Where did the Monopoly pieces come from?

Having been stuck with some pretty crappy Monopoly pieces before (who wants to play the game as a shoe), I've always wondered what the good people at Parker Brothers were smoking when they came up with the nick-knacks to designate where you landed.

(To buy Monopoly click here.)

The pieces themselves first originated in 1937, when America was coming out of the Great Depression, and apparently came from Cracker Jacks...

When Monopoly was first created in the early 1930s, there were no pieces like we know them, so they went to Cracker Jack, which at the time was offering tiny metal tchotchkes, like cars. They used the same molds to make the Monopoly pieces. Game Show sells some antique Cracker Jack prizes and, sure enough, the toy car is exactly the same as the Monopoly car. In fact, there’s also a candlestick, which seems to be the model for the one in Clue. 

I think they chose Cracker Jack prizes that symbolize wealth and poverty. The car, top hat, and dog (especially a little terrier like Asta, then famous from “The Thin Man” movie series) were all possessions of the wealthy. The thimble, wheelbarrow, old shoe, and iron were possessions or tools of the poor.

Wonderful, now I can start walking around town with my top hat game piece showing off to everyone.

(Here's the classic edition of Monopoly for you. )

Reasons why you're still single... Guy that's always good at board games

It's fun to have a game night until you show up with your limited edition six-sided dice and official scorekeeper's tablet. You always end up beating everyone in the room quite handily in card games, board games, video games and a unsanctioned street race.

Fan-Tastic... you ruin everybody's evening because you fist-pump after landing on Boardwalk and then forcing somebody's who's actually foreclosing in real life into bankrupcy.

Then you beat the one friend who lost both their hands in a dishwasher machine accident... yeah real stand-up move there guy. Hope you enjoy you sad pathetic life worshiping Milton Bradley.

Ticket to Ride owns my soul

So I was attending a game night with friends yesterday, which is always fun because I've become "that cheap guy that recommends on dates with girls that we should just stay at home and watch a DVD, wait screw the DVD that costs money, let's watch the Andy Griffin show" guy. In other words, board game night is now my new way of having a crazy Wednesday night.

(Sign #456 that I'm getting old)

And after royally owning one team in a game of Cranium there was a push to change the type of board game we were playing.

Then Dylan Kitzan of Unforgivable pulled out "Ticket to Ride," which I was at first very skeptical of. The box art had me thinking that I was about to take a visit back to second grade with Thomas the Train.

You build trains? You need tickets? Nobody thinks trains are cool over the age of 10.

However, I couldn't have been more wrong about the game - after Dylan explained me the jist of the game, I instantly saw how this could be a blood-curdling, screw-your-friend over kind of game. As pretty evident by me giggling like a small child before the game started and a slight "oh this is going to be good."

(And to be fair it was great, I don't think one person is talking to me for a small period of time after blocking his route between Portland and Seattle. I know nobody know's what the heck I'm talking about, but this is just how nerdy - and awesome - this game is at the same time.)

And since I don't want to spend 30 minutes typing the jist of the game, here's a rundown from Wikipedia.

(For those of you too lazy to click on the link) Basically you try to build railways on a limited amount of spaces and cause your friends to curse and spit at you. Think Risk but with out all the dice rolling. You have to make your railways click up between different cities and you also want to see if you can make the longest train.

Okay, now I'm just digging myself into a hole of nerdiness here, but keep in mind I've played the game once and I keep thinking to myself "Now if I would have just taken the route over to Denver, not given away that I was trying to link of with Toronto and.. oh, oh, crap, that's what I should have done"

I'm probably now going to go to sleep tonight and dream about trains. This is exactly what the game designers (who are German) planned... I need to buy this board game.

And I'm probably going to die alone, but I'll have a box of "Ticket to Ride" in my hands.