The World of Stuff .com

Fun with friends

On Tuesday I went with my friends, Nick, Mark, and Michael, to some place called Gaming Emporium or something like that. It was basically like an arcade but with computer games, and you buy an all-day pass to get in. At least, that’s what they told me. The place was really far away (at least a half an hour’s drive), and when we got there, it was closed. I could look inside, though. It was a smallish place with rows of computers occupying most of the area. There were also a few TVs with a PlayStation 2, an Xbox, and a NES (which of these doesn’t belong?). I was told that there was Internet access also, so at least I would have had something to do while they gamed.

So for what to do, we somehow ruled out going to the movies even though there was an enormous movie theater next door. Instead we went all the way back to a familiar bowling alley in our neck of the woods. I bowled better than I thought I would, even though I have no proper form or technique (and am left-handed). Fairly early on, a passerby gave some advice: to just throw the ball towards where you want it to end up. In other words, actually look at the pins when you’re throwing the ball. This hadn’t occurred to me, but once I tried it I did much better. In fact, I won most of the games we played.

Then we went back to Nick’s house, where we spent the night. The period of Tuesday afternoon to yesterday afternoon generally consisted of video games, air hockey, TV, board games, video games, DVDs, video games, poker, catch, video games, pizza, doughnuts, and video games. The one video game we played the most was Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (yes, the name properly styled that way), which was fortunate for me because I actually know how to play that game. And for the record, we didn’t stay up very late — we were asleep shortly after midnight, I think.

Now it’s time to play Ask Jordon, with your host… Jordon!

shirley: what is plaps

Read the Frequently Asked Question “What was PLAPS?” on the About the Site page. It’s actually the only FAQ that’s FAed.

Ronna Wikert: Are the currency bills with a star after the serial numbers which were issued during the first Iraqi war worth anything?

I’m no expert on world currency, but a pretty good way to get a pretty good idea of what these bills might be going for is to search eBay. Iraqi dinar notes — even older ones — are not at all hard to find there. Here’s a search query to get you started.

An ambigram is a word or phrase written in such a way that it can be read as another word/phrase (or the same one) when you turn it upside-down. Gef’s Ambigram Gallery has names of all sorts of people I haven’t heard of. And you can even make your own ambigrams online using Ambigram.Matic. I’ve seen an interesting ambigram that reads “Life” one way and “Death” the other. That’s deep.