In news that will shock no one, I have miscounted the number of days left until the National Championship. So this countdown begins at #7 (I hear it can be turned up to 11 though). What's the best way to start off this momentous romp? No seriously, any suggestions? I've never done anything like this before... Oh well, let's just check back in with those persistent pie people. Checking the comments for my last post reveals this little gem:
So my moral quandary is this: do I provide "exotic nicknames" that will probably be fetishized
by depraved pie posters or do I put some effort into this post and come up with compelling content that everyone can enjoy?..............Wait a sec! Nicknames are a bunch of related terms that each require a small amount of explanation. Smells like a list to me! (hey scrabble nurses, is there a name for obsessive list making and sharing? Is there medicine for it?) Looks like you get your wish PiByter. May God have mercy on my soul...
"Exotic" Nicknames for Everyone (who's anyone at least)
1) Madam Kata: Regina's moniker was the first step down this slippery slope and has been covered in the post Madam Kata enters the fray.
2) Crimson Commando: Candice being Candice and my unhealthy love of alliteration in the last post was enough to draw the attention of the pie people and get this crazy train rolling. For those not paying attention, Candice is a red head and a soldier (and a little too forthcoming with foundation anecdotes).
3) Professor P: I guess technically I have a nickname too. How's this for creativity, I am a teacher and my middle name starts with P. I am so proud of my public school education right now.
4) The Director: Ok, calling Peggy "The Director" is a bit of a cop-out, but it does sound cool in certain circumstances and adds a bit of cinematic flair to our shoddy operation (I am also holding out hope for the a love connection between The Director and The Conductor I met at my first fever dream of a tournament. I'm sure they could make a beautiful "C.D." together...)
5) The Finger: I'll take any chance I get to reference Louise's obscene "accident". It also sounds awesome when pairings are being given out.
"Next round, looks like you get...The Finger!"
6) Grey Ghost: I'm still pretty sure Kathy (with a K) is/was some sort of spy or ninja. She still drifts with the wind around the globe (claiming she has a game show or book signing to attend right before some world leader is assassinated). And, um, she has gray hair.
7) Acolyte: Cathy (with a C) is always complaining about all the studying she has to do. She also has some mysterious religious past that she alludes to occasionally. She claims she is too "busy" to read the blog, but the only rational explanation is she belongs to some sort of extreme religious order that considers blogs unholy. (theory #2? She's a pie person. There I said it.)
8) Petite Danseuse: Michael is ambiguously french and a homunculus hoofer (whether it is square, line, point or cube).
9) Lightning Rod: Victor attracts controversy and recently played softball with an aluminum bat during a thunderstorm (runner up name is The Litigator since he is a newly minted lawyer and a good candidate to be The Director's nemesis).
10) Jade Owl: Jo Ann looks a little like an owl to me (in a good way...) She is also wise and wore a green sweater one time. Ok, you got me. I'm running out of steam here.
Join me next week when we.......Wait what's that? We forgot Galen? In honor of her status as minor deity to the Pie People I open up her naming to the comments section for the next few days. That's right, its the first contest here at ScrabbleDuck (well aside from the Cerulean Blue Cookie Contest which has no entries so far). Be the one to come up with the best suggestion for Galen's nickname and receive the ScrabbleDuck Quack of Approval (trademark pending). Let's keep it (relatively) clean and come up with something worthy of the "freak like me" herself. Just remember, the Pie People are counting on you and they are a temperamental and fundamentally depraved group (pretty much like scrabble players). Join me soon for the Countdown #6 spectacular(failure)!
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Feisty Flagellation Fun
So as Madam Kata points out in her latest rant filled (not that there is anything wrong with that) reply, there was at least one notable event during my most recent block of unaccounted time. Eye witnesses support her claim that I (mis)played several games of scrabble with her, Peggy and Candice over the weekend. Ear witnesses do not seem to support my claim that strange voices from beyond controlled my actions during this time. We can all agree that something odd was going on though. For one, Candice was there and playing scrabble. I was pretty sure she had quit scrabble and taken up extreme bowling or some other pursuit that played to her strengths (such as well... strength). Secondly, on a fateful challenge in a close game between Madam Kata and the Crimson Commando herself, I was asked to adjudicate a play. Well I was actually asked "Hey quit staring into space and look up this word!" but adjudicate sounds cooler. The word in question was "sudsing". Apparently, this is something people do with "shampoo" when they "bathe" to get "clean". I am not really familiar with this specialized jargon, but I have been told its "big in Japan". So I checked the official word list and then checked again. I didn't see it. I remember being blinded with rage over a recent defeat at Madam Kata's deadly hands, but I am sure that has no bearing on my decision to utter "Definitely not good." and then slink away into the shadows while cackling maniacally... This had a huge swing on the game and Candice was able to turn certain defeat into a narrow victory over the Asian sensation. When Madam Kata looked up the word herself and saw that it was good I learned two new things about my future: I no longer was allowed to "do business" with her "learned colleagues" ( I guess a preferred customer card doesn't mean as much as it used to) and furthermore, I would soon lose the ability to "do business" with anyone, ever. So to save the world from a future depressingly devoid of little Professor P's, I have come up with a last ditch effort to save myself in true ScrabbleDuck style. I have devised a short list (arbitrarily numbered for your convenience) of true-ish embarrassing "facts" concerning me and scrabble. Hopefully, this emasculating experience will assuage Madame Kata's wrath (at least until I can safely disappear back into the seedy underworld from whence I came).
1) I can not sit with my back to a large window or door while playing. I keep telling people it is because of assassins (and there certainly is a large enough bounty on me) but, I doubt that the direction I am facing is going to have much impact on a soulless sniper. I did do some research to see if there is some genetic basic for this particular quirk of mine. The closest I found was a distant ancestor who was shot in the back in Virgina in 1780. He was running away from British people with guns in some sort of revolution (running away from people with guns doesn't seem that "revolutionary" to me, but maybe he was doing it in a particularly fancy way). There was no window or door involved though since it was in the middle of a forest. Further evidence against the hereditary theory comes from the lack of the behavior in my father or brother or any other family member, really except for crazy uncle Eddie and he's well, you know.............adopted.
