Nasferatu

This is my favorite Christmas movie in the whole world. I have in on DVD, not to mention that I've memorized it beginning to end.

What's your favorite holiday movie?

I've been invited to join by many, including, most recently, by my 80 year old grandfather.

Chances that I'm joining? Still 0.

Michelle and Bob Duggar, described here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18_Kids_and_Counting

...should be considered at the top of the list public enemies.

Let's assume that the family does live debt-free and that the parents can adequately provide for all their children. Despite this, the act of having so many children in today's crowded and conflicted world is irredeemably selfish and sociopathic.

There are many reasons why the Duggar's should not have had, and should not have been allowed to have, so many children. One major reason is the impact that they, and their children, will have on the environment. A recent study shed light on this (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126994.200-children-come-with-a-high-carbon-cost.html). Even if the Duggars do attempt to live green, their efforts pale in comparison to the impact all their children will have.

But perhaps the top reason is that they are setting a poor example--in fact an example contrary to what we in the developed nations need to be setting. While it is true that birthrates in many developed nations is dropping, birthrates in developing nations are way to high for environmental sustainability. The number of children living in abject poverty is staggering, and this number is only projected to increase in the future.

In my lifetime, I have not seen attempts to eliminate poverty, whether here in the U.S. or abroad, work. Yes, many people have been lifted out of poverty, but because the population continues to increase, many more people are subjected to poverty. As the climate changes, this will lead to unfathomable suffering.

The only viable solution is strict controls on population growth. One problem with this is that if the developed nations suggest this, the developing nations will accuse them of attempting genocide. It is not hard to visualize somebody in Africa pointing to the Duggars and saying "why should we limit our procreation when you rich Westerners can have as many children as you like?" Of course they are going to say that, and we could mount no justification that would convince them otherwise. We have to lead by example, and we have to prevent people like the Duggars from continuing to have more children.

It is easy to appeal to people's emotion desire to procreate and profess that each child is "a blessing and a precious gift", but that sentiment ignores the fact that while those children may be gifts to the Duggars, they can only grow up in a lifestyle to which Westerners are accustomed via the suffering and sacrifices of others, both in this country and the developing world, who are worse off. Every smiling Duggar baby represents many starving children somewhere in the world. That's the image you should take away.

The budgies' cage, which you see in the user photo that accompanies this message, is decorated for Christmas every year. I hang tiny stockings from the support bar of the base underneath the cage, and I also hang small bird-themed ornaments. I have a couple long strands of tiny plastic lights for miniature or dollhouse crafts, and I string these along the cage as well. These lights do not light up and they are ornamental only. Technology however has developed in the years since I bought these plastic faux lights, and one can now buy lights that are even smaller than these and which do light up. Yesterday I adorned the birdcage with these lights:



Even the birdcage lights up now. Someone please come on over to my house and take a snapshot of the Christmas birdhouse and I will post it here. I have already bought the birds' Christmas present as well.

WSC 2009 Round 14

Play the Game

3-1 this week:

1) vs Alan: DAMOSEL TiNKLES / DELIRIa / W 424-355
2) vs Ira: RIDABLE RATINES / BEESWax / L 356-436. i played this quite badly, and BEESWax for 97 was sick.
3) vs Roy: TRAILED INFLECTs GReMIAL / SOPITES ATONIES / W 531-365. the end of this was kind of cool, i extended JOIN to INTERJOIN for 48. turns out it's a new word (i just guessed it)
4) vs Andy: RAISONNE EARDROPS / none / W 383-269

if i could consistently win 3/4 against a field of 1600ish then i'd probably do well in tournaments, but the problem is i screw up the games where i draw well and then i start drawing badly and it doesn't fix itself after the 1st day. at least at club my drawing always resets itself every week.

• 09:22 It's another beautiful day on Chesapeake Bay, clear and cold ... and windy again, darn it. Until the winds die down, we can't work. Aargh. #
• 14:16 No luck for us today, sadly. We'll try it again next week. #

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Holiday vgifts are here!

