Weekly Features of Freedom

While this blog's weekly features being posted on a Monday rather than their intended Sunday is nothing surprising, a Tuesday posting can be considered later than usual. But since I firmly subscribe to the old adage, "Better late than never," I'll try to get past my guilt and post them now. Yep, I'm past it now.

This week's top five list is made up of the iPhone games that are robbing me of the most productivity:

5. Doodle Jump - The full title of this game includes the very presumptuous phrase BE WARNED: Insanely Addictive! I did not add the capital letters or the exclamation point. I'll be damned if the creators weren't right, though.

4. Trainyard - I have to stop taking the fine writers at GeekDad at their word or I will not have any room for music or cute pictures of my sons on my iPhone anymore.

3. Free Cell - While times may change and new games are created by the second, it's hard to beat a classic computer solitaire for ultimate time wasting.

2. 3D Home Run Battle - This is a great playing game and will keep you trying to beat your last home run streak. Add in the ability to challenge friends or even random players online and you have one addictive home run derby game.

1. Tiny Wings - Daily changing scenery, the timing based, fast-paced nature of this game as well as the completely unreachable top score make this the game that I go to most often in a free moment that I should use to do something else.

This week's cool-ass thing you will never own is the Popemobile. The Mercedes truck that it was converted from is already about as expensive as my house, but when you add the four-inch thick bullet-proof booth onto the back, it gets even pricier. I would also want to add a loud speaker option so that I could shout insults and nah-nee-nah-nee-boo-boos at spectators as I drove past, but I suppose the head of the Catholic church thinks he's above all that.

This week's sign you are a nerd is that the words "Star Wars" appear somewhere, anywhere, on any of the book titles on your summer reading list.

This week's nemesis is pie. So fattening yet so utterly delicious. It is so delicious in fact, that I felt compelled to eat the last remaining piece of apple pie at by Fourth of July barbecue despite the fact that it had been sitting out on the picnic table until one o'clock in the morning.

This week's lesson learned is not to attract the attention of the kids watching your fireworks display to the falling parachute with the still flaming piece of cardboard hanging from it. Having them all running beneath the smoldering remnant trying to catch it creates a semi-unsafe situation.

This week's equation helps you determine how much fireworks will cost you from year to year:

The cost of the fireworks (c) can be determined by adding your need for attention (a, rated on a 1-10 scale) and your obsession with fire/explosions (f, on a 1-10 scale) then dividing that sum by your willpower (w, on a 1-10 scale). This product will be multiplied by the resulting product of multiplying the number of kids you have (k) with the number of guests you invite to watch said fireworks (g) and adding that to the cost of last year's fireworks (v). Add to that result the cost of the property damage that the fireworks cause (p).

This week's Star Wars quote goes out to my neighbors: "Sorry about the mess."

That's all for now. Remember to vote in our monthly poll.