I came to work this morning, and this was the scene outside my window. I guess folks in Salt Lake City love them some David Archuleta. There's a giant throng of people swarming around a makeshift stage covered by a tent, with David waving at the crowd at random intervals. Nothing much seems to be happening, but every 20 seconds or so, there's a burst of spontaneous screaming. It sounds just like an amusement park roller coaster. Except, ahh... it looks like the screaming is not spontaneous after all. The crowd is actually being coached and filmed, I guess for some montage footage for an upcoming American Idol episode. Interesting stuff, but... now how am I supposed to walk to Barnes and Noble?

I haven't posted much Scrabble content lately, but I felt like I got to play some fun bingos at the last two club sessions, so here they are for your enjoyment and edification:

Mine:
KATcINA
GAROTED
SUBSONI(C)
BIL(A)NDER
NIObITE
(C)ANISTEL
TITHERS
DELTOID
ABAXIaL
(S)TEARINS
SNARLIS(H)*
TATtERS
SHALIER
ARSINES
BETRAYS
(E)UpHROES
DENARII
MANTEAU
ECdYSES
O(V)ERLAPS
SENORI(T)A
LOACHEs
SToLLEN
ABIDERS
FOREmAN

Theirs:
OU(T)LIVES
aBORT(I)NG
TATTInG
BETTINg
Q(U)ENCHeD
NETIZE(N)S
ENGAGeS
OUT(L)EaRN
ERASION(S)
(B)OUNCIEr
(D)ETAINER
TOStADA(S)

By far my favorite was finding the only bingo in ?CEESSY. After that game, one of the guys told me, "Thelen, you need to get out more."

Today, May 1, 2008, my wife and I are officially free of credit card debt! I made my final payment today, and our balance is now zero. We've been working on this for the better part of a year. You can read previous posts about it here. Suck it, Chase!

I haven't quite grasped the reality that I no longer have a credit card balance, but it feels great already. I've had a slowly, steadily increasing balance for at least 10 years. When I transferred the whole thing away from Chase on September 27, the balance was $15,300. Seven months later, zero. It feels great to shred all the credit card "convenience checks" instead of checking to see what the rate is. It feels great to laugh at all the offers that tell us how "easy" it is to "pay down debt" simply by taking out a home equity or consolidation loan to be paid off at $900 a month for the next 96 months. It feels great to know that I now own everything I've ever paid for with a credit card, including my TV; my computers; my furniture; all the books, CDs, and DVDs on my bookshelves; the bookshelves themselves; and even my car (yes, I was an idiot).

If you'd told me a year ago that I'd be free of credit card debt by now, I never, ever would have believed it was possible. My wife and I have cut our lifestyle quite a bit, but I would say the main thing we did was to start paying some freaking attention to what we were doing with our money. All told, we've paid off a total of about $32,000 of debt in one year, and we're about halfway done. Next up is paying off the minivan in about 2 months, followed by my student loan in about 3 more months, and then our second mortgage in about 8 more months. In a little over one year, we will be debt-free except our primary mortgage. I'm excited to start doing something with my money besides giving it to other people.

I have to give a lot of credit to Dave Ramsey, and particularly his book The Total Money Makeover. I can't recommend it highly enough. The ideas in the book are simple and straightforward, mostly just common sense your grandmother would tell you. My wife and I are doing the work, but he's given us a clear path with baby steps to freedom, baby, yeah!

I love to talk about how it's going, and I'm always willing to answer questions about it, but I also don't want to bore you to death either. I'll probably post again whenever we hit another milestone (paying off the car, etc.) but not more often than that. With the credit cards gone, I feel like we're definitely on the downhill slope of debt elimination.

Ever since I saw The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters a while back, I've had a bit of a minor obsession with Donkey Kong, the classic arcade game. (Like I need more things to be obsessed about.) It even inspired me to download MAME and give Donkey Kong a try. I've probably been playing an hour or so of DK every few nights for the past month, and it's fun! I didn't remember DK being too hard, but that might have been because I mostly played the Atari 2600 version as a kid. The original arcade game is pretty dang hard, and it's taken me a while to achieve any kind of consistency, especially on the barrel levels.

