Re: Scrabble, Officially

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 05:53:28 GMT, bill van <billvan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
>In article <76SdnZVbbK81s3banZ2dnUVZ_g-dnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> huey.callison@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
>> jeffinputnam <jeffinputnam@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> > N Jill Marsh wrote:
>> > > jeffinputnam <jeffinputnam@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>> > >> I've been playing Scrabulous on Facebook of late and I'm wondering
>> > >> if there is an "official" electronic Scrabble game. 
>> > > I hope not, playing Scrabulous is stressful enough for me.  I'm
glad
>> > > I didn't play this game as a kid, it makes my head all hurty.
>> > Me too. What kind of words are AA and QI and AR and ETIC and AB and
>> > RIA . I need a scrabble game that plays more like *I* do. Here at the
>> > house we use the MW Collegiate dictionary... like normal people.
 
>> I remember a friend had a computer scrabble game that I think was
>> official, and that ****er pulled all kinds of that 'QI' and 'AR' ****. 
>> So eventually we created a new game, which we called 'Scribble'. It was
>> basically scrabble, but we rearranged the rules a little: you had to
use
>> dictionary words, until the computer cheated, and at that point, you
>> could cheat, with the following qualifiers:
>> 1) It had to look like a word, with vowels and consonants in roughly
the 
>>  places where you'd expect them to be in something that looked like a
word
>> 2) You had to pronounce it, and 
>> 3) You had to define it convincingly. 
>> This is how we determined that 'quijybo' is a game played in the south
>> sahara with rocks and a bucket, and 'zidjiots' are the little metal 
>> spring-clips that hold wind****eld wipers on. (Triple word score on that

>> ****er, too!) And, you'd put the word in, and the computer would say 
>> "That doesn't look like a word. Are you sure?", and we'd say "If 'QI'
is 
>> a word, you're goddamn right that 'QUIJYBO' is a word, you piece of 
>> ****", and have another beer. And it would dutifully add QUIJYBO to the

>> dictionary. So, over time, the dictionary the computer was using got 
>> more and more surreal, and the words got more and more creative.

>I couldn't play a game in which the rules can be changed as you go. That 
>would be like real life, and surely we play games to get away from that.

It's like the card game TEGWAR, The Endless Game Without Any Rules. No
matter what card the dupe plays he is trumped by a rule made up at
that moment. 

Les