Tag: The times

Break In At Obama’s Place

Drudge has it on his front page, though pretty far down the left side. The AP wrote it up nicely. A bit of trouble Friday night at Obama Headquarters in Iowa.

(AP) DAVENPORT, Iowa The Davenport, Iowa, campaign headquarters for presidential candidate Barack Obama was burglarized Friday evening.

Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor says two laptop computers and some campaign literature were taken. A campaign worker discovered the burglary this morning, and a report was filed with Davenport police.

Vietor says that it doesn’t appear that it was anything sensitive or irreplaceable was taken.

Hmmm…. where have I heard this before? Here’s the opening ‘graph’ of a story from the New York Times, June 17, 1972.

WASHINGTON, June 17 — Five men, said to have been carrying cameras, electronic surveillance equipment and burglary tools, were arrested shortly after 2 A.M. today after a floor-by-floor search that led to the executive quarters of the National Democratic Committee here.

Here’s a copy of the actual story that ran on page 30 in the Times and the text of the story that was on the front page of the Washington Post. Remember, we knew nothing else except there was a burglary in Larry O’Brien’s office at the Watergate (The image of the front page on the left is from two days later, June 19, 1972).

I doubt last night’s burglary was anything more than a burglary. The stolen laptops were probably the target.

On the other hand, Watergate also seemed like a meaningless burglary. Nixon was way ahead at the polls. He would end up winning the presidential election with 60% of the popular vote and nearly 97% of the Electoral College.

Why would CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect the President) even care what O’Brien did or did not know?

Just for a second, let’s make believe there was something politically evil going on Friday night in Iowa. Are there still Woodwards and Bernsteins in journalism? Are there Ben Bradlees and Katherine Grahams who would allow reporters to spend days and days pursuing leads which probably weren’t going to pan out? Few thought Watergate would be anything more than the 2-bit burglary it was.

I’m afraid I know the answer.

Corporate journalism, where publishers (and TV managers) answer to stockholders, not individual owners and where the cost of debt service has entered into the daily decision making process, has changed journalism in profound ways.

If 1972 happened in 2007, how much would we know?

Oh Paris

I’ve got MSNBC on the TV now. It’s a live shot, split screen. That means two live cameras, one from a copter, to two satellite transponders, as we await Paris Hilton’s return to the ‘system’.

I’ve tried desperately to avoid this story – not just here on the blog, but in person. It’s impossible. It’s too juicy.

“I want to see the house,” said Helaine, speaking directly to our TV screen.

The all-female MSNBC anchor team is starting to get a little catty. Did Paris have a party planned for tonight? Did she need hair and makeup before returning.

Is there anyone rooting for Paris anymore? She is the poster child for spoiled rich kid. Incarceration in your mansion is not the same as serving jail time.

Uh oh… MSNBC, CNN and Fox News have pulled away to cover Defense Secretary Gates’ press conference. Where are their priorities&#185?

OK – don’t answer that.

Neither E! nor CourtTV is covering the re-incarceration. Now we’ve got problems.

Luckily KCBS-TV in Los Angeles is streaming the video live! And you thought my vast knowledge of call letters was worthless!

This is unreal. Live, on TV, as Paris was being spirited away, a gaggle of press photographers swarmed the car. I was amazed no one was hurt!

This story has drawn me in. It’s jumped from ‘celebrenews’ to real news. Even those organizations who’ve attemped to keep about the fray will have to add this story to their news budget. I’m talking about you NY Times&#178 and PBS News Hour.

She will always be notorious. The question is, will this be the end of Hilton’s commercially exploitable celebrity?

&#185 – Uh oh – I’m starting to think like TMZ.com! Take a look at this entry they posted at 1:06 PM. I’m not proud of that.

&#178 – Late this afternoon the Times bit the bullet and ran the story.

JetBlue’s Problems

jetBlue is in the midst of a meltdown. They’ve scrubbed a boatload of flights tomorrow, the fifth consecutive day of cancellations following a Northeast ice storm. Passengers are up in arms.

There was a call for congressional hearings after a recent debacle by American Airlines in Austin, TX. Whether hearings accomplish anything or not, I see them as certain now.

I don’t know much about the airline business, but I can tell you why jetBlue is having the problems they’re having. To a large extent, it’s because there is no jetBlue!

I look upon jetBlue as a virtual company. It doesn’t own its planes. It doesn’t do most of its maintenance (much of which is performed in El Salvador). Its telephone reservation system is based in Salt Lake City and mostly staffed by women working from home.

Is jetBlue the top priority of any of their contractors?

jetBlue is perfectly staffed… as long as nothing goes wrong. In real life, things go wrong.

