I might just say this is the greatest Faceoff Friday ever. Today's Faceoff Friday is a old-fashioned group melee between all 8 classic Monopoly board game pieces.
Who would win? Iron, wheelbarrow, dog, cannon, car, top hat, shoe, battleship, or thimble?
Now it's quite clear that if you had the actual real-world objects face off, that the battleship would destroy the other 8. (My entire life I have been the battleship for this reason. It ensures me victory on the Monopoly board.) But for this Faceoff Friday, consider the actual size of the Monopoly pieces themselves. So all the objects are roughly the same size. The battleship is about the same size as the race car and the iron is about the same size as the dog and so on.
Firstly, the dog zones in on the hat and just tears it apart. While that's going on, the shoe is kicking the dog in the butt long enough to distract the dog which allows the cannon to take the dog down Michael Vick style. I love rooting for the dog, but that cannon saw an easy target. With the shoe's efforts directed at the dog, the battleship shoots enough ammo into the shoe to make the shoe into swiss cheese. Shoe down. Just as the battleship rips apart the shoe, the thimble comes in and pounds the battleship into the ground. Look at how sturdy that thimble is! The battleship ship had no chance of piercing the thimble's armor with their tiny little guns.
That leaves iron, wheelbarrow, cannon, race car, and thimble. This whole time the wheelbarrow is off working on its secret attack. The canon figures the car is its next target. The thimble is too tough and the iron just doesn't have any meat on it to aim at. The car is a big target and doesn't have much armor. It can be shifty and move around but what else can it do? It can't ram into anything. It will just get stalled. The thimble and cannon team up and the thimble manages to slow down the car a bit by getting the car to partially crash into the thimble. This allows the cannon to blast the car away. Just as the cannon finishes off the car, the wheelbarrow arrives and dumps a big payload of dirt into the cannon. The cannon reacts and attempts to fire back at the wheelbarrow only to self-implode. Cannon down.
Now it's down to the iron, wheelbarrow and thimble. The iron melts down the wheelbarrow. Easy as that. It's a long, drawn-out battle, but the iron eventually melts down the thimble. The thimble managed to pound off the iron's handle, but the iron remains hot and victorious.
No way does the iron win. I haven't decided who would ultimately win yet, but I'm leaning towards the car, the dog, or the cannon.
Definitely not the iron though, that's crazy talk.
Posted by: Mark R on Sep 14, 07 | 12:53 pm
The dog seems like it could be the most vicious.. but oh, so many factors.
The thimble and hat can both completely cover the dog's head, leaving it ultimately defenseless against a kick or stomp from the shoe.
The iron could tip the cannon and heat it way up, enough to cause a premature blast that could shatter the cannon due to a lack of structural stability caused by the intense sustained heat.
I think the ultimate victor is the thimble, and if you can figure out my logic behind that, I'll link to you on my blog. ;-)
I was gonna say, "car runs over dog." simple. BUT that dog is BIG, so "dog runs over car."
I change my answer. That dog is monster. It beats up everything else. It bigger. It faster. It more ruthless, cuz you know when animals get that big, they are all ruthless.
There's one factor I neglected to mention. In my rationale, I really didn't consider each Monopoly piece to be a made of metallic materials. I interpreted the hat to be made of cloth and the dog to be made of doggie parts. My ultimate victor may be different if I analyzed the situation based on all the pieces being metallic.
But that iron is still red-hot. I'm not sure what can stop a red-hot iron. Even if the dog were made of metal, It still couldn't stop the iron.
The Iron theory doesn't hold water though because all the pieces are made of the same material. How could the heat from the iron inflict damage on other items and yet it has no effect on the iron itself.
Besides, the dog could pee on the iron thus causing either a short circuit or a reduction in temperature rendering it's primary weapon useless.
Posted by: Mark R on Sep 14, 07 | 3:34 pm
Guys guys guys. The iron can't do anything on it's own. It just sits there. Iron, you lose.