When I first started, I nearly always died on level 1 with a score under about 15,000 points or so. Lately I usually make it to level 4 or 5, and score between 70,000 and 100,000. Just now, about 10 minutes ago, I doubled my previous high score in a single game! My previous score was 130,600, when I made it to level 5. Just now, I scored 270,200 making it to level 8! With kids running around and everything. I'm encouraged because levels 5 through 8 seemed even easier than 1 through 4, as long as I kept paying attention and didn't do anything stupid.

One of these days I hope to get a kill screen (which happens on level 22), but probably not anytime soon.

Last night at the club, I noticed myself noticing a fair number of Collins hooks and other Collins words. In the past week, I've been consciously trying to do this during games against Quackle, but last night the thoughts popped in there unbidden. It was slightly annoying, in fact, that I wasn't able to make some obviously superior plays because the words aren't valid in OWL2. But mostly, it was just cool to be seeing new possibilities.

I had a 38-point JUDY# to clean up my rack nicely, but I had to play DUTY instead. An opponent bingoed with NOVELLA, and for some reason I knew it took an E, but only in Collins. I tried WOUNDERS* and got it challenged off, but felt a bit justified when I discovered it's really WOUNDERS# (should have remembered it's only REWOUND though). One club member opened (not against me) with ANODISE#, and I was happy to know that there are no OWL words in there, but three Collins ones. On one rack I had the possibility of TWIGGERS# but didn't like it and played WIGGERS instead, discovering the # later.

It's been fun so far, and apparently learning some Collins hasn't tripped me up yet, as I went 5-0 last night. We'll see if I can say the same thing several months from now.

Oh yeah, I also got a 52-point YAKUZA, which was pretty cool. Later on, my opponent hooked an S on it, and I was conflicted about whether to challenge. I remembered that while studying, I had made a point of remembering whether it took an S... but I couldn't remember if it did, or didn't! I ended up letting it go, because Japanese nouns don't have plurals, and I generally don't expect them to take an S. Since I had to make an effort to remember the hookability of YAKUZA, I figured it must take an S. Otherwise I wouldn't have had to make a special effort to remember it, right? Bzzzt. Ah well.

Here are some bingos for ya:

Mine:
NOIsIER
DACITES
ANTEINg
FLORETS
CH(E)QUERs
A(D)JOINTS
REWOUND
ENTICER
sWATTER
R(E)TINALS
(B)ATTENeR
UpRAISE

Theirs:
DElOUSE
INNATEL(Y)
(G)ROUPIES
R(E)CISION
ANEROID
NARCIST(S)
NOVELlA
LANTErN

Just a warning, the Scrabble content of this blog will probably be very Collins-heavy for a while. You've been warned!

After spending about a month and a half working on a new Zyzzyva version specifically to help me study Collins, I finally started studying in earnest last night. I forgot what it feels like to learn 2s and 3s! There are only 23 Collins-only 2s and 277 Collins-only 3s, but going through them makes me feel kind of like a dunce because... well, they're 2s and 3s, and I don't know them. It's also exciting, and I'm looking forward to playing some of these monsters like CH#, AUA#, TWP#, and ZHO#.

Speaking of which, last night I played my first Collins game ever, against Quackle. I missed a 50-point ZHO#, playing ZEE instead, and Quackle immediately hooked it to make MZEE#. OMGWTFBBQ!? How wicked is that? I was proud of myself because I did make a few Quackle-best plays with Collins words, like HOA#/EH/IO#/LA, GODWIT/TE#, and BLAG#/AMI/GOY. But I missed the best spot for a bingo with ?EKNOPS because I forgot about EE#, and missed a few more best plays due to OWL board vision. It will take a little while for my brain to adjust. Not to mention I have to learn the words before that can happen.

As I was studying last night, I noticed a lot of Collins 3s that for some reason I always think are good in OWL, or always see even though I know they're no good. CUZ#, DOH#, GON#, HOH#, JAP#, NAS#, NAT#, SOG#, SUD#, TID#, TIX#... all good. Even EMO# is good. And it has an anagram! I started wondering whether I'll be able to remember which of these are Collins-only, especially since I already get confused on some of them.

