Board Games in the Twenty-First Century

[caption id="attachment_171" align="alignright" width="240" caption="This is the final result of a recent Scrabble game between Mel and me."][/caption]

I have long been a fan of board games, including the game Scrabble. Ever since I met Mel, Scrabble has been a game we have liked to play together. With two young children, it can be difficult to find the time to play board games however. This is why being able to play Scrabble online through Facebook is great. Each of us can play our turn whenever we get a chance, and there is no risk that one of the kids will upset the game board, ruining a game. Also, with playing online, we are able to have multiple games going with each other, as well as other people, simultaneously. One problem we have had with this though is that, until recently, each of could only play our turns when we were at the computer.

We have recently solved this problem by each downloading the Scrabble Free app for our Android phones. We are now able to each play our turn without logging into the computer. Both last night and tonight we found ourselves playing our turns repeatedly one after another. It was funny that I would play my turn in one game and then hear the alert from Mel's phone that she had a game ready for her. Moments later my phone would give me the same alert. While we could get the Scrabble board out and play a game with physical pieces, playing using technology is just so much more convenient.

Shoe Shopping

This weekend I realized I was in need of a new pair of shoes for everyday wear. I was shopping at a mall Monday with my wife and kids and decided to look for a new pair of shoes. After getting my foot measured and discovering that my shoe size is 13.5 or 14, not 13 as I have been wearing for as long as I can remember, I looked through their selection for a pair of shoes I liked. After finding one, the salesperson went in the back to see if they had it in my size. Unfortunately they did not. I was not really too surprised by that as 14 is not a very popular shoe size.

That evening when we got home, I downloaded the Zappos app from the Android Marketplace. This allowed me to look through the vast selection of shoes that Zappos.com carries, filtering for the type of shoe I was looking for and for my size. After narrowing my choice down to about ten or so different pairs of shoes, I made my selection and placed my order, all from my smartphone. It is really amazing what one can do with technology these days. After placing my order, Zappos.com upgraded my shipping because of a tweet I wrote about them. And because of that, my new shoes arrived already today.

After this wonderful experience ordering shoes online, I do not know if I will ever feel the need to actually go to a shoe store to order shoes again. By ordering shoes for my gargantuan feet online, I have found that I have a much larger selection to choose from. And with free shipping both ways from Zappos, I do not even have to worry about the added expense of returning a pair of shoes in the event that they do not fit.