Donna Vogel's JezzBall Story

Date: Monday June 12th 2000

Hello, my name is Donna Vogel; I am a social worker in the majestic state of Colorado.  I was minding my own business when I learned of the Jezz, a colony of beings who can be quite endearing, although addicting.  After nine months of study, funded by the National Institute for the Study of Small Blips Floating Across Your Computer Monitor, or NISSBFAYCM I bring you a psychosocial assessment of the Jezz.

The Jezz beings are a multiplying colony that lives in a 14 to 21 inch box in the homes of people, hereafter known as “wall-builders”, around the world.  The species is mostly not understood, although people everywhere have spent hundreds of hours trying to come to understand their culture.  They are very anxious and calm down only when given the security of a snug box, much like the wall-builder theory of swaddling, a practice used to soothe wall-builder babies.   This need is so great, lives are sacrificed in the process of securing the Jezz bodies.

The family structure of the Jezz is unlike anything else in nature.  They appear to have a dual sexuality with each able to bear both a female and male role.  Their feminine, or Yin side is soft and fuzzy with a white underbelly.  The male or Yang side is a warrior and must be approached with caution or lives will be lost.  Red alert; need I say more to those who have experienced this side of the Jezz’s personality?

Relationships appear most natural in twos although multiple partnering is common and up to 26 Jezz could theoretically be seen close together.  Mating appears to result in 1 birth per life cycle, no matter the number of Jezz frenetically mating.  Maturity of a colony is reached in 49 life cycles, although a photograph of a possibly phony colony was seen with many more than this.  This claim was not substantiated.

The Jezz must rest.  They can sleep for long periods but must be constantly reminded to rest or “pause”.  This reminder is best done by the wall-builders placing a sign in the middle of their colony stating simply “Pause”.    They get lost easily, but with some coaxing, they find their way.

There is obviously some anxiety disorder present and other forms of mental illness also manifest infrequently. A form of schizophrenia coupled with a sociopathic disorder is observed in the colonies with no percentages currently available.  This new form of unpredictable psychosis,  called Schizobundyjezz, results in the Jezz losing lives for no obvious reason.  It can occur at any age in their maturation cycle.  There is no known treatment.  Their frenetic energy was the subject of an earlier study trying to generate enough power to calm Y2K fears of a mass power failure.  The study failed, but the Y2K hype was a rousing success.  It generated billions of dollars for computer companies as corporations and individual wall-builders around the globe were “forced” to upgrade or replace their equipment or face certain doom.

The Jezz are a manipulative being who can lull the wall-builder into a false sense of security as they go about building walls.  This can create a situation where two lives are lost at once, and as so many have observed, this can happen repeatedly.

There is a sense of aimlessness within the Jezz not unlike the period the wall-builders called the 80’s.  They bump along with no apparent purpose, with great need for outside structure, a phenomenon also seen in wall-builder teenagers.  They are curious creatures with both fear and gratitude for the wall-builder.  The Jezz language is indecipherable but was interpreted by one astute interpreter as being of two words, “Excuse Me.”

Ghost Jezz have also been observed and cause the Jezz to lose their path.  The ghost appear benign, but can cause loss of life as the wall-builders tries to work around these blank spots.

For recreation, Jezz love to dance.  They do not travel far from home, but in a short time can travel many jezz-miles going back and forth, to and fro.

As far as psychoanalyzing the wall-builder’s,  I will give several possible diagnoses.  Do obsessive compulsive disorder or any of the addictive disorders fit?  Or should we talk to the writers of the DSM V about a new category; Jezz addiction.  There is likely to be a rush by the pharmaceutical companies to manufacture a medicine to treat it.  They could call it Xanjezz or Jezzene.

Have fun all you wall-builders. 