2) I take a small cute duck with me to play scrabble in events several states away I have to pay to enter. I'm still not sure that some of you reading this have quite figured that out yet.
3) I use performance enhancing steroids when I play scrabble online (its a little too obvious when I inject myself in the middle of a tournament game). Seriously though, the Internet Scrabble Club or ISC is many things to many people. About the only thing we can all agree on is that the insulting and rude "helpers" are a serious problem (well everyone agrees but sadomasochist Pete and I can't stand him). One of the biggest ongoing debates is the use of outside aids during games. Some people feel that nothing should be allowed whatsoever and have gone so far as to sign something called a fair play agreement (we'll come back to this in a minute). Some feel that some things are ok, like a dictionary or a list of all the 2 letter words. Others have decided to use various programs or devices because they don't care and/or they believe others are doing the same anyways. I have no idea what the percentages are like, but I can attest that there are multiple people I have personally seen use outside aids during their games despite having signed the fair play agreement. I am not sure what exactly this accomplishes other than ticking people off., but it seems a popular choice somedays. Anyways, my deep dark secret is that I am one of the people who uses outside help during my games. I have not signed the agreement and do not plan to do so. To the best of my knowledge, there are no tournaments or anything that involves money changing hands over the outcome of a game on ISC. Since it is "for fun" I have chosen to use it as a tool to learn many new words I would not have otherwise. In most games, the best way to get better is to play with people who are better than you. To do that on ISC you have to first get a rating that is higher than your ability level so that the better people will play you. My rating is now high enough that I can play against national champions and see words and strategies I never would have otherwise. My opponents, meanwhile, got a new opponent that they would not have access to otherwise. I do not see who the victim is here. Please comment in the forums if there is something I have missed though.
4) I am "somewhat" tangential and long winded (see #3 on this "short" list).
5) The color of the tiles, clock, rack and board make it substantially harder or easier for me to play. Pink clocks make me feel like a sissy and I start trying to play overly masculine words like "smash" and "impregnate". I carry my own rack with me (all black with the logo scraped off). I spent hours deciding what were the most soothing tiles to play: cerulean blue (and I will give a cookie to anyone that knows what that is a reference to). I am also saving up to get a custom made board with optimum shading, contrast and embedded images.
I hope this look into my shattered psyche shows that further action is unnecessary, Madam Kata. I also promise to look further into this "sudsing" phenomenon and perhaps even try "lathering" and "rinsing" myself someday (though I am sure that once will be quite enough). Join me next time when I start my 10 day countdown to Scrabble Nationals and/ or I impersonate an inebriated blatherskite.
1) I can not sit with my back to a large window or door while playing. I keep telling people it is because of assassins (and there certainly is a large enough bounty on me) but, I doubt that the direction I am facing is going to have much impact on a soulless sniper. I did do some research to see if there is some genetic basic for this particular quirk of mine. The closest I found was a distant ancestor who was shot in the back in Virgina in 1780. He was running away from British people with guns in some sort of revolution (running away from people with guns doesn't seem that "revolutionary" to me, but maybe he was doing it in a particularly fancy way). There was no window or door involved though since it was in the middle of a forest. Further evidence against the hereditary theory comes from the lack of the behavior in my father or brother or any other family member, really except for crazy uncle Eddie and he's well, you know.............adopted.
2) I take a small cute duck with me to play scrabble in events several states away I have to pay to enter. I'm still not sure that some of you reading this have quite figured that out yet.
3) I use performance enhancing steroids when I play scrabble online (its a little too obvious when I inject myself in the middle of a tournament game). Seriously though, the Internet Scrabble Club or ISC is many things to many people. About the only thing we can all agree on is that the insulting and rude "helpers" are a serious problem (well everyone agrees but sadomasochist Pete and I can't stand him). One of the biggest ongoing debates is the use of outside aids during games. Some people feel that nothing should be allowed whatsoever and have gone so far as to sign something called a fair play agreement (we'll come back to this in a minute). Some feel that some things are ok, like a dictionary or a list of all the 2 letter words. Others have decided to use various programs or devices because they don't care and/or they believe others are doing the same anyways. I have no idea what the percentages are like, but I can attest that there are multiple people I have personally seen use outside aids during their games despite having signed the fair play agreement. I am not sure what exactly this accomplishes other than ticking people off., but it seems a popular choice somedays. Anyways, my deep dark secret is that I am one of the people who uses outside help during my games. I have not signed the agreement and do not plan to do so. To the best of my knowledge, there are no tournaments or anything that involves money changing hands over the outcome of a game on ISC. Since it is "for fun" I have chosen to use it as a tool to learn many new words I would not have otherwise. In most games, the best way to get better is to play with people who are better than you. To do that on ISC you have to first get a rating that is higher than your ability level so that the better people will play you. My rating is now high enough that I can play against national champions and see words and strategies I never would have otherwise. My opponents, meanwhile, got a new opponent that they would not have access to otherwise. I do not see who the victim is here. Please comment in the forums if there is something I have missed though.
4) I am "somewhat" tangential and long winded (see #3 on this "short" list).
5) The color of the tiles, clock, rack and board make it substantially harder or easier for me to play. Pink clocks make me feel like a sissy and I start trying to play overly masculine words like "smash" and "impregnate". I carry my own rack with me (all black with the logo scraped off). I spent hours deciding what were the most soothing tiles to play: cerulean blue (and I will give a cookie to anyone that knows what that is a reference to). I am also saving up to get a custom made board with optimum shading, contrast and embedded images.
