This past weekend, I spent time with my youngest nephew Stanley.
Saturday, Stanley and I saw Monsters Vs. Aliens. We both found the movie cute, but nothing spectacular. Afterwards, we went to my mother’s house, where I stayed the night. Stanley was nearing the end of a week long visit with his grandmother.
A very good speller (he was second in his school’s spelling bee), Stanley wanted to play Scrabble. Scrabble is a family tradition. I first started playing my mother around ten (as she did with her folks). When I was thirteen, we started playing a game a week. My mom doesn’t believe in letting you win. She’ll teach you strategy, but doesn’t give in because you are child. It wasn’t until I was fifteen when I finally beat her. And I earned it.
His grandmother beat the ten year old Stanley the night before, and as expected, I won this game. But he made a good showing and his first play was “naive.” Pretty impressive!
Stanley like his big brother is definitely a geek but of a slightly different variety. While his brother loves wargames and computers, Stanley prefers action video games (which makes the whole Scrabble thing weird), but has no interest in the computers themselves or games that take a lot of planning. Stanley loves telling jokes and watching goofy movies.
After Scrabble, we watched Horton Hears A Who, which is far superior than the rest of the current crop of Dr. Seuss movies.
Sunday morning, Stanley and I played Pokemon Stadium on the NS64. It’s the only game console at my mother’s house and the only two player game. What a stupid game. Poor controls and interactivity. Why was this popular?
I then shared with him some Linux-based games from my laptop. He really enjoyed the intense, high speed action of the top scrolling shoot ’em up Chromium B.S.U. and several other games, but his favorite was Sling Shot, a deceptively simple two-player game where you attempt to blow up your enemy’s ship. The complications arise when dealing with planetary gravities. Since on every game, the planets are different sizes and in different places, each round is unique.
Sunday afternoon, my mom and I returned Stanley to his dad, and I went home. I look forward to spending more time with him and introducing him to even more geek stuff.