I am a crazy-deliberate Scrabulous player, which does not show in the words I play, since I so often lay down “WO” or “ET.”  But I have been playing uber-slow games with people for the past couple months, and in the last two weeks, I have started playing a little more… I’m about back at the level I was when I first got interested in it.  Today around 5, I decided that I’d kill the pre-dinner hour with some live games, so I used the “host a table” feature for the first time and started playing some strangers.  I’m holding my own in one and doing pretty well in the other, which is a suprise because I have given myself no more than two minutes per turn.  Both opponents have now gone offline, within five minutes of each other, so I’ll probably have to drag these games out along with some of the other games I have going.

I have a great affinity for words but Scrabulous no longer seems much like a word game to me, though occasionally my vocabulary expands as a result of an ambitious arrangement of tiles that just happens to work.  But the electronic game does not, unless you play challenge mode (which bores me), force you to know the words, only to be willing to experiment with tiles until something works.  So it’s a math game that sometimes yields neat words.  Why I should find myself more excited about the game now that I have come to this realization is beyond me.  Logically, I should find it more boring than ever.

I just started my tenth concurrent game, which is my absolute max, so I probably won’t take any more on.  I’m hoping that I can finish some of these before I head to school, because once there, I will not play a lick.

A friend sent me The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which will be my nighttime entertainment this weekend.  I do not expect to read more than 40-60 pages before I head to school, but I’m told that the book is so good I’ll be envious, so perhaps…