I hope this look into my shattered psyche shows that further action is unnecessary, Madam Kata. I also promise to look further into this "sudsing" phenomenon and perhaps even try "lathering" and "rinsing" myself someday (though I am sure that once will be quite enough). Join me next time when I start my 10 day countdown to Scrabble Nationals and/ or I impersonate an inebriated blatherskite.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
'Puter Problems and Possible Mulitple Personality Disorder
So it is not really scrabble related (but how much of what I write here is anyways?) but I have been having some technical difficulties lately. I technically have been very busy with um... man what have I been doing these last couple days? Why can't I remember? Why are two of my clocks running backwards? Why do I now set off metal detectors no matter whats in my pockets or what I'm (not) wearing?... More on this story as it develops. My computer has also been acting up (as opposed to acting down, or left I suppose). Luckily I have a friend (I know I'm surprised too) who knows about matters of the silicon heart and he graciously agreed to fix it for some cookies. I don't understand how someone can comprehend the complexities of a computer, but not a convection oven. I am glad I had something to barter though (it was either cookies or "my first born son" and I kinda wanted to have a daughter). So once my computer was working, the blogspot people (the service I write my blog through) decided I needed a little more crazy in my life (people keep telling me its paranoid to think of everyone as being out to get me, but if they were, wouldn't they tell me not to be paranoid so I would be more vulnerable to their attempts to get me... ).For whatever reason, when I have tried to log in to the blog lately, a curious message would appear: "Error: email address does not exist". This caused a bit of an existential crisis. I went and checked my email and it certainly appeared to exist. I followed the help directions listed (apparently things wink in and out of existence a lot for these people) and I was led further down the rabbit hole. While the message still claimed that my email address (or maybe email in general, I'm not sure how grand a claim they were making at this point) did not exist. I now had the option (thanks to a link they sent to my non-existent email) to log into "my" blog. Apparently someone with the screen name I use made a blog around five years ago. It does not share any of my interests and has nothing to do with scrabble or ducks. I have no memory of any involvement with this blog which is scarily/serendipitously named "ImaginaryConvenience". My user name is very odd and specific so I can only imagine I have some sort of blogging doppleganger out there as a result of cloning or time travel or the radiation my mother claimed I was getting anytime I sat too close to the T.V. (if only I had known the horror of a weird blogging double I was about to unleash on the world I promise I would have listened Mom, no matter how bad my eyesight is/was). I then started to wonder, if when I log in I am taken to this mysterious other website; when my evil twin logs in are they taken to my innocent scrabble sanctuary? What if they post crazy ramblings under my name? What if nobody notices the difference?? What if people do notice the difference, but prefer my double to the "real" me?!? These questions lent me a sense of urgency as I began to race to find a solution so I could regain control of ScrabbleDuck before it was too late. I went back through all the old notifications sent to my still non-existent email address and followed link after link in the help threads. To make a long story (somewhat) shorter I created a new account. I made a new and (hopefully) recognized as real email address. I used the correct password information I had to transfer everything to a new account and then back again somehow (I'm not going to lie. I was doing things at random by this point). I still have no idea what was wrong in the first place, but I have my information saved and my password changed so I am back for the foreseeable future and my blogging double won't be able to desecrate these hallowed pages with their correct grammar or non run-on sentences. Feel free to celebrate (or wail in anguish as I continue to butcher the English language unfettered). I am pretty tired from this ordeal and one of my elbows seems to be beeping ominously, so I am going to have to sign off, but fear not, I will be back with actual scrabble content very soon.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Madam Kata enters the fray...
Regina may not be a pimp, but she sure knows how to slap a brother down... My attempt to clarify her position has once again failed. Specifically:
Needless to say, her awesome pimp hat gift has been rescinded (I gave most of the hat to my brother who assures me "Its so dorky its cool" and I gave the feather to my kittens who assured me "Meow Miao Miaou" which I can only assume means "Thanks for the awesome pimp feather. We will treasure it forever and will stop scratching the furniture while you sleep.") But if Madam is what she wants then Madam is what she will get. I will not dignify the low blow about a Master's Degree with a response other than to say: I have taken almost enough classes to qualify for two Master's Degrees and just because I have a wee bit of a procrastination problem and may or may not have lost the legal right to come within 200 feet of a former thesis adviser does not mean that I too will not someday have a spiffy piece of paper to validate my existence.(%$@^ I guess this is a response however I preface it)
As for the game we played... I have nothing to hide and I am a big enough man (though I'm thinking about dieting after I finish this pie) to describe the luck I had and the multiple bone-headed plays I made. I love me some arbitrary lists (and bad grammar, in case you haven't noticed by now). So without further ado, the top five plays from the game I tried to lose, but was saved by the tile gods (and the incalculable effect of my "witty" repartee ):
1) I randomly decided to study the 4 letter words that looked really weird a couple hours before the game and made it all the way to the end of the "A"s. I then got to play "ambo" on the second turn of the game. It went unchallenged, but definitely freaked her out as at it sat there during the game (the same way one crooked window blind bothers me until I get up to fix it). It sat there glaring at her and could not be "straightened" for the duration of the game. Me singing a little ambo song probably did not help either.
2) She played deading and I successfully challenged it off the board; gaining myself a critical extra turn in the process. One small problem. While deading is not acceptable in scrabble for God knows why, it actually has two accepted meanings in several dictionaries I checked. One is "a covering used to prevent the radiation of heat. The other I don't understand, but seems to be some kind of metric related to topology. Yeah for scrabble unsophistication!
3) I then played a word not in most "real" dictionaries: seepier. It has, however, oozed its way onto the acceptable list for scrabble so she lost her turn for not knowing a word that does not really exist. She did have a good line, though, right before the challenge:
"I know the rain is making you seepier little one, but you can't just make up words..."
