toysRmelodrama

People don't live in tiny villages any more. This "play locally" crap really is crap. We have planes and the internet. My son married a girl he met on the internet, from Scotland*. All of my kids have friends that they interact with EVERY DAY from other countries, from other languages. They sometimes play using a mishmash of English, Brazilian, and curse words from around the world. They make up words -- sometimes just because there is a new idea and it doesn't have a word yet. I love this world. I love that the people in my life are in the same room with me and on the other side of the world. I am sorry that not everyone lives in this kind of universe -- yet. But they will.

Anyway, my real point is: the main objectors are from a certain generation of Scrabble play, with lower NSA member numbers (that might be whimsical; I have no idea if they are sequential member numbers). A lot of them are also from a certain actual generation. The new generations (Scrabble and otherwise) are not "afraid of teh pods". We just have to be patient and keep doing the work.

*And if she tries to play Scrabble with her little brother using official sites, she is actually not allowed to do so, because of the insane Hasbro/Mattel split. You objectors, you are like the rats who catch toxoplasmosis from the cats and then do the cats' bidding. Really. The masters have installed a parasite in your brain, and that parasite is OSPD.

Yes, I'm melodramatic. It's the holidays.

We had some non-Dow related fun yesterday. As predicted, I played very slowly and probably terribly in the first game and lost. I could blame tiles, but it would be incorrect. I could blame my opponent's chattering, and in fact that WAS annoying. But really, I just played badly.

Second game, against Dan, I started to get a little speed back, which correlates to brain power. I let him get away with safing# for 52. Didn't worry a second over it, either. He ended up winning by five. My bingos: BAG[U]EtTE.

Third game, against John, # all the way. I thought we both went seamlessly into British mode, particularly for the overlap plays. My bingos: the amazing PLOTTEd. I won by two.

We then all danced around the "who should sit out" game. None of us really minded; bookstores are a great place to be odd person out. I drew the sit-out straw, but then Lucas had to go, and so I took his spot against Dan again. (And then Lucas didn't have to go after all, so he enjoyed the bookstore while the rest of us played.)

Fourth, game, Dan again. This game I felt on. I also felt telepathically powerful, as whatever letters I needed for my eights just miraculously came down. An E for COLIS[E]UM. An A for JAcUL[A]TE. An N for STEAPSI[N]. Okay, a lot of letters would have worked with PATSIES, but still. I needed him to play something for me, 'cause no seven was going to play.

So I went 2-2, had fun, bought a book. I'm sure we will go back. How frequently remains to be seen, of course. But community-level scrabble is fine with me.

I feel folksy. I need to stop watching political clips.

aaeilms

I can seem to muster no enthusiasm for scrabble at the moment. My moral outrage towards Hasbro is eclipsed by my moral outrage towards political liars and criminals, at least for now. My creative energy is pouring into fiction (as apparently is the case for those political liars), and autumn is keeping me busy with winter preparations and school things.

Tuesday night club is impossible. Sunday afternoon club is nonexistent. The only tournament I have on the horizon is logistically tricky, and I need to study a LOT for it. And without enthusiasm, that is tough. CGP is full of topics like "should I be outraged if my opponent does math aloud?" and while I'm sure that's very interesting to those few that are outraged, eh, I'm not finding it compelling.

I don't know. Am I temporarily retiring?

I just can't find it in myself to CARE about the game right now.

Potomac, the headquarters of britishness

Off we trekked to play Collins with Bob and Vince. (Vince is not studying the british words, but agreed to partner with Bob, which was kind of him.) We played four team games, split the power tiles, split the games, would have split the money had we played for money.

We played a scoring variant -- 10 points extra for any non-two Collins-only. This necessitates knowing the difference. I'm embarrassed to say that Bob got away with an extra ten for PARDY. (Challenges of #-ness are allowed; they cost 10 to the loser of the challenge.) We also let them get away with the entirely dictionaryless FUNKSIA*, which is ridiculous. I am glad we are playing 5 point challenge in these matches. I need to learn when to risk those points. Certainly I should risk them more often than I'm doing. The sureness line is not entirely clear to me yet.

Overall a good session. Bob is obviously studying.

Quick, punctuate!

You don't really have to. It's not a test. The blanks are T and S.

I'm finding it useful in keeping the categories straight in my brain. For some reason, it actually even helps to remember the new additions.

