Apples, Trees, Ducks, Llamas, Bop It, etc

My wife and I were watching Girls on Friday night, the kids tucked away in their respective beds, but every so often, from up the stairs, we heard a "Whoo . . . whoo" and then a pause, and then another "whoo," so I lowered the volume on the TV, and then we realized the sounds were coming from my younger son Ian's room -- he was still playing "Bop It," the version where you occasionally have to yell into a little microphone to keep your streak going . . . lately, he's been obsessed with it, he's mastered the expert level where you also have to react to sounds that correspond to each action -- he actually got over one hundred on that level and it moved to some super-advanced level where there are corresponding colors as well as strange sounds and the usual "pull it!" and "twist it!" commands; he now holds all the records on the contraption . . . and it's hard for me to argue with his dedication, because I behaved the same way the other day with the stupid phone app "Llama or Duck" and while this obsessive behavior for simple physical tasks may be an annoying habit, or even pathological if taken too far, it's probably not the worst character trait to possess . . . though Ian will learn soon enough that no one else cares very much how many points you score in Bop-It or Bulls-Eye Ball or darts or corn hole or any of these other minor diversions: it is in your mind alone that you are the victor.