Another Friday, another set of random thoughts...

(1) What's your philosophy on owning the railroads and utilities in Monopoly? I can go either way here. On one hand, your maximum return if you own all four railroads is just $200 in rent. That's nothing compared to having hotels on any of the medium- or high-priced color groups. But then again, that 200 bucks comes in handy for buying those houses and hotels. You can nickel and dime your opponent to death.

(2) If you force me to choose just one Monopoly token to use for the rest of my life, I'm going with the iron. Not the dog, not the thimble, not the race car. The iron. It says you're willing to be different. It says you respect the history of the game (this year's edition of Monopoly is the last one that will feature the iron, which is being retired). It says you're an old guy who has been playing Monopoly for more than three decades.

(3) Jared and I are going to see a Lake County Captains baseball game tonight. The Captains are a low (Class A) minor-league affiliate of my beloved Cleveland Indians, and they play just 10 minutes from our house. I honestly don't care what level of baseball you're talking about, though, because I get excited at the prospect of seeing a game...any game. Even though the temperature tonight will dip down into the 30s. It's baseball, baby!

(4) Speaking of Jared, I sometimes watch him play the very popular "Call of Duty" game on our Xbox. And I think back to the days when my friends and I would spend hours on our Atari 2600 game systems. Those early 80s graphics were brutal, but instinctively I think we knew that video game technology would improve exponentially during our lifetimes. And it has. Amazingly so. Watching "Call of Duty" is like watching a movie. I can't get over it. But I do sort of long for the simplicity of Pac Man and Combat...