Met up with pbzeigler to play a couple of games last night. Both were good, we each won one, nothing out of the ordinary. In Quackling them, I found that I still have a long way to go. In the second game, I felt like my best play was always obvious. I think I had 17 minutes left on my clock at the end. And I did make my best play nearly half the time, but then the other half I was making Quackle's 6th and 8th and 10th choices... ah well.

Had a Scrabble nightmare last night. I was in a huge tournament, probably Nationals next year, and in round 1 I was paired against Joey Krafchick. He played super-fast like in real life, but I kept having to go to the bathroom when he made his plays, and when I came back he had played some ridiculous 11 and 12 letter phonies. I wish I could remember what some of them were. I knew I couldn't challenge them off because he had already drawn his tiles while I was in the bathroom (I guess in the dream I hadn't read the CGP discussion of the pissing while playing rule), but I couldn't stop peeing. Every time I came back, it was a different board with different words on it, and the tiles were smaller and smaller each time. It was awful.

I have a day off today but I have to go to the dentist and get a tooth pulled. The rest of the day should be really enjoyable.

Tags: scrabble

Burning River Blowout is going well. The site is good, we have about 35 people... not bad for the midwest. I'm 5-3 so far after a 1-3 start. I don't know how I know LABROID but I got it down to win a game against a formidable opponent. Challenged off some shitty bingos (PANELLER, REALINED) let some even shittier ones stay (REBRAID). I hope to do well tomorrow and cash.

Trivia Bowl was alright but I will not do it again. It was flawed. Also, I forgot that I hate being the center of attention, and being the center of attention makes me irritable. Some people got on my nerves and I wanted to be the opposite of the center of attention, so I am in my room now watching the Indians. I'll probably be asleep before the game is over.

Tags: scrabble, youtube
Current Location: ELROH
Current Music: Indians game

My grandfather worked for General Motors and once he worked every single day for 15 months except Christmas day.

This is my ninth work day in a row and I wonder how I'm going to make it through. This weekend was especially tedious. Two 11-7 shifts in the MARO (Marriott Area Revenue Office) with the same person. I like all of the agents we have working on MARO, but 16 hours of conversation (and silence, for that matter) with any one person is going to get a little old.

Went to club last night and had my first bye in months. Beat Terry Oblander, lost to Jim Smith and Walter Konicki. I took risks that I wouldn't take in a tournament, and they ended up costing me games. Ah well. I used the time to inhale a Whopper. Came home, got 5 hours of sleep, and here I am.

Farmington this weekend. It'll be nice to play a good 7 games when I don't have to worry about my rating slipping like it usually does at Farmingtons. I feel pretty confident in my field for Dayton, and I feel like that won't change if I somehow drop below 1300 again.

Tags: scrabble, work
Current Location: bed
Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: John Parr

Things have been pretty dece lately. With the exception of another good friend moving away (this time to greater Phoenix), the summer of George has been on the upswing. On the Scrabble side of things, Michigan Madness went well for the most part. On the fun side of things, it was awesome. My only complaint was that the doses I get of ericaareicceria and tatermunch are much too small.

Work is going really well too. Another promotion. I'll be brief here, because I realize that not everybody finds the hospitality industry as interesting as I do. I work for a company called Lodgian, Inc., that franchises hotels. They own 30 or so Intercontinental brand (Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza) hotels and 12 Marriott brand (Courtyard, Fairfield Inn, Residence Inn, Spring Hill Suites, etc.) hotels. The office I work in is essentially a call center for all of the Intercontinental brands that Lodgian owns. When you call the Crowne Plaza in Albany to make a reservation because you don't want to call 1-800-2-CROWN and speak to someone in Bombay, you end up unknowingly speaking to someone in suburban Cleveland. Anyway, all of the Marriotts that my company owns were still being booked by Marriott's huge ridiculous (but American) call center. We've been shop-calling these Marriotts and grading the agents on the same rubric we use on our agents and submitting the results to the suits at Lodgian, essentially trying to convince them to let us take the calls. And really, their agents suck. So, these suits finally caved and we're going to be taking on 11 of their 12 Marriotts. We're going to be creating a new Area Revenue Office (ARO) within our existing office space for these Marriotts, and I'm going to be the project manager. I don't know what my pay will be like, but this is a big step up for me, and as always, I plan on moving up.