As a result, I added a function to Zyzzyva today which forces you to type lexicon symbols along with words when taking a quiz (by default, this behavior is turned off). For example, "NAS" would be considered an invalid quiz response, but "NAS#" with the octothorpe would be considered valid. Already I'm finding this useful, as it forces me to remember which words are Collins-only, as an integral part of the quiz. There are a few more features I plan to implement before releasing a new version in a month or two, but if people want to get their hands on this right away, I may be able to put together a development release. I think it might be a good idea to start doing that anyway, just so people can try out bleeding-edge features and give me feedback before I create an official release.

So, it begins. I haven't even looked at anything more than 2s, 3s, and a few stem 7s, and I'm already excited. There's a lot of cool stuff in here, and it should be fun to start digging it out.

Uhhh... maybe that's not the right phrase. Anyway, my inbox hasn't looked like this in a while, and every time it does (what, once every 9 to 12 months?) I feel like I have to share my momentous achievement. Any email I get in the next several months, I fully expect to answer by the end of the year.

I haven't done much on Facebook lately, but I just added the Compare People application and started answering questions about who I would rather kiss, who is more punctual, etc. I got a real kick out of this question:



Hmmm, lemme think about this for a minute...

A lot of funny stuff went down this year for April Fool's day, and I fell for most of it. I am such a sucker. But I have to say, the funniest prank of the day has to be this one. The video is self-explanatory. I just about busted a gut laughing!

If you know what polymorphism is, in the context of object-oriented programming, then you should find this absolutely stunning. I love what one of the commenters said, "That's like inventing the wheel and trying to roll it SIDEWAYS!!" What a perfect analogy.

Last night at about 11:30pm, I received an email on a local astronomy mailing list, saying that someone wanted to sell a Meade 4501 114mm f/8 reflector telescope on an equatorial mount with tripod included, for relatively cheap. This morning I called the lady, drove out to Grantsville, and picked it up. Tonight I gave it a try.

I read the manual at least twice through, and in theory I'm pretty sure I know how the scope is supposed to work, but in practice, it kicked my butt. First off, I spent about an hour gazing into the eyepiece area, pointing the scope, twisting the focus, and adjusting all kinds of crap... and didn't see squat until I realized I needed an actual eyepiece. I'm a real genius.

Once I finally put the eyepiece in, I could see stars just fine, but somehow I wasn't able to adujst and tighten everything quite right to keep anything centered in the view. I pretty much humped the telescope for two hours, just trying to find, center, and stay centered on Saturn. I probably did about 5 minutes of actual observing, and 20 times as much adjusting. My back is not very happy at the moment, and it was a lot colder than I expected as well, so my fingers and toes nearly froze. An hour later, I'm still shivering.

All in all, it was totally worth it! Okay, maybe not yet. It was pretty cool, and I like the telescope, but I think it will take me a while to learn how to handle it well. I'm going to read the manual yet again, and probably take it to a star party and ask anyone if they have any tips. I'm sure next time will go better, because it can't go much worse!

I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who has donated to Zyzzyva, either recently or in the past. I really, really appreciate your kindness and generosity. Thanks to crosstables for the publicity, too. It makes me feel great to know that people are happy enough with my work that they'll give their hard-earned cash as a token of appreciation. At the right is a picture of my inbox right now. You people have made my day.

Just FYI, I've also released a new version of Zyzzyva (yes, another one), 2.0.1. You can get it from the usual place. I hope this fixes the problems people were seeing with lexicon preferences and lexicon databases. I was never able to reproduce the hanging problem when creating a lexicon database, so I'm not positive it's fixed, but I do believe it should be. Please let me know if you experience any problems with this version.

I've released a new version of Zyzzyva, 2.0.0. Zyzzyva is a program for studying words, practicing anagramming, and adjudicating challenges. It runs on Windows XP, Vista, NT, 2000, 98, and Me; Linux; and Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later. You can get the latest version here:

http://zyzzyva.net/

This is a major release with several new features. The most prominent feature is the ability to load multiple lexicons simultaneously, which allows you to search for words belonging to any combination of lexicons. It also allows you to view special symbols such as # for words in CSW but not OWL2.

