This is not my blog.

I wish I could say my prolonged absence from blogging has been all one thing but it really has been a combination. Right now I'm studying Scrabble words for my big tournament this weekend in Charlotte (it will be the Eastern Regional Championship and it's huge). Three of the big guys (featured in the movie Word Wars) who play Scrabble will be there: Marlon Hill, "G.I." Joel Sherman, and the famous Joe Edley (who took a job as a night watchman to memorize the entire Scrabble word list). So far this tournament has 98 people registered and will likely far exceed 100 making it the biggest tournament I've been to and we will be playing a whopping 29 games in 3 days (though some will be doing 34 with an early bird Friday night)! So get this ... that's 12 hours of Scrabble on Saturday, 12 hours of Scrabble on Sunday, and 5 hours of Scrabble on Monday. It will be my most to date having thought I was badass for doing 19 games in 2 days (10 Sat./9 Sun.) in Lexington. I don't know exactly how I will get through but it will be similiar to the second day of the Bar Exam where we had to slog through 200 multiple choice questions in 6 hours (3 hours at a time). The questions were tricky but the hard part was managing your time and not getting brain blitzed which turned it into an endurance contest where you had to answer those questions you could quickly and save time for the longer and more involved questions since you had an average of 1.8 minutes per question with some questions taking much longer than that.

So I am presently studying words ... specifically the 1,015 3-letter Scrabble words ... in anticipation for this tournament so that I can regain the ratings points that I lost at Cleveland. I'm using index cards to get the ones that are most troublesome but above and to the right you can see some of the methods that one of my work friends has been using ever since I got him hooked on Scrabble a few months ago. Actually, it was a graudal process and he came along slowly but now I have him coming to Scrabble club regularly and I see him walking around trying to learn these words in between our pickup games at our favorite local Mexican restaurant. These words are just weird and tough to learn like: AZO, EME, HIE, KOP, NTH, POH, TUI, VUG, and YOK. Then trying to keep in mind which ones take an S at the end and which don't is another skill I'm trying to build at the same time as that can make the difference on where you can hook your bingo for the 50 bonus points. This is my first real attempt to tackle the word list and it's hard! Oh well, I'll do the best I can in the next couple of days and will throw myself into it on Saturday. I'm taking Friday off so I can be rested and can travel at a decent time.

If you're wondering what is going on in his picture it is more about indoctrination. Here the Director of our new Huntington Club is taking a moment at a recent club meeting to invite two people who were just playing a regular game of Scrabble to think about joining the 10 or so of us who were playing club Scrabble that day. They politely declined but who knows if they may decide to give it a try some time. I'm already working on indoctrinating another work friend and it's coming along nicely so far. However, I admit that I've been away from here for too long and that I need to get back to my regular posts. I have gotten out of a lot of habits lately that I need to work on getting back to such as blogging, exercising, and practicing my clarinet. I have gotten into some new habits though. I am now on Facebook if any of you want to try to find me where I've been doing a better job of keeping up with things. I've also been playing this new online strategy-political game pretty heavily too ... but it's starting to lose its luster. So don't count me out ... I'll be back ... really.

Check out all of my Scrabble posts here or from my blog's sidebar.

Labels: scrabble

Well, the day has finally come ... yes ... I've returned to blogging I think. I didn't really mean to be away this long. I've just been very busy and I've found a few distractions like playing Scrabble with friends, hanging out with friends, working, and doing assorted other things. In fact, I've been working on developing Scrabble minions to bring into my club and so far my count is up to 3 with a possible 4th on the way (who was making fun of me at a local Asian restaurant when I broke out my Scrabble bag and all of my accessories had Asian themed patterns on their covers and cases). To a certain extent too I've found that I've not been motivated as much lately as I had been to blog. I mean, you get out of the habit and then it just sort of creeps away. Well, hopefully this will be my return on a consistent basis. I've had lots of requests and I do appreciate that, truly.

So what has been up with me? Well, I had a nice birthday recently with my family at the local habatchi restaurant. They had never been to one of those and my nephews especially loved it as did my sister and parents. The eldest nephew requested that he come there for his birthday next month too. It was very cute and the two boys fiddled with chopsticks and eventually got into chopstick sword fights. I had many friends who wished me well for my birthday and helped me to celebrate it in various ways. I felt very accepted and at home. I got a lot of neat things for my birthday but my favorites were a nice clock radio for my iPhone from my sister, a turkey call from a work friend, and several nice dinners. I didn't receive my Dalai Lama Insights calendar this year so I'm going to have to go off of the quotes that I liked from last year and dig through the box of them again if I start running out. I did get a nifty Scrabble calendar that I think I'm going to keep in my car so that I can tear off a few of the puzzles when I need something to do and can practice my skills. I'm doing another big Scrabble tournament next month and will need to get ready for 27 games in 3 days!

That's something that has been nice lately. Work has been very stressful for various reasons. I had 32 clients last week. There are months I only have 50-60 and I had 32 in a single week! That's insane (no pun intended). Some of the interviews are just so odd as I recently found myself in a couple of "minimal encouragers" conversations. Minimal encourages are those little things you say that are designed to keep a person talking without really giving any specific input or direction to the tale they are telling. I use a modified list of these for psychotic patients and especially the ones who are like a tv flipping channels with their rapid topic jobs and disconnected thoughts. I do a lot of "uh huh", "yeah", "then what", "oh yeah", "go on", etc. So I'm the king of minimal encouragers and getting my clients to open up and talk to me. The crisis workers seem to appreciate that as do the psychologists which makes me wonder if I'm doing my job right sometimes. In any event, my goal is always to serve the needs and wants of my clients and that is what I try to do.

