Scrabble obsessive? ... well check these out

Are you ever accused of being obsessed with Scrabble or anything else? If so then you should direct them to a new documentary called The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters that details a level of obsession that is mind boggling. I have posted a review of this film on my blog along with my usual savvy commentary and wit (click here for it). If classic arcade games aren't your style though you should check out the bevy of word-related documentaries that are out there (that also deal with obsessive people actually). I've recently re-watched Word Wars (Scrabble) and Spellbound (spelling bees) and then I've also recently discovered Scrabylon (Scrabble) and Wordplay (crossword puzzles). All of these are excellent films that are available through Netflix. Also in the category of documentary films about words and language is The Aristocrats ... but that's not for everyone ... watch The Matrix too ... it rocks!

But why do you do it? What makes you tick?

You know, we get to chatting and discussing at club about various things; but I was wondering today, what's something that makes you tick. And what is it about that essence to your being that motivates you to play? Does that driving force pervade into other interests or passions?

For me, it's the competition; but it's also because I'm a goal setter. In school, work and play, I've always set goals.

Whether it was convincing my brother--a computer/sci-fi person--to play basketball or throw baseball with me when he would rather play legos or read books, or trying to make 20 baskets in a row before I stopped shooting hoops for the night..., I always had goals to set.

In college, it was to get better grades than my best friend (only happened on a couple of occasions). Now that I'm in the working world, it's trying to bring more business--quality business--to my Agent's office.

So, that goal-setting, competitive streak... that's what drives me. It's more of a personal achievement thing, than a "well, I'm better than you, laugh laugh, smug smirk, chuckle thing. (well, in the case of my brother, I do try to rub it in when I get one over him from time-to-time)


Oh, and what makes scrabble 'geek chic'? is it the potential for such wicked puns? or the opportunity to actually utilize words like qwerty, teiids, laari, and trailside--specifically for jedijawa--on a day-to-day basis?

Just curious!!

"How long have you been playing scrabble?"

This question puzzles me...

Does it matter how long someone has played the game? Is it asked to be conversational? Are people personally invested in your response, like saying an amount of time that is similar to how long the person asking the question has played would establish a sort of camaraderie? Do people tend to use the amount of time as a gauge for 'how much better or worse' an opponent might be?

For me, it's a distracting question because I never know if they mean how long have I been playing scrabble, or how long I've been playing scrabble competitively. I could just as easily say, "oh, this is my first time playing, I heard about this club--or competition from a friend and I figured I was fairly good with words and thought I'd give it a go". Not all together true, but it sort of answers the question, does it not?


As bloggers, are you truly interested in your opponent's response when that question comes up in conversation? If so, to what end?




I guess we each have our own kinds of reactions to that question.

I tend to try and brush it off. I kind of like NOT knowing how long someone has played, or not knowing the amount of tournaments the individual has played. I like the mystique of the initial meeting. The very first game with an opponent. We all know how this can go...: "Hi, I'm Raf... How are you?" And then the other person introduces herself or himself and it's kind of "Game On". But for me, it's more than that...

It's almost like a performance. How the person checks the board, how they pull their tiles and rearrange their rack. How quickly they make their plays, whether they lift all their tiles at once or place their tiles individually in place on the board.

That initial game is a battle of wits--before you really know where you stand with the person. Before you know what kind of game your opponent plays, you are forced to take guesses. I like that. I like not having an idea as to what I'm up against.

I don't like Losing, but Martha made a good point the other day about it not really being a huge deal if I incur a loss in a match, as long as I was pleased with my performance or I gained some new knowledge. The competitive side of me does feel that anything less than victory is unacceptable, but I honestly like scrabble for the reason that, unlike some athletic competitions, you can learn from each loss. Your opponent might lay new words that you can use in future games, or might have a different technique or see the board differently than you'd been used to.

Do they challenge words often, lay false bingos? In that initial meeting, it's all new. We don't know the mentality of the person. Appearances are definitely important in that first go...Your opponent could come off as aloof by showing up to club an hour late and wearing a college hoodie and tattered jeans. Or perhaps appear more serious in dress slacks and buttoned-down shirts?

There are so many different aspects to scrabble, and I guess that's why I like it so much.


When we have played one another multiple times, you grasp what your opponent might do. You have an understanding--or some might believe-- of where your opponent consistently will lay their tiles, and when they might challenge you or make a challenge-worthy play.

At the same time, knowing a person could be detrimental to your game strategy because we might psych ourselves out if we are playing someone we perceive as much better or if we play someone who consistently plays potentially invalid words.

I guess this rambling note is an open invitation to respond to how you each might take someone asking you, "So, how long have you been playing scrabble"; and what you might do in your initial game against a new opponent.