Why didn't you give us the chance of selecting the Horse and Rider monopoly piece for the Friday faceoff?
I might have chosen that one had I been given the opportunity. It's still a tough call but I like to have lots of options.
Posted by: Mark R on Sep 17, 07 | 9:23 am
I purposely left out the Horse and Rider because I don't ever remember that being a Monopoly piece. Plus, my graphic was nice and balanced by having 9 pieces. 10 pieces would have screwed up the graphic.
I played Monopoly with my wife last night and I noticed there is a money bag piece. That must be new. I never remembered a money bag piece.
You should come over and play Monopoly. Though I don't think Andrea will be in the mood to play against you and I. I'll share the story, but the nuts of it is that Andrea decided not to buy Park Place when she had the chance and she eventually lost by landing on my Park Place hotel. Oooooh! Zing!
At first she was hesitant to follow the theory that you need to buy any and all properties you land on. She grudgingly followed my advice. She managed to snatch up quite a bit more properties that me. I was nervous.
When almost all the properties were bought, we struck a deal so that I would get all the red properties (Illinois, Kentucky, and Indiana) and she would get all the yellow properties (Marvin Gardens, Ventnor and Whatever). I worked as fast as I could to get hotels on those properties while Andrea managed to build a house here and there.
When I got three hotels, I was near broke and I had to mortgage some other properties when I visited one of her yellow property houses.
I had no other monopolies to build on so I just started collected some dough over time. Andrea managed to find time to visit two of my hotels and I also got lucky with some free parking cash. At that point, we worked a deal so I would get the Green monopoly (Pacific Ave, etc) and Andrea would get the light blue (Connecticut, etc) and orange (new york, etc) monopolies. I immediately built hotels with all the money I had accumulated. Andrea slowly built houses here and there and eventually built hotels on her yellow properties. I landed on one of her yellow hotels and I mortgaged alot of stuff, but not my hotels.
Eventually I was able to get Park Place and Boardwalk. I had Boardwalk for a long time, but never landed on Park Place. Andrea had previously landed on Park Place, but decided not to buy it because "no one ever lands on Park Place" which was true at the time. We played for maybe an hour and neither of us had landed on Park Place. A little bit later I got hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place and Andrea landed on Park Place the next go-around and she was bankrupted. Classic Monopoly story.
Yea, I think I'll suggest that next time. I think our game lasted for about 2 1/2 hours. It went fast, but both of us got pretty tired at the end. I don't think I ever played a Monopoly game where the loser actually went through the process of mortgaging EVERYTHING to pay a property fee. It gets to the point where you have to pay someone $2000 and you have about $500 in cash and you begin to look at mortgage costs and you say "s**** it. You win".
by the time the iron melted the wheelbarrow the thimble would have pounded the iron into the ground
Posted by: kevin on Aug 18, 08 | 6:31 am
That iron is the old-style kind from the 30s anyway, not an electric one. Unless it finds a stove or fire to put itself in it is going to stay at room temperature.
Posted by: Indy on Feb 09, 09 | 4:34 pm
Indy, I think you're right about the iron. The thimble's armor is simply no match for the iron or the wheelbarrow. Thimble should win.
is is the funniest exchange of crazy comments I've seen here in my brief history of Erik's blog. Re-read it and ingest the insanity of it all and it's pure genius! What an imaginary concept.
Okay... Iron hasn't a chance in h-e-double-hockey sticks to win. I had always chosen the shoe when I played Monopoly because I have large feet (size 14 since age 13) so I am biased when I type "Foot odor power rules!"
Posted by: IKEMAN on Jun 17, 09 | 1:19 pm
Wheelbarrow? I always thought it was spelled "wheelbarrel." Go know.
Posted by: IKEMAN on Jun 17, 09 | 1:21 pm
is is? I could have sworn I typed "This is..." (sheeshES)