I had a nice New Year with my good friend who runs his own ambulance service in Ohio that I sometimes blog about. He took me to this nice little bar in Ironton, OH where a really good band was playing and half the population of sleepy Ironton seemed to be there (well, maybe not half ... the bar was tiny). Still, my generous friend ended up picking up the tab of half the bar for the 5 or so hours we spent there and the bar ended up severely undercharging him so I guess that it's a relationship that works out. I found myself talking to a cute law student for part of the evening who was actually impressed by my D.C. Bar card (since she hopes to practice in D.C.). Talk about random encounters. I spent most of the evening with the friends and co-workers of my friend and we had a great time.

This friend of mine even managed to get himself tickets to go see Obama's Inauguration yesterday and he wrote to me saying "it was one of the most moving moments of my life" which is high praise for him since he doesn't often talk like that as it takes a lot to impress him. One of my co-workers found some comfort in this quote by President Obama yesterday. "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers." He commented that "it is good to be included for the first time in my memory." I have to say that he seems to be right. I hope that we see things turn around now that President Obama is in office (I love saying that name too). He has already called to close the POW prison in Cuba by requiring the government to show habeus corpus (or something like that) ... I just caught it quickly in the news. Anyway, I'm glad that the day went off without a hitch though I saw on the news today that the President did the oath again because some asshole Republicans were trying to say he wasn't officially President since the Chief Justice botched the oath reading. Sigh.

Speaking of President Obama ... I'm going to be working on my own version of change and feel like I already am, which is part of my odd mood lately I think. I'll start with a joke (a classic).

A Buddhist monk walks up to a hot dog vendor and says "make me one with everything." After paying for the hot dog and waiting for his change the vendor said "change must come from within."

So change ... that's what I'm looking at. I feel like I'm already in fluxe and I don't know where it will lead. I'm coming up on 2 years at my job and I still like it and still feel satisfied with it ... but I'm starting to get tired and I don't know if I can keep it up for another full year or not. I still haven't made much progress toward simplifying my life by throwing out a lot of non-essential things and so I keep putting off dealing with my excessive clutter. The best change that I feel is that I'm finding richer relationships with my friends which had been a bit hollow before now. However I need to also watch out about deriving my happiness from attachments and look at it as a process ... as I so frequently do.

Thanks for reading folks ... here's to2009!

Labels: buddhism, scrabble, stories

Well, I got back to the pool this week. I hadn't swam for months and it felt good. What actually got me back there was that I stayed overnight with my sister this weekend and we played games on her Wii and I played Guitar Hero III with her husband on his PS3 (both were loads of fun too). She had said that I would be sore in my legs and I said probably not because I was a runner (I still barely maintain my running) and I was right ... about the legs ... she was right about everything else. My shoulders and arms have been sore from playing the Wii and guitar hero so that told me it was time to get back in the water and work those kinks out. I missed running both Monday morning and Wednesday. Actually, Monday I chose to swim instead and today I slept in after being out late last night for a ER hearing. Still, I've been only getting to the gym 2-3 times per week and that clearly has to change. I need to get into my exercise regime again so that I can feel better, fit into my clothing nicer, and just be healthier. While it's such a cliche to make a resolutions around this time ... well ... here is my cliche.

Also, Happy New Year to everyone!

Labels: exercise

So Christmas 2008 has come and gone and I've been bad about blogging. It was very nice to be home again and to have my own sort of Christmas Story moments. One of them was our turkey disaster this time ... in fact you can see our Christmas turkey right here (it was chicken nuggets and chicken wings). Dad cooked the turkey but somehow it came out looking all dark and nasty ... we're not sure if it was just a bad turkey or if it was cooked wrong (here is a picture). As far as how things went, well I spent Christmas Eve with my sister and nephews and woke up with them on Christmas morning for their gift giving and all of that. We put together toys the night before and the day of Christmas and then we headed to my parents for more merriment.

I got some very nice things for Christmas this year. The coolest thing that I received was this framed WV State Seal that mom found at a thrift shop somewhere. I also received an itunes gift card; two boxes of clarinet reeds (prompting my sister to compare me to Squidward of SpongeBob fame); some books; the special edition dvds of one of my favorite movies ... The Nightmare Before Christmas; several Star Wars and Star Trek Christmas ornaments (prompting the comment of what I was going to do with them ... to which I groped and replied "Buddhamas!"); some cool books; and a 3 month subscription to Audible.com! Of course, my older nephew got one of the coolest things this Christmas ... he got the new Millenium Falcon that is so much cooler than the one that I had at his age!

All in all a great time was had by everyone and I really enjoyed myself and spend the next several days visiting lots of friends and family and having a good time in general while having 4 and half days off!


P.S. I recently learned that turkey has gotten a bad rap about causing people to be sleeping for Thanksgiving and Christmas. The popular belief is that the amino acid tryptophan cases the drowsiness that we all have experienced on a day when we eat turkey like Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, I've recently heard that the real reason for the drowsiness has more to do with the fact that the meal that the average person consumes for such a holiday dinner contains as much fat and carbohydrates as 6 BigMacs and that is the real cause of the drowsiness. That is courtesy of the folks at the Stuff You Should Know podcast.

Labels: myphotos, xmas

Tonight I'm at my sisters helping as she and the BIL worked to get presents wrapped and toys put together for the nephews while "A Christmas Story" plays in the background on the TBS marathon. I know I've been a little curmudgeonly lately but tonight is a little different. My sister forced me to come over to be part of this because I think she knows that this is one of the biggest things to be thankful for in the last year - the chance to know my nephews and for them to know me in a way that wasn't possible while I was living in Ohio.