MY JEZZBALL STORY

I discovered JezzBall on a boring night shift job I was working so I could afford to upgrade my rafting equipment.  The job consisted of handing out meds, and being available in case someone needed something.  One night I was looking through the game section of the computer menu and discovered this game.  Someone had racked up 90,000 points and I spent two nights trying to figure out how they got so many!  I didn’t discover the horizontal line until the second night.  When I finally went to the instructions and then pushed “demo” I made it to 92,000.  I was delighted as now I was the person with the high score on that computer.  I made a copy of the game and brought it home.  My husband has been a Jezz widower since.  I discovered www.jezzball.com by accident.  I wanted to see more instructions and was hoping to find a list of instructions on the Internet.  The first site I went to was a young man who had not scored many points, but knew how to build a home page.  Then I found George’s instructions.  It cleared up a number of questions I had.  I kept playing, using some new tricks and made it to 23,000,000!  The computer locked up at that point and I had to shut it down.  I was thrilled to be in the top twenty, and figured I would retire now from playing.  But the Jezz had another plan for me.  Before my score and picture were up on the web site, I was knocked down to the number 21 spot; and a best of level 45 went in.  I tried a couple of times for a high score in the level 45 but wasn’t doing great.  My heart wasn’t in it, and I needed to plant my half-acre organic garden, do some rafting and work for a living.

An illness gave me the chance to get back in the top twenty.  I was to rest, sit still, stay out of the garden.  Since this is not something I do well, I was pleased to have JezzBall to keep me company.   After reading all the profiles on www.jezzball.com, I discovered a couple more tricks and made it back in the top twenty.  I really have little to share that’s new, but I chronicled my 5-step process using screen saver.  This process is for the upper levels.  In the lower levels, use the double line method and get as many points as you can.  The trick is to get every single space filled in.  So pay attention to the last step.  I can get 91% on level 49, 99% on the first levels.  I use the slow speed during much of the initial wall building, switching to fast to erase large portions of space and for the last ball.  My highest bonus was 549,000 in level 49 with 38 lives left.

JezzBall is the second computer game I have played.  The first was a game called Pepper on my kids Atari, like something back in the early 80s.  Actually I do remember the first computer game, Pong.  I was 16 years old and working my first job.  I played it once in a while, but my boss spent many hours and many quarters on that machine!  I have never had the patience to sit and play games.  I am much too busy!  I work as a medical social worker and do Hospice work.  I volunteer for a local Homeless shelter and am the parent of two children, a son, 21 and daughter, 19.  My daughter is a full-time student.  We love the outdoors and spend a lot of time camping and whitewater rafting.  We live in Western Colorado and there are great opportunities here for outdoor recreation.  I am passionate about gardening and have a half- acre organic vegetable and herb garden.  I have a small orchard also and numerous flower and herb beds.  I play JezzBall in the evenings when it is too dark to be outside.  I also have 9 brothers and sisters, 20 nieces and nephews and we all live in this area.  So we are together a lot!  I haven’t told them about JezzBall, but I will E-Mail the www.jezzball.com site around if this gets published.

Here’s my process with pictures.

Note the position of the lines.  Try and start them directly on a ball to avoid losing a life.  The top line is slightly longer by design, the rest will hold two balls.  The top two balls were clipped in slow speed.  After making all the lines, I let the balls go in the rest of the side spaces mostly by themselves.  Note the bottom left side is blank.  That is also by design.

Notice now how almost all the side spaces are filled and the top line has been extended.  It took three lives to build this line.  I build a small well, fill it, then build another, fill it.  This avoids getting a double in there and losing your space.  24 balls can be filled across the top if you are really good.  And since we have 22 on the sides, check out the next picture.

I started a line on the bottom to get the rest of the balls.  Before I capture them all, I want to clean up the sides and get ready to get the 91% bonus.  I drew the vertical line on the right first this time, but the left could have been done also.  Make sure and use the fast speed when erasing all large areas.

Note how I have started cleaning up the sides.  I have the side separated, then draw a line on the last space in front of the trapped balls.  I then separate with vertical lines first, and except for the occasional schizophrenic ball, I won’t spend any lives here.  I’m ready to capture the last ball after all the rest are cleaned up.  Check it out.

I captured the last ball with the slow speed and the bottom open.  This is how you get the extra 1%.  If you do it with a block, you will end up with 90%.  I then switch to fast speed to clip that last space and get the big bonus. 

With a bonus of almost 500,000 on this game, I climbed closer to the final score of over 61 million!  And to think, I never thought I could get to 90,000!

Well, that’s my story.  E-Mail if you wish, I will reply.  I may have to retire from jezzing for now though, at least until someone kicks me out of the top 20 again!

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