Awww. . . I used to go see Dane Cook at comedy clubs in Boston before he got famous. . .

Anyway, I loved board games as a kid, and still do:

TOP FIVE FAVORITE BOARD GAMES:

5. MONOPOLY
Except for the fact it lasted hours, it was an awesome game. Especially if you played with the free parking rule.

4. CHESS
My dad taught my brother and I to play before we were 5, and once you learn all the moves, its fun no matter how old you are. And no two games are alike.

3. PARCHEESSI
The original Sorry! except less colorful and more difficult.

2. ENCHANTED FORREST
I'm the only one I know who remembers (and still owns!) this game. The board was covered with plastic trees with objects drawn on the bottom from fairy tales (Cinderella's slipper, Sleeping Beauty's spindle, Aladdin's lamp, etc) and your job was to search the trees and memorize which ones had which pictures. When a fairy tale card appeared in the castle, you could win it if you correctly identified the tree with the matching symbol. Lots of fun, and since I have a good memory, I always won.

1. CANDY LAND
Classic, classic, classic. No bells. No lights. No whistles. Just fun. You dont' even need to know how to count. I played this for hours and hours as a kid, and never got sick of it. The characters are classic - from the children from the Aryan Nation (a pack of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Candy Cane dressed munchkins), to Queen Frostine, Princess Loli, Grandma Nutt, the evil licorice guy, to the cute, but sad Plumpy, the Sugarplum farmer.

Now, for a RANT:
In college, we wanted to play some nostaigic Candy Land, but we couldn't find any of the old boards we had as kids, so we bought a new game for $8 in the local toy store. But when we opened the box, we found out they had managed to SCREW IT UP by making it EASIER. As a result, suspense (as little as it was) was completely removed. Here's how:

1. When you got stuck on a spotted square (gumdrops, the chocolate swamp, etc), you used to have to remain there until you draw a card of the same color. So if they stuck square was yellow, you couldn't move until you drew a yellow. Now, the new rules said you "just lose one turn." Oh, please. The whole fun was frantically missing turn after turn as your opponant's gingerbread men advanced.

2. When you drew a character card, you advanced directly to that character's square. In some cases this was a good thing -- Queen Frostine was near the end, so if you drew her early you jumped way ahead -- while in other cases it was a bad thing -- Plumpy the plum picker was near the begining, and drawing him at the end of the game sent you backwards and made for some frazzled nerves. But the new rules said the character cards only counted if you moved FORWARD. Meaning, they didn't make you go back to Plumpy if you were just about to WIN. WTF?

3. EVERY COLOR WINS. The last square of the game used to be purple, so you were stuck near the end, often competing with other players to draw that damn purple card to achieve victory. But on the new board, the last square is MULTICOLORED, so no matter what card you draw, you win. ARGHH!

The whole fun was the up and down of the game - somebody might draw Queen Frostine right away but get stuck in the swamp, or you might get sent back to Plumpy but managed to make it back while the winning player kept trying to get that last purple card. Now whoever starts first pretty much wins. We've so given up trying to teach kids how to compete and how to keep trying, and how to lose gracefully.[/rant]