So here I am, about to turn in for the night, and looking forward to seeing what Santa brings to everyone tomorrow. I didn't ask for much and didn't buy much this year either so I will enjoy being a spectator. I got my sister's family season passes to Camden Park amusement park again this year (I love gifts people get to use throughout the year), I got dad a renewal of his AAA+ membership, I got mom a new teddy bear price guide and got hem both that Onyx Scrabble set I blogged about earlier. I really hope they all enjoy those things. Till tomorrow.


-- Post From My iPhone

Labels: stories, xmas

Okay. Y'all have been waiting for it all year I can just tell. So far this Christmas I've avoided it but I just can't avoid it any longer. Prepare yourselves for ... a CHRISTMAS RANT.

Ok, honestly it's not as bad as that. I guess that it started with my having to make a call to one of my credit cards this week. I had missed my payment by a day because the due date was a freakin' Sunday last month and I hadn't realized it until the day it was due and their computer wouldn't post it. Now they're trying to default my account! So I was calling to try to get that resolved (which it still isn't) and while I'm on hold with the evil credit card company I'm having to listen to Christmas music. Not that I mind Christmas music ... actually I enjoy it ... but not while I'm on the phone with my credit card company. I mean, honestly, is that ever going to be a pleasant call? Have you ever had to call your credit card company unless something was wrong? So putting Christmas music on top of that was like ... well ... I don't know what ... maybe putting your plastic Santa lawn decoration over that spot in the yard where the septic tank overflows (if I had a septic tank ... or a plastic Santa)?

But wait, that's not really my rant. So I was going around getting some things last week when I witnessed the following exchange take place between a beleaguered store clerk and a pushy patron who was trying to fight as a soldier in the "War on Christmas" (which is this thing conjured up by people who like to watch crap like FOX News).

Underpaid Stressed-out Store Clerk: That will be x dollars.
Pushy Patron: Ok
USSC: Happy Holidays.
PP: (pause) You mean MERRY CHRISTMAS! (somewhat indignantly)
USSC: Huh?
PP: (self righteous) You said Happy Holidays ... I just wanted to remind you that it's Christmas ... Merry Christmas!
USSC: Okay.
PP: MERRY CHRISTMAS! (leaving)
USSC: Bye. (eye roll at me as I approach smiling at her while she looks like she's ready for Christmas to be over)

Yes, this was a Christmas Crusader as I like to think of them ... going out and making sure that Christmas is protected from the ravages of marginalization and secularism. Wait ... I almost feel like I've written about this before ... hmmm ... I sort of did with my meaning of Christmas post last year and my putting the "X" in Xmas post as well ... but this was different somehow ... this was just ... ugly. What was so ugly about it was the way that the patron was being so ... well ... unChristian in her chastisement of the store clerk who was either unaware of what she had said or was using a non-denominational pleasantry that would apply to most or all customers. And the thing is that I've seen this before and heard others tell about it too. Shoppers are feeling both the need and the right to berate a store employee over their meaning of their holiday to the exclusion of all others. It all reminds me of the South Park song Merry Fucking Christmas that Mr. Garrison sings in the Mr. Hankey singalong special (lyrics).



I mean, what if I was Jewish and I carried on like that because someone wished me Merry Christmas? I've never seen such a thing though I wouldn't doubt that it has happened. I work with an attorney who is Jewish and I'm thankful that he is because when I got a call at 8am this morning from the Juvenile Court for a hearing I said "I'm not on call again till Sunday" because my co-worker picked up the holiday so the rest of us could have that time off (especially me since I do the job all the time and it's our only on-call position). In fact, the other day he and I were walking together and someone wished us both Merry Christmas. I gave him a glance and he laughed about it - no righteous indignation and the person who had done the wishing never gave it a second thought. Nobody said anything because it was still a pleasant thought to share and that was the spirit in which it was offered.

So ever since I saw this interaction I've been making a point to wish people Merry Xmas in text messages and other forms of written communication (it would sound weird to say "Merry Exmas"). I've yet to draw someone into the trap of trying to tell me that the "X" is replacing Jesus and that's probably for the best. I don't feel like throwing down and getting all righteous in telling them that's not where it came from but that it came from The Church itself. Really, I haven't been saying Merry Christmas as much this year as I did last year but that's not because I'm getting all weird on Christmas. I'm just not going to go the route of referring to Christmas as Buddhamas or something stupid like that (actually, they were joking about that on this weeks episode of Zen Is Stupid).

So what is the solution to all of this silliness? JDB had posted a great article about how the State Capitol in Olympia, Washington went out of its way to accommodate everybody and has ended up making everyone upset in the process. That is largely what shook these thoughts out of my head today when I read it. First it was a request to have a "Christmas" tree to replace the "Holiday" tree (protested by a Republican), then it was a menorah, then a creche, and then it was opened up and the atheists tipped their apple cart with their own message:

At this season of the Winter Solstice, may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.

Ouch. My favorite part of the story is that the Westboro Baptists (you know ... the "God Hates Fags" sign wavers) want the message "Sanata Claus will take you to Hell" posted at the Capitol. You can catch them singing this cute little message in a new video which features signs about how Santa is a Fag and how God Hates Xmas. There is also a movement by another group to include a Festivus Pole! Oy vey! And what started all of this? It was a pushy guy who wanted to re-insert his beliefs to be endorsed by the state because he couldn't handle hearing about a "holiday tree." All that's missing from this debacle is the Flying Spaghetti Monster and His noodly appendage this FSmas.



