November 2004 Archives

For once, the wife has a day off during the school year while I have to work...such a strange occurrence. We rolled home this weekend from Thanksgiving at my parents' house, fully stuffed with all sorts of home-cooked goodness. Total damage: half of an enormous turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing (and stuffin' muffins), squash, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, strawberry jello mold, biscuits, and all the wine we could drink (thanks to us bringing three bottles and my mother already having a couple)...

Got some good reading done too - I finished a book I got for my birthday, Chasing Steinbrenner by Rob Bradford. It's basically the story of the 2003 American League East race from the viewpoint of JP Ricciardi and Theo Epstein, the general managers of the Blue Jays and Red Sox. Some great back-story information on the Kevin Millar signing, the Jose Contreras maneuvering, and various pickups and trades. It's not a game-by-game recount of the season - far from it - but a view inside the lives of two similar minds guiding two widely disparate teams. Interesting but a bit dull and jumbled. The playoffs are given surprisingly short shrift and it wanders off on many stories and tangents. It's tough keeping track of one team the way everything is intertwined, and of course, given the excitement of THIS year's team, everything falls a bit flat in comparison. Understandably so, I think.

The other book was Dan Brown's Deception Point. Although I got the Da Vinci Code for Christmas last year, I actually still haven't read it, for reasons unknown. Well, not entirely true - I got a bunch of books and tried to alternate brain food (EB White's One Man's Meat, which is a bit of a slow read but very rewarding in his observations) with brain candy (Michael Crichton's Prey, which I found...eh. Emotionless claptrap that made a minimal, late stretch to be a bit of a morality play, but far less gripping than, say, The Andromeda Strain or The Great Train Robbery). Anyway - when running out the door I grabbed the closest book, which happened to be Deception Point. I had read Angels & Demons and found it to be utterly fascinating, so I was expecting similar suspense, plot twists and rewarding payoff at the end. It did draw me in and I was able to follow it fairly well, but the characters didn't resonate as well with me, and there were far too many of them. Many seemed interchangeable or unnecessary, and not to ruin the major plot twist, but the main deception of the book was just WAY too much work for something that seemed a bit likely to be disproved eventually anyway.

Moving from books to movies, we got out one evening to see The Incredibles. GO SEE THIS MOVIE. I've never been particularly attracted by any of the Pixar or other animated-type movies before - the last one I saw in the studios MAY have been Aladdin, to show you how non-animated-type I am - and Finding Nemo was fine, not great, but The Incredibles was, well, incredible. Hugely inventive, greatly detailed, completely captivating. We may have been the oldest parent-children grouping in the theater - my parents are in the late 50's/early 60's, we kids ranged from 27 to 29 - but we all loved it while munching through a medium-sized bag of popcorn among the seven of us. I saw one girl who couldn't have weighed more than 50 pounds, carring a bucket of popcorn that should have come with a shoulder strap and handles. The thing was bigger than her head, and rivaled the size of her torso. I think theaters are one step away from just filling your seats with popcorn and having you dive in and eat your way down to the cushion while watching your movie.

Most of the rest of the time not spent eating, reading or watching movies/TV was spent playing games. We had ourselves a regular gamefest - Taboo, Loaded Questions, Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary, Scrabble...just about the only things in the cabinet that we didn't play were Othello and Candyland. And while I love my father, he's horrible at Taboo...but playing with him was easily the high point of the weekend. If you've never played before, basically you're trying to get your team to say a certain word or phrase, but without saying the word, or any form of it, plus five MORE words. So if the phrase is, say, kitten, you can't say "meow", "cat", "purr", "furry", or "animal". The funniest part is that someone from the other team gets to look over the player's shoulder with a buzzer, and buzz them if they say any of the words. My father apparently doesn't bother reading the rest of the words, and then gets flustered when he gets buzzed repeatedly. We all ended up howling with laughter when he finally just gave up and read all five words on the card out of frustration. Not the best strategy, but probably the hardest I've laughed in a long time...

It's PLUNGER-MAN!