We've added some fantastic new vgifts to help you spread holiday cheer. We also hope you'll honor AIDS Awareness Month by purchasing virtual red ribbons. Priced at $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to support the development and global distribution of an affordable HIV vaccine.

Introducing: LJLimericks

We cordially here do invite you
To craft a fine limerick. Might you?
Each week, a new theme,
Then a poll, that's our dream
Winner posted on news to delight you!

In honor of all the brilliant writers on LiveJournal, we've created a brand new community: ljlimericks! Each week, we'll enter a handful of limericks into a poll (which we'll tuck snugly under an LJ-Cut). The winning poem will be published in the following newsletter. In addition, the author will receive a virtual blue ribbon! If you have the time, come drop us a rhyme. Please keep the "Nantucket" stuff on the downlow, since this is a youth-friendly community. Our first prompt is: Insomnia in winter.

Photos of the week

We're back with more incredible images from our global photography community. Congratulations to sempre_marseeya, who has been awarded a virtual blue ribbon as the winner of our second lj_photophile poll.

We hate to squelch your creativity, but, as a courtesy to other users, please post only one photo at a time and keep the main photo no larger than 350x350 (so images display properly via mobile and on friends pages). You can link to a larger image and/or post photos under a cut. Just so you know, we select photos for the poll blindly, based on user comments and staff feedback. Please continue to vote, comment, and, of course, enjoy. You can check out the week in pictures and view more awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. Stay warm and safe out there!

Wouldn't you join us?


http://www.cross-tables.com/entrants.php?u=960&flyer=%2Fdownload%2F2010%2F02%2Fphoenix.pdf

Entrants for Phoenix, AZ CSW Lexicon
February 13-15, 2010
Flyer

Entrants list last modified: December 09, 2009 11:51:14 PM (Eastern time)
Number of registered players: 9 (0 confirmed and 9 tentative)

Number of games: 20

Note: This entrants list is using the latest ratings available from cross-tables.com.

Director's notes:
This is the COLLINS division. The entry fee is $120 until January 12th. A minimum of "8" players must sign up to hold the event. After January 12th, any additional entries will pay a $140 entry fee.

Division 1

Name Rating St/Prov Expected
Wins†
1. Geoff Thevenot * 1939 TX 13.9
2. Marty Gabriel * 1896 IL 13.2
3. Sam Kantimathi * 1813 CA 11.9
4. Travis Chaney * 1731 OR 10.6
5. Nick Ball * 1687 BC 9.8
6. John Chew * 1655 ON 9.3
7. Spencer Sun * 1628 CA 8.8
8. Jean McArthur * 1582 TX 8.1
9. Tapani Lindgren * 1332 CA 4.4
Average rating: 1696

I generally have things happening at 4pm when I'm at work such as choir practice. In the past I know that I've been here until odd hours but I can't recall what I would do during those times (maybe I scheduled meetings?)...

But, here I am and it's 4pm and I'm accomplishing a lot of nothing right now. I'm vaguely piecing together some language for a grant application but it's a rather slow process: write a sentence, check all the pages on the whole internets*, read a line and change a word or two, check all the pages on the internet again to see if they've changed, wander the hallway, check all the pages on the internet, talk to chair, check all the pages on the internet, cut and paste some text in from another document...

There are things I should be doing... But, we had a P&T discussion during our faculty meeting today and any and all such discussions leave me nearly paralyzed, which is actually more likely to lead to getting turned down for the P part of P&T.



*I limit myself to a subset of the internet during certain work hours so that I can actually accomplish things. But, I'll check these pages obsessively. Fortunately, they don't change that fast so I don't really spend much time looking at them, maybe 10 seconds total (2 to click to them, 2 to load, and 8 to see that nothing has changed).

doorwindowwall
A stunning collection of images sure to delight anyone with a penchant for architectural elements, this talented community, largely from New York, is hoping to attract new members from around the world. Featuring an eclectic variety of photos depicting doors, windows, and walls, there's an interesting balance of interior and exterior shots, many from urban streets, some from ramshackle rural farmhouses. Wonderful!

