Play Scrabble Online!

Anyone ever played the Quackle computer? It's ridiculous. I'll have to play 25 games before I win one.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/jasonkb/quackle/

http://people.csail.mit.edu/jasonkb/quackle/doc/blockdiagram.png

On isc.ro all night, till six this morning, mostly losing. It's entirely Grandpont Genie's fault. And if not him, then China, Nancy Pelosi, and the World Health Organization.

One of the best things about the ISC, though I don't use it often, is that you can watch highly-rated games in progress, often one of their computers against a famous Scrabble player. (Yes--within this parallel universe, there are famous players.) Here's a screenshot I took of a game probably still going on between Joel Sherman and Zurix, an ISC computer. Sherman's won the National Championship a few times, I believe (and is well known for various eccentricities). He's playing the blue tiles.

http://phildellio.tripod.com/joel.jpg

As soon as I finish here, I'm going to go inhume some zatak.

good news

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/24/scrabble-forced-redesign-neon-app-purists-criticized-futuristic/

seems like this kind of thing never happens!

I've often said that people who complain about political correctness are far more tiresome than the thing itself. So I try never not to, especially when I almost always find alleged offenders to have sound reasoning behind whatever has been changed.

Scrabble has had problems over the years. Most of the words that got dropped along the way (they may still be allowed in tournament play, not sure) I'm totally fine with--many are deeply offensive.

Pogo recently redesigned their site--uglier, as all redesigns are--and they also seem to have really tightened their dictionary. Some of the words--fine before the redesign--that have been dropped.

"fag" and "fag(g)ot"--both have normal meanings, but they're so loaded now, I'm fine with this.
"tit" and "ass"--actual animals, getting sillier. (Makes me think of Aaron Spelling, for some reason.)
"bitches"--to me, that can totally mean "to complain"; I get it, but I don't get it.
"slave"--again, I get it, but one can be a slave to one's job, right? This has regularly used, non-loaded meaning.

Am I wrong to balk at some of these changes? Too much the Scrabble player? It's a dumb online game site--not the end of the world, obviously.

"try never not to"--drop that "never"

i'm disturbed by all of these and i'm a fag irl

That would always be my overriding guide: if these words still offend, then sure, take them out. I hear people say "stop bitching" all the time, but if it's a legitimate problem, fine.

Happy to report that "vibrator" is still okay.

Gone: "horniest."

And if you can figure out the logic that says "horniest" is offensive and "vibrator" isn't, you're way ahead of me.

Gone: "boob."

I thought at first they were trying to grapple with a serious issue. They're not--they're eliminating anything and everything that someone might object to so they don't have to grapple with it. (Who except a nine-year old boy would find prurient meaning in "boob"?)

Gone: "hornier."

You can still look for an open 't' and "thornier."

As I do every few years, went back to isc.ro for a month. One of the accounts I started two years ago was still active. Started out just above 1300, went up and down and dropped below 1200 at one point, slowly got back above 1300 and I think that's enough. (You get two ratings now: one for games of 4 minutes or longer, and a "blitz" rating for 3 minutes or less. There are a whole bunch of people who play 1-minute games now. I tried a few--insane.) Even at this level, I always felt overmatched. I regularly lost games where I had a big lead and then the other player dropped a bingo and other big plays right near the end. And you knew it was coming. They're like vultures; it's like they don't even want to win unless they come back from 100 points down. And the bingos...lost one game on "shylocks." (Yes: the other end of the spectrum from Pogo when it comes to offensive language.) Being a sore loser, I never responded when someone who'd just trounced me gave me a "good game." I hate that stuff.

"Sequoias" on a triple-triple for 203 points (625 for the game).

Oops--maybe a mod can remove that url.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/sequoias.jpg

Someone sent this to me today--amazing and hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWD1WdIvT6Y

lol pretty good. when i was about 12 i worked out that 'xylopyrographic' if played over three triples would get you over 1000 points but didn't get so many extra points from extending existing words - and xylopyrographic isn't in the official scrabble dictionary.

(though xylopyrography is)

looking 4 scrabble opponents!

Are you on isc.ro?

no, i should be tho - that's what my homey [REDACTED] plays on mostly. i use the dumb scrabble phone app.

Too bad...can't help you there.

PATRONNE or gtfo

Steve - there was nothing on the board, it was my opening rack!

i can't think of a valid bingo for PANTONE but maybe you can.

negative.

i'm a negative creep, and i'm stoned.

disappointed also to learn that MANEATER is not valid. cuz of woke. (cuz of hyphenated tbh)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anatreme

my man

This could be my highest scoring play ever: "quibbler" across a triple-triple for 239 points (189 + 50). Last play of the game...I was helped by this Pogo rule that allows you to take a blank off the board if you have the matching letter on your rack; that gave me the second 'b.' So a little tainted.

https://i.postimg.cc/xjwG4Nf6/quibbler.jpg

Scrolled back, and not my highest: "executed" for 262. Feels like "quibbler" should be higher.