Here is the full list of changes:

* Load multiple lexicons simultaneously
* Lexicon symbols, e.g. # for CSW-not-OWL2, % for OWL2-not-OWL, etc.
* In Lexicon search condition
* Highly-visible icons for "acceptable" and "unacceptable" in Word Judge
* Mark as Correct button on the Quiz form
* New Cardbox 0 First quiz schedule
* Improved cardbox visibility and control
* Detailed word information on the Definition form
* Updated CSW definitions thanks to Barry Harridge
* Updated ODS lexicon thanks to Hervé Bohbot
* Nice-looking Zyzzyva application icon
* Various bug fixes

Many, many thanks to everyone who has helped to make this the best version of Zyzzyva yet! There are too many people to name, but I appreciate all your help and I could not have done it without you. Thanks as well to everyone who has made such generous donations in person or through the web site. I don't do this for the money, but your donations are very much appreciated.

Please give me feedback about how you think Zyzzyva could be improved! I know it has a long way to go before it becomes the study tool I would like it to be. I've been pretty bad about responding to email for a while, but I do take all your suggestions seriously and I promise to be more responsive. I appreciate your input!

If you would like more information about Zyzzyva, please join the Zyzzyva Users list here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/zyzzyva-users/

I hope you enjoy using Zyzzyva, and most of all, have fun with it!

I've created some Zyzzyva 2.0.0 prerelease builds. This is the same release I was previously calling 1.1.0, but I think this version has major enough changes to warrant a major revision bump. These builds should be ready to go, and if everything looks fine, they will be used for the final release. Would you mind downloading one of these releases and testing it out?

You'll probably want to back up your Zyzzyva data directory just in case. You know, download these at your own risk, this software is provided "as is", yadda yadda. But I don't expect these release candidates to behave badly at all.

I've done a good amount of testing on my own, but in particular I'd like to make sure:
- All the installers work as expected
- You can load and unload combinations of lexicons without restarting Zyzzyva
- You can build and rebuild lexicon databases
- Lexicon symbols show up as expected
- Quizzes and searches still work as expected
- Nothing crashes!

I would greatly appreciate it if you could download one of these prerelease builds, play with it for a little bit, and let me know if you experience any problems. I hope to get this thing out the door by Thursday night, or Friday at the latest. Thank you so much! Without further ado, the downloads:

• Windows installer (26MB)


• OS X Intel disk image (26MB)


• OS X PowerPC disk image (26MB)


• Linux installer (26MB)

About a week ago, I got a rippin' deal on some 15x70 binoculars, a $125 pair for about $50. My last pair of binoculars had a tragic kid-related accident several months ago. These new ones are better than those, but they cost me less and they even came with a small tripod. It's been cloudy all week, but tonight it cleared up and I did some observing. The full moon looked incredible and I could even see Saturn's rings and Titan! I never expected to make out Saturn's rings and moons through binoculars, much less from a light-polluted backyard, in a hazy suburb, with a full moon about 30 degrees away! These binoculars rock, and the tripod really helps. I can't wait to take them out somewhere dark when the moon's not out.

I'm sorry to have forced you all to scratch your heads day and night for nearly a month. Your suffering is over! Here are the answers to bonus movie meme questions I asked a while back, and yet another bonus quote. Actually, I'll give you several quotes, all from the same movie. If anyone gets the answer without cheating, you automatically become one of my favorite people.

Answers to previous questions
Bonus 1.
A: Where is it?
B: What? The body?
A: The phone. What body?
B: No body. I mean, nobody. There is nobody in the study.
(Clue - samhampton and squeegman got it right.)

Bonus 2. Rand Peltzer, fantastic ideas for a fantastic world, I make the illogical logical.
(Gremlins - maybe I should have used my other quote, "Deagle Deagle Deeeeeeagle!")