We live in a 100-year-old house, with (presumably) 100-year-old plumbing. And if you've ever been around a 100-year-old, you know that his/her plumbing probably isn't the greatest. Well, same with our house. Without getting to too much detail (too late, I know), it's not just our toilet that has problems - for some reason, both our bathroom sink AND our shower drain have issues. They drain, but ever so s l o w l y. By the time I'm done with my shower, I'm standing in two inches of water. This is not good, especially for my feet, which really shouldn't be wet any longer than humanly possible (it's weird - I have dry skin, which, after it gets wet, dries out even more than it was originally).

So two days ago, I sent the first shot across the bow with some Liquid Plumr (why "Plumr"? does it cost that much more to add a B and an E?), which yielded less than desirable results. Yesterday, I attacked with a plunger (plungr?), which only seemed to anger it (much like the summoning of Sterculius) - some crud came up out of the drain but nothing major, just enough to make it look like I'd done some work and then given up. Which I had, of course.

But this morning - SUCCESS! Instead of waiting for the water to drain and THEN plunging, I thought I'd do me some underwater plunging (the plunger, not me), which sent a torrent of water flying down the drain. Well, I exaggerate a bit, but it seems to have done the trick, as I was then able to shower in relatively dry-footed splendor. For yea, verily, the water shall drain, and a man with a plunger shall lead them.

When you are designing your funky fonts for use in books, please consider those of us who may need to place diacritical marks above our letters. I am currently in the process of faking an accented "a" by manually placing ONE HUNDRED accents in the book's page header.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given that the font's name is "Crud"...so to the inventor, I say, may the stench of a thousand camels infest your nostrils in perpetuity.

I feel both old and proud at the same time - I just found out that one of my former students, from the one year when I was a Spanish teacher in Maine, is now a Spanish teacher himself. Which means that at the very least, I didn't completely ruin his aspirations of continuing to learn Spanish. It's encouraging to know that at least I wasn't so horrendous a teacher as to convince him to try another field of study instead.

After a couple weeks of 30's and 40's around here, it's supposed to get up into the 50's and 60's today. Joy. So instead of automatically reaching for a sweater, I decided it was shirt-wearin' weather and grabbed my favorite green shirt out of the closet. For some reason, I always have to unbutton one of the cuffs to get my right hand in. It doesn't look particularly big, especially compared to my other hand - which fits just fine through the left cuff. Maybe my shirt is cut slightly wrong, but...but...it's my favorite shirt. So if you see me tilting to one side, or walking off-balance, don't worry...it's just me and my grossly oversized right hand.

It had been a while since I had had to call the insurance company to add a car to our policy, so I forgot the whole string of questions that they ask to figure out exactly how much to charge for your insurance policy. They asked about an alarm system, air bags, mileage, etc., etc. And then...

"Will you be driving this car to and from work or school?"
"Yes, work."
"And approximately how many miles is that each way?"

Um. Heh.

When I changed jobs three years ago, part of the reason was to get rid of the god-awful commute I used to have (40 miles on 93/128, prime parking-lot material during typical commuting hours). My commute is now all of .7 miles, yet despite speaking to an anonymous insurance agent, someone I didn't even know and to whom I would never be speaking again, I just couldn't bring myself to cop to the fact that this was the entirety of my daily work-related driving.

"Oh, a couple."
"Would that be two or three?"
"Um, two."

So rather than confess this to my insurance company - potentially increasing my insurance premiums in the process, I might add - I am instead sharing it with you, the Internet at large. I am a lazy shit.

- Damn you, RMV...damn you to hell for only accepting checks or cash! I was so looking forward to rolling back to work after lunch in the new car.

- There's a day care on the same street as our dorm, and driving home from work the other day, I saw not one, not two, not even three, four or five, but SIX Honday CR-V's parked out front. I wonder if they'll be accepting of our VUE when we have kids and want to use that day care, or if we'll have to Stepfordize the automotive segment of our lives.

- It feels good to already have purchased several Christmas presents. I'm overflowing with ideas this year, for a change. Online shopping is the perfect solution for guys, I've come to realize. No trips to the mall with your significant other, skulking around and trying not to be seen while making purchases, attempting to hide bags or block out logos on packaging during the ride home... I'm not a shopper so much as a buyer - I guess I prefer the immediate crack high of online purchasing as opposed to the longer low-grade mind-numbing pot buzz of going to the mall.

