So here we all stand on this little joke island of a day, February 29th. Don't know what a "joke island" is? Well, that's understandable since it's part of the private lexicon of the Mancine family. I will explain it to you. When the kids were little they had a really cheesy video golf game. (Perhaps one of them will comment here and kindly tell us which game it was.) If one hit the ball so that it landed just barely in one of the water features, a little round tuft of grass would appear in the water for the golfer to stand on. It was a joke island, if you will.
I suppose if one really cared about "winning" the game, one would not want to deliberately hit the ball into the water feature. However, in the wacky world of video game playing at our house, a joke island was very desirable, and the kids pretty much aimed for the edge of every lake or pond they encountered. Then one of them would come running to find us, saying, "Come look at the joke island I made!" It was all very entertaining.
Anyway, here we are on Leap Day, which you probably read all about in the local newspaper this morning, as did I. So you already know that we have it every four years to keep the calendar from shifting around until we have Christmas in the hottest part of the year like those wacky Australians. I understand all that, but I do have just one question about it. Why in the world do we have to add an extra day to the crappiest month of the year? Why not add a day to the lovely month of May? Wouldn't you love to have one more perfect day of late spring instead of another day like this one? That's all I'm sayin'.
5 comments:
Oh, it wouldn't be Links Pro, would it? I vaguely remember Joke Island but can't recall if that was the game. Links Pro was also famous for such lines as "awww it's in the deep stuff," "you can have that one," and "gimme gimme!" All of which I realize now could be construed as semi-sexual in plain text.
Our favorite comment was, "Oh! Can't be too happy about that one!" after a bad shot.
Tom or Jules will have to tell you if that is the right game or not. We had a couple.
The game had digitized voices, and it was a Commodore 64 game. Maybe Leader Board Golf. Or Executive Leader Board. The little tufts of "grass" in the water were just a lame programmers trick so the golfer wasn't standing in (or on) the water to take his shot. If I were writing the game, I'd have just moved the ball in a bit and said "Mulligan" or something.
The commentators might also say, "Looks like he, hit the tree Jim." What gleeful hours we spent, trying to put the ball in a tree, or near the water, again and again.
But back to the point, leap day in May - Brilliant! Can't believe I never thought of that myself. Why *can't* it be in May? Or June, or whatever? Why don't the presidential candidates state their position on this proposal?
You guys, you guys, seriously.
Leader Board Golf
= Correction =
"Leader Board Golf" was a Commodore 64 game with no sound. It was later ported to PCs and renamed "World Class Leader Board". I found an abandonware site, downloaded a copy, installed a copy of DOSbox so it would run, and I've been playing it for the past 30 minutes. Full sound (crickets, commentary, applause, etc.) But despite my skillz it will not give me a "joke island". Instead, duffer just stands on the water. (Ooh, can't be too happy about that one!) Not as funny as it once was, but still fun, in that EGA/VGA way.
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