A bird's-eye view of today's culture

Today's headlines are a roller coaster ride of good news, bad news, terrible news and tragedy, and all I seem to care about these days are angry birds! Nope, not the kind that attack innocent passersby or even the ones in Alfred Hitchcock's frightening movie, but those on my iPad screen.

You see I'm just back from my annual vacation in the Outer Banks with a houseful of kids who bring me up to date on the hot trends in current culture for the mostly pre-teen set, though I saw some evidence of adults getting involved with some of this stuff.

Last year I discovered the joy of silly bands as a fashion accessory, as well as the previously untapped frustration of the training exercises on my Wii system. This year it was the complete and utter determination to achieve every level of Angry Birds mastery.

Angry Birds is a game that is somehow tied to the movie, Rio. At least I think so, since there seems to be a promotion for the film included at the end of the game. Eight-year-old Donovan and six-year-old Carson introduced me to this, along with Apples to Apples (played with people, not a computer) and Fruit Ninja, which seems to have no discernible purpose other than proving that my eye-hand coordination is pretty lousy.

I'm not entirely sure if there's any lesson to be learned from Angry Birds, except that it has the power to drive a grown woman to want to throw her iPad in the Atlantic Ocean. The goal is to destroy animals in various habitats (these are cartoons, so please no protests that the game is training young minds not respect wildlife!) by using a slingshot to send angry birds after them. I suppose there are lessons to be had about arcs and angles and such, but the biggest lesson I learned is that I absolutely hate being mocked by a monkey I missed! The more often I missed, the more determined I was to finally get to level three in the final game and destroy everyone of those gloating little critters. I did it last night...with nary a kid around to witness the accomplishment. That's okay. I shouted loudly enough for all of us.

This year's trip also included plenty of games of Go Fish (I lost), lots of Scrabble (I lost) and Flash Scrabble (I was pitiful) and a couple of puzzles. One of those might have gone a little better had not someone somehow managed to stash a critical edge piece in his pocket. And, no, that was not a kid!

At any rate, thank you Donovan, Carson, Morgan, Jonathan, Austin and Adam for bringing me up to speed on the latest pop culture. Evan's not even two and already showing signs he'll be a force to be reckoned with in this crowd. And every one of them proves to me annually that kids today are smart as whips . . . And more fun than a barrel of those blasted monkeys!