- PINE does work with 1and1's servers after all. Huge props to Josh for figuring out that we just needed to not encrypt outgoing mail so the SMTP server would finally behave itself. And I'm back to text-based email and being able to bounce spam to the FTC again. Oh happy day...

"They took my blender!"
"You're kinda attached to this blender."
"Yeah, well some people meditate, some get massages, me, I blend."
"You're weird, ya know that?"
--Will Smith, Enemy of the State

As any married couple will tell you, one of the great things about getting married is the registry. Nothing quite like telling people what to buy for you as a wedding present, and putting stuff on there that you don't even end up using. We have a wok set that we've used once in 3.5 years. Maybe twice. Up until about 6 months ago, it was the same deal with our blender - we had a food processor attachment that we'd use for food preparation, but blending for pleasure...almost never.

But with us trying to eat more healthily around the house, the blender has come out in a big way recently, and after a few months of experimenting, we've got a new favorite recipe. Enjoy the fruits (literally) of our labor...or leave us some suggestions for your favorites!

1 banana
6-8 strawberries
5 pineapple spears
6 apple juice ice cubes (if you like your smoothies frosty)

One of the larger plastic boxes of strawberries should be good for 3 smoothies, as did the bowl of pineapple spears. Good stuff, people.

I realize that there's still a month and a half left in 2004, but I feel pretty comfortable calling it right now after reading this one:

"Ramadan time - Rolex time"

In other words, what better way to celebrate your dedication to Allah and purifying the body and mind through a month of fasting than to spend your hard-earned wealth on a gaudy overpriced timepiece?

Did one of these a couple of years ago, and since I'm about to de-clutter it, another edition of "What's on Dave's desk":

- A lint roller. Not mine. Not sure why it's in here.
- A copy of Relix magazine, Feb/Mar 2004, with a review of Blues Traveler's latest album.
- A stack of CDs and DVDs, topped with Blues Traveler 11-16/17-96, two shows I recently distributed via BitTorrent. Good old stuff.
- The VIN# (VI#? Hello, redundancy...) for the new VW Passat I just bought. No pictures yet, but it looks something like this, except dark blue.
- Various rolls of packaging tape, both brown and clear. Clear, because I need it to tape over the piece-of-shit package labels from Staples that don't actually adhere to the packages. Ok, so they're name tag labels, so I guess they're really only designed to adhere to a shirt for a few hours, but...c'mon.
- A $50 gift certificate to the Living Room in Boston - a random unannounced gift from someone who sent me some of his old masters to convert. Nice guy!
- A nearly-empty package of Fudge Stripes. *burp*
- The Scrabble scoresheets from two weeks ago that I haven't put away yet. Oops.
- Not one, not two, but three telephones (the cordless, my desk phone, and my cell). Apparently I need to look like I do a little bond trading in my spare time or something.
- A letter I need to answer since I'm no longer registered to vote in Maine.
- An embarrassing number of DATs that I need to label and put away.
- My groomsman present from Josh's wedding...two and a half months ago. A very snazzy monogrammed wooden case and pen. Just the kind of thing I suppose I should use for filling out something important like the title transfer on my new car. It's just not something you use for jotting down a shopping list or directions to someone's house.
- Directions to someone's house. Sorry we couldn't come visit, Kat.

Tuesday evening: Viv hands me the local classifieds, pointing out that there are a few Passats for sale. Most are too pricey but one jumps out - a 2000 GLS sedan, 87k miles, loads of options, good price. I check the blue book, give the guy a call, set up a meeting for Saturday so I can see the car in the daylight and give it a test drive. I actually surprise myself with the number of questions I'm able to come up with, given the fact that the only used car I've bought was seven years ago in a town of 200, just after I'd graduated. Pickiness and knowledgeability weren't exactly my fortes at that time given my financial status. But it was a snazzy-looking car (1992 Celica). Lasted about four months in its pristine condition (well, pristine except for the grindage I did on the transmission, since it had been years since I had driven a stick) before I slid into a guard rail on I-95 after an ice storm.

