Rumor has it that the LJ update page now sucks

I wouldn't know. I use Semagic.

Nyah, nyah.

"Course, it makes me wonder whether web designers and other interface designers actually do any coursework on the subject any more. I mean, my wife, who is an interface designer, has years of work on usability, accessibility, and user experience. And she's made me read tons of the seminal books on the subject, because she thinks (correctly) that I'll think they're cool.

It's largely left me with the belief that, if you have a system in which the users consistently press the wrong buttons, try to stick the card in the wrong slot, or stick it in upside down, it's because the designer is an idiot, not because the user is.

I'm looking at you, MBTA Charlie Card designers. And at you, morons who designed the Shaws supermarket credit card readers. Which now all have notes written in marker explaining what you have to hit where, and all the cashiers still talk you through it, because they know the system sucks.

The card game of Tarot

So, a while back, when Lis and I were at Costco, we saw a Hoyle Card Games thing. I looked at it, and decided to buy it.

It doesn't have all the games I'd like -- I like whist better than either bridge or spades, for instance, and this has the latter two and not the first one. And it only has five-card draw poker, largely because they have a separate Poker game with other variations. I don't care about Texas Hold-Em or Hi-Lo or any of those, but I'd really like five- and seven-card stud.

But it does have about twenty games, plus fifty Solitaries games. And I've been playing some of them quite a lot. Mostly, ones I'd never played before, so I'm using the computer to learn them. Gotta say, for a lot of the games, having the computer deal and score makes things very easy.

I've always liked gin rummy and poker, and those are both in. I've not played cribbage since I was a kid, but intend to get back to it; haven't yet. And then there are the games I'd never played. I can't figure out pinochle, but canasta is a lot of fun. Euchre is a pretty good game, too -- as far as four-hand pairs trick-taking games, it's even easier than whist. I still like whist better, but this one is almost as good.

But the reason I bought the game was that the box said that it had the game of Tarot. And that's one I've always wanted to learn.
( The game is also called Tarrocci )