Bonus 3. The propulsion system uses nitrogen tetroxide, Rudy. We wanna breathe, not dry clean our lungs.
(Space Camp - one of the first movies I remember seeing in the theater as a kid; I was a space nut then and I'm a space nut now)

Bonus 4. No, you said "wet shirt don't break," not "piss shirt bend bar"!
(Shanghai Noon - one of my favorite movies to watch in the background while doing anything on my laptop, and my first exposure to Owen Wilson, who quickly became one of my favorite actors)

Bonus 5. My cat can eat a whole watermelon!
(Rubin & Ed - a really obscure, quirky movie starring Crispin Glover and Howard Hesseman. Filmed in Utah. Among the other notable quotes is the most unwieldy self-help mantra ever, "I am an incredibly powerful salesperson who continually climbs higher and higher up the ladder of success!")

Quotes for the new bonus question
---
I don't wanna sound like a queer or nothin', but I think unicorns are kick ass!
---
I'm not a superhero! I'm a Latter-day Saint.
---
My doctor says now I have enough silicone in my body to kill a small elephant. Isn't that cool?
---
I don't wanna sound like a queer or nothin', but I think Depeche Mode is a sweet band!
---
A: If you're such a scientific genius, don't you think Heavenly Father has something more important planned for your life?
B: Who?
A: You.
B. ... What?
---
A. I hope you're happy in the life you've chosen.
B. Don't quote Dickens in my apartment!
---
I don't wanna sound like a queer or nothin', but I think you got a hot ass!
---
A. Ben, superheroes that pray together stay together.
B. Aw, what the fuck!
---
A. We're from The Church of Jesus Christ.
B. Oh, the Mormons?
A. That's right. I'm Elder Young and this is Elder White.
B. Well, you two boys can just fuck right off.
A. Ma'am?
B. You heard me. Take that Book of Mormon and shove it so far up your righteous asses that you choke, you soul soliciting pig-fuckers.
---
I don't wanna sound like a queer or nothin', but I'd kinda like to make love to you tonight.
---
A. Excuse me, could you tell me what movie this is?
B. What movie this is? Where have you been, under a rock?
A. No, I'm from Utah.
B. Oh. Sorry.
---
( Answer behind the cut... )

Okay, I'm leaking the screenshot myself. After a few weeks of major code overhaul whenever I have a spare moment, the bleeding edge version of Zyzzyva can now handle multiple lexicons. This allows cool things like the # symbols you see in the screenshot. I just now, about five minutes ago, implemented the final bit of code to make this possible. At this point, most of what remains to be done should be downhill work - making sure I didn't break anything, cleaning up minor issues, making everything pretty, writing documentation, etc.

I hope to release Zyzzyva 1.1.0 within a week or two. That ought to give Texas Sowpods contestants (like me) a fair head start on some Collins study. I expect this version may even make the world lexicon more accessible to any OWL players who are curious about it, since you can easily flip a switch and see what shows up. Are you excited? I am.

Because I know you've all been dying to know the answers to my movie meme quiz, you can find them below. Also, a few bonus questions just because I like these kinds of quizzes. The bonus questions may be a bit harder.

Bonus 1.
A: Where is it?
B: What? The body?
A: The phone. What body?
B: No body. I mean, nobody. There is nobody in the study.

Bonus 2. Rand Peltzer, fantastic ideas for a fantastic world, I make the illogical logical.

Bonus 3. The propulsion system uses nitrogen tetroxide, Rudy. We wanna breathe, not dry clean our lungs.

Bonus 4. No, you said "wet shirt don't break," not "piss shirt bend bar"!

Bonus 5. My cat can eat a whole watermelon!

---

Answers to previous questions:

1. I like all you Navy boys. Every time we've gotta go someplace and fight, you fellas always give us a ride. (A Few Good Men - walterzuey)

2. Do you know what the definition of a hero is? Someone who gets other people killed. You can look it up later. (Serenity - designjunky)

3. You'd never think it. Needing rain so badly. Not in fucking England! (28 Days Later - James V. got this one via a Facebook comment)

4. This one, this one right here. This was my dream, my wish. And it didn't come true. So I'm taking it back. I'm taking them all back. (The Goonies! Corey Feldman! Come on, people!)