Thursday afternoon: I take our car in for its regular oil change. Maintenance supervisor comes in and tells me that I've got oil in the coolant system because the seals on the oil cooler have gone bad. Not good times. They'll need to keep it overnight. Viv's co-worker drives out to the dealership, picks us up and takes us home.

Friday afternoon: We walk to work. That afternoon, Saturn calls to say our car isn't going to be ready because they had to order a few more parts. Viv rents a flyspeck of a car for $20 for the weekend...the thing is a roller skate. Well, actually, it's called an Echo, but I have no idea why, because to me, "echo" conveys cavernous space capable of generating said echo. There's not enough cubic footage inside this thing to bend down and tie my shoes, let alone yodel into the abyss.

Saturday afternoon: I test-drive the Passat. Handsome car. QUIET ride...I'm used to all sorts of wind noise in the VUE. We were easily cruising along at (State Police, avert your eyes) 80 without sounding like I was driving a hairdryer. The best part about this car is what's called the "winter package". I saw it in the ad so I had to ask. Heated seats, heated mirrors, and (get this) heated windshield fluid nozzles. That's right, we'll have our very own bun warmers, individually adjustable as well. So while I can set mine to "warm", Viv can set hers to "Aruba" if she wants, as we cruise around in warm-assed comfort. Yay technology. That night we decided to buy a car, so the Davemobile will soon be in full effect.

Monday morning: We borrowed our neighbor's car to go return the rental car, and then since she wasn't going to be back to her apartment until 2, I kept borrowing it until lunch time, picking up a cashier's check for the car, to be delivered tonight. Finally, Saturn called back - the VUE is ready to the tune of nearly $800 (oof), so I'll be taking a co-worker's car there this afternoon to pick it up. Yeargh.

Total tally: Two co-workers, one rental, one neighbor, the VUE and the Passat. I'm just about ready for this to all be over...

"When we get home, could you please put away some laundry and do some dishes?"
"Define 'some'."
"The dishes that are on the counter, and the laundry that's on the dryer."
"You mean 'all'?"

So, dear reader (reader? readers? both of you? who knows?), the whole Scrabble thing was interrupted by the election thing and the telemarketer thing and the Firefox thing, but these scoresheets are still sitting on my desk and are refusing to be put away until I comment on them properly. So...once more, into the breach.

After a night of disappointing but expensive buffet dinner and a rousing game of anagrams (wherein Joel Sherman combined EXCESS and ANTIPOLE with an extra E, N and S to make EXCEPTIONALNESSES - the mind doth boggle, really - my best play was turning GIGANTIC + OT into COGITATING), it was back to the board on Sunday. As it turns out, I was in for a pair of games against the same opponent by the way the standings fell.

Things started off a bit slow against Rich - I opened with TOE for a whopping 6 points, he got 13 for ANOA (a type of buffalo), and after 28 points for TAV (a Hebrew letter), we traded 20-point plays and he passed. Just when it looked like we were headed to a defensive struggle, he managed to squeeze URAEMIAS (a blood condition) in, scoring 65 but leaving the U on the triple-word line for me to get down QUALE (a property considered apart from things having the property...yeah, I don't get it either) for 45. My next rack is GHIIIIT. Bleh. I trade, he gets another 74 points for NOTATION, but I strike back with 53 points for JARL (there's that word again). From then on it's a race to the finish, as he gets FEZ (a Turkish hat) for 30, THINE for 36, COYED for 36 and SABER for 32, while I drop XI (a Greek letter) for 36, WAVY for 41, DOMED for 44 and SWISH for 46. This last play actually puts me up 365-359, but when he lays down UPTORE for 29, I realize that my only chance of winning is to challenge it off - which I can't, because it's good. He goes out, gets 20 points from me and wins 410-365.
Fortunately, we were up for a rematch, as he had predicted before the game. After he opened with DOJO and I played RUNTS, I held ELNORSS - not a bad rack but not a great one either. I decided to fish for a bingo, and played off the L for six points...and drew an I. SENIORS went down the very next turn.We traded midsized scores until about 2/3 of the way through the game, when he played UNEAGER for 75. I've never been happier to see a bingo played, as it allowed me to drop AQUIVEr for 131 points - the Q was on a triple-letter score, and the word was on a double-word score, plus I made HA with the A. That extended my lead to a full 100 points, so even after he made TREFOIL (a three-part leaf) for 85, I as able to stay far enough ahead to win 467-435 - a 900+ point game!

