Scrabbling

      It's surprisingly difficult to beat the computer when playing Scrabble. It has a complete dictionary at its disposal so it comes up with some very strange words. For instance, LARKY. I had to look it up. It means: "1. High-spirited, zestful. 2. Silly; zany." At least Websters says it does. You can even be larkier or larkiest. Who knew?
      It's very good at using Z. When I get a Z, I look for a chance to play: ZIT, ZOO, ZINC, ZEBRA, ZAP, ZONE, ZITHER, ZEAL, ZERO, ZIRCON and ZOOM. That's my Z's. But it used ZED, ZEBU and ZEITGEIST. ZEITGEIST won the game because it played it on a triple word score! You can't come back from that. And it incorporated two other words when it did it. (I changed the game's setting from champion to intermediate after that.)
      Now I keep a dictionary by the computer to look up the words it plays. I had thought I was fairly literate, but frankly I've been humbled. Despite this I'm winning more games than I lose. Eventually I hope to be up to facing the champion setting, but give me few months.
      I've been trying to figure out how to play it online. It does have an online option, but when I click it, nothing happens. Probably the computer game company that produced it is out of business. The game was in the bargain bin, and it was old, not even mentioning XP or Windows ME on the system requirements. I'll have to find my online fix some other way.
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      Crystal asked me about how crystals formed last night. She home-schools her son, and it came up as a science lesson. I gave what I remembered from my high school chemistry, but later began to doubt what I said. So I started researching it. As it turned out, I was correct, but I kept clicking on various links and wandered across the Internet, following whatever caught my interest. Eventually I ended up on a page that sold crystals as tools for "healing and contacting The Other Side." Ooookay. Apparently by attuning your mind to the "dimensional vibrations" of the crystals, you can do all sorts of things. Curious. You'd think this would be big news, but no one is reporting it. I wonder why.
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      Can you ever truly trust someone who doesn't find Monty Python and the Holy Grail funny? I think not. And now for something completely different ... Good night.