Who says Jack can’t play and learn at the same time? Suppose balls and bats and hockey sticks were covered with vocabulary words. With definitions, of course. Casually, those words would work their ways into minds and conversations. Heck, maybe cover a whole playground with words, names and ideas worth learning. Those in some jokes for Read More …
That’s my new guidepost as I refine some board and card games I’ve designed. For an idea to succeed, it has to be simple enough to immediately grasp. And not just grasp the concept, but what it offers the user/player/buyer. It’s OK if complications ensue. Take Monopoly. A game of buying and selling real estate. Promises you’ll Read More …
It’s a dream of mine to design a miniature golf course and make it as unusual as possible. One simple but diabolical idea is to have a circular green that rotates with the hole simply in the center. Better not hit it straight toward the hole. So do aim left or right, to allow for your angular Read More …
In this league, you draft athletes not for yards or touchdowns or home runs, but for endorsement deals. Hold it every July after Forbes puts out its annual list of best-paid athletes. To make it more challenging (we all know Tiger Woods will rake in megabucks), the aim is to assemble a roster with the largest year-to-year increase. Read More …
One worry I have is that many of the ideas here are tricky to turn into a business. But here’s a way to make money right away, have income to write off expenses, get feedback, find possible collaborators, and collect information that could become a book: Teach an evening class at a local high school. Want to write a Read More …
“Perhaps we could work together on something one of these days,” said a kind note from Drew Anderson of MoHDI, another ideas blog. Which gave me an idea: How about a game of Idea Tennis? You know how one idea can inspire another? Why couldn’t I lob one up, and then the ball’s in Andy’s court, to come Read More …
Let’s call this program / utility “Blank Paper.” Using a mouse or graphics pen, not only can I write or draw on it, but so can you. Even at the same time. Let’s play Tic-Tac-Toe or Hangman, for starters. Let’s just have fun doing a sketch together. It could be a great teaching tool for Read More …
Or call it Pastimes. It’s weekly or monthly publication that aims to get people’s minds off their tribulations and troubles with puzzles, humor, comics, funny fiction, amusing photographs, observations/essays about TV and movies and video games and other distractions we love. Not news. Not gossip. (Better sources exist for those.) But things to do and things that make you smile. Read More …
You start out as fly, and have to avoid fly swatters and bug sprays for like 15 minutes. Then you die of old age, and get reincarnated as a roach. Nothing can kill you, except for feet, so after like 20 minutes you die of old age, and get reincarnated as a little fish. And Read More …
My family used to play an add-a-letter game called “Ghost” on long car trips. One person says a letter, the next person adds one. The trick: There has to be a word that starts that way, and you lose if you end a word. Gets you searching those mental vaults for odd words that will Read More …