Comment notification working again? Maybe? Hopefully?

IMG00009-20091210-1024.jpg Originally uploaded by verbalobe.


Sagan, full of grace,

turns her pool of light

into a furry Klein bottle.

This was not a bingo-heavy tournament for me, except for the one game (sorry, spherulitic). I won the final game by playing vICE for 5 (annotated game here - not great play, but interesting). I was disappointed in my play for parts of the tournament, but did just enough things right and had the right people win and lose to come in second. I need to work harder before Albany.

Me (14, 8 eights, 6 sevens) ( Read more... )

In many ways, today was not especially successful. I went 3-2, one of those losses on a horrendous collins lapse. I finished under .500 for the tournament. I barely lucked into one of the wins. Symbolic of the day was when one of the Nigerian players next to me fell asleep midgame, then snored through a good three minutes of his turn before waking up and playing back-to-back bingos. There was definitely a more laid back feel to the event today.

However, I won prize money for finishing on top of my 6-man group last time around, which obviously validates the experience. I am now richer by fifty (50) ringgits, or about 15 bucks US. huzzah!

Round 21 Chelly Okoko W514-370
The first of the Nigerian contingent I played today. I played SWAILING* but somehow got away with it, made a mistake in the middle of the game in passing up a bingo but then bingoed out anyway to win by a bunch.

Round 22 Emmanuel Ekpo W439-429
One of the more surreal games I've had in a while just because of how laid back he was. We pretty much had a running conversation going the entire time even after I went over on time and frantically tried fishing my way to victory, which shockingly worked. I was sort of snakebit in the middle game but it wore off just in time. Emmanuel himself was hilarious. He was also the later falling-asleep-midgame culprit.

Round 23 Michael Tang L427-484
Aagh. I gave this one away after playing decently entirely because of my failure to recall WEEKE. There's no good reason for me to know it, except that I know that I've seen it before. However, a hook to WEEK onto a triple stayed open for the entire game, I missed a bingo there for lots of points and then I passed up a chance to block it while scoring more points because I thought I was shutting the board down. Agh. Collins is taunting me.

Round 24 Umoh ? W570-256
Four of my last five turns were bingos, including drawing CZARDOM as a natural. He sort of didn't seem to be trying that hard, but I can't blame him.

Round 25 Ryan Andersen L388-473
I took a peek at this one on quackle just out of morbid curiosity, which claims that 5 of my first 8 moves were correct and 3 of them were marginally wrong. I loathe when people beg off by saying that their poor luck prevented them from winnning, because it's usually not true. That being said, he had the good fortune of nailing a couple of easy, reasonable-scoring blank bingos. I bluffed OUTMOVES only to find out that it's actually good (in america, too!). However, I played TREVE* a few turns later thinking it was a good old OWL word. false. game over. I know I haven't studied for scrabble in ages, but why was I so absolutely positive that word was good?

Predictably, Nigel and David won the big prizes for the tournament in spite of their clunkers on day 1. Suanne looks like she's won the championship. Good for her! Everyone I've talked to seems to like her.

The hotel room has an arrow pointing out the qibla#. Glad I noticed it.

WSC 2009 Round 13 vs. aphis99

Play the Game

What's the point of studying HYPNIC if I'm not going to challenge PINCHY*? I totally didn't even think twice about it at the club tonight. Gah!

Umm, I didn't know they made Zig-Zags in 11x17.

• 09:19 Maryland weather looks bad today. Not expecting to get anything done today, sadly. Foiled by the weather again! #
• 10:45 Good News: Rain's done! Bad news: winds gusting 35-50 miles per hour. #

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http://starbuckseverywhere.net/ScrabbleLog_2009_12_05.htm

1-2 -201

none / INDULIN HELILIFt SABRING 285-520 Loss

Missed RETROACT on turn three. Missed, and had no chance on TOADE(AT)ER on turn six. Spent most of the game correctly fishing (according to the Duck), but could not hit a damn bingo. I kept drawing two or three vowels. I got painted into a corner and the game became an ugly blowout.

