Thursday 22 December 2011

The Official Election and Inauguration of Sir Spongebob Scrabble Pants, mascot of the Jazzy Scrabble Club


The details and reasoning for electing Spongebob Scrabble Pants as the club mascot and champion floating trophy is unknown. The only evidence we have of the overall acceptance of Spongebob Scrabble Pants, is a collection of congratulatory photographs taken on the evening of 22 August 2011.  We apologise profusely for the quality of the photographs, but this moment needed capturing.














A typical evening with the JSC

Socially serious....




Without looking into the tile bag, each of the Scrabble players takes one tile out of the tile bag. Whichever player has the letter closest to the beginning of the alphabet goes first. A blank tile is considered better than an "A".  These tiles are placed into the bag once more.

 Starting the game, each player begins their turn by drawing seven tiles apiece from the bag. The player can do one of three things on a turn. The player can place a word, exchange tiles or pass. Most of the time, the player will take the option of playing a word.


 Players may place any word which can be found in a standard English language dictionary. Official Scrabble dictionaries also can be found in bookstores and online.
Types of words which cannot be used are abbreviations, prefixes and suffixes. Words that require a hyphen or an apostrophe cannot be played. Words that are spelled with a capital letter cannot be used.


And Seriously Social...








Spongebob Scrabble Pants Mascot Acceptance Speech: 
"F is for friends that do stuff together U is for you and me N is for anywhere and anytime at all down here in the deep blue sea!!" ~ Spongebob

Tuesday 29 November 2011

Braille Scrabble Set



See the pictures below of a Braille scrabble set belonging to +Dalene De Beer 's parents




Thanks Steve :-)

Friday 25 November 2011

People & Place Names

People & Place Names


Most of the names listed below are probably familiar to you - but did you know they are all allowable in Scrabble?

FAMOUS NAMES

Actors
ANN BAXTER, JACK BENNY, CAROL BURNET, FONDA (HENRY, PETER and JANE),
MEL GIBSON, PAUL HOGAN, JOHN GOODMAN, GENE HACKMAN, GENE KELLY,
JAMES MASON , GINGER ROGERS
Writers and artists
ALBEE, BROWNING, CAPOTE, CHRISTIE, COLLINS, DICKENS, JOHN DONNE, JEAN GENET, HOMER, HENRY JAMES, JUVENAL, SCHILLER, JOSEPH TURNER
Politics
AMIN, JIMMY CARTER, OLIVER NORTH , QUISLING, THATCHER
Historical figures
BECKET, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, RALPH IZARD , JESUS, JOHN PAUL JONES, JUDAS,
NED KELLY, ZAPATA
Science
BUZZ ALDRIN, RUTH BENEDICT, MARIE CURIE, ALBERT EINSTEIN, FARADAY, FERMI,
GILBERT, GRAHAM, JOSEPH HENRY, HERTZ, LORD KELVIN, NEWTON, ROENTGEN, MAX WEBER
Sport
BEN HOGAN, MIKE JORDAN, CARL LEWIS, COREY PAVIN, SAM SNEAD, MARK SPITZ
Christian names
ABIGAIL ALBERT AMELIA ANN ANNA AVA BARBIE BASIL BEN BENJAMIN BENNY BERTHA
BERYL BETH BETTY BILLIE CARL CELESTE CICELY CLARENCE CLINT COL COLIN CRAIG
DAGWOOD DEB DEBBY DEXTER DITA DREW EBENEZER ERIC ERICA FRITZ GEMMA GLORIA ISABEL ISABELLA ITA
JAMES JANE JEAN JEFF JENNY JESSIE JILL JOE JOHNNIE JOHNNY JOSEPH JUDY KELVIN
LEX LIONEL MADGE MARCEL MARG MARGE MARIA MARTIN MAVIS MAX MOLLY MORRIS MURRAY
NEDDY NELLY NELSON NOEL NORMA NORMAN OLIVER OTTO PAM PATRICK PAUL PEGGY PERRY POLLY PORGY
REX ROMA RUTH SAM SEAN SOPHIA STEVEN SYLVIA TAMMY TED TERRY TIMOTHY TOBY TOMMY
VANESSA VERONICA VICTORIA WALLY WILLY

