If Board Games are Movies for the Amish, then Apples to Apples is "Wall-e"! Am I right?!?!

by Spence Blazak

As you can probably guess, my favorite form of entertainment is movies. Second: music. Third: Watching that episode of The Office for the thousandth time where Michael holds the pizza boy hostage. Fourth: The website with pictures of cats who look like Hitler ....... and at a distant Forty-Third: Board Games. This is right behind Forty-Three: Listening to the junkyard cats outside my window who are dancing the “hibbitty dibbitty.” Since it is only a matter of time before we get our nation’s first Amish President who bans all electronics....and buttons or Klatu from The Day the Earth Stood Still makes the Earth stand still again, I figure its about time that I give board games a little more respect since they will soon be our only way to avoid the worst fate of all......*cue the WOOOOMP music from Inception* FORCED CONVERSATION.

I’ll start off by explaining my beefs with board games. Firstly, I never win. This is a problem. If something wants to keep me happy, they should throw me a bone every once in a while. Thats right. I’m talking to you Scrabble. AND your deformed cousin Bananagrams who your aunt Boggle keeps in the shed. Why do you insist on giving me nothing but Us every time? EVERY DAMN TIME! THERE ARE OTHER LETTERS! WHAT ABOUT “B”!!!!!!Alright, I’m okay now.

The other problem is that it fries my nerves. Every time I play Operation, I feel like a Vietnam vet after hearing a helicopter go by my house. Don’t even get me started on what happens after the noise goes off when I unsuccessfully pull out the Charlie Horse. Hold on.....*goes into bathroom, turns on fan, cries in the tub for 20 minutes*.....Okay I’m fine now.

Yet, there is one game to rule them all. One game that makes up for all of the fear that Jenga strikes into my fragile self. That game is Apples to Apples. The greatest game of all time. I have never played it without laughing until I cried. Not once. It contains all the funniest things board games can offer aside from Candyland’s best character name: Grandma Nut.

The game is played with two piles of cards: one red, one green. On the green card is an adjective and on the red card is a noun. Each round, an adjective is laid down and every player must lay down a noun they think will match the word. The judge chooses the best noun, and the winner gets the green card. The person with the most green cards at the end of the night gets bragging rights for a fortnight.

The game’s success lies primarily in the senselessness of both the nouns and of the people playing. I’ll explain. By tempting us with noun cards like “The JFK assassination” while the adjective “Sensual” is in play, the game dooms itself to a reputation of politically incorrect brilliance. (In a game last night, the “Princess Di” card was played for the adjective “Busty.” All other combinations will now be judged by that standard.)The game has one flaw though: the fact that I’m not allowed to make up my own cards to go along with the already brilliant ones there. Here are a few of my favorites and a few suggestions, remember, the more insensitive the better!

Top 10 Red cards already in existence

10. KKK/AIDS (tie)

9. Wheat/My High School Prom (tie)

8. Going to the Dentist

7. Hiroshima-1945

6. My Past

5. Helen Keller

4. Princess Di

3. Hitler

2. Anne Frank

1. My Ex-Wife

Top 10 Red Cards added on for the Spence edition

10. Taylor Swift/ Liam Gallagher (tie)

9. Alanis Morisette’s Greatest Hits

8. My Friday Night

7. Erotic cakes

6. The Clap (STD or hit song by The Wiggles)

5. Pepsi Blue

4. Ike Turner

3. A White Panel Van

2. The O.J. Simpson Trial

1. That’s So Raven

If you’ve never played the game before and are having a hard time laughing at these, imagine the element of surprise when the adjective is “Lusty” and the noun “Anne Frank” pops up. You’ll laugh harder than that one time you laughed REALLY hard. Yeah, you know that time...So basically, Apples to Apples is the Alpha and the Omega of board games. Feel free to argue this with me. I’ll win. Mainly because I’m the judge of who wins. And I’m quite biased.