4) She played kata and I challenged it because I big shot like me surely know all the four letter words with a high point tile like K in it right? Right?? Umm, no. Kata is a series of movements used in martial arts. Due to this feat of mental jujitsu I have decided to redub Regina as Madam Kata. If there is not a character named that in some cheesy badly dubbed movie out there then, well, there really should be. My selfish motivation is mnemonic. Hopefully, I will be able to remember now her job and/or that "kata" is a real word. (Also, if I can get her to go to a tournament, think about how cool and intimidating that name would be: "Ouch, next round you have to play Madame Kata. her last opponent lost by 300 points and they still can't find half of his body..."
5) Capitalizing on her momentum, Madame Kata then body slammed "tinners" onto the board and stared me down with the cool gaze of a samurai. I had not learned my lesson and challenged it also. Not only is tinners good, but it is in Much ado about Nothing. Ouch...Nothing would also be my score for those two turns. I may have wound up with a higher score, but I was certainly outplayed.
So till next time scrabble warriors, remember: One does not hope to defeat Madam Kata, only to escape with their life, and a story to tell...
-
offlabeluse said... From the Queen: So I've been promoted from "prostitute" to "pimp"? I actually prefer "madam." It would be even more accurate to say I work for the prostitutes who get grant money to do their research at the university. I'm not sure what that makes me. "Glorified servant even though I have a master's degree"? Hopefully not "fired" if one of them reads this!!
I can't wait to see what else you have to say for yourself about last night's game, in which I came back from a 159 point deficit to lose by only 81 points, mister professor person! :-)
Needless to say, her awesome pimp hat gift has been rescinded (I gave most of the hat to my brother who assures me "Its so dorky its cool" and I gave the feather to my kittens who assured me "Meow Miao Miaou" which I can only assume means "Thanks for the awesome pimp feather. We will treasure it forever and will stop scratching the furniture while you sleep.") But if Madam is what she wants then Madam is what she will get. I will not dignify the low blow about a Master's Degree with a response other than to say: I have taken almost enough classes to qualify for two Master's Degrees and just because I have a wee bit of a procrastination problem and may or may not have lost the legal right to come within 200 feet of a former thesis adviser does not mean that I too will not someday have a spiffy piece of paper to validate my existence.(%$@^ I guess this is a response however I preface it)
As for the game we played... I have nothing to hide and I am a big enough man (though I'm thinking about dieting after I finish this pie) to describe the luck I had and the multiple bone-headed plays I made. I love me some arbitrary lists (and bad grammar, in case you haven't noticed by now). So without further ado, the top five plays from the game I tried to lose, but was saved by the tile gods (and the incalculable effect of my "witty" repartee ):
1) I randomly decided to study the 4 letter words that looked really weird a couple hours before the game and made it all the way to the end of the "A"s. I then got to play "ambo" on the second turn of the game. It went unchallenged, but definitely freaked her out as at it sat there during the game (the same way one crooked window blind bothers me until I get up to fix it). It sat there glaring at her and could not be "straightened" for the duration of the game. Me singing a little ambo song probably did not help either.
2) She played deading and I successfully challenged it off the board; gaining myself a critical extra turn in the process. One small problem. While deading is not acceptable in scrabble for God knows why, it actually has two accepted meanings in several dictionaries I checked. One is "a covering used to prevent the radiation of heat. The other I don't understand, but seems to be some kind of metric related to topology. Yeah for scrabble unsophistication!
3) I then played a word not in most "real" dictionaries: seepier. It has, however, oozed its way onto the acceptable list for scrabble so she lost her turn for not knowing a word that does not really exist. She did have a good line, though, right before the challenge:
"I know the rain is making you seepier little one, but you can't just make up words..."
4) She played kata and I challenged it because I big shot like me surely know all the four letter words with a high point tile like K in it right? Right?? Umm, no. Kata is a series of movements used in martial arts. Due to this feat of mental jujitsu I have decided to redub Regina as Madam Kata. If there is not a character named that in some cheesy badly dubbed movie out there then, well, there really should be. My selfish motivation is mnemonic. Hopefully, I will be able to remember now her job and/or that "kata" is a real word. (Also, if I can get her to go to a tournament, think about how cool and intimidating that name would be: "Ouch, next round you have to play Madame Kata. her last opponent lost by 300 points and they still can't find half of his body..."
5) Capitalizing on her momentum, Madame Kata then body slammed "tinners" onto the board and stared me down with the cool gaze of a samurai. I had not learned my lesson and challenged it also. Not only is tinners good, but it is in Much ado about Nothing. Ouch...Nothing would also be my score for those two turns. I may have wound up with a higher score, but I was certainly outplayed.
So till next time scrabble warriors, remember: One does not hope to defeat Madam Kata, only to escape with their life, and a story to tell...
Checking back in with the Crusty Crew
So yesterday was scrabble club night and its been a little while since I talked about the cool people there that keep my spirits up. Everyone in scrabble is crazy but my friends are the "good" crazy (and no I'm not biased at all). Let's see... Peggy and I have basically started our own nuclear arms race and are both obsessively studying at this point. We play each other outside of club at least one a week and sometimes have several sessions. This has been very good for our performance against others. We both have had big rating gains and we finished first and second in our last tournament (we split the two games we played and I got first due to the magic of spread). Before anybody asks, there were no little kids in the division, and the two games I had the biggest margins in, were against someone who was in the top three until the last few rounds and a low rated player who was around my mom's age (not my grandmother's). No phony bingos in either either ( Is that right? I want the sentence to end eeether eyether. Oh well) Anyways, since we play so much and are both investing a lot of time into getting better, the games are getting a little tense. Luckily, her last rating gain came after the deadline for putting people into divisions for the Scrabble National Championship (why this deadline exists I have no idea. No other tournament I know does this. It seems to encourage manipulation. When I was below the cutoff I thought about and was actually told by others to wait until a certain date to play anymore so I would be eligible for bottom division top prizes) So though we would be in the same division in almost any other tournament we will be separated at the big one. Since she is 5 and 1 against me in tournaments
(6 and 2 if you count the 4th of July unrated Freedom spectacular). I will be happy to dodge her even if it due to scrabble rule quirkiness.
