The Return of the Top Three List (kind of)

I realize that it's not Wednesday, but it occurred to me today that I have in fact been terribly remiss in posting my "weekly" top three lists, and so wanted to bring one to you lovely readers today. It's funny, I actually come up with top three categories quite frequently, but typically it's while I'm doing something random like pumping gas--which in fact I do a fair amount of these days because of the long commute--but anyway, it's inevitably whenever I'm without paper and pen, which I guess in blog world translates into being without keyboard and internet. These ill-timed brainstorms result in a lot of half-finished or unresolved lists, for example:

1. Top Three Contemporary Novels that Make Exemplary Use of Footnotes (for those of you who have read David Foster Wallace's appropriately titled Infinite Jest, you can guess where I was going with this one)

2. Top Three Accidental Gems (this was going to feature books like David Mitchell's breathtaking novel Cloud Atlas, which I purchased based purely on the title-cover combo, only to realize I'd unwittingly discovered one of my absolute favorite authors)

3. Top Three Books I've Received as Gifts--and that I Would Totally Give to You (this list-to-be is pretty self-explanatory; it would have included greats like Broken For You, written by Stephanie Kallos and given to me several Christmases ago by my awesome Aunt L.

At some point soon I'll get around to finishing the above lists, but today I decided to shift gears a little bit and bring you a different kind of top three. Those of you who know me are well-versed with my love affair with all things word-related (and for those of you who don't know me well, I'm guessing that this isn't too much of a stretch, considering the whole book blog business), and you might also be aware of my competitive streak. If you combine those two traits, you get a woman who L-O-V-E loves word games. Dorky? Indubitably. But also totally awesome on a rainy day! So without further ado, I bring to you my Top Three Favorite Word Games (that you might not know about):

1. Bananagrams. Fun to say, even more fun to play. Interestingly, this was also a Christmas present from the afore-mentioned awesome Aunt L! It's kind of like a fast-paced, freestyle version of Scrabble, in which opponents vie to arrange their tiles into words and be the first to cause the pool of unused tiles to be exhausted. Perks include getting to yell out words like, "Peel!" and Split!" as well as the totally fantastic packaging (hint: it's a banana!).

2. Scrabble SLAM! Another totally fun name to say! I picked this new game up on my most recent trip to Tar-Jay and forced Vince into playing it with me over the weekend. Our verdict: pretty good with two people, but most likely outrageously fun with a bigger group.

3. Name That Paint Color! Okay, okay, so this isn't a real game. However, I felt like I had to mention this gem of an activity that my dear friend S. and I came up with last summer on one of our many road trips between ATL and Savannah. As you might imagine, the gist of the game is to guess the name of a paint color--we used a handy-dandy Sherwin Williams paint deck, which for "obvious" reasons S. always has in her car, but any color swatches will do as long as the color's given name is available. How close will you get to names like, "Hot Apple Spice" and "New Providence Navy?" And what new fabulous color names will you concoct in the process? It's amazing the hours that can be killed with this one!