Wifely Domination

As previously mentioned, Jason enjoys a game on his iPhone called Angry Birds.  It is a cultural phenomenon.  Our last story on this topic was the devastating loss of all of his progress due to a phone freeze up issue.  I still can hear the pathetic wail from the office as he realized that all of his game data had been erased. 

Well, that is long since passed and he has gotten over the emotional pain and even gone back and replayed those silly basic levels with the self imposed rule that "I can't move on to the next level until I earn three stars on the current level."  For the uninitiated, in the game you fling birds at pigs that are hiding in structures.  You get points for the amount of destruction you create and once all the pigs are dead (cutely exploded) you get a star score for that level.  There are bonus points for not using all the birds and other little tricks. 

I am not encumbered by the three star rule so while I try to do it, if a level is just too hard but I've gotten through with one measly star I move on.  I play for the fun of it, not the glory.

Another aspect of the game is the ability to upload your scores and see where you rank "nationally".  I have been listening to my beloved tell me where he's ranked.  "I'm in the top 5% of over 13 million players!"  I will from time to time look up from whatever I'm doing, reading, playing with Lucy, doing our taxes and say (without much emotion) "Congratulations honey, you must be very good."

Last night I was flipping him some playful crap about how much time he has invested in the game and what else he could have done with that time and he decided it was time to see where I was ranked.  I knew he needed to see how far above me he was and since I don't really care (thus I've never uploaded my scores before) I let him do it.

I was reading and realized it had gotten very quiet on his side of the couch, so I picked up one of the phones (gaming consoles) and saw the ranking screen.  (Printed at the left.)  It is quite clear that without even trying, my score is higher than his.  I asked "well, how did that happen?"  I got back a very loud and quite irate "I have no *&%$^* idea!"

In case you can't see the numbers it reads:
tpgal (that's me) : 22,100,120
Me (that's Jason): 21,831,000

The 200,000 points is nothing and I think he stayed up until Lucy's 3am feeding to work on his score.  I expect I won't see his face until he is safely ranked above me.  I'm tempted to call in sick today just to play to keep my lead, but that seems spiteful and wrong, especially since it matters to him and not me.

Although, I think I would be remiss if I didn't also share our national rankings.

Total players: 13,738,106
Jason is ranked: 195,668  (meaning that there are only 195,000 people with better scores than him - out of 13 million players.) 
I am ranked 176,057  (meaning that I am one of those 195,000 people!)

This whole silly episode reminds me of an incident in high school where the star quarterback and honor roll king (and super competitive prick) somehow figured out that I had a better GPA than he did and he almost flipped out and had to be taken to the hospital.  That might be a slight exaggeration, but he was mad.  I'm pretty sure he's over it now, but since he didn't come to any of the reunions maybe he's still harboring a grudge.  (Actually, he has a very nice, happy life - which is good for someone who is clearly very stupid.)