Speaking of quirkiness and people who beat me a lot... Victor came by the club to get a game or two in before playing some softball. He had a close game with Louise. There may have been a way for her to win. I saw the board briefly and there was at least one phony on it (my first spelling of that was "phoney" by the way). He then played Peggy who lost despite successfully challenging at least one of his words off the board. It looked like he drew the bag on her when I was watching. (drawing the bag means to get all or most of the "good" tiles). It was an ugly evening outside with the rain alternating between a downpour and a humid trickle (that should be the name for a punk rock band. "Now at #7 on the charts with their new single You Smell Easy Tonite its... Humid Trickle!") So Vic assumed that his softball game would be canceled , but apparently it started without him, rain or no rain. So he left to get there while it was still going, but not before we talked about playing a game and renewed our long running argument about the appropriateness of resigning. Careful readers of this blog know that I am used to having the option to resign. I won't start a rant about it again, but the main idea is that it that is a frequently used option in the similar games of magic and chess and there is even a provision for it in the official scrabble tournament rules. Victor (and many others) feel that it is bad form to resign, whether at a tournament or playing a more casual game at the club. When Vic and I play the result is almost always one of two outcomes. Either I win by a small margin or he wins by a huge amount (oddly enough, he is also a big fan of spread). We have not played a lot lately, but in our most recent games I have won around 40%. So we had to "negotiate" before starting a game.
"Hey want to play a game?"
"Sure, you going to get upset if I resign?"
"Well that's my one condition."
"Well that's my one condition."
"You can't resign in scrabble."
"Well yes you can, but maybe we could work out a compromise."
"What's that?"
"I thought you were a lawyer or something? A compromise is an agreement between two or more parties..."
"What compromise are you offering?"
"I won't concede unless I get behind by 200 or more points."
"But you could still win."
"Exactly, I could resign that game and go win another..."
"You could come back and win that first one."
"Maybe if I came back with a bat and gave you a concussion so you couldn't score a single more point the whole rest of the game."
"Its possible to come back from that much down."
"Its possible to win the lottery. Its possible to survive being struck by lightning. Why don't you go buy some tickets and run around the parking lot with your aluminum bat" (Ok, maybe I just thought that last part really hard)
Unfortunately, he got a phone call from his teammates around then so we didn't get to finish the argument, let alone actually play any scrabble. I did however get to play two other pleasant people that evening: Cathy with a C (who claims she does not have enough time to read this blog even though she clearly has time to eat, sleep, and attend to personal grooming. Some people just have messed up priorities, I guess) and Regina (with a "G" I guess). Since Cathy does not read the blog, because she is is too busy stealing kittens from orphans and then selling them to support her expensive puffer fish addiction. (feel free to correct me in the response forum, busy lady bwahahahah) while Regina does, guess who gets their game lovingly described in detail? That's right, the once and future queen herself. Let me also take this opportunity to issue a correction. After some careful investigation (or at least trying to listen this time when it was described to me) it turns out that Regina is not a member of the oldest profession, but is instead some sort of go between for people at the university and other people who give them money called "grants or funding". Whatever, sounds like she is some sort of fancy pimp to me. So I bought her a stylish new hat with a huge feather on the side and hopefully once she receives this thoughtful gift we can put the earlier incident behind us. Anyways, we played a fun game with some neat words in it (well neat to scrabble geeks at least). More importantly, Regina is fun to play with for (at least) two reasons. She's my Shakespeare buddy so we have an informal agreement that if one of us plays a word like "wert" or "thous" we don't challenge it. Some of the Bard and his contemporaries lexicon has survived to make it into the scrabble "approved" word list and some has not. It is maddening to figure out the rhyme or reason of it so we both just let them go if we recognize them. She also is a really good sport about me chattering, not just about our game, but those on either side of us as well. My ideal game set up (since I know everyone is dying to know) is Regina playing across from me, with Louise on one side of me and Galen on the other. Louise because its fun to try and steal her tiles without her noticing and slapping my hand and Galen because she will try and hide her tiles from me so I can't comment or even make weird facial expressions about her plays. Speaking of weird facial expressions, I unfortunately have to go get some exercise before it gets too hot outside and I melt like the pasty container of vanilla ice cream that I am. Next time I will try to get back to that game with Regina (ambo?!?) and/or the creepiness of the I.S.C. and its "helpers".
(6 and 2 if you count the 4th of July unrated Freedom spectacular). I will be happy to dodge her even if it due to scrabble rule quirkiness.
Speaking of quirkiness and people who beat me a lot... Victor came by the club to get a game or two in before playing some softball. He had a close game with Louise. There may have been a way for her to win. I saw the board briefly and there was at least one phony on it (my first spelling of that was "phoney" by the way). He then played Peggy who lost despite successfully challenging at least one of his words off the board. It looked like he drew the bag on her when I was watching. (drawing the bag means to get all or most of the "good" tiles). It was an ugly evening outside with the rain alternating between a downpour and a humid trickle (that should be the name for a punk rock band. "Now at #7 on the charts with their new single You Smell Easy Tonite its... Humid Trickle!") So Vic assumed that his softball game would be canceled , but apparently it started without him, rain or no rain. So he left to get there while it was still going, but not before we talked about playing a game and renewed our long running argument about the appropriateness of resigning. Careful readers of this blog know that I am used to having the option to resign. I won't start a rant about it again, but the main idea is that it that is a frequently used option in the similar games of magic and chess and there is even a provision for it in the official scrabble tournament rules. Victor (and many others) feel that it is bad form to resign, whether at a tournament or playing a more casual game at the club. When Vic and I play the result is almost always one of two outcomes. Either I win by a small margin or he wins by a huge amount (oddly enough, he is also a big fan of spread). We have not played a lot lately, but in our most recent games I have won around 40%. So we had to "negotiate" before starting a game.
"Hey want to play a game?"
"Sure, you going to get upset if I resign?"
"Well that's my one condition."