Well, that's the end of my rant. I thought I had a concluding point but I lost it somewhere along the way. Oh wait ... I know what it was. It was that I've never seen the Christmas season used as such a weapon as it seems to be used by its biggest supporters now. It really marks the sign of sad times to me ... and while I'm sure that there are plenty of folks who are sad at not being able to have their religious messages plastered everywhere this backlash is rather unChristian as I understood that term when I was growing up in a church.

In any event, have a pleasant, peaceful, and safe holiday season. I don't know which ones that the readers of my blog will be celebrating so I wish pleasant greetings on all of you and hope that you each get what you want ... as long as it doesn't piss me off.

You know me ... always pushing the envelope ... but in a fairly harmless way. ;-)

Labels: rants, religion, stories, xmas

Thank you all of you who read my blog. It's funny just how often that I run into someone who tells me that they read my blog. I'm always surprised too because I see the hits each day on Sitemeter (even on days I don't post) and I just figure that they are random or that they're the same group of people but the number of people who have come up to me in the last several months to tell me that they read my musings here astounds me. When I was visiting with family over Thanksgiving I was told by not one ... but two of my cousins that they read my blog. I had no idea and didn't quite know what to say. But I guess that I'm doing something right or they wouldn't have told me.

It's funny how that sort of thing happens a lot. I would never have joined up with the Scrabble Club if it wasn't for one of the members seeing me one day and telling me that she likes my blog. Upon further inquiry she told me about the Scrabble club which I didn't even know existed and then I showed up and ... well ... it has given me lots of good times, good friends, and blog fodder. Someone else who reads my blog saw my post about watching the film Kinsey and offered to have me take the Kinsey survey that he is so notorious for (which I did and it was very interesting). I've had lots of other good interactions where I've gotten emails of support and encouragement out of the blue and one person who even wanted to send me a book to help me get through the feelings I was having about my divorce and starting my new life.

These are the things that have really made blogging interesting and worth it. When someone asks why someone would want to blog I say that it's a very personal decision and everyone does it for different reasons. I've talked about my reasons here ad nauseum so I won't go into it again. I like the feeling of being connected to something greater and to contributing some small thing to the various people who find my writings interesting enough to read, ponder, and occasionally talk to me about. And every time that someone does tell me about reading my blog it still surprises me for some reason as I just don't think that most things I write here are very important or interesting to most people except for me.

I love getting comments but not everyone is the comment sort of person and I can't blame them because I've gotten so bad about reading other people's blogs that I used to follow regularly that I feel terrible about it. I guess that when things got busy I just gave all of that up to pursue my own selfish interests in blogging without spreading the love. I need to get back to reading some of my favorite bloggers regularly because they write good stuff and they are compelled to come here and read mine so I feel like I owe it to them. I will try to get better. Honest.

Well, back to the pre-Christmas hoopla. I feel so disconnected from that this year for some reason. Well, partly because things have been sort of emotionally hard for me lately for various reasons. I didn't get my Christmas cards out this year (or written) and I'm wondering now if I will do them. I've only received half a dozen cards this year despite sending out two dozen or so last year. Not that you send cards with the idea of wanting to get return cards ... but I guess I just don't feel like I have much to report so I've drug my feet to the point that if I do send them out it would probably just be to a few folks now. We'll see since I have 5 days off coming up starting Wednesday (and that will be nice). Thanks for reading everybody and I'll post more things later this week!

Labels: misc, stories, xmas

I saw this when I was driving around the other day. Somehow it seems to me that the maker of this sticker has missed something ... like the reason why a tree hugger would hug trees in the first place for instance. Still, it's a funny sticker which is why it is here.

Labels: signs

Yesterday I had my first trial in Magistrate Court since I was with Legal Aid doing eviction court so many years ago (well ... 8) when I wasn't even out of law school yet. I wasn't expecting to go to trial, I was expecting to work something out but I suppose I should have figured that since I had worked on this case back in September when I was covering for one of our Mag Ct. guys. I was requested by our client to keep working on the case and ... well ... it went to trial ... and we lost. The silver lining in the cloud is that the Magistrate didn't seem to find the other side all that credible and levied a whopping fine of $1.47 which was something that my colleagues found amusing but my client did not since it was still a "guilty" ruling. I didn't quite know what to say other than following up with the Prosecutor and the Magistrate later to ask them if I had done an okay job. They both said that I had. It really was like riding a bike again and it's not like I'm not in court every day with my other court ... it's just a different kind of court with different standards of evidence and procedure.

Still, today I ended up filling in for another Defender who had to be absent. I did 8 cases between the morning and the afternoon and I made a lot of clients happy in my representation with them. Even my client from yesterday wasn't upset with me as we talked after the hearing and again today about the case. Today, however, I had a bunch of cases where either a material witness didn't show up for the state or where my guy just wanted to get things over with and wanted to make a plea. I look at pleas like I do my mental health court, if you give a client the information that they need then they can make informed consent about what they want. If my client wants to get things wrapped up and not drag them out then fine, I'll do what I can to bargain things down since that saves the Prosecutor time and work having to prepare it for trial or have one more thing on their calendar down the road. I had several of those today and it felt good to help people navigate the system.

