It's game time

So my kid had to have "UNO ATTACK!" and I blame TV. For the 11 months leading up to Christmas, every station redistributes their daytime slots. During this season, 78% of the air time usually reserved for Yu-Gi-Warrior-Poki-Xiao-Princess-Oh is split, more or less, evenly between two basic themes. First, grinning little girls putting jewelry on everything from baby ponies to blood-thirsty mob goons. Second, ten year old boys shaking robots in each other's faces and screaming at the poor camera man. Sprinkled around the field of bejeweled felons and video technicians, who I doubt escape the Yule season without a drinking problem, are a few spots reserved for good old fashioned games. Okay, maybe "good old fashioned" isn't the phrase I'm looking for. I suppose I could still use that description if they were tastefully hocking stuff like Go Fish or Pick-Up-Sticks, but games and their commercials these days need to be X-TREME!!!!

X-TREME: (ex-stream) adj. -
1. Any act or utterance designed to bring about two simultaneous headaches, one stacked upon the other.

I suspect that in order to film a game commercial, the game people have to borrow a couple of screaming ten year olds from the robot people. Then they sit these kids, who even in their most relaxed state have so much energy that they are literally vibrating, around a table with the featured game in front of them. Next, they hit the whole scene with multi-colored strobe lights, change the camera angle every .43 seconds, and pipe in driving guitar rock while off-season Monster Truck announcers growl menacingly about flicking a spinner and counting spaces on a cardboard rectangle. The ten year olds jump up and down while pumping their robotless fists at each other and savagely yelling at the poor camera man (who doesn't typically do robot commercials and will most likely end up sobbing quietly well into the night). That's just the sort of commercial that was produced to advertise "UNO ATTACK".
That is, of course, why DJ had to have it. As my mom says about DJ, "Just like his dad. Anything flashy will do." Earlier this year DJ collected bonus points by selling chocolate covered everything for a fundraiser at school. While going through the catalogue of bonus prizes, he passed up all the musty old educational stuff like chemistry sets and pocket dictionaries and decided instead on something called "nose aerobics" and a pair of inflatable shoes. Now THAT, my friends, is MY boy!
Anyway, here's the deal. Even without the commercial, "UNO ATTACK!" would be considered X-treme by the staunchest of language experts. Speaking of language, I've been told that "uno" is not an English word. I am not the afore mentioned language expert but after playing this game, I'm pretty sure that "uno" is French for "heart".
Here's the premise. It's a card game like regular Uno except it comes with, I kid you not, a uni-directional card flinging device. When the game is played, the players will be sitting around in a circle, innocently laying down red threes and blue twos when next thing you know, some poor sap has to (get this) point the machine at their own face and push the button. The button doesn't always make the machine shoot cards but it does always make a shocking raspy beep. See, that way you never know if it's coming and even if it doesn't, it scares the crap outta ya anway.
You know, I would have loved to be in the board room when this idea got tossed out there.

Big Boss: Whatta ya got for me boys?
Smith: I thought we could design a new board game modeled after the most up to date documentaries from leading producers. You could play alone or in teams. That way it would be based on educational themes and encourage kids to cooperate.
Johnson: I figured we could crank out something that bears a striking resemblance to Russian Roulette.
Big Boss: I like the way you think Johnson. Smith, you're fired.

I wish more of life were like this game. It would be cool if every time you opened the kitchen drawer there were a slight chance that it would shoot vegetable peelers at your eyes. Even if it doesn't, a voice yells "Bah!" I know I'd cook more.
Either way, the kid got his game and he's happy. I just hope it doesn't end up giving me an uno-attack.