What else were you planning all doing with all your free time?
Written: Mar 26 '04 (Updated Mar 26 '04)
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I spend entirely too much time at Pogo. It’s just too easy to go there and stay, like Hotel California.
About 3 years ago two of my friends were telling me about Pogo and how much fun it was. I resisted valiantly, recalling the amount of time I had racked up on Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab. I didn’t need another distraction. At least with Burning Monkey when I got bored I left it and did something useful. Pogo, with its variety of games and slender chance for cash prizes, did not offer that boredom factor.
Then a third friend of mine mentioned the site and I started to feel left out, more so. First I tried Free Cell Solitaire and I had hope. I suck at Free Cell Solitaire. I though, good, maybe I will suck at all these games, get bored by being trounced all the time and do what I’m supposed to be doing. HA! I switched to First Class Solitaire (solitaire with an airplane motif.) My mother, sister and I used to wear out decks of cards playing solitaire. Hooked, but good. You can’t stop playing solitaire until you’ve won a hand and once you've won a hand, well, you’ve got hope of a jackpot don’t you? (A very small hope. I don't know a soul who's actually won anything better than a screensaver.)
After I got a little bored with solitaire I branched out. Word Whomp kicks my butt, darn it, but Sweet Tooth … I could play Sweet Tooth for hours and I have. I was very, very happy with Pogo (while unhappy with my productivity) for about 2 years. Then I got a little bored and had other stuff to do anyway.
So this summer I get an email from a friend telling me that Pogo has a new thing, Club Pogo, which you have to pay for, but she has a free pass, do I want it? In my 2 weeks at Club Pogo I played a lot of Squelchies, a puzzle game with an underwater motif. On the last day for some reason I branched out to Word Whomp Whackdown. Not sure why. Regular Word Whomp defeats me every time, I think it’s the timer. Whackdown is just different enough that I’m pretty good at it, but it’s only a Club game so when my pass ran out so did my access to Whackdown. Drat, but probably better in the long run, right?
Then Rox turned up with another free pass. I had to sign in under another screen name, but I got to play. By the time I got to the third pass Pogo had wised up and they weren’t letting me ride free again. But it was for the best. I have stuff to do, a live to lead, books to write and songs to sing etc.
And yet … I dropped in to Pogo to play like I used to, but the siren call of Whackdown sang to me. That and Rox telling me about the badges she was earning. I was a Girl Scout, badges are very important to me. Finally about a week and a half ago I was playing Sweet Tooth and pondering Club Pogo. $30 for a whole year of Whackdown and Squelchies! Badges! Doubled jackpots (as if anybody ever wins)! I shut off the games and went to take a bath trying to convince myself that if I wasn’t a member I might get some work done and if I was a member, the charm would wear off before I got my $30 of enjoyment out of it. But my mind kept straying back to the Club. I can blow $30 a month in the E-bar at work and Pogo isn’t fattening.
So $30 later I’m playing all the club games and pursuing badges feverishly. And before the hope that I’ll get bored creeps in, Pogo springs a new game on me. Tri-Peaks Solitaire. Mahjong. Then there’s that pantheon of extreme games that don’t appeal to me … yet. Just yesterday I was standing at the Information desk, ostensibly reading up on the new T-Mobile Hot Spot wireless internet access so I could answer customer questions; but what I was really doing was thinking "Gee, for $30 a month I can go to any Borders in the country and play Pogo on my laptop. I need to find out if this works on Macs." And it does. Sigh. How did I get so addicted that $30 a month for wireless access so I can play Pogo on my lunch hour becomes reasonable?
Don’t go. Unless you want to be snared for life.
Recommended:
Yes
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Darkmistress
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Location: Concepcion, Chile
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