#14 - get wild!

for those of us who are lovers of scrabble & its various derivatives, these last few days have seen the game really grab a hold of the headlines, pretty much entirely because of the hasbro/electronic arts/scrabble vs scrabulous copyright lawsuit that has resulted in the removal of the scrabulous application from facebook...& the big deal is what now?

the scrabulous application is still available on their website. in fact, i'm on my fifth game of the night right now. sure, you may have lost the results of games you were playing on facebook, but last time i checked, those results aren't redeemable like ski-ball tickets or anything. it just means that you lose some computer memories & that there is one less reason to go onto facebook, people. in fact, by playing scrabulous, i've avoided facebook for the last two hours or so.

as for scrabble protecting their copyright, that makes sense & it's great that cnn & msnbc will discuss copyright law for a few days, but after listening to a story on npr earlier, there's some eyebrow-raising precise timing behind hasbro's recent actions towards scrabulous.

#1 - tuesday was the final day of the 2008 national scrabble championship down in orlando, a tournament, which according to npr, featured players such as 11-year old bradley robbins, from WINDHAM, NH BIZZNITCHES!!!...he won 24 out of 28 games against adults.

#2 - scrabble/electronic arts launched their beta application on facebook...& it is currently unavailable due to maintenance.

#3 - electronic arts announced that it had missed analyst estimates.

it's probably just pure coincidence that scrabble ordered scrabulous to shut down their facebook app at the same time ea missed estimates & launched their beta app & at the same time as the national scrabble championships. clearly, the real loser in all of this is hasbro, whose game has been negatively impacted by the publicity as a result of the existence of scrabulous & the fact that 13-year old girls across the country now know the rules of scrabble & enjoy words more.

#14 - get wild!

snack: limited edition wildly cherry m&ms
drink: coca-cola classic

...so & i'm on my sixth game of scrabulous now & while i've been playing, i've cracked open a bag of limited edition wildly cherry m&ms to snack on. as a rule, whenever i see the words "limited edition" on a candy item, said candy eventually ends up in my mouth. i tried these cherry m&ms for the first time a few days ago & went in with no great expectations. over the years, m&m has done a lot of good beyond the early peanut or plain-only days of the m&m. from the reincarnation of the red m&m to the inventions of the mint and mega m&ms, mars has done a lot to keep me interested over the years, but i've still remained skeptical of new types of m&ms. i don't know why i just don't give them the benefit of the doubt & let it be done with. these cherry ones are friggin' amazing. they're the same size as the peanut butter m&ms & each one is like eating a chocolate covered cherry sans gooey stickiness.

the front of the package urges me to "get wild!" & believe me, i am. it is 1am & i'm sitting in my boxers blogging, covering my teeth with coca-cola classic and watching an eight-year old japanese prodigy play "crossroads" on conan. believe me, i don't dare get any wilder than this. i'd hate to wake the neighborhood & attract the wrath of the nypd. they do not tolerate wildness.