There are boardgames for Angry Birds, more than one actually, so I wasn't too surprised when Gabriel mentioned that there was one for Bejeweled. Believe it or not, there are people who manage to play Bejeweled in a strategic way. I played those games in a manner designed to let my brain sleep, so that's not me. I guess I sorta got there with Puzzle Quest, especially in multiplayer; Puzzle Quest is basically Bejeweled with a helm on, right?

When I went to check out the board game, I was surprised to hear the commercial assume that only girls want to amass mineral wealth. I understand that this happens with dolls and trucks, but gems? That strikes me as sort of arbitrary. The best part about Ascension is the fucking gems. You know they're ordered just so, just so, in a molecular way, below the threshold of your awareness. For the moment, you can relax.

We made a comic about Bejeweled (née Diamond Mine) like twelve fucking years ago; everybody plays Bejeweled and the other Bejeweled and Bejeweled Twist and Bejeweled on Facebook and all kinds of other Bejeweled. I'm pretty sure every living person who has ever had the good fortune to see a screen has played Bejeweled on that screen at some point. Do they have information that says only girls like it? Are they saying its for girls because the box is purple? They're the ones who made it that color!

My son's favorite color was pink until boys - and, crucially, girls - told him it couldn't be. I don't know to what extent color choices alter your life, but again: these are the inputs. You never know what they're going to soak out of the fucking universe. When he was six, his default pronoun for scientists was "she" because all the scientists he'd ever met were women. But he hid his pink shirt because he got tired of me asking why he didn't wear it anymore. I feel confident saying that this is some incredibly weird shit.

(CW)TB out.