I finished the day with a few late cases in my court and by then I was drained. I've said before how Magistrate Court is a lot like a scavenger hunt of finding people, finding information, talking to the cop, talking to the Prosecutor, talking to the judge, talking to your client again and then tracking down another client at the same time to do the same things. The interactions are all very brief ... like a bird flitting around at a bird feeder. Then there is my court where the interactions are intense and where you follow one case from the start to the finish and you do all of the steps of a 3-9 month process in Mag. Ct. in a manner of 30 minutes to 2 hours. Needless to say, those two cases today just wiped me out and I was glad not to have any nighttime hearings. Still, it was a good day for me both personally and professionally. It feels good to have some new skills and to help people in a slightly different way.

Labels: law

I've had a hard time getting into Christmas this year. I guess that I've just been moody and that's to be expected from me. First, Christmas has really crept up on me and second I'm going through a lot of transitions again in my personal life. I go back and forth like that I suppose but this Christmas has been sort of blah for me so far. Usually I enjoy the season a bit more though and looking back at all of my previous Christmas posts I was a little Christmas-focused last year at this time as far as the blog goes. Typically I'm making references to the "happy holidays" police, folks trying to hijack the meaning of Christmas or misrepresent the origins of modern Christmas traditions, or those who are on the war path against their misunderstanding of what the "X" means in Xmas. All of those folks still exist but I don't have the motivation to rant about it. I had thought about doing an update to my favorite ornaments theme though.

I had my Christmas band concert with my aunt, cousin, college roommate and assorted other buds last weekend. I'm doing another one with the Shriner Band this Thursday where they asked to borrow some clarinets to play their 30 Christmas marches (most involving "Jingle Bells" in some form). It should be fun, they're playing at a nursing home and making old people happy seems like a good Christmas deed. I've taken care of most of my Christmas gifts for this season (though it seems like I've forgotten something) and I haven't even thought about Christmas cards (which probably won't get done this year). I need to figure something out for office gifts since I did those last year but I don't know what. I certainly want their work to be appreciated even though they don't do all that much for me at the moment due to the lack of paperwork my job creates ... though that may change since I'm thinking of moving into other areas of the office. I broke out my favorite Christmas dvds and have been watching Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas a lot as it is one of my favorites. Oh well, time for me to find something else to do ... like listen to my favorite Christmas episodes of This American Life ... thanks for reading.

Labels: arts, xmas

My list of Christmas related posts (as comprehensive as I could make it with minimal effort)

- lamp! ... and Christmas (12/11/08)
- a star wars nativity... (12/29/07)
- christmas articles... (12/27/07)
- happy boxing day ... the gift of scroogle (12/26/07)
- Christmas 2007... (12/25/07)
- a very jawa christmas to all! (12/25/07)
- Christmas house... (12/24/07)
- favorite ornaments ... part five (12/24/07)
- favorite ornaments ... part four (12/22/07)
- Christmas sales slump? (12/22/07)
- Let's Have A Patrick Swayze Christmas... (12/22/07)
- hitler youth frosty? (12/21/07)
- some Freudian Christmas humor... (12/21/07)
- favorite ornaments ... part three (12/21/07)
- favorite ornaments ... part two (12/20/07)
- finding the petals ... (12/19/07)
- worst christmas movies or shows... (12/19/07)
- wvu grinch (12/18/07)
- Zuzu's petals... (12/18/07)
- the season of giving ... at the office (12/18/07)
- a special ornament... (12/18/07)
- electric Claus and the meaning of Christmas... (12/18/07)
- favorite ornaments ... part one (12/16/07)
- night before Christmas ... christian version? (12/15/07)
- the boon and bane of gift cards... (12/14/07)
- the counter of misfit returns (12/13/07)
- my favorite Christmas dvds (12/13/07)
- nativity vandalism... (12/12/07)
- buying Christmas trees on-line? (12/12/07)
- filters and bulbs (12/10/07)
- the Christmas concert... (12/9/07)
- talkin' blogging and christmas cards (12/9/07)
- holiday music cd rotation... (12/7/07)
- favorite christmas card decos... (12/6/07)
- new decoration... (12/3/07)
- the week of the Christmas concert... (12/3/07)
- twas the night before the backyard brawl... (11/29/07)
- office holiday decor ... (11/28/07)
- band practice ... gearing up for Christmas (11/25/07)
- black friday / cyber monday 2007 (11/24/07)
- another practice ... another hat ... (11/18/07)
- putting the X in Xmas? (11/17/07)
- future-proof your hogmanay (1/3/07)
- Pachelbel rantings... (12/27/06)
- merry xmas ... (12/23/06)
- Rudolph did what? (12/15/06)
- SantaLand and TAL Christmas Episodes... (12/14/06)
- Christmas and commerce ... (12/6/06)

That's all of them ... I think ...

Labels: xmas

I went to see the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008 version) this weekend and have a lot of thoughts about it. So what better place to discuss them than here? Ever since I've been seeing the trailers I've wondered if they were going to screw up this classic tale of golden age sci-fi ahead of its time. Most of the people who I've heard talk about it were worried about Keanu Reeves and his "flat acting" and how people really seem to hate him for that. Well, I have my personal opinions about Keanu. Whether he can act or not I think that many of his roles call for that flat affect that he uses. The Matix films were of the cyberpunk genre and that is a classic characterization and in this film he plays Klaatu ... an alien who doesn't understand the human race or our world ... so why wouldn't he be flat? So I wasn't that worried about Keanu ... but the tipping point for me was that, even if the movie sucked, it would have the very lovely Jennifer Connelly in it ... bonus!

