On June 6, 1984, one of the most widely-addictive video games ever was released upon the world: Tetris.

It was a while before I tried the original arcade version and it didn't particularly impress me until I got a copy of the home game, which brings us to today's story.

After graduating from high school, I spent the summer between that and college living with one of my high school buddies, Bill. Aside from being gamers, we were both pretty active in our church youth group and, one week, we rented a copy of Tetris for his Nintendo on Monday, played it straight through for two days, damn near non-stop (don't ask how our thumbs survived), and returned it on the way to church on Wednesday evening.

During that evening's youth group meeting, whoever I looked at as they were talking, I saw blocks falling and arranging themselves around the person's head and shoulders.

Yeah. Slight overdose there...

Other variations of Tetris have, of course, drifted through my life in the years since then, mostly unremarkable, although I was rather taken with Blockout in college. A true 3D adaptation (as opposed to Welltris, which was really just plain Tetris with a wrap-around board), it opened up a whole new range of possibilities for getting yourself into tight spots.

So put on some Korobeyniki, clear some lines, and celebrate!