We Had A Little Argument, Freddie and Me, So I Had to Straighten Him Out...

Ladies and gentlemen, the First Annual Birthday Scrabble Tourney has ended. The winner? Well, that depends... it was hard to come up with a good system of determining winner because, as I feared, some people played all three rounds, and some did not. Some played 2, some only one. If I go first by win/loss record, then for the three tourney round, Yanni and I both had three victories, while Cathy and Lloyd both had 2. If you take average score, I was on top with a 370 point average, with Matt P second at 311 and Cathy O third with 297. Yanni's perfect 3-0 was won with a relatively low 261 average.

So I guess based on my 3-0 record and the top average, I would be the winner. But determining second place isn't as easy. Does Yanni get it with the also 3-0 record? Or does Matt get 2nd with the 311 average? But Matt only played 2 rounds... Cathy played all 3, with a 2-1 record, and 297 average... is she second? So I don't really know how rank the finishers...

Wifey suggests we have a monthly Scrabble night. She didn't play herself (except subbing in for Dimitri for a while at one point), but she made sure everything ran smoothly. She and Eldest Daughter really worked hard to make today happen - Special Mention! They rock. Middle Daughter also did a lot of prep Friday night, for which I am also grateful.

Left to Right: Chris, Cole, Margaret, Cathy, Bob and Lloyd. It was intended to be solo players only, in a series on 1v1's, but Bob and Margaret asked if they could play as a team, as did Chris and Cole, so I said yes, of course. Some people questioned this decision. Guess I should have given it a bit more thought...


Left to Right: Matt, Abbie and Vye. Actually, that's a sliver of Yanni on the far left. Empty chip bag in the foreground.


Left to Right: Bob, Margaret, Dimitri and Lloyd. Margaret takes a quick peek over Dimitri's shoulder during Round 2.


Left to Right: Chris, Cole and Yanni. Empty chip bag again in the foreground. I think the empty chip bag finished with a 167 point average...


At one point, Dimitri gave up and decided to lay on the floor with my giant bean bag piled on top of him. Therapeutic, I suppose. I'll have to try it...


Cathy and I in our third round showdown. While I did win this round (thanks in no small part to some lousy early-round letters for Cathy), our post-tourney rematch went to Cathy. I can't check the score of that game because I can't find that score sheet, but I believe it was pretty tight. Good work, Cathy.

In any case, I thought it was great, but it really wrung me out. I was overly optimistic on how swiftly I thought we could all get through 3 rounds. If we have regular Scrabble nights, we may have to limit it to one game, or two at the most. But again, I enjoyed it thoroughly. It was great to see everyone. It would have been nice if certain others could have made it as well, but I definitely am not disappointed in the event.

On a different note, I've discovered a new guilty-pleasure TV show, called Man vs Food. My friend Orion told me about it, and then I saw that season One was available on Netflix, so I started watching it Friday night. All I have to say is... wow. That dude is a serious eater. If you haven't seen it before, he travels around to different cities, usually drawn by a local eatery's famous eating challenge, such as one Amarillo TX steak house that had the 72-ounce steak challenge, where you have an hour to eat not only a 72 ounce steak, but also bread, a potato, a shrimp cocktail, a salad, etc. Usually, the prize for competing such a challenge is a photo on a wall, and a t-shirt...

Anyway, sometimes the host (Adam Richman) beats the challenge, and sometimes he doesn't. But he also tours several other semi-famous local eatieries while in that town, to sample some of the other grub available. I don't know why I find the show so fascinating, but I haven't had this hard a case of the "Just One More Episode" Syndrome in a long time...

Here's the link to the show website. And here's a couple videos...



Not only does he beat this challenge (steak plus all the extras), he does it in under half the alotted time. He finished in 29 minutes. Crazy.

Here he is preparing for the Eagle Challenge - a five pound towering stack of hamburgers, cheese and bacon...



Watching him try to eat these insane amounts of food is at once terrifying and fascinating. I can't stop watching... if you have a Netflix account, I recommend watching the show. I'm 8 episodes into Season 1, with 10 more to go. The only bummer is that it's cutting into my reading time...

Anyway, while today was the Scrabble party, technically, Sunday is my birthday proper. I'll be fitting in a lunch at my mom's house in between business-as-usual double-duty church tomorrow, morning and evening service. Then it's starting a new week, focussing on the upgrade to the Rug Care Central website. And hopefully more work on Wagnervana. I added a new gallery of cool photos in the photography section.

Honestly, all today's Scrabble has sapped me of my creativity and my normal manic edge, so I apologize for today's post being too "normal", for lack of a better word. It was a good day. I hope all of you had a good day too. Until tomorrow, remember, I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!