I am of course refering to the act of playing the game installed on every single
computer rather than the far more noble act of disposing of potentially lethal weapons.
This rather simple game, which had sat on my PC at work for months without being touched (I was always more of a solitaire man) began to distract me in the summer of '98 when a friend of mine in the office bet me that I couldn't complete the expert level.
What ensued can only be described as one of the single biggest wastes of man hours a company could wish for as we literally spent entire weeks hopelessly devoted to 'sweeper - I even began to forfeit my lunch break in order to play that fucking game, and when I tried to sleep at night the little fucking numbered squares and stupid smiling face at the top of the screen would not leave my mind.
My worst nightmare would be to arrive at work to find that my mouse had been replaced with a less responsive model that would in some way hinder my sweeping efficiency.
Thank God I left the job after Christmas and went backpacking around Australia and spent a good few months away from that fucking PC otherwise I fear that I would be residing in a hospital for the clinically insane.
I did manage to get my best time down to 98 seconds though, can anyboy beat that?
PS. Minesweeping is also a term used to describe the act of stealing drinks that have been left on an unguarded table in a nightclub - an act usually performed by young men aged 17-21 (if memory serves)