5. It's like playing a tennis ball against a brick wall, which can be fun. It can be fun, but it's not a game. (American Pie - chaithedog)

6. You're right, no human being would stack books like this. (Ghostbusters - basophil)

7. Remember how you said your parents use you to get back at each other? Wouldn't I be outstanding in that capacity? (The Breakfast Club - sopraffina, squeegman)

8. First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price? (Contact - quinquennia)

9. I know what stomach cancer looks like. I've seen it, and you don't eat three cheeseburgers a day with french fries when you got it. (The Royal Tenenbaums - cesarsalad)

10. I can tell you with no ego, this is my finest sword. If on your journey you should encounter God, God will be cut. (Kill Bill, Vol. 1 - chaithedog)

11. What is this? A center for ants? How can we be expected to teach children to learn to read if they can't even fit inside the building? (Zoolander - key_lime_guy)

12. The encounter could create a time paradox, the results of which could start a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space-time continuum, and destroy the entire universe! Granted, that's a worst case scenario. The destruction might in fact be very localized, limited to our own galaxy. (Back to the Future Part II - walterzuey)

13. At the beep, please leave your name, number, and a brief justification for the ontological necessity of modern man's existential dilemma, and we'll get back to you. (Reality Bites - squeegman)

14. It's a crystal. Nothing more. But if you turn it this way and look into it, it will show you your dreams. But this is not a gift for an ordinary girl who takes care of a screaming baby. (Labyrinth - sneakyofverb, designjunky)

15. You know, I can remember so much... the feel of the world. Her. She's gone. And the present is trivia, which I scribble down as fucking notes. (Memento - squeegman)

My wife and I have been furiously paying off our credit card balance ever since this happened, and I'm excited to make the announcement when the cards are shredded and the debt is totally gone. Soon, very soon. Yesterday, we humorously got a "special offer" from Bank of America (who has the current balance) for a 1.99% balance transfer rate, which is a better rate than I've seen in a long time. Seems someone is paying attention and wants to keep our business! Too bad, bastards. You die now. Let's blow this thing and go home!

A meme ganked from pretty much everyone:
1. Pick 15 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Fill in the film title once it's guessed.
5. NO GOOGLING / using IMDb search functions.

1. I like all you Navy boys. Every time we've gotta go someplace and fight, you fellas always give us a ride. (A Few Good Men - walterzuey)

2. Do you know what the definition of a hero is? Someone who gets other people killed. You can look it up later. (Serenity - designjunky)

3. You'd never think it. Needing rain so badly. Not in fucking England!

4. This one, this one right here. This was my dream, my wish. And it didn't come true. So I'm taking it back. I'm taking them all back.

5. It's like playing a tennis ball against a brick wall, which can be fun. It can be fun, but it's not a game. (American Pie - chaithedog)

6. You're right, no human being would stack books like this. (Ghostbusters - basophil)

7. Remember how you said your parents use you to get back at each other? Wouldn't I be outstanding in that capacity? (The Breakfast Club - sopraffina, squeegman)

8. First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price? (Contact - quinquennia)

9. I know what stomach cancer looks like. I've seen it, and you don't eat three cheeseburgers a day with french fries when you got it. (The Royal Tenenbaums - cesarsalad)

10. I can tell you with no ego, this is my finest sword. If on your journey you should encounter God, God will be cut. (Kill Bill, Vol. 1 - chaithedog)

11. What is this? A center for ants? How can we be expected to teach children to learn to read if they can't even fit inside the building? (Zoolander - key_lime_guy)

12. The encounter could create a time paradox, the results of which could start a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space-time continuum, and destroy the entire universe! Granted, that's a worst case scenario. The destruction might in fact be very localized, limited to our own galaxy. (Back to the Future Part II - walterzuey)

13. At the beep, please leave your name, number, and a brief justification for the ontological necessity of modern man's existential dilemma, and we'll get back to you. (Reality Bites - squeegman)

14. It's a crystal. Nothing more. But if you turn it this way and look into it, it will show you your dreams. But this is not a gift for an ordinary girl who takes care of a screaming baby. (Labyrinth - sneakyofverb, designjunky)

15. You know, I can remember so much... the feel of the world. Her. She's gone. And the present is trivia, which I scribble down as fucking notes. (Memento - squeegman)

( Hints for the remaining quotes... )