Sometimes you just want a brainless time waster that you can come back to. Here are a couple of good ones:

Word Search by Melimots

It’s word search. You can change the complexity. What more do you want? Non-distracting ads, which it has. A little banner ad. No biggie. Some people have complained that it has “words I don’t know” and “won’t recognize 3 letter words I find”. To which I say: you are an idiot. It’s freaking word search! The best version I’ve found so far. No glitz. No glamour. Just word search. Free.

Solitare by Mobilityware 

This is on all platforms (iPad, Kindle Fire, Google Play) and is one of the best known. It’s Klondike and that’s it. If you want Spider or FreeCell, get their other apps. It works, it’s simple, and only has ads in-between games. If you complain about ads in between games, you are a cheapskate and/or play too fast. Deal with it. Devs need to make money. Free.

Zookeeper DX TouchEdition by Kiteretsu

I have mixed feelings about this game. First, the good stuff. It’s Zookeeper. If you liked that game on the Nintendo DS, you know what it is. Graphics and sounds are the same, but bigger (depending on your screen, of course).

On the down side, on a tablet, it’s too big. I found it a lot easier to play on the smaller screen of the DS. And a stylus works better, too. And maybe I’m getting older, but I found the Nintendo version ramped up in difficulty a lot slower. Which is good for an old man like me. This gets too hard too fast.

It’s a buck, and if you like Zookeeper, it’s worth it. Otherwise you can look for other “match three blocks” games (or whatever they are called).