As it turned out, I really enjoyed the film. I went with my dad, who introduced me to the original 1951 film by the same name, and I think that I liked it a little better than he did. Beyond the CGI animations and the more action-packed scenes I think that the basic message of the original film was preserved and not over-stated as Dad would have preferred ... of course ... part of that is stylistic ... the 1951 film was made in the era where you still had a final card at the end stating "THE END" just in case you missed it. One of the interesting things to me was that the build up to this film was much like the build up to the 1951 film and each was a bit of a bait and switch ... more so in the 1951 version though. This is the poster that advertised the original film The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 Golden Globe Winner) in an era when most sci-fi films were of the classic "B" movie variety with cheesy special effects and horrid plot lines. Then came this movie with it's cold war disarmament message and some controversial themes that was very light on the raping and pillaging of aliens and very heavy on talking and thinking about things.

There were many things that made the 1951 TDESS very different from other movies of the time. This was one of the first times that a sci-fi movie used a musical score that was customized to the film to add to the dramatic effect. Something else noteworthy is that the female lead is a single mother without any real explanation for her status in a time when such things were very looked down upon and she ran all over town with this strange alien man in a faily independent way against the advice of her jerkish boyfriend. There are other landmarks that make this film one that would serve as a great influence for many years to come and I think that many of those were preserved by the 2008 version. Jennifer Connelly is a single mother of an interracial child in a modern twist on the dynamic discussed above. In the 2008 version there is more explanation of her status and, unfortunately, the child is quite annoying in the 2008 version (though I've seen some critics praise him as the only good thing).

While the message, and manner of delivery of said message, varies from the 1951 to the 2008 film I think that the message is essentially the same thing. There are more explosions in this film and there is more menacing but I think that we are just so used to seeing a CGI spectacle when we go to the movies that it was to be expected. I'm just glad that they didn't manage to completely ruin the original premise of the 1951 film and I can live with the changes that were made and I think that all of the actors did a very good job in their respective roles. For what it's worth, I would recommend this film and think that it was 2 hours well spent. Just for fun, go read the synopsis of the original short story that inspired both films: Farewell to the Master by Harry Bates (1940).

Labels: reviews

I found myself proselytizing about Scrabble while standing in Books a Million yesterday. This is a scene that is becoming all too common with me lately but let me explain. See, a few months ago I got an email out of the blue from someone asking me my opinion about the Onyx Edition of Scrabble since that is the version that I play with. This person had the chance to get a slightly used Onyx Edition of the game or one of the new Diamond Anniversary Deluxe Editions (reviewed here by our club director). I suggested that they should jump on the Onyx Edition because it is such a sturdy board made of heavy wood and a very sturdy grid for the tiles where the Diamond Anniversary Edition ... while being very nice ... just won't stand up as long to wear and tear. So these thoughts were on my mind when I noticed several weeks ago that Books a Million had gotten two sets of the Onyx Scrabble in their store while I was there for Scrabble Club.

I have been thinking about those for a while and yesterday I decided I should probably go back and get one while I had the chance because they sell for much more on-line since Hasbro doesn't make them anymore. While I was looking at some of the other games trying to decide if I should get them both a woman freaked me out by coming over and plucking one of them up and asking a sales person if the games are buy one get one 50% off this weekend. I wanted to go grab the other game but she kept standing there till the store person led her over to some other games when I grabbed it. She came back over and seemed ready to put the other game back on the shelf as I had heard the store manager tell her that the buy one get one 50% off sale had ended last week. I saw my moment.

I stopped the woman and asked her if she was putting the game back. When she said that she would wait for the sale again I said that she should seriously reconsider that because she would kick herself later when she wouldn't find the game at that price ... if at all ... again. They were selling it for $50 there (the same price as the Diamond Ann. Ed.) when they sell it for $99 on Amazon.com. She considered this and then asked me about why I recommended it. I told her I use the same board for my club and tournament Scrabble play and that it is a very durable board. She then asked me about my club and tournament play and I invited her to our club and to our tournament coming up this May. She seemed excited the more we talked about Scrabble and other such geeky things. Then she said she was thinking about this as a gift for a friend of hers and I said it would be a good one ... if she didn't want to replace her own board with this fine version of a Scrabble board. So it was settled, we headed to the cash register together and made our purchases and I ended up getting it for $42 with my discount card and a coupon that I had from my club appearance on Saturday. So now the question is who should get this board? Well, I think that I might give it to my mom and dad since they both enjoy Scrabble and have one of the plastic boards. I'll have to think about it and make sure they would like it ... but I think it would be a good gift.

It was my first night of Christmas shopping and it helped get me in the mood a bit more than I have been.

Check out all of my Scrabble posts here or from my blog's sidebar.

Labels: scrabble

Well, last weekend I went to Cleveland, OH and got my ass kicked in Scrabble by losing 12 of my 15 games. I mean, I wasn't terrible or anything but the tiles just weren't with me. I mean, I've heard this excuse before and didn't give it much credit ... but I now think that it's true. Brad told me this weekend, at our club meeting, that he has been having back luck with the tiles for a while. I can believe this as Brad and I both sucked in our respective divisions along with a fellow friend from another club as we all brought up the rear of our respective divisions and struggled to stay out of last place (which Brad and I did on spread points alone). Still, Brad lost a total of 80 ratings points last weekend and I lost a whopping 128 ratings points dropping from 812 to 684! That's lower than my initial rating of 715 after my first tournament earlier this year meaning that I've lost all of the points I had gained over the last 4 tournaments!

