Last week I made a big mistake. I downloaded Scrabble from TryMedia Games for $19.99 to play on my computer. I’ve now been reduced to a shriveling mass of nerves and tissue with a complete lack of self-esteem or self-confidence in my ability to create words.

Previously, as mentioned here,, I felt like I was a pretty formidable Scrabble player, but the computer is just whipping me into oblivion. They even give the computer player a name: Maven. Maven seems to take great pleasure in torturing me with words like fleawort, playsuit, liveners, anklet and many others. Always on the triple word score, too. Always. I regularly lose by 100 or more points. I should point out, however, that I regularly score 300 against Maven, which is a respectable amount of points in a Scrabble game. The problem is that Maven always has 400-500.

I imagine this will make me a stronger Scrabble player. The constant beatings will probably continue, but at one point I will overcome. Promise. With that, I egress. Have a nice day.