earned huge amounts of cash for discovering some uranium, as luck would have it. Being a good mountain climber really does pay off.

This entire game-playing experience was brought to me by the vintage '50s board game Careers, a game which encourages getting some education and finding happiness, fame, and money en route to victory. Victory is personally defined by each player, a balance of those three factors. snowdrifted picked the game up in a garage sale some time ago, allowing us to explore the world by boat, play at politics, and travel to the moon. Travelling to the moon has its down sides: if the spaceship explodes, everyone forgets about you, but you're just as happy as ever. If you're unlucky and land on the "Shopping Spree" square, your wife will spend way too much of one's hard-earned cash. We unanimously and optimistically decided that our ability to have a "wife" showed how forward-thinking the game was.

Much like the Eurovision ditties still stuck in my head, I've been thinking about the game ever since. Apparently it was updated over the years, with computer programming replacing uranium prospecting. I doubt I'd ever discover Inca ruins while programming, however, nor see a sublime sunset in the Andes.

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My time in Toronto runs by in a blur of socialness, interspersed by satisfying stints at the rare book room. We held a pub night tonight as a handy way of seeing lots of friends, and were mighty lucky with the turnout, given that the email I thought I'd sent out - and which my email client thought I'd sent out - was received by absolutely no one. I didn't intend to leave anyone out!

I can't quite believe I lose JSTOR access on Friday.