So on this board, there are at least one of *phonies, #british-only, @new, @#new-british, and unpunctuated because people think it's normal to consider English American-only.

Not that I'm bitter.

No one is immune

Here in the heart of Dictionary Rebellion, USA:

"That's not a word! That's a word made up by a stupid british person."

(Referring to HUMORESK#)

Working on British 11s

Kitchen world scrabble venue

Key:

On the windowsill are the pots that various offspring made from kindergarten to second grade. Most kids made lumpy ashtray things. Mine made lumpy castles and monsters (and ashtrays). One of the pots gets knocked off every day. I don't know why it hasn't broken yet.

Bookshelves were a Christmas present from John when I was in the apartment. This is the third time he has installed them.

Sagan the cat is not allowed on the table. She pretends amazement whenever we attempt to enforce this.

The paintings are part of a series my sister did when she was in art school. I wish she would paint more, but she is currently obsessed with dressage.

Since we are not doing Nationals (or whatever it is called this year; I get my years confused easily these days) I'm officially going into full sowpods mode. I don't care if it burns me at club. I really do not care.

The only two tournaments I'm remotely interested in playing at the moment are both Texas and both #sowpodscollins#.

So club people, feel free to look askance. Catch me in a terrible error of continents.

Edited to add the very important clarification that several of the tournaments being planned, like Terry's HO tournament, sound really fun and great. I'm just in a British kind of mood, whatever that is.

Mini club report

Truly mini.

John and I had committed to showing up at 4 and hanging around until 5:30 in case anyone didn't get word that there was a Philly tournament and that other people were out of town as well. We played while we waited, one collins game, until Ronnie showed up. We finished up, with some kibbitzing about which words were good in our book, and then switched gears and each played Ronnie. They were very mellow games, all three. I'm really used to the Game Parlor background music of WoW theme song and bickering over miniature rules and roleplaying hilarity.

No #-only bingos. We learned one by looking up John's RIGHTEsT after the fact (STREIGHT#). But it was fairly easy to bend our brains back around to the better Tetris-y options available using the little #s.

I am still using too much time on my clock, which always happens after a long period of no live games.

I had both Vs in both games. This may be the very first time I have played DIVVY in a scrabble game.

cross forum, cross platform, cross players

Madman Kefka (1:52:49 PM): these are the exact same, word for word, arguments that WoW players are making to try and justify casual players getting rewards similar to hardcore raiders

listeme (1:58:27 PM): and there are a lot of people who assume as soon as the topic comes up that the top players just want their money
Madman Kefka (1:58:46 PM): what is silly to me
Madman Kefka (1:59:01 PM): is how many people think they, having never made it past, say, division four, think they know the motivations of the top-rated players in the world
Madman Kefka (1:59:11 PM): or anything of the effort involved
Madman Kefka (1:59:51 PM): the casual argument in WoW always, always comes down to someone saying "raiding is easy," having never set foot in anything outside of karazhan - they assume that it is as simple as devoting the time that they do not have to it, which is astoundingly far from the truth

The Game Parlor is not the most popular spot to hold Scrabble club. It is a busy place, and I think that is the main complaint, although it is also rather far for some people to drive.

I dunno. I come away from there feeling so UP. For one thing, today my boys drove back to college, and the guys that were playing Magic all over the place reminded me of them. The arguments and the rule-quoting and the lovely excellence that you have to understand at least a little bit to notice... it's all stuff that reminds me of MY guys. Then there were WoW folks at terminals, the usual scruffy guy kind of WoW folk, but one father-son pair hanging around in Mulgore just nearly made me teary. The little boy was keeping track of his quest loot with such excited dignity.

And the noise and the chatter, it's okay for club for me, because tournaments are not like that. It's like wearing extra weight on your practice runs. When I get to tournament games and have the luxury of "what's this -- quiet??", well, I will be running like the wind. That's my theory anyway.

It was also great to see XPMorgan in person and play him, even though I did steal most of the consonants. I should have been a better hostess.

Well, I tried a few rounds of boggle tonight. We head back into club play on Sunday, so.... I need to remember the words. The big boards are tempting, because I can type the heck out of them, but the ones that help me remember Scrabble are the ugly little boards with fytte and fylfot. Or ALMOST fytte and fylfot, which is actually just as helpful.

Then I headed over to ISC to watch some Scrabble.

I'm like those people who say "I'm gonna get ready for my marathon!" and then go read magazine articles about Preparing for Your Run while sipping tea.