Oh well, I'll recover. According to the ratings system I tend to play in the 800 range at tournaments and this weekend I played in the high 500s. Either my ratings have been inflated or I just had a really, really, really bad weekend. I figure that I'll bounce back ... it may take a few tournaments but I bet I'll be knocking on the door of 900 by this time next year if I haven't gotten there yet. My goal was to break 800 by the end of the year and I did that in Lexington a few weeks ago so I'm happy. This weekend I was able to bounce back a little bit. I won 2 of my 3 games in club and while that doesn't count toward my national rating it makes me feel good. Here I was just after beating the lovely Lisa who usually beats me pretty badly. She was having an off day and I was playing pretty well coming off of a defeat by Brad who bingoed with ElIXIRs. I was proud of my game with Brad though because I played a bunch of words that I never would have played this time last year just from picking them up in club and tournament play. I put down AALII on my second play and also played words like TIPI and VEXT where I could use the points and the play. So it was a good day for Scrabble.

Here are some game boards from the Cleveland weekend and you can click here to go to my backdated post about how the actual tournament went (dated for last weekend) if you really want to know the blow by blow and the geeky details. Enjoy! BTW, the first three boards here were made by our very own Tina who cleaned up at this last tournament which you can read all about here on our Scrabble Club blog!

Check out all of my Scrabble posts here or from my blog's sidebar.

Labels: scrabble, travel

Here is an interesting little YouTube clip (below) from a group called Straight No Chaser that is incredibly clever and difficult to do. I'm not much in the Christmas spirit this year, I did put up one Christmas decoration ... my leg lamp in my office window facing west down Kanawha Blvd. Later I plan to do a post compiling all of my previous Christmas posts in links since I'm not much in the mood to do Christmas posts this year ... call it intellectual laziness ... or a break from my ranting.

For those who have been wondering about me ... I'm still alive ... just incredibly busy and under a lot of stress this week. I got my clock cleaned at my Cleveland Scrabble tournament this weekend losing 12 of my 15 games and losing all of the ratings points that I had gained over the last 4 tournaments. Oh well, this is not why I'm off kilter this week ... actually the Scrabble tournament was a pleasant distraction. I'll be writing more about that later since it will be a long and involved post that I'll probably backdate. I did manage to win $20 at the tournament for playing the highest scoring word from the "naughty word list" in my division. If you want to know what it is you'll have to check back here later (it will surprise you too).

Lastly, I have a band concert coming up on Friday at 7:30pm at South Charleston's LaBelle Theater and I think that I'm going to volunteer to help out the Shriner Band with their Christmas concert (they need clarinets) whenever that is. If you want to come out for a Christmas concert then ours is a good one. That's the Kanawha Valley Community Band, Friday Dec. 12th at the LaBelle Theater at 7:30pm. Come early since it was packed last year.

Labels: band, scrabble, travel, weird

Today is the birthday of my favorite poet ... Emily Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886). Reclusive yet very interesting she wrote some awesome poetry that really expresses the soul in interesting ways. When I get reflective I turn to Emily and keep a small volume of her poetry in my travel bag at all times. So here is my favorite poem of hers ... not her peculiar spelling that tends to get cleaned up when many publishers recite her work.

It's all I have to bring to-day,
This, and my heart beside,
This, and my heart, and all the fields,
And all the meadows wide.
Be sure you count, should I forget,--
Some one the sum should tell,--
This, and my heart, and all the bees
Which in the clover dwell.

Labels: words

Four of us from Scrabble Club #620 ventured to Cleveland, OH this weekend for the Cleveland Classic Scrabble Tournament. Little did I know it was going to be a disaster from which I would end up losing 12 of my 15 games. Oh well, as I've said in other parts of the blog I wasn't the only one who sucked this weekend ... I just sucked the hardest. Brad struggled to stay out of last place in the B division and Martha and I jockeyed for spots in the lower part of our C division until I settled at one above the bottom (like Brad) and Martha hit near the middle with Tina getting second place winning 11 of her 15 games! Yes, Tina was on fire and totally freakin' awesome! She and I carpooled up and back from Cleveland together which I really enjoyed for something like 8 hours last weekend. Tina is such a sweet and interesting person to chat with. She's so emotionally insightful and has such interesting observations about life. One of the things that has fascinated me about her this summer is that she has been on a whirlwind Scrabble tour going to another tournament almost every other weekend. She's done about 12 tournaments this summer and she's been all 0ver the place with her performance. This weekend she picked up 134 ratings points and has shot up to 895 which is just below her all-time high and where she should be!

As for how the tournament went for the rest of us ... well ... many of my racks looked like this.

This is what Lisa would call a farmer rack ... or EIEIO rack. Many of my other racks looked like this.

That second rack was my last game of the tournament. I started the game with all consonants and managed to play BRR and, god dammit, I drew three more consonants to have the green tiled rack above. The rest of the game didn't go much better after that.

Between all of those shitty racks it was just impossible to play much of anything! My best point of the tournament was this board where I was finally able to play my first first back-to-back bingos against a very highly rated player (rated about 200 points ahead of me). I started the game with HOMO for 18pts. and then hit with INFLATE (71 pts.) and then BANTERs (77 pts.) on the very next rack! Then I played BUBU on the next turn to burn two Us and a few turns later I had REJOICER in my hand that would have played for 100 pts. but because I wasn't sure of the final "R" I played REJOICE for 48pts. Cecilia slowly caught up from her 200 pt. deficit and almost beat me in the end ... but I did prevail and was thrilled to have my first back to back bingos in a club or tournament game! Cecilia was a very nice opponent and we chatted about how we were both lawyers though she isn't practicing since she is still doing her nursing. I told her that I work with a lawyer in Charleston who is a nurse and has done the opposite with her practice. I kept checking back on her all weekend glad to have met someone else with shared interests ... besides Scrabble that is.