Unfortunately, what has happened to jetBlue will happen in more and more places with more and more companies. Since passengers won’t be locked in place for ten or twelve hours we won’t hear as much about them.

Companies are cutting away as much cost as they can and that certainly extends to any protection against unusual failure. There is no profit in standby contingencies.

You see this all the time in stores, with fewer staff members or less competent staff. Here’s what Floyd Norris of the Times said in his blog about the former chairman of Home Depot, Bob Nardelli.

He was a man who thought he was worth unlimited amounts, and yet messed up the company by a desire to slash compensation expenses. He pushed out experienced store workers, figuring part-timers were cheaper, and did not realize in time that those knowledgeable workers were critical to the willingness of amateurs to shop there&#185

In some ways, we bring this on ourselves. We’re willing to shop entirely on price. I’m guilty myself, even though it’s often bad in the long run.

Years ago, when most stores were closed on Sunday’s, my father used to say, “If you don’t want to work Sunday, don’t shop Sunday.” The same applies today. If you don’t want to suffer bad service, don’t shop where service is not a priority.

Easier said than done, I’m sure.

&#185 – When he was drummed out, Nardelli received a king’s ransom in severance. Norris added, “Perhaps Lowe

The High Def Diff

Sometime in the next few years, my television station will make the switch from plain old analog TV to hi-def. We’re already passing along hi-def network shows, but aren’t producing anything with that rich video quality in house.

The TV station’s going to do it whether I like it or not, though I sense seeing the news and weather in high definition isn’t on your short list.

Some of my co-workers worry. What will we look like when ‘warts and all’ really means ‘warts and all’?

I’d like to say I’m not that vain – but I am. After all, I wear make-up at work.

A nameless co-worker watched the NFL playoffs on hi-def this weekend. “They look old,” she said. “Lots of make-up,” but it didn’t help. I’ve heard the make-up is sprayed on, like a phony tan.

Not only will the ‘talent’ be under more scrutiny in a high definition world, so will our sets! Little blemishes that go unnoticed now, the nap of the carpet or the trim on the anchor desk, will glare. Maybe they’ll wax the floor every day?

Oh – here’s what brought this up. There was an article in the Times a few days ago about some other TV performers who are already suffering – porn stars&#185!

They have discovered that the technology is sometimes not so sexy. The high-definition format is accentuating imperfections in the actors

Missing Helaine

Helaine’s out-of-town for a few days. It’s very quiet here.

I am very surprised how much more efficient I am at amassing a mess when she’s not around, even though I’m not sure how I do it!

The mail, which I was asked to leave in a provided plastic bag, is piled on the kitchen counter. The newspapers are piled, one upon the other, on the kitchen table.

I have thumbed through the Times each day, but the New Haven Register has only had its cover perused. Sorry inside advertisers.

Knowing I’m an organizational nightmare, Helaine left “oatmeal kits” – literally pre-measured bags of oatmeal! Still, when I went to cook my oatmeal this morning, the first step was to wash out yesterday’s pot and escort yesterday’s dish from the sink to the dishwasher.

Some things never change, I suppose.

I went to work yesterday leaving the stove on! It was on low. Still.

The pills I take on a daily basis are in one of those little compartmentalized plastic holders (which in the absence of a drivers license can be used to qualify for any senior citizen discount). I’ve been good with the pills, but only because I remember what happened when I wasn’t taking my antihistamine.

I am off work tomorrow, so I plan on doing the wash and straightening up… or, possibly, not. I have some friends coming over tomorrow night. The downstairs will be presentable. That’s a given. And, even if it’s a mad dash to the finish, everything will be fine when Helaine returns.

Before she left, Helaine pre-positioned snacks. No shopping necessary. They’re the Hershey’s equivalent of M&Ms, but in order to make sure they’d be here for my guests, Helaine has hidden them. Where they are is on a need to know basis. I currently don’t have the proper clearance.

This is trash night. I could take the cans out now, but tonight (when there’s the chance of rain) is when I’ll do it.

I’ve always firmly believed it is correct to put off anything, with the thought the world could end between now and when the project is due. Unfortunately, this is the kind of dominant trait passed from father to child. My bad.

Helaine is only gone a few days and look where I am already. Imagine what I was like as a bachelor? Good lord!

I had a ketchup bottle stuck to my kitchen table and science projects growing in the bathroom.

If left to my own devices, like most men, I’d revert to my caveman concept of neat and clean. Why don’t we ever really grow up?

Phrases To Be Stricken

I was reading the Times a moment ago. It’s another story about the Harvard student/author, Kaavya Viswanathan and what looks like plagiarism… again.

But enough about Kaavya. The most interesting part of the article is buried toward the end. The Times tried to get in touch with her agent.

