scrabble tutorial11-14-99 My job does not suck. I have to keep saying that over and over. My job does not suck. My job does not suck. I passionately dread going there, but when I get there I just put my head down and finish my work and I don't even mind it. Tomorrow I have to bathe a fully-grown, 152 lb bull mastiff named Bob. Bob's a sweetie, and they tell me he likes to take baths, but I can't help being a little turned off by the idea. The party last night was much tamer than the one a few weeks ago. I only drank a tiny bit of bourbon, the requisite amount in order not to be bothered all night, and then I drank water. Becky had asked John if we'd bring our Scrabble game and teach her how to play. We warned her ahead of time that we're, you know, pretty good, but she insisted that she wanted to learn. The first thing anyone did was to send John out for videos. The first scrabble challenge was Anna, who's played before, but not to the obsessive extent that John and I have; Becky and Jeff, who had never played; and me. Anna had been drinking for some time, so it was up to me to explain to Jeff and Becky that 1. you can only spell one word in a straight line, on your turn. Maybe it does spell a few incidental words, but the letters you lay down are in a straight line. 2. Those incidental words have to be real words. 3. Words cannot be spelled backwards. 4. If you spell a word on the triple word score, it has to connect to the other words on the board. You can't just put the word out on the triple all by itself. That whole crossword puzzle thing, you know. The second game, Anna dropped out and John took her place. Issues started when John and I spelled words that the others didn't recognize. Every time John and I play, we argue over whether we're accepting solfege syllables, like do, re, mi, fa...etc. There are about 18 two-letter solfege syllables that really come in handy when you're building a word parallel to another word. For example:
F As it turns out, the concept of building a word next to another is tough to understand. I won those two games. After the second game, it looked like Jeff was fed up, slamming his beer bottle on the table and joggling up all the letters. But in Jeffland, that means, "I will kick your ass in the next game, and we are playing a third game so that I can kick your ass accordingly." He did. So the night went smoothly, we watched a few movies, and no unauthorized phone calls to Ralph on my part. Today, between trips to feed the dogs, John and I went to see Dogma. Through most of that movie, when I wasn't giggling, I was thinking, "I'm going straight to hell for watching this on a Sunday." Toward the end it turned around a bit, so I guess my soul isn't in pressing danger. Hey, I won an award Also, check out the journal of Glyphgyrl, the brilliant soul whose day I made. Yay, me! |