guppy

I played Scrabble(tm) with my best friend tonight. Usually, by the third round, he's kicking my ass so hard that I swear that I'll never use words again. But inevitably I break that vow when I tell him what he's done to me.

Why would I do such a stupid thing? Because (for whatever reason) Nick gets:
a. all the good letters
b. all the good bonus tiles
c. random letter combos that just happen to make words (gaby, anyone?)
d. all of the above.

and that flusters me. Me, the English major, lose to Nick!

...

See? Even thinking about Nick's little victories breaks my syntax.

But tonight... tonight is a night that will go down in my Scrabble book forever.

Tonight is the night that I opened with "martini" (22 pts + 50 pt bonus = 72 pt opening) and followed that three turns later with "material" (20 pts + 50 pt bonus = 70 pts).

Rock rock. Two seven-letter plays gave me a 150 point lead by the end of the first five turns.

Chew on that, Nicky-boy.

---
and chew he did.

He played "axel," "quits," "ozone," and "sac." Odd word choices, but also aggravating because he played them on triple-word scores. He closed the gap (Brian:362 to Nick:340), but mostly because I spent ten turns in the middle looking for an opening to play "guppy." It's a funny word. A word I want to play every time I get the letters.

Oh well. I will console myself with the fact I managed to play "sex" and "skid" in the same turn.

So, in the end, I scored a narrow victory but got some laughs out of it.

[guppy]
brian