Next time won't you sing with me

A few months ago, my sister poster on her blog about a slightly OCD need to count things.  After borrowing first my mother-in-law's and then my sister-in-law's (yeah, shout out to Jammy) cars, I realized that I have another OCD tendency...

My favorite driving passtime is to find letters of the alphabet on my drive.  And I get really excited if I can get through the whole alphabet in order before I get to my destination.  Then there are the extremely righteous days where I can get through A-Z, 0-9 then 9-0 and Z-A.  Let me tell you - it's almost a religious experience.

Now, there are some rules to make it harder... in my mind, the alphabet game must be repeatable.  I.e., once I complete the alphabet, I have to know in my head that the next time I drive that route, I don't have to find the letters again, because I know they're all there... So, that means license plates are not allowed, nor are temporary construction signs, banners, those sign boards with moveable letters, etc...  Street signs and business names are really the only safe bets.

And the hardest letter to get?  Definitely J.

You'd think it would be one of the other oft-forgotten letters like Q, Z, X, V - but there are a lot of Zs around - Oversize loads, Loading Zone, Zellers... and X is on every speed limit sign (Maximum 60).  V is on every Avenue sign.  Yes - you get to know the tricks when you play the game as much as me.

And I loved when they renamed Highway 2 to Queen Elizabeth II - There's a Q, Z and U in there.  Awesome!

Speaking of the drive to Calgary - there's a sign for the turnoff to Joffre and one for Majteka road.  That will get you both Js for the double-alphabet game.

You try to win, but you just can't win!

We spent a great weekend at my sister's house last weekend. Generally, these weekends involve two things:

1. Eating copious amounts of junk food
2. Me beating everyone at board games

I don't mean to brag (well, actually I do), but I seem to win a lot of the time when I play board games. Now - I'm not talking about your boring games that you played with your family growing up - we're into German-style games. Alex, my niece, even commented "why does Uncle David win all the time?"

Anyway, I thought about this and I think that there are several factors that influence my extreme prowess:

1. I played (and still play) a lot of video games.
2. I'm a computer programmer

Numbers 1 and 2 help me to hold a lot of crap in my head at once. But I think that the big reason is #3:

3. Growing up, I played a lot of games against myself.

Yes, sad but true. When your sisters are 6 and 8 years older than you, they are more interested in boys their age, and not the annoying little boy that lives in their house. I think I got so good at games because the only person who I could reliably find to play against was myself.

So take that Janine and Colleen - it's your fault that I win all the time!