Amongst the fine haul of presents that I received at Christmas from friends and family I received these magnetic fridge dominoes from my brother Eddie and his wife Rebecca.
I have quite a collection of fun magnetic toys now, including Fridge Chess, a dress-up Homer Simpson and no fewer than three sets of Magentic Poetry (Christian, Romantic and Standard) and so Fridge Dominoes is a welcome addition to the side of our fridge. (The chess and Homer are currently at home on my filing cabinet in the study.)
However, a closer look at the packaging reveals something quite disturbing. And it’s not that the pretty young lady appears to be high on some kind of illicit substance. It’s that
- The photographer who set up this ‘natural-looking’ scene clearly doesn’t know the rules for dominoes. Look closely at the dominoes on the fridge, from the left: 5+3, 0+5, 5+1, 1+3, 3+4, 4+1, 1+1, 1+6, 6+3, 3+2, 2+6, 6+0, 4+6, 6+6, 6+5. There are two places (marked in bold type) where the sequence is clearly wrong. You can’t place a three next to a zero, or a zero next to a four!! What were they thinking?!
- The mad-looking lady playing the game also doesn’t seem to know how to play, as she is placing her 2+2 tile in the middle of the sequence. What kind of made-up rules is she playing in all the world?!
A little more attention to detail would have made this a more professional-looking product. Frankly I’m disappointed, and if you’d like to join me in complaining to Fridge Play then you can contact them via their website at www.fridgeplay.com or write to them at
Fridgeplay Inc.
88 Black Falcoln Avenue
Suite 238
Boston, MA 02210-2425
USA
Pedants of the World Unite!
Gareth, just write a nice wee note to Bec and Eddie and say ‘thankyou for a lovely Christmas present’!!!
…… or they might just slaughter you like the innocent you are! (Get it??!! What a Piskey I am!!!) Ha Ha !!
i think she’s dropped the 5+4 by her wrist…
a blank signifys any number you declare, and it is independent of other blanks in the game. i.e. in the left on the second player obviously did not have a 3 so used a blank.
Anon, what kind of weird rules do you play?
This is dominoes not Scrabble. In Scrabble the blanks represent any letter. If you can’t play a tile then you can’t play on that round — you don’t just lay down anything.
Think you might be wrong, Gareth. In this particular case, I think – and I know everything – that Anon might be right. Who is Anon anyway?
I’ve no idea who “anon” is.
And what kind of weird rules do you play also Dorothy?! I refer the honourable lady to the Wikipedia article on the history and rules for Dominoes from which I quote:
So, if they don’t have a matching tile (or bone) then they either forfeit their go OR they pick a new tile from the deck (or pack). These are the standard rules for dominoes. You can see these also at Masters Games, which says
I have no doubt that there are many localized house rules in play that allow zero tiles to be used as wildcards, but this rule is not included in any of the standard Western rules for dominoes.
The Domino Games website is another good source of information about games that can be played with domino tiles. I’ve just had a cursory read through the various rules and I can’t find anywhere that says that blank (or zero) tiles can be used as wildcards.