Stupid Freecell (shudder)

Another week goes by and it's "thanksgiving" again. Today I made meatloaf, Mashed potatoes, gravy, and broccoli (blech).

My back was killing me (again), and Bob showed up a little early. He starts off the conversation with "so what's new and exciting" (he always says this), There is never anything very exciting to talk about. While I was making the food, he asked me "Where did you get the freecell program?" ಠ_ಠ sigh™ not this again!

See Bob's computer was infected with the crytpowall virus and instead of wiping it and reinstalling windows xp, I installed windows 7. Bob complained that it was missing the games, including freecell (shudder). So I installed freecell (shudder) (it's part of windows).

"It's part of windows" says I. "Oh" says he, (we have had this discussion about 20 times), "well I was playing it the other day, and I played it for 2 hours straight, and only won once". ಠ_ಠ

freecell (shudder) is one of the easiest solitaire games to play, statistically you should be able to win 90% of the games dealt by the computer. I have played it and can win 70% of the time, not Bob though...

Bob thinks the game is different from the one on windows xp, because he claims he could win it almost all the time, and now he can't. Since I cannot fire up his old OS and see what the settings were in the game, I do not know why it was "easier". It may be that he was playing it, and getting the same hand dealt to him each time (who knows). I have looked at the settings in windows 7, and do not know what would make it super easy.

I have sat down with him and played the game (in front of him), and when the cards are dealt, if the aces are not all near the top of the piles he claims the game cannot be won. The problem is that I have played such games all the while he is telling me I am wasting my time, and then he is absolutely shocked when I win. He thinks the game is played with 4 decks of cards and I have never been able to convince him that it is played with 4 suites of cards but only one deck. Even when showing him an actual deck of cards he does not get it. This all happened over several "thanksgivings", and a few visits to his apartment.

So he started up with the same thing about it being different and all the same old stuff, and since my back was killing me, the kitchen was hot, I lost it, and told him to stop talking about it, I don't care, I can't make it work the way he thinks it will work and so on. So there was a 15+ minute awkward silence.

we ate dinner, minor family gossip was discussed, and then my wife made him some to go dinners. He talked (again) about when he was a little kid in East St. Louis and how and when and why he moved here, mentioned that he had a dog named snooksy and a cat named (I can't remember).

A few minutes after eating he said "well I guess I will get out of your hair" (he always says this). There followed more talk about things that he has talked about before. He spent 5 minutes trying to tell me about the way he gets to our house so that he does not get lost. Something about the Antennas to the east and the buildings he can see to the west. Then he went home.