LACERTID / VERATRIN UNLASHED ROAdSIDE 392-437 Loss

Quack opened with IVY. Didn't miss the JIVY hook this time, but I should have. I played JUT the wrong way. Dumb. Fished with ME when EMIC was about 15 better. Turned down the game losing INTONEs bingo with one in the bag to go for a small percentage win. Quackle blocked my out bingo, so it was RETINa for 24.

IMPERIAL FeMINITY oUTWEAR REXINES / DEVOTING INLIERS 487-408 Win

Got early bingos and big tiles to stack up a quick lead. Missed the double-double FeMINITY for 110. Settled for just 80. Stupid. Gotta cut these stupid misses. Other than that botch, pretty good game with good tiles.

To make sure I never miss something that is an -EATER again, (eliminating words like THEATER), you can be these:
ANTEATER
BEEFEATER
CRABEATER
FIGEATER
HONEYEATER
SEEDEATER
TOADEATER

No *MANEATER.

boingboing cites several admittedly small studies: people guessing someone's sexual orientation just from seeing a picture "got it right at a rate higher than that which could be explained by mere chance. And the trick worked even when the images were cropped to remove all trace of tip-offs like hair style or fashion accessories. [...] What the research does do is add to considerable body of evidence showing that humans are evolutionarily programmed to pay extremely close attention to the facial features of other humans, and it tells us that we still have a lot to learn about what that programming means for ideas like 'instinct.'"

boingboing: "Airmile hackers figured out that they could buy dollar coins (free shipping!) from the US Mint, using credit cards that gave them airmiles for purchases. Then they took the dollar coins straight to the bank and deposited them, paying off the credit card bills before any interest was incurred. The only cost was gas for the bank-runs. The Mint has tried to put a stop to it."

It's hard to tell exactly what happened. I lost a game that I probably had in hand. Other than that, I lost by a little, I lost by a bunch, lost excruciatingly, lost anticlimactically. I still had my moments, but probably a few more games that were just sad compared to yesterday.

I'm in bracket 2.

Rd 11 Jocelyn Lor L350-356
Yeah, I gave this one away. it should've been a tie at the very least. One of the adages I have about Scrabble (probably the only one) is that you absolutely have to win the games you're given a chance to, regardless of whether you're doing good or bad, because the drought will eventually come. Deep, I know. Failed Q stick and a ridiculous phony attempt of JORVE* (JARVIE, which would've fit for 64, is the only thing that's even close). Lesson learned: don't play words you have no clue about in 5-point. unless it's round 13.

Rd 12 Tony Sim L463-465
Due to the odd pairings, Tony is actually winning the tournament as of round 20, a game up and with spread. But he goes through the murderers' row tomorrow so probably won't end up winning. Anyway, this game was actually my best of the tournament by far. I was down by 160ish and just about pipped it thanks to planning and thinking and all that. got down VITALISM.

Rd 13 Edie Mueller W407-373
Ugly game where I got up and then tried my best to shut everything down, but then gave her a great lane by not knowing SEME. However, I believe I did the correct thing early in the game by playing a word I had no idea was good. With DEIORRS, I tried DORRIES* (it was either that or ORRISED*). There's nothing in there. However, I could only really exchange 1 or break up the synergy for 18 points, and there was the chance that she might give me a spot. Which, shockingly, she did, slotting an S in the 3x3 with her blank bingo. Bam, DROSSIER, +5. But the rest of this game was just ugly. Actually, I had 3 vowels for 6 turns in the middle, so I'm probably lucky I eked it out.

