I’m not much of a game player on my PC. The only store-bought game I own is Microsoft’s Flight Simulator because I used to fly many years ago. But below are three games I play as a pastime that anybody can play. But watch out because they're all addictive.

Solitaire card games

Remember playing Solitaire in Window 3.x or Windows 95? Some folks still play it but probably because they never found out about Freecell Solitaire that came along later in Windows 98. The problem with plain Solitaire is that it's largely a matter of chance to win whereas in Freecell all 32,000 games except one (#11982) can be won if you're good. Just keep playing the same card deal until you find a way to win. Freecell leads voting in two online popularity polls for solitaire games. Many consider it the best solitaire game ever invented. It's fun, addictive, and winning depends on strategy and skill, not just luck. I keep an icon for Freecell on my desktop and often play it while waiting for files to download.

There's a lot of interesting information on the web about Freecell if you'll simply enter the name in http://www.google.com/. For example, at http://www.freecell.com/f/c/play.html you can play Freecell online if you don’t have it in your PC. You can even elect to have the game displayed like a spreadsheet so when your boss walks up he won’t notice that you’re playing cards.

I should mention Spider solitaire that comes with Windows XP. It’s easy to learn and relatively easy to win as long as you play with only one suit of cards. With two suits you’ll rarely win and even then it's a matter of chance. I don’t even try to play a game with four suits. Frankly I don’t care for Spider solitaire as much as I do Freecell.

Jigsaw Puzzle

There are many jigsaw puzzles on the web but the one that I like best and have an icon on my desktop for is called Jig Zone at http://www.jigzone.com/ms/z.php?q=im This is a nice site that posts a new puzzle every day and clocks how fast you complete it compared with the average person’s time. The way it works is that pieces are scattered around and you drag them with the mouse to click them in place. It’s fast because you don’t have to rotate pieces to fit them together. I like to sit at my laptop in the evening and put together a jigsaw puzzle while watching TV. I’m getting better at it but still can’t beat the average time to complete a puzzle.

Crossword Puzzle

Another favorite pastime of mine is working crossword puzzles. There are many free ones on the web but the site I like is at http://www.bestcrosswords.com. The puzzles seem easier than those that appear in newspapers and the site doesn’t require membership as some do. Also numbers on the squares are not tiny and hard to see as in some puzzles. The way it works is that you click on the square where a word begins and the spaces highlight horizontally and a clue appears. You then type in the answer. Hitting the spacebar highlights spaces vertically and a new clue appears. If you type an incorrect letter it displays in red. But what’s really nice is that you can click on “solve word” if you’re stumped. My wife says that’s cheating. I think crossword puzzles online are more fun than those on paper but then I was never good at them and never could fill out one with a ball-point pen.

Putting a game icon on your desktop

In case you don’t know how to put an icon for a web page on your desktop go to the desired web page and in Internet Explorer click File/Send/Shortcut to desktop.

All past articles for the River Bender are posted at http://www.always-online.com/nbcug/dwindex.htm.