I'm personally looking forward to when I do go to my first tournament, and I am playing against people I've never met in a completely competitive setting. I wonder how I'll react to their question... perhaps with... "well, how long have YOU been playing?!" Or perhaps I'll smirk and reply simply, "Oh, you know... not that long."

a fun club day...

I've posted my write-up of this past week's club game session on my blog if anyone wants to read how it went down from my perspective.

a fun club day...

Check out all of my Scrabble posts here or from my blog's sidebar.

Nostalgia, Scrabble-style

I was six years old when my dad introduced me to Scrabble. It soon became a nightly treat, as I got to match wits against the smartest man I knew, and my vocabulary grew by leaps and bounds. We used the flat no-frills board, and I remember it took some time to turn all the tiles face down in the lid of the box. It was a long time before I won my first game.

We modified the rules somewhat back then, as our goal was word knowledge. We agreed that we could consult the dictionary in order to find the best possible play. At first we used our two ginormous* World Book dictionaries. There were two volumes, A-K and L-Z, each weighing approximately ten pounds. Later, when the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary was published in 1978, we bought a hardcover copy, and reduced our load to about three pounds.

At some point in the early eighties, two wonderful things happened. First, my dad got a Deluxe set for Christmas. Hurray for the plastic grid designed to keep tiles in place! Second, my dad came up with the wonderful idea of using a Crown Royal bag to hold the tiles for us. What a luxury!

I continued playing Scrabble with Dad through the years. We didn't play competitively, although our rule was that the person who won had to put up the equipment. Instead we would add our final scores together. If the total was 600 or higher, we considered it a successful game.

When Brad started the club here, we had three members: Brad, me, and my dad. It was like that for the first year. For the past year and a half, Dad's vision hasn't been clear enough to play, but he had surgery last week to help correct the worst of his vision problems. I hope he'll be ready to play again soon.

Speculation about the new Scrabble board

(Note: This article was originally posted April 27, 2008 at the WV Scrabble website. It has been moved to our blog and backdated to that date as part of a site redesign.)

Hasbro has issued a press release promising new Scrabble boards this year in celebration of the game's 60th anniversary. Diligent research, hidden messages in advertisements, and some graphical manipulation clearly leads to this conclusion:

The new Scrabble boards are round.

Here are the items of evidence.

Item 1: Round racks

The aforementioned press release clearly states:

"The SCRABBLE Brand Crossword Game Diamond Anniversary Edition features a redesigned game board that keeps the letter tiles in place, a rotating base and curved tile holders - so players can keep their letters a secret. The new game board also folds for easy portability."

Rotating Scrabble boards are nothing new - in fact, they've been around almost since the game's commercial debut. A rotating board which also folds is a novelty, however, at least for Hasbro.

Since one of the goals is to fit everything snugly into the box at the end of a game, it's reasonable to conclude the curved racks would follow the contours of something to hold them in place. Since the board folds by Hasbro's own admission, the best place is inside the cavity formed inside the folding board. And since the racks are round, also by Hasbro's own admission, it's very likely they'll rest along a contour of the board - there may even be some sort of plastic retainer in place for this purpose.

Item 2: The Zapruder image

Recent advertisements across the country have included an image which reveals a section of the new board.

The image here shows an ellipse placed over what appears to be the new board. Note the perfect fit. Given the perspective of the image, an ellipse makes sense. Most likely, the image on the actual box features the board in a tilted position - an "action shot", if you will. If the board pictured on the box were flat, we'd be able to lay a circle over top of it instead.

This doesn't appear to a be a Scrabble box any of us have seen in a store, but again, quoting from the press release:

"Additionally, the classic game will be refreshed with a modern color palette and a new box design."

The different coloration and the different Scrabble logo (note the lowercase e) in this image match the press release perfectly.

Item 3: Modus operandi

It's important to note that Hasbro has been experimenting with its classic games quite a bit over the last decade. For example, in recent years, there have been "express" editions of Scrabble and Monopoly® - not to mention renamed Monopoly® streets. This year's release of the new Scrabble boards will be the third change in the last ten years. And finally, there have been unusually-shaped Scrabble boards commemorating everything from sports teams to Shrek. It's easy to imagine Hasbro would continue this trend by making a round board.

Conclusions and disclaimer

Based on the gathered evidence, Hasbro has created a folding, rotating, round board with a purple, red, and yellow color scheme. It has curved racks which fit inside the cavity of the folded board, and the Scrabble logo has been changed as well.

The preceding article is complete speculation. All trademarks mentioned here are the property of their owners - no harm or infringement is intended.

Update - April 27, 2008

Pictures of the new deluxe boards have been leaked, and we've got one on our shopping page. Here's how the predictions above fared.