Rd 14 Diane Prates W446-341
Again, we were both left with a sort of dissatisfied taste in our mouth. Nothing really happened except me not realizing ROUTINGS might be good in collins. sort of just pulled away without doing anything spectacular.

Rd 15 Li Wei L354-537
It was about time this guy beat me. He bingoes four times, all for lots of points. I was still in it with a chance, but tried NUDISTIC with 10 in the bag because I figured nothing else gave me a chance. There was an O hook to the triple lane out for ages but I never had one. It's possible I might have had a chance without trying the phony by fishing for PUNDITIC and then bingoing again, but I figured that if I fished the bag would run out of tiles anyway.

LUNCH

Rd 16 Tim Adamson L366-392
I can't even remember, really. I was up a lot early, closed the board, he came back and took the lead anyway, I gave myself a chance but the final draw wasn't good enough. Tim might also have V-stuck himself at the end by being too hasty, but since he is better at scrabble than I am that didn't happen.

Rd 17 Russell Honeybun L367-575
It was closer than this for most of the way. I tried pretty hard to comeback but I drew 5 vowels in a row on fishes when one consonant probably would've done it. Then I set him up for a 106 point bingo. He later advised me to play faster, mentioning that most experts recommend 5 to 10 minutes for the endgame. He's been pretty nice to me, but I definitely got a lot of satisfaction out of being completely unfazed as he started to pull way ahead.

Rd 18 Ryan Andersen W452-364
I would be glad to talk about this game, but chinese skype just showed me a headline picture featuring women in a pool with no tops on. Not that I'm going to look, but it gives me an excuse to not bore you. blank bingo, blank bingo, zaijian.

Rd 19 Theodoro Martus L409-414
This was actually the game that drew criticism from Russell and Theodoro for me playing too slow, even though it appears that I actually made the right play in question. Quackle says that I made no mistakes that weren't "intentional" i.e. intended to beat a human opponent. Lucky enough to not run into too much Collins, unlucky last draw with 1 tile in the bag. I'll post the position because quackle is not helpful and appears to be calculating wrong anyway, and I'm curious if there's anything I didn't see. Really, I would be surprised if this weren't the lowest equity-loss game of the tournament, if you're into that sort of thing.

Rd 20 Tony Sim L422-449
I have no idea why I lost this game, after having it well in control from about halfway through onwards. My draws after a certain point were godawful, but as usually happens it was triggered by a questionable play earlier.

Result? Relegated to group 3, playing three more new players. Also, I will end the tournament having played neither Nigel nor Eldar, which is unfortunate. But I might be in line for money if I won all my games tomorrow. Realistically, though, I would be happy if I just played well. Or could play a 100-game tournament.

It's supposed to do those things in some measure today. It's a bit strange how good weather forecasting is these days (much better than when we called those folks aeromancers) as they've been telling us for days that it was going to snow on Wednesday and, pft!, it's snowing outside my windows. This is almost certain to be a day where the 10-miles we drive inland will have a major impact on the mix of the precipitation. More snow, more freezing rain, less actual rain. More rain here at home increases the chance I get the leaves blown out of the yard this weekend though, so here's hoping.

I've somehow committed myself to being in two places at once today, this may cause a few problems. I'll likely have to cut my grad class a bit short to make it work.

Done-ish: Finished a revision on a paper, almost ready to send it out. Finished a draft of another paper, reasonably ready to send it out (both can go out in the next 3 weeks hopefully).

In progress-ish: Spencer Foundation small grant application. I'll pay for 2 years of graduate student support and a bit of money to pay some participants to do other things.

In planning: Papers!

In collaboration: The draft that my grad students are working on has some good data, they keep showing up to talk about it, and they're doing a nice job. It's going to turn into a good paper for next semester.

Working group stuff! Aaaaah!

Other things and stuff.

WSC 2009 Round 12

My first visit to the annotated Table 1, and I rose to the occasion with a gem of a performance. Well, not exactly.

