Absolutely Scrabulous

Preparing for this blog entry, I signed on to my beloved Facebook to steal an image of the object of my addiction... the Scrabulous board - and low and behold I had a message from a friend who I had invited into a game a few days ago. I signed her up without her knowledge, and her tardiness had led me to believe that this time my geek-factor had gotten the better of our friendship. But, no. Her message tonight read loud and clear, "Your turn!" She'd accepted my challenge, formulated a 16-point response, and once again it was time to assess my rack. Scrabble, it's got game!

I signed up to online scrabble (Scrabulous) about the same time I registered on Facebook. I have always loved playing word games - my Mum and I used to spend hours on family holidays with bums glued to chairs and fingers poised in the pages of our trusty Oxford dictionary, me just waiting for the time that I'd beat her, just once - so, the chance to incorporate my love for online friendships (on Facebook I have 190!) and words, was too good to pass up.

I started playing with good friends, friends-of-friends; I played group-Scrabulous and one-on-one, and with each new game I got better and better. By that, I mean, I started cheating less (yes, you can cheat - just check out http://www.findtheword.info/ and search crossword solvers to discover new words you've never heard of... and some pretty sneaky 2-letter score busters). I now remember high-scoring words and save them for critical moments, like when I'm 14 points down and want to take advantage of the triple-word square. But I have yet to opt to play with virtual-strangers. While there are groups for those Scrabulously-addicted (see: http://www.scrabulous.com/) I still prefer to know my challenger. And I'm proud to say that I have got some of my nearest-and-dearest totally hooked.

So next time you're online, check us out: we have 21,571 active members.