Slashdot Mirror
Word Up
theodp writes "Depending on your perspective, the National Scrabble Championship is a major sporting event, an unrivalled intellectual competition, or the world's biggest dork-fest. So says Slate's Dan Wachtell, who turned to an anagram-drilling Unix program to gain an edge on the 850+ competitors. While hardly mainstream, competitive Scrabble is getting newfound attention thanks to the publication of Word Freak and release of Word Wars."
Unix Program to play scrabble? That seems like overkill. Plus it would really make the game pointless for other players.
L
B O R I N G
S
P A T H E T I C
R
S A D N E S S
You know you've reached the top when Slashdot calls your "sporting" event a "dork-fest". There is no higher complement.
I disagree. I've sacrificed three virgins because they saw me reading Slashdot. Of course, I don't think that's what you mean, but...
I was taught some kid version of checkers, back in the day, and went on a family vacation to the Keewenau Peninsula (Eagle River, MI) where this whitehaired old hotel owner (The Swank Hotel -- his last name was Swank) was the county checkers champion. He schooled me and gave me no breaks. Never underestimate old men with board games, like checkers, chess, dominos or Scrabble, especially where they have months to pass (between tourist seasons) to hone their l33t sk1llz.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Duke- "Quyzbuk"
Marty-"That's not a word"
Duke - "(dials phone) Get Webster on the phone. Noah, how ya doing? It's Duke. How much would it cost to make Quyzbuk a word? (pause) I don't what means, uh, how about a big problem? Great! How about that other word I invented, Dukelicious? No ones using it? What a Duketastrophe."
Bart: Here we go. Kwyjibo. [places his tiles] K-W-Y-J-I-B-O.
Twenty-two points, plus triple-word-score, plus fifty points
for using all my letters. Game's over. I'm outta here. [gets up]
Homer: [grabs Bart with his left hand, holding a banana in his right]
Wait a minute, you little cheater!
You're not going anywhere until you tell me what a kwyjibo is.
Bart: Kwyjibo. Uh... a big, dumb, balding North American ape. With no chin.
Marge: And a short temper.
Homer: I'll show you a big, dumb, balding ape! [leaps for Bart]
Bart: [making his escape] Uh oh. Kwyjibo on the loose!
$cat
Right after the dodgeball championship on ESPN 8
Hmmm, I have 5 mod pts, its time to metamod, and on top of that I have to meta-metamod? When do I get to read slashdot?
Do you remember college? The arts classes you detested? Those classes enrolled humanities majors -- people who studied history, philosophy, theater, English literature -- you know, the people who used language and social skills to learn. Remember all the hotties in there? How eager they were to discuss Kant, feminism, and the impact of the Impressionist movement on French Romantic literature? Remember how insecure those girls made you feel?
Here's a hint: those girls knew how to play Scrabble. And read Lord Chatterley's Lover. Think of it as CounterStrike for people who can carry on a conversation.
(Oh, and Lord Chatterley's Lover is kind of like this weird encrypted ASCII porn. It, like, uses your imagination to generate images! And girls dig it!)
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.