Play the Game

• 08:49 Ready to get down to work. We've got probably one good day to work, and this is it - let's pull the trigger! #
• 09:31 Been here an hour and nothing. Daylight's wasting! #
• 13:30 It's so nice to work with a quality crew. *no sarcasm* #
• 15:45 One third of the way done. We've got to dodge weather for the rest of the week since we're working outdoors. Keep your fingers crossed! #

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Yep - you remember I mentioned that a long-ago bandmate and friend of mine, Danny Cahill, was on the Biggest Loser. He won! Went from 430 lbs. all the way down to 191. Astonishing achievement. I had a hunch he'd go far, he's a strong-willed dude, but damn...

Today's thoughts...

• 17:37 just joined @boxee, a new way to enjoy entertainment on your TV & PC. join now at www.boxee.tv/signup #

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First sequence groups, in order of seeding:
A Nigel Richards, Helen Gipson, David Eldar, Tim Adamson, Theodoro Martus, Cheah Siu Hean
B Jesse Day, Jack Mpakasomethingorother, Russell Honeybun, Tan Jin Chou, Lim Li Wei, Michael Tang

I thought I would be in group A until Eldar showed up at the last second. That hardly seemed like a bad thing though given my lack of previous sowpods experience...I was set to play 6-2 in seeding order.

Rd 1 Michael Tang W474-461
what a wacky way to start. I won because of the 5-point challenge rule - he challenged four of my good words as well as one phony. early on missed AREOLES due to rust before playing SOAKIER*. challenged off. I now get down almost 100 before looking around with BEIORSV and seeing a disconnected O and L. Bam, BOILOVERS, a prayer that actually turns out to be good. Also extended PROFIT to DISPROFIT to save the game late.

Rd 2 Li Wei W436-345
I like Li Wei a lot. We talked in Chinese for a little bit because he's from Singapore. I apparently got away with my first ever unchallenged phony in collins, DrAGToP with both blanks. I also challenged his RENCHES* off.

Rd 3 Tan Jin Chou W443-365
The game hinged on an odd series of turns. He played PIGFACeD which I challenged off (thank god for 5-point, since PIGFACE is evidently good). At that point I set up a hook I didn't actually have, forcing him to block, then lucked into BULLETED and then picked up the other blank. Collins is easy sometimes

Rd 4 Russell Honeybun L444-489
Collins finally punishes me, as I chicken out of COdENAME#, the only bingo available. I mean, I knew it wasn't ours. I played a tactically atrocious game and lose in spite of a late flash of intelligence to at least make the score respectable.

Rd 5 Jack Mpaka W443-377
I reallllly lucked out in this one, drawing an easy bingo-bango-bongo. This game was to see who would move up to the top group between us two. Spread probably could've been bigger if he'd played for the win instead of spread, but he still didn't make it.

Switches for phase 2: Nigel, Eldar down, me and Li Wei up, Tang and Tan Jin Chou drop, two women I don't know up to group 2.

Rd 6 Tim Adamson L420-476
The only other American around at this point. I was down a fair amount early before getting the streak of good fortune I needed. I realllly thought I had it late, and then he made a two-tile play with two in the bag that left me with a very tough block to make. I had time, but couldn't come up with it. It turns out it was technically a lost cause anyway. hindered by not knowing the hooks to REB or RIB.

Rd 7 Helen Gipson W484-386
I know she's way better than I am regardless of dictionary, but everything happens at just the right moment and I win comfortably. I even pick up 5 points for playing SIDH. quackle says I even played well, thanks to a lack of collins situations.

Rd 8 Cheah Siu Hean L409-466
I really enjoyed playing this guy. He's very gentlemanly and soft-spoken. After going up earlyish his bingo-bango-bongo left me fishing around. I did get it, but only to cut spread.

