ArsGeek

During the winter months and holiday season, families find themselves coming together more and more frequently. As the festivities are in full swing, the good old board games is dusted off and once more we gather around to partake in what I like to call Parker Brothers Family Therapy Sessions.

Board games allow us to revert back to whatever grudge we had stuffed down as adulthood made it improper to hold onto the memory of finding your doll house doll’s head on your bed with a note from GI Joe threatening the other members of the doll house family unless you sneak two cookies and leave them outside your big brothers door.

Games equal revenge. Granted if you take a candid photo of all members playing, it looks sweet from an outside perspective, but underneath it all, we all know it’s “To the death. Survival of the fittest. There ARE no relationships or bonds when the board is laid out.”

I’m all for the silly games that require little skill, but even more so I’m always on the look out for a game that can boost your cerebral abilities and at the same time have light hearted fun.

One quest for such a game led me to find “Mental Floss.” I’m not quite sure what prompted going on a game run a couple of years ago, but I was bent on finding SOMETHING that didn’t require knowing about “celebrities” or luck of the die.

My final stop before I gave up and cursed my city for having nothing but mindless insults, was Borders Bookstore. On a shelf in the middle of an aisle housed more games that Hollywood created, and upon asking a clerk if they HAD anything called forth brain power, she looked at me confused and said, “Well we just got in Simpsons Monopoly…” As I was looking at her wondering how she managed to breathe without being prompted, I spied one shiny tin box at the very bottom of the shelf and as the angels sung while the sun beamed through the windows- I saw the name, “Mental Floss- It’s Funny. It’s Quirky. And you’ll walk away a genius.” Oh Pressman- you had me at Mental.”

Questions are set up as such:

Right Brain, left brain, spot the big fat lie, and Enightening Rounds (answer three questions in a row and you’ll get a Piece of Mind token… or you can risk it all on the fourth).

Examples:

Right Brain: What organization began in 1916 as the Junior Citizens?
Left Brain: What is the plural of “piecemeal”?
Spot the Big Fat Lie:
A. The original “jawbreaker” wasn’t a candy, but slang for a dental technique used to remedy especially-severe cases of lockjaw.
B. The original “blockbuster” wasn’t a hit show, but a large bomb. Made by the British in World War II, the explosives were powerful enough to destroy an entire city block.
Enlightening Round:
(theme) I Had Too Much To Think Last Night
1. Sometimes called “the founder of modern philosophy,” this French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher weighs in as one of the greatest minds in post-Columbian history. And while he’s best known for his ultra self-confident statement, “I think, therefore I am,” what’s a less well-known is that he hated mornings, and preferred to spend them philosophizing in bed. Name the late, great thinker.
(and if you get it correct, you move onto a slighter more difficult question, and then another- and the you either take your token or try the fourth and most difficult one)

You’ll learn, you’ll laugh and then you’ll want to play some more. My game came with a free Mental Floss magazine, which drove me to their main website as the magazine was equally fun and the website was even more enjoyable.

So, if you want to take your family therapy to the level of proving who’s the most brilliant causing the losers to kneel before your superiority, then this is the game for YOU! If you’re surrounded by a bunch of Poindexter’s… then you might want to stick with Yahtzee or Life.

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