This is Lexulous, which resembles Scrabble®. It represents my first [such] game in years, and I lost. But not by much, and there are some encouraging signs. Five (of the possible eight) triple word scores were mine and I got all words without using a dictionary, like amebic and toroidal. There is a distinct lack of two-letter words. See the nice tight groupings, unusual and creative words, only two plurals (both by my opponent).
To any newbies, the game is different, you have eight tiles instead of seven. You can’t get a double word score on the first play. The tough letters have more sensible assigned values. And as you see, the game is higher-scoring because you make longer words. You’ll find it in Facebook under games.
Of course, I’ve already designed a tracking spreadsheet to analyze what possible tiles remain and are in my opponents hand, especially near the end of the game. Would you like to see it? Too bad. Maybe later. Can’t be letting the whole world know if you’re smart because they won’t let down their guard.
It’s 6:00 AM and I’m waiting for the rain to let up. I’d like my morning coffee. The bakery sometimes gives me free samples, and last day it was a spread made from paprika. I’m not used to spicy bread, but it was okay and zero calories. After a scary 30 minutes in a sleazy bar last night, I could hardly wait to wake up early and read something intellectual. My oath, those people were uneducated. It was like meeting my exes’ acting troupe, you smile along but you can’t wait to hit a library to make sure nothing rubbed off.
Another hour on the Blues boxes and I’m still not getting the notes needed to come out of a riff and sound right. I’m playing circles around myself a week ago. I’m thinking being a bassist is causing me to think a turnaround is always called for. I’ll get it but it is frustrating for now. And yes, I’m already thinking of applying Johnny Cash techniques to some Blues runs.
So I went on-line and played a military trivia quiz. For the world to know, I have a syndrome whereby I cannot remember names. No, not your ordinary forgetfulness, or I would have gone on the game shows when I was 21 and made millions. I lost the best job of my life partially because I could not recall my co-worker’s names in a company that really (and unnecessarily) pushed that kind of thing. The quiz was the T-34 and I waxed the competition. The two questions I missed involved the name of the designer and the name of the city it was first build. At the end, a message came back asking if I’d ever considered writing a book.
The LA Times study of 2 billion cell phone connections indicates as women get older, they shut out the man in their lives in favor of their eldest daughter. Doesn’t surprise me, I’ve always said if you date women with children, you’ll never know what it is like to be number one. Mind you, the same study said women invest more heavily in opposite sex relationships. Yeah, invest emotions but not much else, and even then only until the emotion wears off. But I’d like to know how they knew the people were making all those calls were related.
ADDENDUM
Alex Carrier, where are you? When I was 19 or so, I was a ballroom dance instructor. It’s easy, they have a staff class that afternoon and that evening you it teach to students. I was a painter’s helper that summer, another legacy of the great job skills I learned on the farm, and we had been contracted to paint the walls of the studio. I literally learned dancing from watching other teenagers do it. During one coffee break, I joined with the class and was just as good as they were. By next day, I had the job offer.
The rumor that I learned to dance at university is false. My student loan had no room for frivolities. I wound up dancing that entire year, I needed the money, and it wasn’t bad. They had a rating system for the studios all along the west coast and I was always in the top ten, even against lifelong
On occasion, the ad got older people, and one of those was Alex Carrier. He as a Canadian around 34 years old, which seemed impossibly ancient to me. He wheedled his way into my group of 19 year old girls at by, in my opinion, pretending to be Mr. Cool. When I learned he had once taken fencing lessons, that explained why he was “pushing 40 and still working like us”, but he did utter a phrase I’ve got great mileage on, goes “If you knew my story, you wouldn’t laugh”.
He had a serious disposition, but he was worldly wise compared to a farm kid like me. I never admired him and he never rose to any real prominence. He had dark black hair and a dark black “Saddam Hussein” moustache. For some reason I got to wondering whatever became of him. So Carrier, if you know Bill Foster and you once worked for Foxy’s Flying Circus, contact me.
Later, I found Carrier on the second try. He taught dancing another 25 years in
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