OOGENY takes the hammer in front, and OOGAMY does not. We care about how animals develop; we don't care who they're marrying.

(A real post about Buffalo, which was quite coolified, will follow. Prob tomorrow.)

This has been a fabulous trip to New York so far. I have one day left, and I'm spending it at a variety of gatherings catching up with friends. I'll give a detailed post when I get home, because I'm a little too exhausted to even try to process everything so far.

And holy fuck, I'm turning 29 in three days.

Nuts, I say. Nuts.

When I got my first job post-college at the Manhattan D.A.'s office, my parents were so proud of me.  They didn't care that the pay sucked because they thought the job was noble, but I was living in the city, and three weeks' pay couldn't pay for my rent.  So, my dad sent me a "supplement" every month, which included a generous grocery bonus.  As frugal as my mom has always been, the thought of my being in a supermarket and not getting what I wanted was "intolerably depressing" to my dad, so they encouraged me to buy quality regardless of price.  I thought about that tonight as I was shopping at Whole Paycheck. There were some gorgeous looking Rainier cherries (the yellow and red ones) and organic honeydew.  I was about to get some of each until I saw that 1/2 of one melon was - I'm not kidding - $5.20, and the cherries were $12.99 a pound.  Out loud in the middle of the produce aisle, I said, "Are you fucking kiddin' me?"  For half a melon?  The pre-measured bag of cherries would have been over twenty bucks.  Ugh.  I thought about what my dad had said, but no, I couldn't bring myself to do it.  So instead I settled for another $5.00 papaya (at least it was for a whole papaya), and some Marcona almonds (Connie introduced me to these about five years ago, and they're my favorite), which were a steal at $12.99.

So, I left with 2 small bags of groceries - enough for tonight's dinner and tomorrow's lunch only - for way too much.  The good thing is that I'm eating smaller portions as a result.

Yes, I realize this post is very mundane. . . guess I'm becoming a boring hausfrau. . .
 

Why can't there be a nice, simple, easy way to get from my house to Roseville without a car?

Yeesh.

I haven't yet gotten a reply from anyone at torontotourism.com regarding a playing area for my someday tournament. Possibly not having a date is the problem. The hotel I stayed at for my micro honeymoon did reply though, and she said there was a Scrabble event being held there in June. Huh? Could this be the same hotel that Can-Am will be at? Must investigate.

EGADS! It IS the same hotel! How completely advantageous for me! I have a contact there already, and now I can go scope out the playing area, and and and this will probably make it a lot easier to set things up at that venue. Yay!

On the blog front, I am going to unfriend you here if I have you friended on the other journal. I don't see the need to read people's entries twice, so don't have a cow, man. You're still loved. Or at least liked and appreciated. :)

and vista fought with me until the bitter end. first, it wouldn't let me back up my large music folder. the file transfers kept failing because of bizarre reasons and it would suddenly disconnect the firewire drive. i had to basically back it up folder by folder over the last two days. finally, i put in the ubuntu CD, and tried to give vista another chance by setting up a dual-boot scheme. i start partitioning the drive -- and it gets stuck at 0% for about an hour. all right, screw you vista, i'm destroying you entirely! and my computer didn't come with vista backup disks (it tells me i can burn my own, and it requires about 25 CDs or 7 DVDs --- WHAT THE HELL???). so good riddance.

ah linux how i've missed you.

4s = 100% 69 seconds left (13th place as of 2:00pm EDT)
5s = 100% 21 seconds left (7th place as of 2:00pm EDT)

In case anyone finds this kind of stuff useful, (possibly cromulentally who is working on his own Scrabble software) here's a bingo list (legal ones only) starting September 10th 2007, of all my ( Scrabulous games on Facebook: )

it's sunday. i played three games at club thursday, and haven't played a live game since. that's only two days. so why do i feel this huge gaping need to play a live game? maybe it's because club is sundays in chicago, and i'm not going. or maybe it's because i've played a minimum of around six games just about every weekend since january. addiction is a powerful thing.