Ms. Viswanathan’s agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh of the William Morris Agency, was traveling and could not be reached.

Right.

Call me crazy, but in the year 2006 we need to replace that excuse. Agents are available (though not to their own clients) for a living. And, it’s tough to believe any William Morris agent is Blackberry-less… ever.

OK – it’s possible. Still, in my mind, this has been filed in the fiction section.

As long as I’m at it, aren’t there other phrases that need to disappear?

We all know what “left to pursue other opportunities,” or “spend more time with his family” mean – you’ve been fired. Saying either of these doesn’t hide what happened. They just make you look like a wuss for trying to hide it.

The Meisels Go Home To New Orleans

Back when Hurricane Katrina was threatening the Gulf Coast, I did my best to get Ruth Meisel out. The day she drove to safety up north was the last time she saw her home, until yesterday.

With her two adult children in tow, Ruth Meisel returned to New Orleans to see what could be salvaged and tie up loose ends. She will be among the tens, maybe hundreds of thousands, who will leave their homes and move elsewhere.

New Orleans is being abandoned, wholesale.

I asked her son, my friend, Farrell to type some of his thoughts so I could put them here in the blog. I’ll sprinkle a few of his photos here, though the best way to see them is in this slideshow.

Clean up goes on. 80% of the city was affected. Some parts of the city have begun to function, albeit at half speed. This area is still without electricity and is deemed unsafe. It’s expected that electricity won’t be restored in New Orleans East for six to nine months. My mother returned for the first time since the hurricane and subsequent floods, to survey the damage and see if anything could be saved. She’s suited up and ready to go inside. In the background, my sister, Cheri, ready to suit up, as well.

It’s nice… no, it’s amazing to see Ruth smiling.

Here’s my read. She could be distressed with what she’s about to see, or she could be happy to see she raised her children right, and they are accompanying and supporting her. She chose the latter.

My mother knew from earlier reports and a prior visit by my sister, that things didn’t look so good. She’s been very optimistic and hopeful, looking forward and giving us much encouragement. My mother’s house survived the storm on the outside, but the inside looked and smelled awful and was a total disaster. Entering the front door we were greeted by a living room chair that wasn’t there when my mother left in August. That gives you an idea of how we were greeted.

From the marks on the wall it looks like 4-5 feet of water made it into the house. From the ‘bunny suits’ the Meisel’s wore, you can assume it wasn’t spring water.

Nearly everything was ruined.

One of the things that struck Farrell when we spoke on the phone was the proliferation of signs advertising Katrina related services. There are also markings, scrawled on homes with spray paint.

This house has been FEMA’d. FEMA is not an acronym here. It’s a four-letter word. BTW, so is Bush.
One of the city’s synagogues, Beth Israel, an Orthodox house of worship…Also one of the city’s oldest, which used to be in the historic uptown area until the late 1960s. Also on Canal Blvd, note the watermarks. Reportedly, the head Rabbi fled town, leaving the Torah scrolls to flood and be rescued from religious volunteers. The Rabbi has since been fired. My sister spotted prayer books and prayer shawls on the ground in front of the now-deserted synagogue….a sin in the Jewish religion.

Here’s how Farrell ended his note, and I’ll leave it pretty much intact:

As I visit here, for the first time in several years, 3 months after the devastation that has been chronicled worldwide, I have now discovered: A Missing City. Parts of the city and neighboring parish (Jefferson) we have seen are beginning to function, but it’s slow and without spirit.

In our many conversations with New Orleanians and Jeffersonians, one hears a great deal of anger leveled at Government. I could only find one person with a nice thing to say about President Bush. I asked why? The waitress at the seafood restaurant said it was the Louisiana Governor’s fault for not letting Bush send FEMA and the troops in. I then asked, out of curiosity, did she know that Bush was on a fundraising trip in California for three days before he did a “fly-over”, VP Cheney was buying a vacation house and the Secretary of State was shopping in Manhattan, while her home state, Alabama, was flooded. The waitress hadn’t heard that.

A newspaper stand owner or manager clearly vented his anger towards Bush, but didn’t spare either the local, regional and state governments, but felt, the US Government let Louisiana down.

Most of the Greater New Orleans area, (Orleans and neighboring parishes), as it’s known, with some 1 million people once living there, don’t have electricity, a home, assistance from FEMA, insurance companies, and they feel forgotten just three months after the hurricane and floods.. As is the case with crises the world over, once the cameras leave, the sense of urgency goes with the camera crews.

The stores and shops that are open are operating for limited hours due to two factors: limited shoppers and limited staff.

It’s quite unusual to be driving in one part of the area, say neighboring Metairie, where the shops and malls have reopened, only to continue on Interstate 10 to downtown New Orleans, and pass through darkness because whole areas have no power.

