ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ JEESH]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ JEESH]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
Visual Thesaurus has just posted the crossword I make for them. For those with subscriptions, click here and enjoy.
This is probably a shocking revelation, but I don’t like Scrabble. I don’t like Scrabulous or Lexulous or whatever the hell it’s called on Facebook (stop asking me to play, thanks!). Frankly, I’m not much for most word board/parlor games save for the odd go-around of Profane Hangman.
It’s not that I can’t play these games. I can; I just happen to be really bad at them. Now that doesn’t mean I hate the games because I’m bad at them. Anybody who has ever seen me play Bridge knows at times I’m cover-your-eyes terrible. But I love Bridge.
So why is it? I mean, I’m always weaving words together, doesn’t it stand to reason I’d love Scrabble as well? Isn’t that using the same skill set? Well, yes and no.
When I’m making crosswords, I’m not limited to the random seven tiles I’m stuck with in Scrabble. It seems my rack always has four U’s. Also, when I don’t like a corner, I can rip it apart and start all over again which is verboten on the board game. Capitalized words and phrases are my bread and butter in puzzles and illegal on Scrabble. Top Scrabble players have memorized all the legal two letter words and they’ve memorized pages of obscure eight letter words. Put it this way: if I’m putting a two letter word in my puzzle there’d better be some turning-water-into-wine-esque reason for breaking that rule. And besides, if I have space for a 7-, 8- or 9-letter entry, I’m going to try and go for a phrase rather than some obscure entry.
Also there’s that thing about anagramming. Anyone who’s anyone at Scrabble can anagram anything just by looking at random letters. It takes me a good few minutes to notice that CAT can become ACT. (While we’re on the topic of anagramming, I gotta give a tip of the hat to fellow cruciverbalist Nancy Salomon who figured out that BRENDAN E. QUIGLEY anagrams into DRAG QUEEN BY-LINE. I guess Nancy knows I can fill out a dress like nobody’s business.)
Liz however loves Scrabble. We sort of stopped playing, but I suspect after we watched “Word Wars,” the wonderful documentary about competitive Scrabble she’ll want to take it up again. She’s a trip. Some of our first games were ruined because she wouldn’t let me play YO as it wasn’t in her Abridged Dictionary (!?) so she claimed it wasn’t a word (??!?!).
Anyway, enjoy this puzzle. New one on Monday. Also, for those who care to hear a Boston Typewriter Orchestra live radio performance we did this past Tuesday, click here and bang it loud.
Other than having NIMROD for DIMWIT, this was a smooth solve. Was hoping to find LOVE JACK (“Cheesehead’s motto?”) among the entries, but maybe the lengths didn’t work out. Big fan of Captain ‘Tek, btw, and nice to see someone other than William Shatner mentioned in the clue.
And thanks for the multimedia experience of being able to listen to the BTO while solving…
10D reminds me of a clue I always wanted to see: Bill Withers song with the lyrics “And I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know”
This was the hardest puzzle to solve here in a long time. I gave up and just looked at the solution.
Nancy’s wrong. YO is acceptable. I’ll save the possible hooks for someone who cares.
It would be more shocking if you hadn’t told us you didn’t like Scrabble in a previous post. Ah, the challenges of keeping it fresh past post #45!
I’m with Evad, not Twangster. The title was a pretty straightforward clue to the theme, and once I looked up PILLOW SHAM, the rest of it came with only a couple of detours.
I love Scrabble with friends and family, but I really don’t like the “higher level” of play which involves memorizing officially approved words in the dictionary instead of using the language. For me, a big part of the fun is to argue whether “JOE” is acceptable as a non-proper noun (it is: coffee is “joe,” not “Joe”), without the intrusion of an arbitrator… and if I manage to use KENKEN, I don’t want to hear that it’s not in The Official Scrabble Dictionary(TM)(R)(C) yet. If I had been at your table, I would have argued that yes, YO is absolutely a word, and Parker Brothers doesn’t get to say otherwise!
@ T: Hey, if Jim Davis made a career out of repeating himself, I hope to too.
@ Eli: My wife’s name is Liz, and yes, it will be on the test.
@ Twangster: Sorry about the difficulty, it was a nasty week and I had to punish my readers. Next week will be easier.
@ Crosscan: YouTube link?
@ Evad: Glad you liked the BTO. I think we sound pretty tight in that MP3.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIdIqbv7SPo
People always think I play Scrabble, and I don’t. (tagline, “Ick, too creative!”) It’s a strategy game.
–Ellen R. (don’t know who the other Ellen is who sometimes posts solving times, and commented the other day. I usually use Ennie online)
World B. Free!
Scrabble blows. What also blows? People complaining that you’re repeating yourself. “Are you not entertained!?”
This was tougher than usual, but very doable.
rp
Has the BTO ever considered doing a cover of “Takin’ Care of Business”? Now that would be a hoot…
@Evad: I’ll bring it up at the next rehearsal.
@RP: I hear ya.
@ MikeF: You know it.
@Ennie: That is surprising.
@Crosscan: Thanks!
Ellen R.: I’m an Ellen S. You wouldn’t be *that* Ellen R., who once had an entire puzzle built from the letters of her name, would you? 🙂
Improve your Scrabble skills with these mindbending BoLS Boardgames Scrabble puzzles.