• Round board: Not completely. Two of the four edges are round, very similar to the folding Ossie Mair boards.
• Curved racks: Yep.
• Folding board: Yep.
• Racks fit inside the folding board's cavity: Unknown so far, but still a fair assumption.
• Updated logo: Yes.
• Purple, red, and yellow color scheme: No, but the premium square colors have changed (again!), and the overall coloration is much brighter than before. The purple, yellow, and red is an update to the Scrabble logo. Here is a much better image of the new logo (as well as the new standard board), copied directly from Hasbro's website.

Overall accuracy of the speculation: Good. Changing the shape of the deluxe boards wasn't mentioned anywhere in the press release, and the jury is still out on whether or not the curved racks fit inside the board. Probably not worthy of an Oliver Stone film.

Scrabble, under my skin

To both cement and embrace my geekdom, yesterday evening I got a Scrabble tattoo. The work was done by Tommy Haley at Danny's Ancient Art Tattoos in Kanawha City. Here's a write-up of what went down, from beginning to end.

Before
The planning took several months. Much of this was mentally working myself up to the procedure - and the rest was throwing around design ideas. I knew going into it that I wanted a Scrabble-themed design. Initially I planned to only have a Triple Word Score square, but that by itself seemed plain and I really wanted something more. After digging around, I found two images of owls I liked. The owl represents two things - an acronym for Official Word List, and a classic archetype of wisdom - so he fits in with the Scrabble theme very well.

About a week before committing to the design, I took it by DAAT to make sure it was workable and to fish for suggested improvements. Chatting with Kevin Adams yielded several tweaks and ideas - and a preference for the simpler of the two owls from a workability standpoint. I took these suggestions back to the drawing board and came up with the final design in both color and outline formats. I dropped off these final versions Thursday and left my phone number to set up the appointment. On Saturday afternoon I got the call - everything was ready to go and we confirmed the day and time.

Shortly before leaving work yesterday I took three acetaminophen - just to take the edge off what was to come.

During
I arrived at the studio a little before 6:00. I sat in the parking lot, ate a Subway sandwich (just something light), and around 6:15 I went in. A little bit of paperwork, a little bit of waiting. Chris showed up while I waited, camera in tow as usual, and we chatted a bit. Finally, Tommy came out and called me back to the workroom.

Probably the number one question asked of anyone who gets or gives a tattoo is: "Does it hurt?" Of course it does. The degree of pain varies based on what you're getting done, where on your body it is, the artist, and your tolerance for pain in general - which itself can vary from one hour to the next. Tommy told us when people ask him what it feels like getting a tattoo, his response is, "It feels like getting a tattoo. You forget what it feels like after it's done, but when you get another one you remember."

From my perspective, imagine putting your hand into a very large hornets' nest and leaving it there for an hour or two. You do get used to it, however, as your body's natural pain defenses take over. In my case this only took ten or fifteen minutes - at which point I felt little more than a rubbing on my arm and the vibrating buzz buzz buzz of the tattoo gun.

As Tommy did his magic and the endorphins ate away at my pain, I realized some similarities between tattooists and Scrabble players. We are both a niche market in society, first of all - and a misunderstood one. We players don't necessarily sit around and learn strange words all the time. Tattooists don't necessarily sit around listening to death metal all the time. The lesson to take away from this is a little understanding can go a long way.

Second, we both travel around quite a bit. Just as there are Scrabble tournaments all over the country, there are also tattoo conventions. Both are interesting places with lots of goodies to buy, interesting people to meet, and new friends to make.

Third, we are who we are and we're not ashamed of it. In fact, most of the time, we're damn proud of it. There are enough of us out there that we don't feel alone or "weird" for not always fitting in with mainstream society. Some of us actually do fit in with mainstream society, but really, we're most ourselves when we're doing what we love.

After
The tattoo was covered with a sterile dressing, which stayed on overnight. This morning I took the dressing off and found the expected red and black oozy mess. Cleaning it off revealed the tat in all its glory, and most of the residual surface ink and damaged skin washed down the drain. This will be an ongoing process as the tattoo goes through its healing phases.

Summary

• Think carefully before getting any tattoo - it will be a more or less permanent part of you. Give it the same consideration you would to an elective cosmetic medical procedure. In some respects, that's exactly what it is.
• Hell yes, it hurts.
• Never get a tattoo on an empty stomach, or under the influence of any drugs or alcohol. If you want to get tattoos about drugs or alcohol on your stomach, I guess that's up to you.
• Follow the aftercare procedure provided by your artist or the studio. If all else fails, read the tattoo faq for other suggestions.
• Your tattoo artist is a professional and deserves your respect. Most likely, he or she has spent many hours perfecting the art.
• Embracing your inner self - geeky or not - is both a good thing and a learning experience.
  

My thanks to Tommy Haley for an outstanding job on this body art, which I will wear proudly - and to Chris Ross for taking pictures of the event.