"Well that's my one condition."
"You can't resign in scrabble."
"Well yes you can, but maybe we could work out a compromise."
"What's that?"
"I thought you were a lawyer or something? A compromise is an agreement between two or more parties..."
"What compromise are you offering?"
"I won't concede unless I get behind by 200 or more points."
"But you could still win."
"Exactly, I could resign that game and go win another..."
"You could come back and win that first one."
"Maybe if I came back with a bat and gave you a concussion so you couldn't score a single more point the whole rest of the game."
"Its possible to come back from that much down."
"Its possible to win the lottery. Its possible to survive being struck by lightning. Why don't you go buy some tickets and run around the parking lot with your aluminum bat" (Ok, maybe I just thought that last part really hard)
Unfortunately, he got a phone call from his teammates around then so we didn't get to finish the argument, let alone actually play any scrabble. I did however get to play two other pleasant people that evening: Cathy with a C (who claims she does not have enough time to read this blog even though she clearly has time to eat, sleep, and attend to personal grooming. Some people just have messed up priorities, I guess) and Regina (with a "G" I guess). Since Cathy does not read the blog, because she is is too busy stealing kittens from orphans and then selling them to support her expensive puffer fish addiction. (feel free to correct me in the response forum, busy lady bwahahahah) while Regina does, guess who gets their game lovingly described in detail? That's right, the once and future queen herself. Let me also take this opportunity to issue a correction. After some careful investigation (or at least trying to listen this time when it was described to me) it turns out that Regina is not a member of the oldest profession, but is instead some sort of go between for people at the university and other people who give them money called "grants or funding". Whatever, sounds like she is some sort of fancy pimp to me. So I bought her a stylish new hat with a huge feather on the side and hopefully once she receives this thoughtful gift we can put the earlier incident behind us. Anyways, we played a fun game with some neat words in it (well neat to scrabble geeks at least). More importantly, Regina is fun to play with for (at least) two reasons. She's my Shakespeare buddy so we have an informal agreement that if one of us plays a word like "wert" or "thous" we don't challenge it. Some of the Bard and his contemporaries lexicon has survived to make it into the scrabble "approved" word list and some has not. It is maddening to figure out the rhyme or reason of it so we both just let them go if we recognize them. She also is a really good sport about me chattering, not just about our game, but those on either side of us as well. My ideal game set up (since I know everyone is dying to know) is Regina playing across from me, with Louise on one side of me and Galen on the other. Louise because its fun to try and steal her tiles without her noticing and slapping my hand and Galen because she will try and hide her tiles from me so I can't comment or even make weird facial expressions about her plays. Speaking of weird facial expressions, I unfortunately have to go get some exercise before it gets too hot outside and I melt like the pasty container of vanilla ice cream that I am. Next time I will try to get back to that game with Regina (ambo?!?) and/or the creepiness of the I.S.C. and its "helpers".
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
I.S.C. stands for Insane Scrabble Colonoscopy...
Ok, a quick note before we start. Sorry I forgot about you Jason when I said it was about time someone I actually knew made a post. I know you posted a comment a long time ago. What I meant to say was someone I knew and actually liked.... I kid, I kid. You are the best dyslexic friend I have (take that Patty! You are #2 in my dyslexic friend list; also known as last place). Jason caring about my scrabble exploits even though some of his synapses were installed backwards or whatever is like me giving him feedback on his photography even though he doesn't know I am colorblind. Whoops... I mean, umm, differently sighted which allows me to offer a unique artistic perspective on what I am pretty sure are beautiful trees changing colors and sunrises and rainbows...
So the I.S.C.... As a wildly popular game (scrabble is in 1 out of 3 houses in the U.S.) backed by the financial might of Hasbro Industries, you would think there would be a easy and fun way to play online. You would be right. Its called scrabbulous, its on FaceBook and they are currently being sued by Hasbro http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/hasbro-seeking-to-shut-down-scrabulous
The legal issue at stake seems to be that someone actually made scrabble cool enough for people between the traditional demographics of under 16 and over 60. This is apparently not part of Hasbro's business plan... Or copyright infringement or something. Whatever the justification, instead of trying to work together with people who actually care about Scrabble, its owners have chosen once again one of their two tried and true (thats fun to say, try it) responses: ignoring them or taking them to court. Must...Get...Train...Back...On....Tracks...(wheres that conductor guy when you need him?)
Ok, we now return you to your regularly scheduled diatribe. I will come back to Hasbro and their (non)support of their game some time/post soon. So the "best" option out there for playing scrabble online that is not currently going to court is the I.S.C. or the Internet Scrabble Club. They are also unlicensed and oddly hard to find. Google searches for both ISC and I.S.C. do not turn up anything scrabble related on the first ten pages of links. Is the international shogi club really that much better than us? Ignatian Spirituality Conference? Even the Irvine Strikers Soccer Club beat us and they are I.S.S.C. and a youth soccer team! (they do have cooler uniforms than us though) So maybe that is the ISC's strategy: keep off the radar and appear as "ghetto" as possible. Check out their home page http://www.isc.ro/ Note the ro at the end of that address. Thats right, the program that everyone from world champions to scrubs like me use is made in Romania by people who speak Romanian instead of English. Fun facts about Romania courtesy of the the infallible Wikipedia:
1) Romanians make up 89.5 percent of those who live in Romania. (Did I miss something in Social Studies class or don't all the people who live in a country on a long term basis "belong" to that country?) Also why is it "those" instead of people? Are there non-people living in Romania also formerly known as Transylvania? Argh! My scrabble game is run by vampires! ( insert your own "sucks" joke here)
2) Romania has four different seasons. (What they don't get to experience the beauty of spinter the fifth and best season that the rest of the world enjoys?)
3) The oldest human remains were discovered in Romania in a place named "Cave with Bones" I kid you not. (Reports that there was a stake in the ribcage of these remains has not been confirmed though...)
