Expect more of the same when I don't have a job.

Every so often—usually every other hour, but always in the afternoon for some reason—I get an Orbitz popup. This happens when I visit the Washington Post or Slate, for the most part, and it's sometimes a little paper football game or a mini golf game. Usually, though, it's shuffleboard. Shamefully, I'm often so bored that I play.

My first victory over the computerized shuffleboard opponent was enthralling; my next one less so; and by the third victory I realized I always won by margins of 35 or 40 (out of 50 total). So today I decided to try to not only lose, but to win for the computer.

At first I was naïve to believe that I could cause the computer to win simply by sabotaging myself. Here I am (maroon) trying to knock my puck out of the 7 points section and into the minus 10 section:



I failed, of course, but did succeed in knocing myself out of the grid entirely. The computer insisted on being retarded--maybe it was trying to mimic the play of your standard geriatric shuffleboard player. Here it is shoving its puck into the minus 10 slot:



Thankfully I had a chance to knock that blue puck straight out of the grid. Here I am setting up the shot. Note the determination, the steadiness in my . . . shuffleboard stick thing:



And finally--victory!



It took a grueling 22 minutes, but I lost to that damn retarded computer.