Absolutely Scrabulous!

I owe Mark Zuckerberg a thank-you note for the many hours of procrastination and ability to do brief background-checks on guys my friends or I have dated, but my love for the Facebook pales in comparison to my adoration of the best application ever.

By K

I admit, I was what a communications professor would have categorized as a “laggard” of technology users (See? You use these random bits from class sometimes!), and I absolutely, passionately, vehemently loathed the applications on Facebook. A good friend of mine went so far as to title the profiles with superwalls, superpokes, the ability to throw sheep at people and start zombie fights as “MySpaced out profiles,” and we would roll our eyes together at how lame our generation had become. Was it not enough that we had integrated Facebook into our daily lives, making it a verb and using it to evaluate our acquaintances and friends alike? Lame, indeed, twenty-somethings. And so I was a staunch hater of all things that were not on the original Facebook.

That is, until I discovered Scrabulous.

Perhaps because I am not at all athletically inclined, I get incredibly competitive for word and board games. You get to literally play a game of Scrabble with a friend of your choice, and you can start as many as you want at once. The application keeps track of points and tiles for you, even tells you if a word exists or not, and maintains a record of your stats as a player. Basically, it’s as close as you can get to playing in person, only the games stretch out over how often you and your opponent are on Facebook.

Granted, there are some drawbacks to Scrabulous, such as not being a fast enough alt-tabber to hide the Scrabble board from your computer screen when your boss walks in, and sometimes you can be left high and dry by an opponent who doesn’t log on for a few days. No big deal, it just gives you time to strategize, and at least you can explain to your boss (should they comment anyway) that you’re just trying to expand your vocabulary before that big meeting.

Some tips and tricks for the Scrabulous addict:

1. I’ve been screwed many a time by opponents who save their big-point letters for the end. Try doing this yourself.
2. The two- and three-letter words are key. It’s all about using multiple letters from one word to build your next one, make the most of those points.
3. If your game seems a little dull, try adding some commentary in the Message section. Sometimes talking smack can add to the enjoyment of your class/workday.