Let's have an easy one for a lazy Sunday.

a. (Easy). Chicken McNuggets used to be (and still are, for all I know) packaged in quantities of 6, 9, and 20. What's the largest number of Chicken McNuggets that you cannot order?

b. (Pretty easy). Say that McNuggets come in quantities of a and b, where a and b are relatively prime (i.e., share no factor greater than 1). What's the largest number of McNuggets you cannot order?

c. (Unsolved, I think). What can you say in the general case where McNuggets come in quantities of a, b, and c?

Breaking up the monotony of CT scans on drunks who crash their cars and misdiagnosed cases of appendicitis was this little gem......

Examination: Right knee x-ray, four views.
Indication: Knee pain, gored by buffalo last month.

Well, at least I found it insanely funny at the time.

And the buffalo must've been a total pussy. No fracture or nothing.

xpmorgan, I need a ruling:



I found the alphabetically earlier bingo. I probably would have won even without the SOUVLAKI rule, but we'll never know for sure, because with a 390-354 lead and one tile left in the bag, I accidentally knocked the board over (there was basically no way he was going to win though).

I'm rather shocked I didn't know this until last night: ETATIST doesn't take an S. Not even in SOWPODS. Not only that, it is the ONLY seven or eight ending in -IST in OWL2 that doesn't take an S. (The Frenchier SOWPODS form ETATISTE# does take an S.) I can see absolutely no reason etatist wouldn't take an S - what else would you call someone who advocates etatism? But dictionary.com also lists etatist that way. Google brings up just a few hits for ETATISTS*, but it's not a common word to begin with. Strange...

Check this out:

Blanks: 9 for me, 3 for opponents
Bingos: 17 for me, 6 for opponents
Spread: +455, or about 76 points to the good per game

What do you think my record was?

( drumroll please )

Talk at club Thursday, after the games, centered on poker, and specifically a show called Poker After Dark.
"I've never seen it," I say. "I must not get that network."
"It's on NBC," tailskid tells me.
"You have to get NBC, don't you," Knappster says.
Well, yes, I do get NBC. Only come to find out the Detroit affiliate doesn't carry the program, choosing to fill the 2 a.m. time slot with 'paid programming.'

Alas, I had to check things out on YouTube. It was worth it, as I found what has to be one of the best five minute segments in televised poker history.

Am I to understand that people are having their babies' ears pierced these
days? Is this a recent trend or have I just never noticed?

"And there's a change-up from Zito. Oh, wait -- it's at 84. Maybe a fastball."

I got my $50 entry fee back (Corny is generous, paying down to 3rd out of 10 people) and I lose .82 rating points. I hope that ends up being 0.

I started off very poorly. For some reason I had trouble getting started, and went 1-2 my first 3 games. I went 4-1 my last 5 games, and I think I could have gone 7-1 if I was sharp all day.

My first game I saw DUVET(IN)ES instantly. I mean if you have DUVET on your rack it is often the right play, and with IN on the board it doesn't take much to keep going with it. However, I missed 3x3 ARSENITE. I am weak on the 5 anagram 1 point tile bingos like that, the alphagrams all look the same and I was low on time. I saw TRAINEES, RESINATE, STEARINE, but a 3x3 was needed to win. ARENITES I also didn't see but that would not have won.

My third game I was also low on time, and I had a choice of two 30 points plays. My tracking was sloppy and I picked the play that left 2 in the bag; I needed to pick the one that left 3 in the bag but blocked the better bingo spot for ALMONER. He had just bingoed, and I didn't have time to see how bingo prone the bag was even though the power tiles were gone. He apologized for "lucking" his way to a win at the end with a bingo/bango but if I did due diligence I would have won, and he did what he had to do.

My other loss was game 7, where Eric has been improving. I would have won that against a 1600 player. He held OUTVIES for a minute which baffled me, because he is hitting 10,000 prob 8s.

The other 5 games I tracked well enough, used due diligence when I was winning, and came back when I was behind.

Joe J played the cool CRUZIERO*, but spelled it wrong. I hooked an S onto it, he held it, but let it go. CRUZEIRO is the spelling, at least I am now flubbing up more advanced E before I words. I won the game so it worked out. Joe also had CLAQUEUR in another game he almost played, that would have been extra sweet.

Jason "Killer" Keller continued his winning streak, but this time he only went 7-1. He is on the Whitmarsh path of expert.

Bingos, not a big bingo tourney:( Read more... )