4) The official logo used to encourage tourism (as in they designed it themselves to get people to come there) is the word Romania in blood red letters except for the "m" which appears to have been turned into two moss covered teeth, with the sun setting over the whole thing.
5) Famous son, Vlad the Impaler, is viewed by Romanians as an excellent ruler with a strong sense of justice who defended their religious and political beliefs from outsiders. (I could really use whoever is his publicist right about now)
So the ISC is owned and operated by a mysterious figure in Romania that no one has ever seen in person. There is no known way to contact him (her/it/them?!?). If you have a problem with the interface or your membership or keeping all your blood to yourself then you have to take it up with one of the "helpers". At some point in the distant past applications were accepted for the position of assisting players with whatever difficulties they had with the finest interface that 100 blood stained gold coins could buy. Its unclear how many helpers (or evil minions as I think of them) there are. There is no convenient list of who is and is not a helper. The best you can do is add them to your "friends list" (which has a limited capacity) whenever you discover one. There is a feature where you can talk directly to another person who is online at the time, but if you try this with a minion they will ignore you at best or more likely punish you in some way such as preventing you from talking with anyone else or deleting your account entirely. Instead you are advised to place your question into a queue with some ungodly amount of other backed up unanswered questions. A lovely feature of the program is that once you ask one question, you cannot ask another one until the first is answered officially. It does not matter if you have already found the answer, or if you log off and back on or if it has been thirty days, you are stuck waiting for one the minions to decide that "answering" your question would amuse them in some fashion. Indeed, they go out of their way to find questions that can serve as set ups. A real example : "Can someone tell me a good way to get better quickly please?"
"Get a brain transplant." That's hilarious if you are a 7 year old (or maybe an Igor lab assistant..)
but is in no way helpful which, theoretically, is what a "helper" should be. Players have their accounts terminated for very mild curse words used while talking with a helper (not at them necessarily, just while talking with them) but I have seen helpers curse on multiple occasions. If one player is vulgar to another or cyber stalks them or does anything to another player, the helpers don't care and just tell the victim to "noplay them" which makes it harder (though not impossible) for the offending party to continue their offensive actions. The double standard is simply ridiculous. All this anger has got me hungry so I will cut this post short so I can refuel and prepare myself for part two of this piece of investigative journalism.
So the I.S.C.... As a wildly popular game (scrabble is in 1 out of 3 houses in the U.S.) backed by the financial might of Hasbro Industries, you would think there would be a easy and fun way to play online. You would be right. Its called scrabbulous, its on FaceBook and they are currently being sued by Hasbro http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/hasbro-seeking-to-shut-down-scrabulous
The legal issue at stake seems to be that someone actually made scrabble cool enough for people between the traditional demographics of under 16 and over 60. This is apparently not part of Hasbro's business plan... Or copyright infringement or something. Whatever the justification, instead of trying to work together with people who actually care about Scrabble, its owners have chosen once again one of their two tried and true (thats fun to say, try it) responses: ignoring them or taking them to court. Must...Get...Train...Back...On....Tracks...(wheres that conductor guy when you need him?)
Ok, we now return you to your regularly scheduled diatribe. I will come back to Hasbro and their (non)support of their game some time/post soon. So the "best" option out there for playing scrabble online that is not currently going to court is the I.S.C. or the Internet Scrabble Club. They are also unlicensed and oddly hard to find. Google searches for both ISC and I.S.C. do not turn up anything scrabble related on the first ten pages of links. Is the international shogi club really that much better than us? Ignatian Spirituality Conference? Even the Irvine Strikers Soccer Club beat us and they are I.S.S.C. and a youth soccer team! (they do have cooler uniforms than us though) So maybe that is the ISC's strategy: keep off the radar and appear as "ghetto" as possible. Check out their home page http://www.isc.ro/ Note the ro at the end of that address. Thats right, the program that everyone from world champions to scrubs like me use is made in Romania by people who speak Romanian instead of English. Fun facts about Romania courtesy of the the infallible Wikipedia:
1) Romanians make up 89.5 percent of those who live in Romania. (Did I miss something in Social Studies class or don't all the people who live in a country on a long term basis "belong" to that country?) Also why is it "those" instead of people? Are there non-people living in Romania also formerly known as Transylvania? Argh! My scrabble game is run by vampires! ( insert your own "sucks" joke here)
2) Romania has four different seasons. (What they don't get to experience the beauty of spinter the fifth and best season that the rest of the world enjoys?)
3) The oldest human remains were discovered in Romania in a place named "Cave with Bones" I kid you not. (Reports that there was a stake in the ribcage of these remains has not been confirmed though...)
4) The official logo used to encourage tourism (as in they designed it themselves to get people to come there) is the word Romania in blood red letters except for the "m" which appears to have been turned into two moss covered teeth, with the sun setting over the whole thing.
5) Famous son, Vlad the Impaler, is viewed by Romanians as an excellent ruler with a strong sense of justice who defended their religious and political beliefs from outsiders. (I could really use whoever is his publicist right about now)
So the ISC is owned and operated by a mysterious figure in Romania that no one has ever seen in person. There is no known way to contact him (her/it/them?!?). If you have a problem with the interface or your membership or keeping all your blood to yourself then you have to take it up with one of the "helpers". At some point in the distant past applications were accepted for the position of assisting players with whatever difficulties they had with the finest interface that 100 blood stained gold coins could buy. Its unclear how many helpers (or evil minions as I think of them) there are. There is no convenient list of who is and is not a helper. The best you can do is add them to your "friends list" (which has a limited capacity) whenever you discover one. There is a feature where you can talk directly to another person who is online at the time, but if you try this with a minion they will ignore you at best or more likely punish you in some way such as preventing you from talking with anyone else or deleting your account entirely. Instead you are advised to place your question into a queue with some ungodly amount of other backed up unanswered questions. A lovely feature of the program is that once you ask one question, you cannot ask another one until the first is answered officially. It does not matter if you have already found the answer, or if you log off and back on or if it has been thirty days, you are stuck waiting for one the minions to decide that "answering" your question would amuse them in some fashion. Indeed, they go out of their way to find questions that can serve as set ups. A real example : "Can someone tell me a good way to get better quickly please?"
