Some Comments on my Posts

Scott Slomiany tells me that I've now covered two of his patents in my montly patent roundup; thankfully, they weren't ones that I made fun of (too badly). That's because they weren't senseless junk.

In your "November Patent" post, you found the "cascading strategy" patent. The final product using this method is called "Cash King Checkers." It is a Checkers game that, in the casino, pays you according to a paytable, based on the amount of checkers you have jumped.

You can play it here.

And in you "September Patents" post, you found the "Bunco" patent. The final product for this patent is called "Bunco Night."

You can play it here.

Anyway, I thought you might be interested is seeing what a final product looks like, based on the originating, obscurely worded patent.

I get three or four messages a week as a result of my blog. I help people find Monopoly games that they saw on my list. I get the occasional request to link to, review, or purchase a game from a company with a new board game (generally, but not always, someone who has never read my blog asking me to review their new party dice-rolling game about Menopause or what-have you). I also get the occasional "did you see this article?" or praise letter.

All mail I receive that's related to gaming is a bright spot in my day, as are comments on my blog. Thanks for them and and keep them coming.

Decay in Authority

Meanwhile, though traffic on my blog is going well and I'm enjoying a steady and wonderful community (that's you), my authority is decaying according to the classic blog-measuring sticks. On Technorati I've fallen from a rank of 10,000 to 28,000, and Google lowered my PR to 3 from 6 for having text link ads.

While I don't think much about my rankings anymore, higher rankings generally lead to more curious visitors, which can lead to more gaming converts. Which means I may have to think about doing something about this, sometime.

Yehuda