This also means that I'll get my employee discount at not only Intercontinental brand hotels, but also Marriott hotels.

On the study tip, things have been going very well also. I did the top 1000 8s last week and with a few exceptions (sixty or so bitches like EMANATOR, DIPTERAN, AGENTIAL/ALGINATE, etc.). Now I'm reviewing the top 1000 7s (after missing STRIATE in my game against Dave Leonard at MM). If I stay on pace, I should have a ~95% knowledge of the top 3000 of each set by Dayton. My goal is to finish in the top 20 of the division and be rated over 1400 at the end. It's not that lofty a goal, as I'm going to be seeded near the bottom of the pack. The goal I have that is lofty is to be rated 1530 by the end of October. When I got out of the Clinic last October 28th, my rating was 530. If I somehow hit 1530 at the Burning River Blowout, I will be ecstatic. It's the first divisional tourney in the Cleveland area in something like 8 years. Plus, there's going to be a trivia bowl.

Back to studying.

Tags: scrabble, work
Current Location: Seekers

Day 1 of Michigan Madness was pretty good. I was comforted to find that I am still "underrated." My expected wins against the field I played today was 2.3something and I went 5-3. If the ratings calculator is accurate, I've already picked up 70 rating points. Two of the losses were ones that I could do nothing about. I got double-blanked by people who don't need both blanks to beat me. I held it down though. Also played my first phony two in tournament history. It was an accident. I didn't grab the wrong tile, I just hit the clock before I realized PO* is not good. It's one of those (TE*, OT*, FI*, etc.) that I sometimes see as part of a word I wanted to play, then I usually pick it back up and say, "Oop, that won't work..." This time, I hit the clock before I caught it. It stayed. A 1441 player let PO* go. It just shows to go ya, nobody's rating should mean shit to me except my own.

Full report someday soon. There are 6 games tomorrow. My prediction is that I'll end up 8-6, but we'll see.

Tags: scrabble
Current Location: Holiday Inn, Warren, MI

I've got one of my songs done for karaoke on Saturday night. I'd like it to be a surprise, so I'm not going to post the lyrics here. But I am singing mine to the tune of "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" by Looking Glass. It's one of the staples of my repertoire in regular karaoke, so I figured it would yield the best results. I was going to write a second one ("Balance That Rack", to the tune of "Baby Got Back") but it's going to take more time than I currently have. Maybe next year.

I decided not to study tonight. I might hit the Strongsville Cafe and perhaps the Rib Burn-off, if I can round up a crew. I am pretty excited for the weekend. Work dragged today, of course.

I changed my mind about my predictions and I think I'm going to go undefeated this weekend. That's your heads-up, those who haven't yet picked a roto team.

Stoked to see/meet all the LJ Scrabblers this weekend... I owe you all a free high-five.

Tags: karaoke, scrabble
Current Location: bedroom
Current Music: Looking Glass

So it's been a week or so since we got a Wii. It's definitely been a distraction, albeit a fun one. I'm big on bowling. My high game thus far is 210. It has kind of reignited that bowling flame in me. Was a time (age 15-16) when I bowled in a league and maintained an average of 188 or so, my high game being 233. I don't think the "touch" is gone entirely. I'm thinking about getting a new ball (and trying to take it up again. My dad's bowled on a team for as long as I can remember, and he's gotten a few 290+ games and a couple 800+ series throughout the years. I think I might have that bowling gene too, I just need to refine it a bit. Scrabble is great and very satisfying, but I think I'd like to get good at something else as well. That will be something to think about in the next few weeks.

