whimsy | Playing in the World Game

First, a little backstory:

Numberwang! A bit of silliness from the BBC show That Mitchell and Webb Look.

As you can see from watching this little clip, there’s no rhyme or reason at all to any of it, which makes it all the more fun.

We have a clock from Brookstone (I’ve had it for literally ages) that projects the time and outside temperature on the ceiling when it’s dark, and also functions as a barometer.

At first glance, this looks completely random – but notice that it uses all the numbers from 1 to 6 – what I call an unordered strait. And that’s Numberwang! Points if you see it and call it out and wake up your partner. More points if you can get a picture of it (because, naturally, pix or it didn’t happen).

Random numbers don’t count for anything, but the minutes tick off, and the temperature typically drops .1 or .2 degrees at a time as the night goes on, so depending on the season of the year, all sorts of combinations are possible.

In my own schema, some configurations are worth more than others:

As you lie there at night with the hamsters running on the wheels in your head, as you remember all the embarrassing things that happened to you in eighth grade, you can often spot one of these coming up. Of course, if there’s five minutes to go before Numberwang! it’s entirely possible that the temperature will move by a tenth or two, and then you’ve lost until the next combination comes around.

Matches are good, and I’ve seen a lot more than I’ve been able to capture. They’re pretty high on the list of scores. But there are some others that are fun to find as well.

This is what I call a “jagged strait.” (This one is simulated)

When the numbers run in sequence, but sort of zig-zag up and down.

But the ones that are the hardest of all are what I call the bonanzas. I’ve only caught two of them in 11 years, and you can imagine why they are so difficult – the confluence is very rare, and you have to be awake at just the right time.

Strangely enough, I caught these two within a week of each other, after playing this silly game for about 5 years. And I haven’t been able to get another one since.

Here are some of the ones I hope to get as time goes on (simulated images):

This one is hard for another reason – by the time the temperature gets into the 50’s at night, it’s going to be too light in the morning or the night to see the time on your ceiling unless you sleep in a very darkened room, which we don’t.

This one is only going to happen in the winter, and it can also happen at 1:11 AM. Double your chances, but still difficult.

Also cold!

Colder still! Nulls will only happen if you have your clock set to 24-hour time, which we don’t.

This is a Winterwang, when it’s still dark at 5 AM – but have never yet been able to nail this one.

Numberwang also shows up in the wild – on grocery receipts and gas pumps, or car odometers. In fact, any time you happen to notice an interesting pattern in numbers anywhere, it’s Numberwang! and you can award yourself as many points as you want… before you rotate the board!

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Wang tax:

Introduction

In James Thurbur’s miraculous foray into the realms of whimsical and linguistic fantasmagoria, The Thirteen Clocks, prince Zorn of Zorna and his unique companion, the Golux, are tasked by the Evil Duke of Coffin Castle to find a thousand jewels and return, all in the space of nine and ninety hours, in order to win the hand of the beautiful princess Saralinda.

Desperate, they seek out Hagga, who in exchange for saving the life of Good King Gwain of Yarrow, was blessed (or cursed) with the gift of weeping precious gems. When they find her, she’s all cried out; “Once I wept when maids were married underneath the April moon. I weep no more when maids are buried, even in the month of June.”

Unable to make her cry with his most tragic tales, the Golux tries another tack; he tells ridiculous stories to make her laugh, but all he gets for his trouble are rhinestones, pearls, and semiprecious gems. Nothing seemed to help, until “without a rhyme or reason, out of time and out of season, Hagga laughed and kept on laughing…and precious jewels twinkled down her cheek and sparkled on the floor.” “I wish that she had laughed,” the Golux sighed, “at something I had said.”

The heroes gathered up the gems and returned in time to save the princess from the salacious attentions of the evil Duke, but as they left, Hagga laughed and kept on laughing.

Theme

I get Hagga, I really do. I have a sense of humor that is bizarre, often sophomoric, and wildly mercurial. Sometimes I’ll encounter something in life that clamps my funny bone in the jaws of a bear trap and won’t let go, and heaven have mercy if it strikes when I’m in public. I recall being around 18 when Bored of the Rings by Harvard Lampoon was published; I had purchased it and was sitting in a Nedick’s in New York reading it, laughing so hard that I thought I’d either be thrown out or taken away by the men in the white coats. I’ve alluded to other instances here.

In keeping with the spirit of uncontrollable laughter, I present to you a series of cartoons, some print and some electronic, which have resulted in meltdowns of various levels over time. Many of you will think that these are impossibly stupid, and that’s just fine.

The Far Side by Gary Larson

The cartoon that introduced me to Larson in the first place.

This Far Side never ran in the papers; it was rejected by Larson’s editors.

Don Martin, cartoonist for Mad Magazine

Don Martin’s sound effects are legendary. This is probably the granddaddy of them all.

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

Many of Watterson’s efforts had similar results, but this one was the cream of the crop.

Garfield by Jim Davis

It’s widely accepted that Jim Davis never intended for Garfield to be funny, rather commercially successful. This one brought me and my kids to tears.

Broom Hilda by R. Myers

B. Kliban

Many of Kliban’s strips were excruciatingly funny to someone with a twisted mind.

Overboard by Chip Dunham

Dunham’s hapless pirates have been a source of much mirth.

Wildwood by Tom Spurgeon and Dan Wright

Wildwood was a touching and sincere strip with a far-too-short run. This one is by far my favorite.

Rose is Rose by Pat Brady

Brady still writes the strip, but in 2004 he passed the artwork torch to Don Wimmer. I think it was the floating skulls that got me on this one.

Certainly there are other things in life that have made me laugh without being able to stop – I’m thinking of the baked-bean supper from “Blazing Saddles” (who doesn’t appreciate a good flatulence joke, really), the pie fight from “The Great Race,” and the feeding machine from Chaplin’s “Modern Times” – but these are the things that floated to the top while I contemplated this particular subject.

I hope you have things in your life that have done the same for you. Laughter, they say, is good for the soul.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Playing in the World Game

As One

Tag Archives: whimsy

Games People Play at 3 in the morning (otherwise known as Numberwang!)

Hagga laughed, and kept on laughing.