I may run this blog, but I am human and occasionally I venture out into the sunlight to perform in social activities. I know it’s hard to believe but honestly, its true. Friday evening, the lady friend and I took a trip to Strongsville Ohio, to check out the Strongsville Home Days carnival. The fair occurs at the same time each year and is used primarily as a way to celebrate the cities history as well as it’s culture. Where I reside, there are a number of cities which have a similar festival, but its generally referred to as Home Days. The fair consists of rides, carny food, and my personal favorite, games.

This year, I discovered my favorite carnival game was back and this time, I was ready. My favorite game, Crazy Ball is addicting, just like gambling. The game board looks sort of like a wrestling ring but instead of using a mat in the middle, there is a game board which has 30 circular indentations. Each indentation is a specific gamepiece which is either a solid color or a striped color. There are 15 different colors/striped colors to bet on and each one appears twice on the game board.

This particular game only costs a quarter to play but you can bet on as many colors as you want each round or you can place multiple bets on the same color. The game owner then hands a ball to one of the participants of the game which is usually a child. Once everyone has placed their bets, the ball thrower tosses the ball into the ring. The ball rolls around until it reaches a dead stop onto one of the indentations. Once the square that the ball landed on has been confirmed, the game owners go around the table to collect the bets as well as to see if anyone placed a bet on the winning color. Winners get to choose from any prize hanging from the top of tent.

After witnessing the way I played this game, my girlfriend has told me that she is going to make sure that I stay far away from casinos. I must of spent a total of $11-15 on this game, which adds up to a lot of quarters. Once I was on my last $5.00 bill, my girfriend picked the color orange, and we FINALLY ended up winning. She chose a stuffed animal and in the end was quite happy to not be spending any more money on the game. Last year, I spent so much money on this particular carny game and lossed so many times that the owner finally told me to pick a prize as I bascially spent more than enough money over what the damn prizes cost.

At any rate, I just wanted to share this experience with you. I know this blog generally centers around topics dealing with the web, and web 2.0 and all of that jazz, but I’m a real person doing real things. With that being said, I wanted to know if anyone else has seen a game like this pop up at their local carnival?