Rd 9 Theodoro Martus L387-454
Oh man, Theodoro figured me out big time as far as my lack of word knowledge. After going up a whole lot by midgame, 120ish, he gets down EBRIATE. Now, I actually know that word but fail to realize it doesn't take the S. He challenges it off, then plays the phony WEARIE next turn to tie the game, which I fail to challenge!! Really well done on his part because it garners him the last blank, and he bingos and wins. He probably wouldn't have won without his gutsiness.

Rd 10 Li Wei W416-331
I was unbelievably tired at this point. We play an ugly game, I luck into the last blank and win, but it's not enough to stay up.

Phase 3 changes: JD, Li Wei back down, Eldar, Richards back up, Russell and Jack down, two more women I don't know up

So today I play 4 completely new people and Li Wei! I like my chances of getting back up top. We'll see!

Some Scrabblers have Asperger's, or similar sorts of predilection towards stats and detail. Extremely deep focus on minutiae in an area of interest is valuable for Scrabble and this is selected for with general Darwinian pressure in our competitive community.

I have noticed that there are a lot of very serious sports fans out there in our community. I have more acquaintances/friends outside of Scrabble by a large margin, and yet I can think of several professional sports writers/fantasy writers in the group I know of Scrabblers, and none in my set of "normal" friends.

On a scale of 1-10, I am a 2 as a sports fan goes.

-- I like to watch individual sports: golf, tennis, darts, poker, etc., with a focus on the best of the best players and the majors. That is, I "cheer" for the best.

-- I watched the Grey Cup where the Riders choked, but in general will not go much out of my way (including turning on the TV) to catch up on most sports.

-- I know no stats to speak of. I would be an embarrassment to any Fantasy anything league (MAYBE golf I could pick an OK team, but that's just because I generally study with a golf tourney on in the background, because it takes zero effort to keep up with it, and over the hours the odd name osmoses in.)


So, bigtime fans? What's the allure? For me I have trouble getting much investment of self into vicarious performance... and when I do, I feel silly afterwards. My preference is to practice to get better myself at whatever I'm currently working on (Scrabble right now). Without that investment in a team or brand, what would keep you cheering?

Well, I'm currently finding myself incapable of sleeping due to some bizarre state of scrabble overexcitement. Every time I try to drift off, I see a rack of tiles that I have to play through before being allowed to doze off, along with accompanying shouts of encouragement. So I'm currently just trying to write until I actually feel tired again.

I don't remember what I wrote in my blog about the process of getting here and I'm too lazy to check at the moment, so to reiterate: I missed my original 11:30 pm flight on Sunday night because I didn't have my passport. I went home and rifled through all my stuff, and finally found it literally in a trash can in the middle of a sheaf of paper. This is possibly the stupidest thing I've ever done in my entire life. Furious, I slept over at my friend Toni's apartment since I no longer had my own with the intention of leaving at 4 am as she was planning to do and then standbying onto the first available plane. Unfortunately, we all then overslept until 6, triggering a mad dash to the airport, a fortunate encounter with a wannabe speed demon cabbie, and then an anticlimactic check-in. In any case, I went to starbucks and ended up being there mostly continuously until 3:30 pm.

to add to the absurdity, by the time I got to singapore at 11:30 pm (same timezone as bj) public transport was done, and I was looking at a 50 dollar US, as well as a slightly dangerous voyage. A well-intentioned worker at the tourism desk encouraged me to spend the night at the airport instead. She may have been justified, but there was absolutely nowhere to get comfortable, meaning that I spent about an hour asleep all night before waking up at 6 and suddenly realizing/意识到ing I had left my laptop on the plane. oh god no. by miracle, they had it, and after that I got going, finally reaching the hotel at 8:45 or so. And then I played 10 games of scrabble.

dear god, I am long-winded. here's the unusual format for the tourney. There are 6 groups of 6. You play a round-robin against your other 5. at the end of that, the top 2 in each group move up, mid 2 stay put, bottom 2 go down. absurdly, the very first round saw the top 2 seeds, nigel and eldar, drop to group b. I started at top seed of B and moved up but got relegated back down after only winning 2, so I have yet to play either of them, and still won't first 5 games tomorrow. More wackiness means that four of my group's opponents tomorrow are new.

the kids' tournament is going on at the same time. Suanne is leading, but the quality of the top players is such that it really seems anything could happen. Having volunteered at an NSSC in the states, it's hard not to be impressed by how good these kids are. Some of them can really play at any level, but the quality is also deep throughout. It also makes me sad that Nigeria can put together a team of ten kids, whereas the States has Chris Walleck (who I had the pleasure of talking to for a while at dinner) and Nicky Vasquez and that's it.

