Here's an idea for a new game. If you're ever at a party and there's a lull in the action, pull out your smartphones and play "The Auto-complete Game." Here are the directions:
- Launch the browser on your smartphone
- type in a short phrase that contains one of the following words: who, what, when, where or how, as in "who played..." and then just end the phrase there (you don't have to add the ellipses)
- Look at the list of suggested answers that Google provides as a function of their "auto-completion" feature (note: the suggestions provided are based on Google's analysis of the most recent and most popular search queries in the world beginning with the phrase you entered)
- Ask the other party guests to guess at least one of the top ten answers with which Google completed your phrase
- Award points for right answers in the inverse order that Google listed the answer (e.g. guessing the first of the ten most popular answer earns 10 points, while guessing the 10th most popular answer earns only one point)
Be sure to share (in the comments section below) any of the crazy or counter-intuitive truths you discover when you play. In the meantime, here are some examples of phrases and the always-surprising answers they yielded (don't worry, the answers will most likely be different by the time you try this game):
Have fun!
(The author, noted party game authority James Akers, specializes in digital architectural rendering, watercolor techniques, traditional architectural rendering, architectural watercolor rendering, architectural sketching, watercolor rendering techniques, architectural sketches, watercolor techniques, architectural rendering and the other disciplines associated with traditional architectural rendering. He may be reached at jakers3 (at) gmail (dot) com.)