Must we change everything? Though I'm old school, I appreciate innovation and technological advancements and the convenience they add to my life. But there are some things that should remain sacred and in tact and Monopoly is one of them.

The Parker Bros. folks recently unveiled their new electronic version of the game which does not use paper money. Great! Our kids already don't know how to tell time on a clock or do research in a library or how to cook a meal without a microwave-now they won't have to use basic math skills when they play Monopoly either. It's bad enough Monopoly now comes in so many versions and limited editions, but people like to represent so it's understandable; however, the basic elements of what constitutes Monopoly FUN continued to remain the same-getting all the cash and watching all the other players with only a few play bucks left try to figure out how to stay in the game. So why did the Monopoly visionaries have to go and redesign the FUN?

Instead of play money, the new electronic version of Monopoly includes a sort of calculator acting as an electronic banker. Monopoly VISA cards hold your original bank and are swiped through the calculator to keep track of all your cash transactions during the game. This means you no longer get to handle those orange, yellow, pink, beige, green and blue bills; this means you don't get to flash your piles of cash. Convenient? Hell yeah! Fun? How can it be?

Most of what's fun about Monopoly is witnessing the financial demise of your opponents through their dwindling stacks of cash; then watching them sit penniless without a green $50 or pink $1 to be found and reduced to scooting their chair back from the table to signify their removal from the game. And it's fun to hurry the folks who take far too long to pay someone because they can't add or subtract fast enough, or they are trying to put enough cash, houses and hotels together to pay you off. But the best part of Monopoly is landing on the Free Parking and snatching all that cash out from under the board. C'mon now... handling cash and having hotels stacked beyond balance is what Monopoly is all about. What's next, a direct line to property investor to discuss your matters before you buy?

What was Parker Bros. thinking? What do you think? Does the new electronic version of Monopoly take the fun out of the game? Or should I just get over it?

Pat Landaker is a small business consultant and President of the Pat Landaker Agency; she also owns the Think Pink Agency, a resource center and think tank for women career professionals, business owners, entrepreneurs and stay-at-home professionals. www.patlandakeragency.com and www.thinkpinkagency.com. You can also read her blogs on Denver Post's columnist Al Lewis' blogsite at www.denverpostbloghouse.com/lewis where she is a guest blogger.