Interesting Stuff

Whee! Remember over the summer when I was so excited that I got my first 7-letter word? Well, in the past couple weeks, I have played two more games, and gotten two more words! Sara and I were playing, and Kenny and Rami were watching (I have no idea what they were doing in my room, but it was cool to hang out with them anyway). The 2nd turn of the game (that’s right – the second turn!), I built off of Sara’s “HONEY” to get a triple-word score:

     E
HONEYS
     T
     A
     T
     E
     S

That netted me a good 80 points. Weirdly enough, we tied at the end — 275 each. This was a bit humbling, because this was the first time I’d gotten a 7-letter word on her, and it was also the first time I didn’t beat her. hm… I guess part of it was that I didn’t get any of the high-scoring letters (she got the Q, Z, X, and J), but part of it was that I definitely didn’t box her in enough. She managed to put the X on a triple word, and put QUIZ on a double word. All in all, though, ’twas a good game.

Then, tonight, Robert, Kenny, Rachel and I played Scrabble. I had had a slight lead all evening, and then, just as we ran out of letters to draw, I pulled the perfect ending move. Earlier that game, I had placed BADE just above the bottom center triple word score, so that no one could possibly get it (JADED was right above it). However, I then managed to play BULLPEN like this:

       J
       A
       D
       E
     BADE
BULLPEN

Landing the B on a triple word score and ending the game in one fell swoop! 92 points that turn. We played that everyone else got one extra turn to try to get rid of letters, so Robert got rid of his Z, and Kenny even managed to run out of letters as well (though he only had 3 or 4 letters in his hand). My final score – 215. Kenny came in 2nd with 124, so I’m feeling pretty good about the game.

Alex stopped in to visit, which was nice. She seems to be doing well, and is certainly visiting much more this year than last. The two of us, Mac, Elisa, Kenny, and Amanda watched The Professional, which we all missed at FNMG this evening. It was… interesting. Certainly a very violent movie, but at the same time, it was rather emotional. I’m not sure I’d recommend it. And there were some really creepy parts, as when Natalie Portman (who was about 12 when this movie was made) tells Jean Reno (who is in his 30’s) that she loves him. Not a daughter-father love, but a have-sex-and-get-married love. ew… At the same time, I’d be interested in finding out what other directors have watched this, because some of the same sort of imagery shows up in things like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (hit-man raises a child, takes the child to kill people, yet makes sure the child doesn’t swear, smoke, or be rude), the new Ocean’s Eleven (the SWAT scenes), and in Road To Perdition (I won’t say anything about this, because I don’t want to give away the end to either movie). One thing I didn’t know before this evening that the director (who also played the bad guy) also directed the Fifth Element (where he again played the bad guy) and Nikita (don’t recall if he played the bad guy or not). So… yeah. Interesting movie, all in all.

Yesterday, I finally got DMA turned back on for my hard drive (I’m using ReiserFS for my main partition). Huzzah! I can now watch more episodes of Bullshit (Amanda, thanks for giving me new episodes), and my music doesn’t sound as crappy any more! At this point, my computer is pretty much back to where I left off, except for the 2nd monitor, which I can’t get to work for the life of me. It does just fine at 640×480 resolution, but that’s less than 1/4 of the resolution I should be getting (I know it works at 1024×760 at 60Hz). Damn it! Well, I’ll get it eventually.

In the meantime, it’s now a touch past 3:00 in the morning, so I’m going to bed.

Tonight, Hansford, Rachel, this guy named Kyle and I were playing Scrabble (well, Hansford was playing guitar, but the 3 of us were playing Scrabble), and I actually did it – I got a 7-letter word! I built off of Kyle’s WEAR to make
SWEAR
P
O
N
G
E
D
Counting the various letter bonuses, and the 50-point bonus for using all of my letters, I scored 77 points that turn. I finished the game with 247 points. This is the first time I can remember having ever broken 200! Whee!
Ordinarily, I don’t even look for words that long, but my tiles were randomly arranged as SPONDEG, so it was easy to find this one. Once I found it, I didn’t have any place to put it (this was the 2nd turn of the game, and there were surprisingly no words that could have an S on the end). So, knowing that an extra 50 points awaited me, I passed, and got a 0 that turn. Rachel gave me a rather funny look at this point, which I probably deserved. But by the next turn, Kyle had played WEAR, and I had my chance. So, yeah. I’m pretty happy right now.

Last night, Mac, Hansford and I went to see Farenheit 9/11. In his usual style, Michael Moore discussed some things I already knew, and many I did not. It was a very intense, emotional movie, and at several points I was brought close to tears. However, this being Michael Moore, it should still be taken with a grain of salt (or as Travis said, a whole salt lick). I know that the part about the Bin Laden family still having contacts with Osama at the beginning was really edited – in early 2002 or thereabouts, I saw an episode of Larry King Live (is episode the right word? Can you have an “episode” of a talk show?) in which he interviewed Osama Bin Laden’s cousin. She said that yes, they really had kicked Osama out of the family. Nonetheless, there’s really nothing wrong with seeing estranged family members at weddings, funerals, and the like. Also, the Bin Laden family is so huge that it doesn’t surprise me at all that one or two members of it would have written to him once in a while.
I’ll have to go online sometime and read criticisms of F9/11, to learn what other things Moore has unrealistically portrayed.
One other thing I should mention about the movie – it is very emotional. So much so that I’m slightly reminded of the environmentalist movement, which uses emotion as a substitute for logic and fact. Yes, Moore puts many facts into his movie, but the emotion sort of obscures them. I wonder if the movie would be as controversial if he had scaled that back a little. But as Mac (playing devil’s advocate in the car ride home) argued, the movie is about people dying in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is a very emotional topic.
I’m rather amazed at some some of the footage in the film. There are scenes of raids in Iraq, there are scenes of President George W Bush having his makeup put on “before” he goes on camera. How does Michael Moore get these clips? If I were a large corporation/government and I owned footage like this, I would probably not share it.
All in all, it was a good movie, and I reccomend seeing it, but keep in mind that Michael Moore twists things to better illustrate his points. The arguments he makes seem to be mostly correct, just exaggerated a fair amount.

So, when Kai left, he gave me some of his leftover food, including a package of “haw flakes” (made with real haw!). Tonight, Hansford finally figured out what they are, by finding this website: http://www.cardhouse.com/a/pixbarn/p19.htm
Haw flakes are like fruit leather made from hawthorne fruit. However, it’s much dryer than fruit leather – haw flakes can chip easily, and I bet I could make one crumble. However, they’re pretty good! And unlike the website, I didn’t get any bad aftertaste or grating feeling. If nothing less, it’s an unusual thing to try.