At 5-5, I was out of the running for prize money, but still had some good Scrabble in me. Game 11 pitted me against Elaine, a club regular, and the tile gods smiled on me early as I drew a blank on my second rack. It wouldn't play, but I'll gladly take ZONED for 50 and WIN for 28 before playing LIbATION for 68, putting me up 72 points. FAKEY for 49 drew a challenge (it's good), and by the time she got 77 for BEDSORE, I had run off 29 for MOW, 45 for EQUAL, 30 for VEXIL (again), 17 for RING, 32 for MY and 42 for JIN to cruise to a 418-306 win.

I faced Steve in the last game of the tourney and things unfortunately did not go as well - he dropped OX on his first turn for 34, followed up with ANTHOID (flowerlike) for 82 and JUTES (a type of fiber) for 40. He got PHAGE (a virus that infects bacteria) for 50 a few turns later to pull out to a 235-119 lead, and me holding EEINORS. Again I fished, and again I drew and played SENIORS. He tried GRIDWoRk, which I thought I'd seen before but challenged in desperation. To my surprise, it came off, and COWER for 26 pulled me to within 55. Then my luck caught up with me and I ran into garbage racks down the home stretch; by the time I managed MOTHS for 330, I was 50 points down and the fact that he had both blanks was too much to overcome - I fell 387-348 to finish the tourney at a perfectly average 6-6.

Overall stats, 16 bingos to my opponents' 19, 11 blanks to my opponents' 13, a 6-6 record with a spread below zero (i.e. my opponents scored more than me cumulatively). I don't feel like I missed too much though I didn't analyze too closely; that endgame with Rod would be one I'd like to play over if I had the chance but I doubt I could have won (turns out I mis-scored and thought I was down by 20 instead of 30). Next stop, Danbury in February...

[geek mode on...though some would argue that's a permanent state]

Normally I'm not the type to proselytize, but when something is this cheap, this useful, and this good, it's just too important not to mention. If, while surfing the web, you've ever been annoyed by ads, popup windows, random programs taking control of your browser and changing your homepage, or making your computer do strange and irritating things, do yourselves a favor and give Firefox a try, which just officially releases today.

Not only is it free, but it's clean, elegant, streamlined and super-easy to use. Block all the popups you want with a click in your preferences/options, have multiple sites open within the same window so you're not cluttering up your screen, and even get rid of annoying banner ads - including Flash! - with the AdBlock extension. And did I mention it's free?

The MyDoom bug that is making the rounds today - in record time - is another reason to make the switch, as Firefox is a MUCH more secure browser than Internet Explorer and isn't prone to being hijacked, exploited or having holes blown through it by malicious web code. It won't allow spyware to download in the background (nasty stuff) and it certainly won't allow a web site to take you somewhere else you don't want to go, or spawn a flood of extra windows advertising stuff you don't want to buy.

If you're not convinced, keep IE around for a while, but give Firefox a try. Besides, they offer your money back if you're not satisfied...

[geek mode off. off, dammit!]

If you want there to be even the most infinitesimally minuscule chance of me listening to your brain-numbingly bothersome pre-recorded message, do not start it with the phrase "Please, do not hang up." Given that most human beings have no compunction about hanging up on other humans making their telemarketing pitch, what knuckle-dragging mouth breather of a marketing wizard came up with the stupendously idiotic idea that your average American wouldn't slam down the telephone receiver on something whose eardrums ran no risk of damage?

Like most people, I don't take as good care of my teeth as I probably should, which in my case, includes a nearly pathological avoidance to flossing. Every time I go to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned, the hygienist always pulls out yards and yards of flavored barbed wire (you know, to make the blood from your gums taste minty!) to clean between my teeth after she's done assaulting them with the Rotary Toothbrush Of Death (tm). And every time she does it, she asks me if I've been flossing, I say no, and she smiles but stops short of clucking her tongue at me. She tells me that I really should floss, or I may end up with cavities in hard-to-reach places that brushing and mouthwash can't get to.