PLACE NAMES

Countries
ANGOLA BOLIVIA BRAZIL CANADA CHAD CHILE CHINA CONGO CYPRUS GAMBIA GREECE GUINEA
JAPAN JORDAN MALI MOROCCO NIGER PANAMA RUSSIA SPAIN TONGA TURKEY WALES ZAIRE
Cities and towns
BERLIN BRISTOL FLORENCE GENOA GENEVA HAMBURG MADRAS OXFORD TRIPOLI WATERLOO
Regions
ALASKA CAYMAN ISLANDS GALILEE HOLLAND KASHMIR KLONDIKE RIALTO RIVIERA SAXONY SILESIA TEXAS
Rivers
COLORADO RHINE RHONE SEINE
Nationality
AFGHANI ARABIC CHINESE DANISH DUTCH ENGLISH FLEMISH FRENCH GERMAN GREEK MONGOL SCOT SIAMESE WELSH

Saturday 5 November 2011

My Scrabble Weekend - Day 1


4 November 2011



I feel so lucky and blessed to have friends (and family) that share my love for scrabble. It took 34 years, but finally I have scrabble-peeps. Yes a 'nerd-herd' but seriously social. And also thank you to the Vos-Family for your little paradise in Pearly Beach.



We kicked off the scrabbling with two games:

Mia vs Lidia and

Ilse vs Willy-John vs Tania (the Mathys rivalry)

Our mascot: Sir Spongebob Scrabble Pants officiating the tournament.



Lidia has to get the award for most improved in terms of time taken to play. The girl was a "Speedy Gonzalez" compared to her usual pace. Awesome stuff Lids.

Well her new found speed also translated into a win.

Game Scores:

Lidia - 393

Mia - 226



On the other side of the table, the Mathyse were intensely taking each other on. The fierce competition obvious in their defensive playing style. The name of the game was: ‘Boycott!!!!’



Well the victor of the epic battle was the young warrior – Sir Willy-John. (his skill still amazes me – raw talent)

Game Scores

            Willy-John – 223

            Tania – 206

            Ilse – 144 (la loser)



Ilse was an early fader or maybe just a bad loser and went to bed early. Mia felt her young brain had had enough for the day and just watch the Masters of the game play two more games for the evening.



Games Scores


Tania
Lidia
Willy-John
Games 1
194
149
177
Game 2
149
245
182



Clearly I shouldn’t play after 1am. But totally enjoyed. As long as I can play scrabble, I am a happy chappy.



Can’t wait for today’s games. I am going to channel my scrabble awesomeness.

Thursday 11 August 2011

Scrabble by candlelight

What to do when the power goes out in a tiny town? Play Scrabble, of course!

A long, long time ago, in a place far, far away…


Many eons ago (25 July), the Jazzy Scrabble Club of yonder week gathered at the sacred Scrabble site of Klein Libertas to test their wits, wordiness and wacky jazz moves. As was the tradition of the time, the wise and ancient Regulars opened proceedings with a three-way game. Ilse the Illustrious powered on with her impressive individual 200+ scoring streak, obliterating the brave attempts of Tania the Tenacious and Lidia the Loquacious. 

Tania channelling her inner Reggae.

The final battle tally was 225 for Ilse, 162 for Lidia, and 161 for Tania. The only chink in Ilse’s near-impenetrable battle armour was her interpretation of YEW as a “carnivorous” tree… 

The carnivorous coniferous yew. Nom nom nom.

Not to be excluded from the excitement of the main battle, the young squires in attendance busied themselves with their own skirmish.

A bird’s eye view of the skirmish.

With the opening rites concluded, the Knights of the Rectangular Table gathered for trench warfare. Tania stuck with her trusty comrades, Mia the Meticulous and Lize the Lively, forming Team PHAB (Pharmacist, Actuary and Bedryfsingenieur). Ilse and Lidia combined with Bruce the Brave(ly representing the Male Species) as Team Game Face (Gregarious Anagramming Might Enable Feasible Acronym Creation Eventually).

Tania showed her keen eye for team selection again, leading Team Phab to another team victory, albeit fiercely contested by Team Game Face. The battle was nearly abandoned, as an overly energetic Scrabble manoeuvre saw the field of play upended. 

Resetting the battlefield.

Luckily, Lidia in her geeky way was recording all words played for the purpose of statistically analysing the word preferences of the Jazzy Scrabble Club. With the word chronology in hand, the game was soon reset and play resumed. The final scores were 271 for Team Phab, and 260 for Team Game Face. “Tight like a tiger!” as the wise men of old would say.

The victors: Lize the Lively, Tania the Tenacious and Mia the Meticulous.

The vanquished: Bruce the Brave, Ilse the Illustrious and Lidia the Loquacious.

Wise words:
      - On the symbiotic relationship between Scrabble and jazz:
Ilse: “I think the jazz really upgrades our Scrabble!”
Tania: “I think we upgrade the jazz!”

Lies, damn lies and statistics: