I'm playing this game of online Scrabble. It's going pretty good for me. Eventually, I get this letter combination: m-a-t-u-n-i-e. A mental lightning bolt goes through me, and I realize I have the perfect word: minutae, the plural of minuta, a small, insignificant thing. A seven letter 50 pointer--not too shabby. Scrabble, however, will not accept either variations. A google search shows that the word I'm thinking of is actually minutia and minutiae, the latter of which, with all the best intentions in the world, cannot be spelled with seven scrabble tiles. Further, I realize that the addition of the second i letter means the hard "t" I've been putting in the word is actually an "sh" sound. So not only is my winning word play shattered, I've been mispronouncing this word my entire life. And then I lay an inferior, exceptionally subpar word, and suddenly I'm looking at nothing but vowels in my rack. What the hell can you spell with 3 Us?
THIS HAS BEEN A VERY DISAPPOINTING DAY.
Later Days.
Showing posts with label scrabble. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scrabble. Show all posts
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Friendface gets its groove back
I'll post the regular comic stuff soon, but for now, I want to talk about a moment in history. A moment that gave us all something to believe in.
No, not THAT moment.
Once upon a time, Facebook had a lovely little application called Scrabbulous, which was an electronic version of the popular Scrabble. And it had all the benefits of an electronic version: you could play a round with friends separated by great distances, wait days between rounds, and check the online word creating sites to look for words (Ok, there was an honour system involved.). But it wasn't just an electronic version of Scrabble--it was an unauthorized electronic version of Scrabble. And so, one litigious event later, it disappeared.
Until today, when I received an email telling me that the troubles were over, and the new, improved, renamed and probably not as illegal Lexulous was available on Facebook again.
I wouldn't be bringing this up except for the number of sightings I've seen of the game since then. I got the email today, and I've already observed 4 people on the university's computers playing the new Lexulous. Assuming that I didn't see everyone, and that U of W's student population isn't for some reason composed of Scrabble fanatics, that means there's a huge level of support for this kind of thing--especially since it's free.
We could unpack this and come up with some interesting areas of discussion--the omnipresence of Facebook, the move to online gaming, the difficulties in capitalizing on internet products. And it's important to discuss these issues, rather than just charging blindly ahead. And I'd really love to talk about them, but... I have to go... and... play.... um, something. Something totally unrelated.
Later Days.
No, not THAT moment.
Once upon a time, Facebook had a lovely little application called Scrabbulous, which was an electronic version of the popular Scrabble. And it had all the benefits of an electronic version: you could play a round with friends separated by great distances, wait days between rounds, and check the online word creating sites to look for words (Ok, there was an honour system involved.). But it wasn't just an electronic version of Scrabble--it was an unauthorized electronic version of Scrabble. And so, one litigious event later, it disappeared.
Until today, when I received an email telling me that the troubles were over, and the new, improved, renamed and probably not as illegal Lexulous was available on Facebook again.
I wouldn't be bringing this up except for the number of sightings I've seen of the game since then. I got the email today, and I've already observed 4 people on the university's computers playing the new Lexulous. Assuming that I didn't see everyone, and that U of W's student population isn't for some reason composed of Scrabble fanatics, that means there's a huge level of support for this kind of thing--especially since it's free.
We could unpack this and come up with some interesting areas of discussion--the omnipresence of Facebook, the move to online gaming, the difficulties in capitalizing on internet products. And it's important to discuss these issues, rather than just charging blindly ahead. And I'd really love to talk about them, but... I have to go... and... play.... um, something. Something totally unrelated.
Later Days.
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