24: Miniature Golf

Miniature golf is completely gnomish. Not that golf even really needed to be more ridiculous an activity than it already is, leave it to gnomes to come up with a way of making it so. It's hard to divine gnomish thinking on this, whether it was conceived as a deliberate insult to the Scottish people, or what, exactly, they had in mind with it. But miniature golf (and any golf gnomes would play must, by their very stature, be miniature golf, no?) is completely gnomish. It's perhaps marginally less baneful than other gnomish recreations, but the spirit of pointless innovation and kitschy whimsy (to say nothing of the waste of time it represents) that infects it is, as ever, a warning of gnomish machinations on mankind.

Note, it's curious to read one of the founding legends of miniature golf:

The story goes that while on opium a group of men were playing a round of golf. They noticed that the extra objects (hallucinations) were getting in their way while trying to get to the green. After thinking on this for a while they came to the conclusion that this could be the base idea for a new version of golf. The name "crazy golf" is also supposed to come from this story. After the invention of crazy golf it became generally acceptable for women to play the game as it was not as masculine in nature as the original.

Note the use of opium and the original name of "crazy golf" in the mix -- gnomish fingerprints on this activity! So, go ahead, play some virtual miniature golf. Time well spent! Make some gnomes happy, why don't you?