Solitaire 3000

By Joe

Summary: Bored by playing the traditional solitaire computer game, two friends design a much more exciting game.

Chapter 1

Seventeen-year-old Joe sat in front of his computer on a lonely Saturday afternoon. He did not have much better to do. He had already cut his lawn on the previous Friday, he had completed all of his other chores, and most of his friends were out of town. So there was nothing better for him to do than play solitaire on the computer.

Click, drag, click, drag, click, drag. Joe had gotten quite used to this pattern. He had been playing solitaire for the past 10 years, starting when his father purchased a laptop computer for his job. The game fascinated Joe, and he had become addicted to it, playing it in his free time. He often got frustrated because there were times he were so close to winning, but a slight problem with the card arrangement prevented him from winning.

Though the game of solitaire was fun for Joe, he had to admit that he was getting rather tired of it. The game lost its sparkle after playing continuously for 10 years. Joe realized this as he drug the Ace of Spades onto one of the stacks.

"I'm so bored with this game," admitted Joe. "I've got to do something better with my time." He closed the solitaire window and went online to a message board called Trollia. Joe was an internet troll, and he liked communicating with other trolls through their personal message board. He saw that a user named Muztang2000, otherwise known as Mike, posted a new message. Joe clicked the topic to read Mike's message.

"Are you bored?" the message said. "I sure am."

Joe replied to Mike's message. "Yes, I am very bored. My friends are out of town, and I don't have any chores to do. There's nothing more for me to do than just play a game of solitaire."

He then clicked the "submit" button, and Joe's message appeared. Not long after that, Mike replied, saying, "Solitaire is fun, but I get bored by it. It's so boring."

"It is," admitted Joe.

Mike then posted, "Hey, I know! Why don't we get together and make our own version of solitaire! I know computer programming, and you're good at coming up with stuff, so we can make a new solitaire!"

"Good idea," said Joe. The two then exchanged addresses, and they decided to meet at Joe's house. Mike showed up about an hour later. "Hello, Mike. It's nice to meet a fellow troll in person," said Joe.

"Ditto," agreed Mike. The two walked over to Joe's computer and sat down at it. "So…what should we do?"

"Well, it's just so boring because there's no sound, and all you do is click and drag," Joe explained.

"You know, I always thought that it would be fun if solitaire were a multi-player game," said Mike.

"That's a possibility," said Joe. "Now we just need to put some pizzazz on it…like add loud sound effects. Maybe there can be a 'BANG' whenever you lay down an Ace."

"I like it, I like it," said Mike.

"And the interface has to look a lot cooler. Instead of the green background, it has to be pitch black, and the outlines of the cards can be white or something…or maybe red," said Joe. "And we can say that winners of the game can win $500 from Bill Gates."

"Dude, we can't do that," said Mike. "How will we get Bill Gates to pay the winner for winning the game?"

"He won't," Joe said with a grin. "That's the point. It's the art of trolling."

"Ah…sneaky, aren't we?" Mike laughed.