I won't even bother writing about how stoked I am for this weekend. I'm expected to win 4.3 games, and I predict I'll win 8. The lower my expected wins, the more wins I get. That's how it's gone in the past, so I have high hopes. Aside from the actual tourney, I plan on having a great time at karaoke. I've got one song almost complete and another one I may be able to get done in time. Karaoke is one of the things I don't half-ass.

Two work days left before the weekend.

Tags: bowling, scrabble
Current Music: Ying Yang Twins

So I think a bunch more people need to sign up for Michigan Madness. If not for the games, for the karaoke. I myself have penned two songs that are destined to go down in Scrabble-Themed-Parodies-of-Popular-Songs history. There are only 17 people in my division at this point, not including pbzeigler who I know will be registering eventually. I'm not in the ideal position to cash, but my rating will not suffer.

Looking farther ahead, Orlando should be a good time if I can afford it. There are several Holiday Inn/Crowne Plaza/etc. hotels nearby, so hopefully I can get my employee discount at one of them. Staying at the resort is pretty much out of the question. There's also a Wet 'n' Wild waterpark in proximity. It's always nice to have something to look forward to.

Tags: scrabble
Current Location: upstairs
Current Music: Longmont Potion Castle

In celebration of his performance last night, I will now share with you a Lebron James story you won't hear on ESPN.

Lebron attended a Catholic(?) high school in the Akron, OH area. I knew a girl who knew a girl who had a class with him. Toward the end of their senior year (I believe it was after he got his Hummer but before he signed a ridiculous deal with Nike, about the same time I saw him miniature golfing) his communications class had a big project due. They were supposed to make a music video and turn it in. It comes to be the day that the project is due and Lebron still doesn't have his done. The teacher allows him to take the school's video camera and leave class to go make his video. Not only that, but he recruits several girls from the class to "star" in his video. The final product turned in was a video of said girls dancing around Lebron's Hummer to the tune of whatever music was blasting from the stereo.

Lackluster night at club last night for the most part, save for a fantastic game against Dan Stock.



Nothing really flashy, just a fun game, back and forth. Interestingly enough, I lost a total of 10 points simply by not counting my plays correctly. For example, my opening play, PRAYiNG should have been 80, but I counted 76. I Quackled the game, and even though the whole game felt good, even though I won, only twice in the game (NEARSI(D)E and HAZED) did I make the best play.

Surprisingly enough I'm not really going through the tourney withdrawal I expected. I got kind of bummed last night looking at pictures from the Arden Cup, made me feel extra lame that I couldn't make it. But I know that Michigan Madness is going to be a goddamn blast, and it'll be here before I know it.

Tags: lebron hating, scrabble
Current Location: bedroom
Current Music: Bill Callahan

I told myself I wasn't going to be bummed about missing the Arden Cup, because working is priority and it is work that allows me to play Scrabble at all. But pretty much all of my LJ friends are going, as well as a few people I know in real life. Thinking about playing tonight at Cahnmann's house or staying at Tom & Erica's this weekend is kind of making me a little forlorn. Ah well.

So I got promoted at work. Beginning June 1, I'll be a head agent. Not bad for 3 months on the job. A position opened up and they needed to fill it pretty quickly. It was between myself and another girl, and it was my ideas for improving our intranet and minimizing calls to the properties that put me ahead. So for the first time ever in life, I will have some kind of authority over co-workers. I wonder how that's going to be.

On the plus side, obviously, it means more money. Not that much more, but when you're 26 and trying to get out of your parents' house, you take every penny you can get. On the negative side, my Scrabbling could suffer a little bit. First of all, since I won't be on the phones much anymore, I'll have no time to study while at work. Also, there are only 5 head agents, so when I need a weekend off, there are fewer people to cover it. But it happens all the time, so we'll see.

As my reward for getting through the fours, I've been rewarding myself by studying fun (but still very useful) lists all week. Pretty soon though I'll have to get back to 7s and 8s.

cross-posted to Optical Coalpit

Tags: scrabble, work
Current Music: Billy Bragg