"Get a brain transplant." That's hilarious if you are a 7 year old (or maybe an Igor lab assistant..)
but is in no way helpful which, theoretically, is what a "helper" should be. Players have their accounts terminated for very mild curse words used while talking with a helper (not at them necessarily, just while talking with them) but I have seen helpers curse on multiple occasions. If one player is vulgar to another or cyber stalks them or does anything to another player, the helpers don't care and just tell the victim to "noplay them" which makes it harder (though not impossible) for the offending party to continue their offensive actions. The double standard is simply ridiculous. All this anger has got me hungry so I will cut this post short so I can refuel and prepare myself for part two of this piece of investigative journalism.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Some Housekeeping and Love for the Pi(e)People
I have been informed that some odds and ends need tying up. I thought my first tournament was interesting for the people I met and the introduction it gave me to the S.A.P. 2000 and other scrabble oddities. This blog is not really about my "progress" per se. I like to think I am getting better, but the journey is more important (and amusing) to me than the destination of reaching a certain rating or winning a certain tournament or whatever. I am still a competitive person at heart and I do not like to lose. I just think there are enough traditional blogs already about scrabble wins, losses, and strategy points. But since a couple people asked, I finished a little below halfway down the pack in my first tournament. I beat a couple people who still have higher ratings than me, and lost to a couple people who now have ratings hundreds of points below mine. Yawn. I will give more detail for the tournaments where there is some drama near the end as to how I will finish. This decision has more to do with how pressure makes me and other scrabble players even crazier than normal, and less to do with pride though.
Speaking of lack of pride... Against my better judgment, I have decided to share with the pi(e) people some overheard comments from the recent 4th of July scrabble party/cookout/tournament I had the pleasure of attending. Thanks to the wonders of alcohol and scrabble these were really said by either myself, Cathy, Peggy, or the pi-favorite herself, Galen. Begin List of Comments Mom (or anyone who wants to respect themselves in the morning) should NOT read
Speaking of lack of pride... Against my better judgment, I have decided to share with the pi(e) people some overheard comments from the recent 4th of July scrabble party/cookout/tournament I had the pleasure of attending. Thanks to the wonders of alcohol and scrabble these were really said by either myself, Cathy, Peggy, or the pi-favorite herself, Galen. Begin List of Comments Mom (or anyone who wants to respect themselves in the morning) should NOT read
Again, in no particular order, but numbered because I feel like it.
1) After a bad loss "Ughh, I'm going to be walking funny for weeks now."
2) To someone who had not got into the pool yet "Don't make me come down there and get you wet!"
3) Who immediately responded " I'm fine with that."
4) After someone played a dubious word "You are more full of %@*# than I was after three hotdogs, two burgers and a delicious tart!"
5) During a complicated process involving a collapsible chair, a sack, and an umbrella " No, no the pointed end first."
6) "That just doesn't feel right."
7) "Well it wont be the first time..."
8) About another scrabble player who didn't make it to the party "She never comes."
9) and then "Exactly, she's dead to me."
10) And finally, this interchange after a relatively low scoring bingo
"This bingo sucks".
"Hey all bingos are equal in God's eyes."
"What the @%#$ are you talking about?"
"Its in the Bible, umm in Leviticus."
"Man, how did I miss that?"
And twenty minutes later...
"I've been thinking a lot about what you said earlier to me."
"Oh?"
"If that is how God feels about bingos, well then she's dead to me too"
"Umm, So I don't need to get you anything for Christmas?...."
End Disturbing and/or Blasphemous Comments
So, if I don't get struck by lightning (why do people say that when they are worried about the Judeo/Christian God? Wouldn't it make more sense to say something like "If I don't drown in a horrible flood that covers the earth" or "If I don't get slaughtered in the night along with the other first born sons in my town"? Struck by lightning is Thor from Norse mythology right? Maybe he does subcontracting...) then next time I will share the wacky world of Internet Scrabble as operated by some mysterious European no one has ever seen who goes by the name Kaizer NoPlay...
1) After a bad loss "Ughh, I'm going to be walking funny for weeks now."
2) To someone who had not got into the pool yet "Don't make me come down there and get you wet!"
3) Who immediately responded " I'm fine with that."
4) After someone played a dubious word "You are more full of %@*# than I was after three hotdogs, two burgers and a delicious tart!"
5) During a complicated process involving a collapsible chair, a sack, and an umbrella " No, no the pointed end first."
6) "That just doesn't feel right."
7) "Well it wont be the first time..."
8) About another scrabble player who didn't make it to the party "She never comes."
9) and then "Exactly, she's dead to me."
10) And finally, this interchange after a relatively low scoring bingo
"This bingo sucks".
"Hey all bingos are equal in God's eyes."
"What the @%#$ are you talking about?"
"Its in the Bible, umm in Leviticus."
"Man, how did I miss that?"
And twenty minutes later...
"I've been thinking a lot about what you said earlier to me."
"Oh?"
"If that is how God feels about bingos, well then she's dead to me too"
"Umm, So I don't need to get you anything for Christmas?...."
End Disturbing and/or Blasphemous Comments
So, if I don't get struck by lightning (why do people say that when they are worried about the Judeo/Christian God? Wouldn't it make more sense to say something like "If I don't drown in a horrible flood that covers the earth" or "If I don't get slaughtered in the night along with the other first born sons in my town"? Struck by lightning is Thor from Norse mythology right? Maybe he does subcontracting...) then next time I will share the wacky world of Internet Scrabble as operated by some mysterious European no one has ever seen who goes by the name Kaizer NoPlay...
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Fine dont post pics. Exotic nicknames are good tho. Very good. Give everyone one and I might come back.