After last night's election results, I have come to the conclusion that flossing is like voting.

After a light lunch of clam chowdah (when in Hyannis...), it was back to the battlefield. Game 5 pitted me against Gina, whom I'd seen at many tournaments in the area but never played before. She had kindly agreed to play up a division to even out ours at 24 players, but despite facing a tough field she was upbeat and chatty the whole game. After she opened with GERMY for 30, I used her G to make RETIRiNG for 77. After MINION for 16, I rattled off AZOIC (having no living beings) for 35, BANDIES for 40 (on two double word scores), OPTICIaN for 76 and FUSE/OPTICIANS for 36. She managed TOLERATE for 59 and BIPED (having two feet) for 33, my lead still stood at over 130 by the time she got TROUBLES for 61 and REWAX for 41. A 31-point out-play got her to with 400-381 but that's where it ended.

Next up, the 17-year-old whiz Jason, who had finished near the top of the first division at the national championships. He made an odd play early on with QuINOA, implying that he had the other blank - otherwise, why play one for 36? I managed SHINNIES through it for 74, but when he laid down STIRRED for 92 later, nary a blank was in sight. Unfortunately, that meant I didn't have it either, and was stuck making 16/18/20 point plays while he made FEVER for 41, BOWSE (to haul with a tackle) for 44 and ATAXIA (inability to move muscles) for 29. I barely managed to crack 300 with my last full rack, while he racked up another 100 points on his last three turns - 30-30-42 for VOICER-YUK-GAZE. A solid 449-324 thrashing to drop me back to 3-3.

Bruce and I faced off in a back-and-forth game next - after a slow start with four turns under 20 points, I got down TREATED for 68. He answered with UpSPRANG for 72 (I had blocked UNStRAP). I countered with HM for 32 and he squeezed in ATTORNEY for 63. Not to be outdone, my next two turns saw BETAINE (a chemical salt) for 77 and SHOALING (becoming shallow) for 86. He kept pace with AZOIC (again) and the best Red Sox word, LOWE (a flame) for 30. But I held the X and last S, using them both to my advantage, first with VEXIL (a type of flag) for 21 and FORKS for 43, carrying me to a 413-384 win.

The last game was a tooth-and-nail bout between me and Rod. We always play interesting games but this one was especially tense. He jumped out to a huge lead with EASTING for 95 early, and boosted it to a 147-56 margin the next turn. Then the tide started to turn - TWIER (a furnace pipe) netted me 36, followed by JARLS (Scandinavian nobles) for 46, ADEEM (to legally revoke a gift) for 34, KIPS (sleeps) for 35 and COX for 41. This drew me to within 30, even despite Rod's INERTIAE, and despite some ugly tiles, CHON (a Korean coin) for 28 even got me as close as 8 down. He countered with OW for 23 and my rack was ?AESUZY with two tiles left in the bag. Unfortunately, the board was structured such that the Z was unplayable at that point. I had two options: play DAY in a tight space, hoping to set myself up for AdZ (a cutting tool), or ORZo through another R if I happened to draw the last O, or burn my blank and play CrY, which would have let me play HAZY if I happened to draw the last A...but that would be my only spot to play the Z. I opted for the two-for-one, played DAY, and drew the H that would have allowed HAZY elsewhere. He played a 33-point EYRY through it, game over. Though not before a "what the hell" play of ZEbUS/QUELLINGS for 127...which was unfortunately no good and challenged off. Final tally, 405-325, to finish 4-4 on the day. A tough loss but one I felt good about, knowing I had had pretty crummy letters yet still managed to make him sweat all the way to the end.

