App | Brick House

It’s been a while since I posted. The last couple of months have been fraught with distractions, like eating Thanksgiving pies, Christmas cookies, Marge’s homemade angel food, Dave’s birthday lasagna, cheese cake, Christmas ham, Lucy’s yummy chocolate truffle cookies, and assorted dips, cheeses and crackers. Not to mention half of the tin of homemade cookies my mom gives us every year that I assured her I would leave entirely to Dave (I cannot be trusted to promises made when it comes to baked goods).

Mmmmmm….cookies!

I have also been distracted by a game on my iPad, introduced to me by my nephew. My adult nephew, who is 30 years old and expecting his first baby and whose care-free video game playing days will soon be coming to a crashing sleep-deprived halt. Excuse my cruel chuckle as I experience the empty nest days of doing whatever the heck I want whenever the heck I want to, as long as it doesn’t break any laws, interfere with my job, breach national security, or send us spinning into bankruptcy.

The game in question is The Simpsons Tapped Out. First, let me say that I don’t even watch The Simpsons. I think, in the entire 500 years it’s been on the air, I may have watched 3 episodes. I have paid enough attention to pop culture to know who Homer, Marge, Maggie, Bart and Lisa are, but that’s really about it. I would never have looked for this game on my own, because I wouldn’t have cared enough to even think it might exist.

So, when David showed me the game on his iPhone, I thought it was in complete innocence, one gamer to another. No. He was seductively trying to suck me into the vortex so he could add another friend to his game and fulfill a quest. I watched in fascination as he clicked on people and buildings, collecting cash and making Bart go to church and Ned Flanders take power walks. My eyes dilated and my finger reached tentatively out towards his phone. Then he said the magic words…”It’s free, Aunt Sue”.

This is not a game for those afflicted with OCD. I became obsessed with rebuilding Springfield and fulfilling quests. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were soon filled with the sounds of my finger spastically tapping on glass. I started bringing my Ipad to work to sneak extra game play during the day, where I hunched over my iPad, tapping furiously while casting furtive glances over my shoulder. I needed to buy more land and build more buildings! I needed more cash! More Halloween Treats! More Christmas coins! More friends! I visited Tapped Out forums to find strangers to add to my ‘friend’ list and forced my friend’s 12 year old son to “add me”. I almost went as far as buying fake donuts with real cash, just to be able to build the mad scientist volcanic lair. Oh yeah. I was hard core.

This baby cost 200 donuts.

Somewhere between Christmas and New Years, we ran out of the Christmas cookies that I was using to feed my gaming frenzy, and I realized I needed to get my life back. The dogs were picking thru garbage and hanging out on the street corner, harassing the neighborhood collie (Hey you. Yeah, you! Look at you behind your fence, pansy boy! Oh yeah? I dare ya! I triple-human dare ya!). The cat was cooking ‘nip in the basement and selling it to unsuspecting kittens. The boys were mixing lights with darks in the laundry room while surviving on Hot Pockets and Tina’s frozen burritos. I had 10,679 unread emails just from Kohl’s alone (Save 30%! Free shipping! Get Kohl’s Cash!), and was so far behind on Facebook that I didn’t recognize any of my friends.

“Pssst. Little kitten! I have some candy for you!”

So I quit. Cold turkey. I don’t recommend this to the faint of heart. First came the shakes. Then then the delirium. I cried. I giggled maniacally. I sobbed in hysterics. I beat on my Ipad, shouting “WHY? WHY?” And then I crashed. It was the worst ten minutes of my life.

And now I’m back to my barmy old self, ready to motivate the hell out of you to work out, eat right and pray your socks off in 2013. Are you ready? Let’s ride!!

I have a headache tonight so I am going to take the easy way out and post about some fun things from the weekend, instead of wowing you with profound insight. As you know, I am a great proponent of having fun and finding joy in the little things. “Easily entertained” are two words often used to describe me.

I was trying to be like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. I should have bent my legs out. Hindsight is 20/20.

Believe it or not, this lifetime Wisconsinite has never been thru a corn maze, so when my sister asked me to go with her to a corn maze at Groche Organic Farms, I immediately said yes. I am sure many of you have heard of the story of the woman who got lost in the corn maze and called 911 because she couldn’t find her way out. This did not happen to us, mainly because of my superior map reading skills. And because we would have had to try really hard to get lost.

Before we started, we were given a sheet with multiple choice answers on it, that corresponded with questions found in the maze. At each question, they had a hole punch attached with string, that you used to punch out your answer. I only mention this because it explains a couple of the pictures below. Here is a photo journey of our day as Grown Ups of the Corn.

Seriously, you can’t get lost in this maze.

Punching Question 1…Looks more like I’m having a kidney stone attack…

Do you have any idea how much stuff is made out of corn? Neither did we. We got that question wrong.

My sister’s rendition of the hole punch – used with permission by my sister, provided I didn’t mention who she was. Oops.

Even I will admit that this is one cool picture.

Another fun thing from the weekend was a really cool app I found called Comic Book. It lets you take your regular photos and add a ‘comic book’ effect to it, and then add stickers and such. Here is an example – you will recognize the picture of my sister from above. Now come on. That is some pretty cool stuff. It didn’t stop there, either. I played with a few more:

Lucky isn’t saying anything, as our pizza came before I could finish it. But you see the potential here. I love this app so much, it makes me want to go purchase an IPad because I know it will be so much more fun to use on a larger screen. And I want an IPad.

And my last fun thing isn’t really “fun” per se, as much as it is useful. Sometimes useful things are great for us emotionally, simply because they make our life easier or we get joy or satisfaction from using them. This is one of those things. Try not to be disgusted by the raw hamburger in the pan. I know red meat is not on the list of Super Foods (unless you count foods that could kill you Super Quick), but you will have to drag me from it kicking and screaming none the less. The utensil is the Hamburger Chopper. Well, that’s not it’s real name. I don’t remember what it’s real name is – I bought this one and one for my sister (coincidentally, the one I went to the corn maze with), last year before Christmas. I have never seen them since, which is a shame, because it really is the best tool ever for cooking ground beef.