Satisfaction Guaranteed

Day 95: I have to admit that I'm not much for electronic games, but not long after the first Angry Birds was released, Kevin introduced me to it when I was at his house for a family event. I was skeptical of it at first, thinking that wingless birds were something contrary to my nature, but it only took playing the first few levels before I was convinced. I got it for my Kindle a few days later, and over the course of the next few weeks, became aware that playing a level until I had achieved a single star was not the way to proceed. I went back to level one and pounded away at it until I'd reached three stars, then moving on to the next game. Rovio came out with a different version (Seasons, if memory serves) before I'd achieved three stars on all the levels, but I added it to my Kindle as well and started pecking (excuse the pun) at it whenever I got stuck in the original. One thing led to another and eventually...yes, really...I scored three stars on every level of every game available to my Kindle. And I was sad; oh, so sad that I didn't have any more pigs to blow up.

There's something eminently gratifying about playing Angry Birds when every portion of the rest of the world seems to have spun out of my personal control. I thought hard about clearing out my scores and starting over, but then the thought occurred that it would be even more challenging to try to beat my previous highs. That's been my project for the last year or so. I'm sure that I've maxed out on perhaps half a dozen, but since I don't know what the maximum scores might be, I frequently plug away at any given level for a week or two before finally giving up and moving on to the next one. Today, I beat one I've been working at for a week, and then smashed through the next one in less than six tries. Even if I don't achieve a new high score, I have the satisfaction of keeping the pigs under control.