Entertainment and Sports

Game Gamer Gaming Gamey Games

Life is a game and everything else is a game within the game. All games should be fun and fair, but that's rarely the case, which is the way the game goes, I guess.

By Kevin Somers
Published September 19, 2010

Life is a game and everything else is a game within the game. All games should be fun and fair, but that's rarely the case, which is the way the game goes, I guess. It's not true that whoever dies with the most toys, shoes, money, or parking spots wins; hoarding is only one way to count. Being content with less is a victory when I judge the game.

Playing God is a fun game.

I don't like sedentary games: computer games, card games, or board games, very much. As well, I don't like games of chance because I can, and usually do, lose to a lazy pinhead. I don't like gambling, which is now being called "gaming" by mobsters and politicians, who use clubs and the Internet to legally bleed the vulnerable. Gaming is more of a racket than a game.

Ping-pong is great game. You can't hide or cheat or fluke out playing ping-pong. I play against my neighbour regularly and he usually wins. I hate ping-pong, it's a stupid game. This summer, I expropriated three of my girls' noodles and made a floating, miniature ping-pong table for the pool. We've discovered "aqua-pong" is a wonderful beer-drinking-father-daughter game. I usually win, which makes the game better and beer sweeter.

According to the Internets (I still miss George Bush), everyone in the world who has heard of the mind game, [The Game](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(mind_game)), is always playing the game.

Michael Douglas and Sean Penn made a movie called "The Game," in 1997. "The Game" coulda and shoulda been great, but wasn't close. Neil Strauss wrote a book called, "The Game; Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists," which sounds worse. Jayceon Terrell Taylor is a rapper known as "Game," but he used to be known as "The Game."

Game was friends with 50 Cent, who was a drug-dealing, gun-toting gangster, but they're currently being disputatious. Living a gangbanging lifestyle is sometimes referred to as being in "the game." "On the game" has also been used to reference thieving and prostitution; a game no one should have to play.

Hunted animals and birds are called game. A gamebook is used to score kills. A gamekeeper is paid to produce or protect game. Wild game tastes gamy.

"The Name Game," was a popular song written and recorded by Shirley Ellis. Like my fine self, it was released in late 1964. The name game is fun:

Kevin, Kevin, bo-biven,
Banana-fana fo-fevin
Fee-fi-mo-mevin
Kevin

You try.

Words enable great games. I like to play playful mind-games, too, especially with children. It's remarkable how quickly young ones catch on and engage in the game. Soon, we're throwing witticisms back and forth like a game of catch.

More than wise, pious, rich, or famous, I value funny and seek the comedic with a religious fervour. Give me laughter or give me death. The first thing an oppressor kills is mirth. When the laughter is gone, as a panicking Stewy Gilligan Griffin declared, "It's game over, man. Game over."

Anyone who's played team games knows there's no better place to work on one's wit than the change-room after a game. Beyond humour, a quick mind is good for one's overall game.

I used to be game for almost anything that didn't involve heights and threw myself around recklessly. With age and (bad) experiences came trepidation, however, and now I'd rather finish the game without getting hurt. Besides, I usually have a big game tomorrow (work).

I tip my hat to guys like Chris Chelios, who played in the NHL for 27 years, because violent, collision games, like hockey, rugby, or football are a young man's game.

Alternatively, slow-paced, non-contact, pickup, slightly chunky, old-man floor hockey is my kind of game for now, but I'm seriously looking into lawn bowling. It looks like a great game. You can probably drink while you play, instead of waiting until after the game. I'm game for that.

Curling is a great game.

Hockey is a great game, too. Ken Dryden wrote a book called "The Game." Ken's a smart dude, but, more importantly, he was great goalie. Retired goalies make good commentators because they study the entire game, back to front and front to back, for years.

Hockey, like all games, is made more interesting by the endless games within the game: match ups, styles, individual battles, blocking shots, hits, fights... which are just as intriguing as the score. Great goalies watch it all unfold and then they are called upon to save the game. I like the quirkiness of goalies, too; they make the game more interesting.

Getting Out Of Work is a fun game. My brother once volunteered to have police dogs in training attack him while he wore a Michelin Man suit. "Why?" I asked, horrified.

He said, "It gets me out of the office," as though I were an idiot.

"Game on," quintessentially, simultaneously captures Canada's love of roads, hockey, and road hockey; an incomparably great game.

The Pan Am Games, a poor person's version of the Commonwealth Games, a poor man's version of the Olympic Games, are coming to southern Ontario. When the opportunity to host events was bestowed upon Hamilton, I thought, "Good, I like games."

Along with hosting The Pan Am Games' events, Hamilton would get a new stadium to play games. More great news; it all sounded so gamesome. Everything seemed set for a West Harbour stadium location until the last minute, when Bob Young and his Tiger Cats mercilessly, irreparably shredded the city's game plan, like feral cats. Before The Pan Am Games' athletes could find Hamilton on Google Earth, The Stadium Games were well underway. Spectatoracularly, Hamilton's games have become national news.

Watching who and how The Stadium Games have been played has been interesting, but expensive and unpleasant. Indeed, some of the gamesmanship has been disquieting. I look forward to the end of The Stadium Games. Decaying, crumbling, bumbling, stumbling Hamilton has more important games to play.

Kevin Somers is a Hamilton writer.

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[ - ]

By Kiely (registered) | Posted September 20, 2010 at 14:56:58

Hamilton has more important games to play

And good games they are:

Clean up the Sludge Harbour Dive (sort of like bobbing for apples but now with sludge!)

The Matt Jelly Invitational Toxic Barrel Hunt… remember, bring your own work gloves!

Musical Soap Boxes… the always in-season game where Hamilton politicians duke it out to see who can get on top of their latest soap box first!!! Don't be the one left on the sidelines without a quote in the Spec! The overall winner gets 5 minutes with Hebsy and Donna on Live @ 5:30!!!

And don't forget it is the season for "Spot the Mayfly Politician!", with some people's political aspirations ending as quick as they began!

; )

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By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted September 20, 2010 at 22:47:31

I love the title. Must admit, though, if I were going to write an article about council and the stadium, it would probably be "Lost losers loosing losses".

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By AnneMariePavlov (registered) | Posted September 21, 2010 at 15:29:22

Or PanAm Porkbarrellers & Partners Plot Pillage and Pooh-Pooh Parking Problems

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