Four times in the last six years I've made the trip down to Cape Cod for a Scrabble tournament as part of my local game. There aren't that many tourneys in New England - just two every year in Massachusetts and a few more in extreme southern Connecticut. The CT tournaments usually start on Friday night, which makes it tough to get there in time from northern Mass without leaving work early, so other than the Eastern Championship over President's Day weekend, I don't tend to go that far. Unfortunately, until recently, the Cape Cod tourney had become more of a local affair than a regional one, where you wouldn't see too many big names that lived out of state - mostly folks you'd see in your local club instead. As such, my brother had bypassed it lately in favor of bigger tournaments elsewhere. But this time around, it somehow managed to attract the highest-rated players from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, so the bro thought he'd add Maine to the mix. And so we made the jaunt down to Hyannis for the weekend.

Sherrie, the event's organizer, realizes that Friday night games can be tough for people to make, so she held a mini-pairs tournament instead so people could travel to the main event and not worry about missing anything. Joe and I took a pass on the pairs tourney as we got there on the late end of the evening - I decided instead to meet up with Chris for a post-World Series dinner. Chris was in town for the Sox' victory parade through the streets of Boston. Of course, I forgot to bring his World Series program...oh well.

The main event started me off with a bang, as I squared off against former world and national champion Joel Sherman - of course, the highest-rated player from New York. Things didn't look good as he opened with ZORIS (Japanese sandals) for 48, but fortunately, I held ?EILNSV and took a 42-point lead with INVOLvES. My next rack, ADELOTT yielded TOTALED for 67 more, and after he blocked a 56-point TAMELY with ONERIEST (orneriest) for 68, I still managed MERELY for 34. He thought for a while before dropping EYRY (an eagle's nest) for 42, and while I missed JACOnETS (a thin cotton fabric), TAJ still netted me 38. He got 38 of his own with VOTED, but that left a spot open for a 72-point COnNOTES. I made POUF on my next turn, which he extended to POUFF/FINK, and I further extended to POUFFE/ABATED for 52 to take a 100-point lead - more than enough to withstand his 67-point WIRELIKE and win 475-430.

Game 2 was more of an uphill battle - John opened with DARTING for 72 and it was a few turns before I got into my scoring ways with DEX (a chemical). I was still down 50, but several high-20's/low-30's plays drew me to within 25 a half-dozen turns later, and set my rack up with ?IORRST to play NOSTRILS to take a 20-point lead. Unfortunately, that emptied the bag...and stuck me with the Q. No U, of course. I managed to keep a lead with my remaining letters, and he got within 3...but the Q put him over the top even though he went a minute overtime. A squeaker of a loss, 390-383.

Game 3 pitted me against Mike, a club regular. I couldn't talk myself into REGALER (as in, one who regales) on my first rack, and it was downhill from there. He dropped SCATTING on me for 72, and though I replied with CONcERTO for 63, I was down 50 and he sealed the deal with OVERLAIN at the end, though I did get down GROSZ (a Polish coin) and then pluralized it to GROSZE/EGO, but I fell to 1-2 with a 446-340 loss.

Game 4, the last before lunch, had me facing Jere Mead, a perennial top finisher at the national championship and Massachusetts' top-ranked player. Again, an unpromising start as I can only manage NENE for eight points out of a rack of EENNNSU. He lays down QUEST for 36, and with ACINOSU, I see - but am not sure of - ACINOUS, instead opting for CAUTIONS through the T in QUEST for 62. Two turns later, I hold AAIRSTT there's no open E for ARIETTAS, so I play off TAT (to make lace) for 28 and draw ELT and drop SALTIER for 64 and a 70-point lead as he gets stuck with some unsavory racks. Luck continues to smile on me as I draw a blank - not that I use it, but more importantly I keep him from using it. And a good thing too, as I'm able to build up enough of a lead thanks to a 38-point VIVA to weather his 104-point DAIKONs (Japanese radishes). I end up burning the blank (relatively speaking) for 31 points to play fEY and completely block any chance of a late bingo on his part, and hang on for a 391-378 win. In the post-mortem, I mention not seeing anything with a rack of ?AILLOT other than the unplayable mAILLOT (a bathing suit) and the always fun GALLIPOT (a small ceramic vessel), and he points to an F which was open at the time. Turns out I missed FeLLATIO...giving a whole new meaning to the phrase "blow the endgame".

Time for lunch, a 2-2 record, with both wins coming against top-ranked opponents. I'll take it.