My overall feeling: Dear god, how am I possibly doing this well? I have huge gaps in my collins knowledge that must be exploitable, but with the exception of the sly Theodoro Martus (more about this tomorrow morning) no one has really tested me. I've drawn a lot more challenges than I have done myself, including one on what's probably my best tournament find, ironically in the very first game.

It's also quite strange but hugely rewarding to go to a tournament knowing no one. My roommate is Ed Okulicz, who turns out to be great fun to talk to. Also had the pleasure of a brief meeting with Phil Robertshaw. I look forward to coming back to the international scene before too long. it's just too much fun, and the collins isn't so bad after all.

tomorrow morning I'll punch in my first ten games and quick little blurbs about each. 3 of 10 were worlds players.

Slashdot quotes Google CEO Eric Schmidt as saying: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

Gawker says: "The generous explanation for Schmidt's statement is that he's revolutionized his thinking since 2005, when he blacklisted CNET for publishing info about him gleaned from Google searches, including salary, neighborhood, hobbies and political donations. In that case, the married CEO must not mind all the coverage of his various reputed girlfriends; it's odd he doesn't clarify what's going on with the widely-rumored extramarital dalliances, though."

They have a link to the video; as one slashdot commenter notes, there is a voiceover and an editing cut that makes it unclear what the context of his statement is; maybe he qualified it with very tight restrictions or something. It still sounds pretty bad though, and seems like a poor choice of words.

This all reminds me of the Justice Scalia thing from earlier this year.

Saw something on CGP about a SOWPODS division at the February tournament. I'd been wishing that some director would do that, & if it's for real I'll probably go b/c I support integrating Collins into North American Scrabble. Hadn't been planning to go anywhere this winter.

As reported on the world Scrabble listserv, after the first 3 rounds of the current tournament in Johor Bahru, Nigel was 0-3. He was beaten by Cheah, Helen, & Tim (that Minnesotan who was absurdly missing from the U.S. team). Doubt that's ever happened before. Doubt it phased him either. Jesse is in the front of the pack (!!!).

Cleveland was pretty fun. ipecac_icecap & dallaswj did a standout job with this event. Good venue, efficiently run, excellent internet coverage, and everyone behaved for the most part. More people should go next time. I wish I had time to check out the city more.

For now, some bingo lists, for entertainment purposes only:

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Borrowed from daltonic, as I thought it was a good question and would be curious to see more responses:


What's better?

A. Day 1, You win all but one game, starting off 6-1, and likely close to first place. Then, Day 2, you win the first game, but then lose 5 in a row to finish out of the money. (Final record 7-6)

B. Day 1, you lose all but one game, starting off 1-6 and likely close to last place. Then, Day 2, you lose the first game, but then win 5 in a row! (Final record 6-7)


Getofftheoven's answer: I'd choose A, though I suspect I might be in the minority. Yeah, it's a bummer to lose out at the end (and given many of my tournaments this year, I should know), but at least I was in contention most of the way, and that's exciting. Better to have loved and lost, etc. With B, hope has leapt out the window early, and even the late winning streak brings only relief at avoiding even worse rating damage (embarrassment?)

I wonder if people's answers to this differ based on where they tend to be seeded within their division. A 1-6 first day for a low seed is rough all right, but a 1-6 first day for a high seed is catastrophic. EDIT: Also, would your answer differ if it was a round-robin instead of Swiss or something like that?