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Ever since I was kid (or, at least a small kid as opposed to the big kid that I am now), I've had a thing for Scrabble. But I'm not ashamed. In fact, I'll even tell you that a friend of mine and I are training to become competitive Scrabble players. Yep, that's right—part of the Scrabble "elite." The kind of Scrabble players who can lay down a word worth 50 points and say, "Eh, that's about mediocre for my standards. I've done much better with 5 A's and 2 Q's."

I've become so serious in fact that I have even started planning the "awesome" Scrabble parties that will soon be taking place at my apartment this upcoming semester. You know, with salsa and chips, and a few, erm, Shirley Temples. I've been thinking along the lines of hosting a tournament with maybe four games of scrabble going simultaneously. What a beautiful sight. So many letters..... so many words!! But until I reach the level necessary in order to justify holding a Scrabble tournament, I kind of need to brush up my own skills first. I'm working on memorizing all of the two letter words right now, and as soon as I can list them all off of the top of my head, I'll start on the three letter words. I'd say I've improved a lot since the beginning of the summer, but I'm still not up to my top game yet. I've seen a guy snag 50+ points for "PANTIES" on his first turn, and THAT was cheap. I need to get my revenge.

And while I'd say I've gotten pretty obsessive with Scrabble lately, I'd argue that I'm not the worst. Legend has it that a friend of mine wrote an ethnography on Scrabble back in the day for his anthropology class. In fact, I don't really think that my love of Scrabble is that bad after all. Lots of people love Scrabble. It's a good game. I definitely have weirder antics, such as my fear of maps. I just can't help it; maps FREAK ME OUT.