h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.h2g2.com/A500031

Hi, I've just posted this article I wrote on my new Palm Vx (grin!) about the everyday problems of scrabble. The article was originally called 'Scrabble' but I decided it wasn't right, because all I've listed are those annoying things that always crop up during a game (And before you ask, no, I am not a sad board games addict). Hope you enjoy it! Oh, and if you think there's is somthing that needs to be added to the list, please let me know!

-The Admiral 8)
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lol, its not that funny after all then 8)
Any comments? 8)

-The Admiral 8)
[email protected]

*i* thought it was funny. (just so you know that at least *one* person besides yourself did)

Yes, I recognised 6 or 7 of those from my own experiences. Particularly the suggestion that you'll spend half the night arguing about the existence of obscure words that one player steadfastly claims to have read in an esteemed journal somewhere. Or all the disagreements about whether US spellings are permitted in the UK or vice versa. Or whether local dialect words are allowed. (Am I beginning to sound like a sad board games addict?!)

Are you aware that there's an edited article about how to win at Scrabble at http://www.h2g2.com/A371611 ? Might be worth you checking the conversations there for more ideas to add to your list.
Also, although I liked this, I'm not sure how well you'll fare with the list format for an approved edited article. Let's hope you get some passing ACEs in here to proffer an opinion.

I note with interest that you opened this thread separate from postings that would appear only below the article. I left one there but as you are obviously aware these don't come up on your homepage 'recent conversations' and often get lost until you read through your article again...

I once scored over 430 points for 'jabberer' running from one triple word to another (with my b hitting the double letter square (another b was already there). It's an 8( letter word.
So may I suggest here Annoyance # 15:

Never win big or no one will ever play with you again.

I'll add that one, cheers 8)

Hmm. Nice entry. Well written, I thought - and good use of humour. I've got a few suggestions - take them all with pinches of salt.

Namechange - "annoyances of scrabble" - as time goes on, people will add to your entry, hopefully, and so it will grow - a number seems... wrong somehow.

’ -- Umm: how did that get in there?

balance: not everyone would agree with you that scrabble is horribly annoying. Some are sad board game addicts... To avoid offending them, you might want to say "Some think X" or "Scrabble seems Y"... and so on. It's good that you have opinions - the guide thrives on them - but you have to be careful not to accidentally represent opinions as fact.

Lists are good - and this is a good use of them here, I think. Lists of more than about ten items, in my experience, are bad (I have an entry with this trouble myself: I need to try and fix it...) try combining some of them into a single point - eg beating someone mercilessly or being beaten mercilessly could go in the same place. Etc, etc - you get the idea.

If you're feeling like it, you could add stuff about how to solve these problems. "Get a life", however accurate, is possibly not such a good idea. Or you could expand it to boardgames generally - and generalise where appropriate. All optional, of course...

Keep writing...

I don't have much experience with board games but I've been trying to think of an annoyance for you. Does anyone ever choke on those little plastic letters? That would be a bad thing, wouldn't it? You'd be short of a letter AND you'd have to carry out that manoeuvre (that I can't spell) on them or rush them off to hospital. Sorry, that's the best I can do. Your entertaining entry deserves better.

I ain't emailing, so I'll have to put my point here:

Your opponent insists on taking three quarters of an hour to choose their word. In cases like these it is advisable to have a good book at your elbow, and to treat the game simply as an occasional diversion at the end of a chapter. However, some player insist that it is bad form to read during the game and expect you to sit their in breathless anticiaption while they work through every possible combination of their letters only to put down 'dog' 45 minutes later

An annoyance for me is once I placed the word "wines" (not desperately high scoring, but hang in there) only to be argued into removing it as the dictionary in the house didn't support my effort. However, the following day while driving with one of the other players I got stuck in a queue behind a van offering the "finest wines in blah-blah" or whatever. I laughed, the passenger groaned and somehow, somewhere I felt I had won the game afterall!

Dictionaries (the better ones) often only show the plural forms as a parenthetical notation unless it is an oddity like 'geese' or 'children'.
The OED, I learned to my chagrin does not recognise 'empathy'. At least the 1974 Concise edition doesn't.

~treading~ on the pieces is particularly painful.
A regular occurance in my home.

Falling asleep on them can be pretty uncomfortable too.
The worst thing is when the dog decides to stand up under the table and overturns the board and all the tile racks, just as you were about to lay a word that would give you an incredibly high score. Of course no one will ever believe you . . .

Heheh, thankyou for all the ideas!

I'm going to change the name to "The Annoyances Of Scrabble" to allow more room for improvement. As for cutting it down, I believe it should be used as something to dip into, like a book full of comic strips i suppose.

HEY i DIDN'T SAY YOU COULD PUBLISH THOSE NUDE SHOTS!

The entity formerly known as Trillion -
were you the person who wrote the entry on Alexander the Great, then deleted it? If you are we've been looking for you; if you can re-instate your entry please, I will help you with the Guide ML & we'd like to put it forward for recommendation.
You need to go to the "Guide Entries" part of your page, click on "click here to see more guide entries" then you get an option "view deleted entries" and hopefully you can recover it.
Please?

Thanks for the mention, The Admiral!
Although I think the "sitting on" one was supplied by "formerly Trillion"...
If your entry is in Guide ML, you can put direct links to us thus:
Galaxy Babe
I just gave the url to Bluebottle, for hopeful inclusion into "So long and thanks for all the laughing"

I would but it's in plain text 8(

Bummer!
I didn't know Guide ML until I joined h2g2 & taught myself

~and~ it would go through the whole process a lot quicker
As every entry has to be Guide ML'd...it's less work for the next process