Before There Were Angry Birds...

Day 11: Before there were Angry Birds, there was Frogger. Before there were computers in almost every home, there were Atari game consoles, and Frogger was one of the few games I ever played. The premise is simple: get your frog across the road without getting it run over by a truck. Oooops! Didn't work quite the way you had it planned, did it?

You would think that a person who loved frogs would despise this game, but my mother (one of the froggiest frog-fanciers ever to be born) simply loved it. The only other electronic game she enjoyed was Merlin, and that was because she said it was good practice for her memory skills. Frogger certainly didn't have anything like that to redeem it in her eyes, but nevertheless, she not only played the game when she came to visit us, she would watch in fascination as either my husband or I managed to have a frog or two survive to the next level.

Perhaps as a bird lover, there's a parallel here with my own fascination for Angry Birds in its various incarnations. Just as my mother wanted her favorite froggy people to succeed despite the odds against them, I desire to see my wingless avian friends beat down their foes. That said, the Angry Birds seem to have a much higher rate of success than those poor amphibians who, at least in my hands, are well on their way to the endangered species list.