Looking over the weekend I wasn't that off. Though I did find it helpful to employ Martha and Lisa's tactic from Lexington and purchased a cranberry vodka for the last 4 games of the first day that I nursed as it helped to take my mind off of how shitty I had started doing by lunch time (where I was 1-3). It may have helped since I went 2-2 in the afternoon and then 0-7 the next day (with no alcohol). One of the guys I was playing against couldn't get over that I was drinking. It wasn't like he was upset ... he just couldn't wrap his head around it. Unfortunately I did not beat him even though I really wanted to. Comparing my performance between Lexington and Cleveland I averaged 341 pts. per game in Lexington where I went 10-5 and I averaged 324 (to my opponents' 387) pts. per game in Cleveland. I also scored about the same number of bingos in Cleveland (13) as I did in Lexington (where I scored 12 or 13 in the main event ... and several others in the late bird). My bingos (where you play all your letters for a 50 pt. bonus) this time were: PORTING (76 pts. on an opening play); INFLATE (71 pts.); BANTERs (77 pts.); STONIED (69 pts.); OSpRIES* (62 pts.); ROSINED (70 pts. on another opening play); SPRINTS (73 pts.); STORIED (86 pts.); CREAtINg (74 pts.); CARrYINg (69 pts.); LOITERs (64 pts.); INSOLES (83 pts.); and CaSSETTE (73 pts.). So you can see that I have broken my trend of not getting high scoring bingos.

My opponents played some freaky assed words though. Here were their bingos: AERIFIED (68 pts.); eUPNEAS (79 pts.); RETRACE (64 pts.); BAGGIEs (88pts. - which he turned into BAGGIEsT the next turn); MASSAGE (81 pts.); SEnOPIA (66 pts.); UNLOADS (70 pts.); SUNDRIES (62 pts.); DETAILs (62 pts.); and the phoney RePAGED* (71 pts.). Speaking of phoneys there were a fair number of those played but no more than usual. Some of the more interesting ones that got by were LUMIN*; JAX*; QUAS*; HOH*; VIN*; MIN*; VILLE*; WUDS*; HAB*; HEE*; and MASTIF*. There were also some very interesting new words this tournament that I had never seen before (or don't remember) and I'm already working some of them into my playing. These were such valid words as: AIN; ALAR; AVO; HENT; HERN; LIDO; PYA; RAMI; REE; RICK; SOJA; TAXA; VEXT; VOE; WEN; YAG; and YOB.

In the end I still managed to win some money in this tournament. It surprises me that with all of the Scrabble playing that Tina and Martha have done that I saw both of their first times finishing in the money. Martha finished in the money by winning our division in Pittsburgh and Tina finished in the money in Cleveland by coming in second (the first place guy was just too amazingly good). So where did I win my money? I won it by playing the highest scoring word in my division from the "naughty word list". What was my naughty word? Well, I had several in my games having played TIT (16 pts.); ABO (32 pts.); SHIT (33 pts.); and the winning word was JEW (34 pts.) which won me $20! Interestingly, the winners of the other two divisions were similar words with YID and HEBE though there were plenty of others on the list. I described this naughty word thing in my post about my first Scrabble Club meeting way back in February. The short version is that the "naughty words" were words deemed "offensive" and removed from the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary when a group of Jewish ladies got upset by the fact that JEW was in the OSPD but as a verb and not as a noun (because it would be a proper noun). The great compromise ended up being that we could still use all of the words in club and tournament play with an Official Word List (OWL) that would include all of the words ... with no definitions. So my dirty word is an interesting and odd one that has given me lots of opportunities to explain the oddness of competitive Scrabble and its rules.

BTW, the guy in the shirt above ... he won the A Division. :-) I'll leave you with this picture of our own Tina holding the Scrabble sculpture that Pittsburgh club member Joe Larson made for her. He makes lots of Scrabble sculptures and sells them or donates them as prizes. Tina made this awesome Van Gough Scrabble board for him that she gave to him at this tournament. Joe completely kicked my ass this tournament which I guess made up for the ass beating I gave him in Pittsburgh when I beat him twice. He reminded me that I was the very first person he ever played in a tournament as he just threw down one high point play after another. I could barely record my score before he was throwing down some other awesome play as he drew the bag against me with all of the best tiles with perfect placement. I thought he was going to hit a 500 point game and he almost did! By contrast I had more sub-300 point games than I've ever had! Oh well, next tournament for me will probably be a 3 day tournament in Charlotte, NC over Presidents Day weekend. We'll see how that goes. Wish me luck! :-)

As an interesting side note ... Cleveland used to be spelled "Cleaveland" after a man named Moses Cleaveland who helped survey and found the future city in 1814. Do you want to know how the extra "a" got deleted? It was because the editor for the first Cleaveland newspaper decided that the title of the paper, Cleaveland Advertiser, fit better on the masthead if he deleted the first "a" and the new spelling caught on by 1831. Wouldn't that just about suck if that was your family?

Check out all of my Scrabble posts here or from my blog's sidebar.

Labels: scrabble, travel

Got the car back on Thursday and it looks pretty good. They ended up putting a new grill in it which looks a little nicer than the other one. They didn't think they were going to have to fix that since it didn't look damaged but maybe they had complications. So I got to take my car to Cleveland today for my Scrabble tournament. I'm glad, once again, that I got new tires for it because NE Ohio has been getting tons of snow! In fact, there were some times when the road was completely covered in snow. Now that doesn't usually freak me out. I worked in Cleveland for a few years and am used to it ... but I was very glad to have new tires all the same!

Labels: myphotos