A whole new take on Angry Birds

All the feeders out now and it wasn't an hour before one of them was down to 2/3 full. You can have your Angry Birds. I'll take my hungry birds any time. But, um, maybe not the expensive birds. I've joked in the past how fast they go through the feed I buy, but this year I learned a whole new lesson in bird feeding.

 A couple of the old feeders needed replacing and I thought maybe adding a couple would be nice as well so have been looking for the past few weeks at various stores with some specific kinds in mind. I found some but others weren't available and I was beginning to think about making my own. I went to one last place, kind of the high end of pet supplies and bird seed and feeders.

 They had quite a selection and as I looked through it, I came across one that was on sale for $110. One hundred ten dollars American! I laughed, Who the heck would ever pay $100 for a bird feeder? I found three I liked plus a hanging device and, oh what the heck, one of those silhouettes of a raptor that are meant to warn birds away from windows. And, oh yeah, a bag of thistle seed.

 In a hurry to get to work, i hustled to the checkout and put them down for the cashier. She totaled it all up and very calmly as if this were an everyday occurrence said to me in the sweetest voice: one hundred twenty six dollars. I just about fainted. Very silently I paid for all this, right at that moment not sure these birds were worth that. Still regretting the amount, I put all those feeders out yesterday and filled them with seed that of course I am gong to have to replace at more great expense wondering again was this really worth it.

Then the first chickadee landed on the first one even before I had the second one filled and I started to feel a little better about it. But, today, I am programming a video game to challenge Angry Birds. It is called Hungry Birds and basically you start with a million dollars and start feeding birds. They find increasingly devious ways to get you to spend money on them until at about the 20th level you are broke. No human can win this game.