There were some signs of life downtown and in the French Quarter. The beautiful St. Charles Avenue historic areas seemed to be untouched and lit, yet, just a few blocks away, one would have thought we could have been in a war zone.

Rumors of price gouging exist. Household stores are reportedly charging double for goods consumers can buy in the middle of the state or in Mississippi for less. Gasoline is 30 cents a gallon more expensive than in the center of Mississippi or Louisiana reportedly.

Residents feel abandoned now. From the newspaper shop owner to restaurateur, residents don’t feel the city of N.O. census will approach even half of it’s close to 461,000 registered residents.

Employers are looking for employees. Potential employees are looking for housing, assistance from FEMA and the insurance companies, and those are the few, who have returned.

The Times-Picayune reported today that the New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin, rumored to be in Washington on business, actually wasn’t there on business, but took his family on vacation to Jamaica. While I’m sure he’s deserving of a break, there are several hundred thousand to one million people, who’d love to take that break, if only they could get some help from the various government agencies so they could get on with their lives and rebuild. And I haven’t even begun to discuss the levee system.

As I write this at 2am Central Standard Time, I was trying to think, after only two days here, how could I best describe what I have seen and heard? The word that comes to mind is “abyss.”

New Orleans, which had once been described as the “city that care forgot,” from an old Mardi Gras tale, has become the bottomless gulf or pit. There are only a handful of truly unique cities in the U.S. with some history and character. When tourists think of those cities, New Orleans had always been in the same company with San Francisco, Boston, New York, Savannah, and perhaps one or two other cities or towns.

It would not be an exaggeration to suggest, if there is no sense of urgency, New Orleans could drop off that list in my lifetime.

Please, look at the pictures. It is so sad… so tragic.

Weather Opening

Tony Perkins is leaving Good Morning America after seven years. He’s returning to Washington, DC to do weather and stories.

OK – I’ll admit it, that is my ideal job. I can say that in public, because I’m sure even my bosses know. They also know how unlikely it is to ever come true.

The GMA weather position is very different from local weather. I used to fill-in there and remember hearing joking references to 50 states/60 seconds. But, it was loads of fun and is probably more so now with the addition of interaction with the Times Square crowd.

Just in case you’re Ben Sherwood&#185, reading this, wondering who to choose… here I am.

More than likely my heart will be broken. I have been without an agent for years. There was no reason to have one, considering I’ve been at one station for 21 years. I don’t think a submission ‘over the transom’ would even be considered.

However, I can still dream.

&#185 – Ben Sherwood is executive producer of GMA and probably ultimately responsible for making the hire.

Notes From New Orleans

My friends mom, the one I encouraged to leave New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina was approaching, is fine though her home is not.

My mother rang this morning from the Baton Rouge shelter. She’s fine and in good spirits considering. They’re treating everyone well. She’s come to the realization that her home is gone as is her car. Since most of NOLA is excessively flooded she’s staying put in BR until the officials feel it’s wise to move on. At that point, we may have her fly up to my sister’s in Connecticut. When it is safe to go to NOLA, we’ll go down there to see what the damage is, and then consider alternatives, including whether she should stay in the city. It’s hard to know whether she’ll be away from the city for a one or more. It’s more than likely we’re talking about a longer period of time.

From a Mississippi State classmate who just started a job forecasting the weather as Hurricane Katrina approached:

The national news hounds are blowing this one. I know

I talked to friends watching from other places and CNN

and Fox were saying it was a glancing blow. Just

because there were buildings blown over it wasn’t

that bad. Now that more and more of the flooding

video is being seen I think people are changing their

minds. This will go down as the worst storm in

history.

Mike

There is no New Orleans Times-Picayune I can find. Their website hasn’t been updated since Monday’s edition. Their Tuesday front page link leads to last Tuesday’s.

T-P EVACUATING

Tuesday, 9:40 a.m.

The Times-Picayune is evacuating it’s New Orleans building.

Water continues to rise around our building, as it is throughout the region. We want to evacuate our employees and families while we are still able to safely leave our building.

Our plan is to head across the Mississippi River on the Pontchartrain Expressway to the west bank of New Orleans and Jefferson Parish. From there, we’ll try to head to Houma.

Our plan, obviously, is to resume providing news to our readers ASAP. Please refer back to this site for continuing information as soon as we are able to provide it.

I’ve heard stories of the Brazilian rain forest. If a jungle area is clear cut and then allowed to grow back, it comes back differently. The rain forest is what it is because of how it evolved over time.

There’s a truth in that last paragraph for New Orleans. This city will come back (if it is actually able to come back) different than it was a few days ago. You can’t rebuild tradition and charm. You can’t plan to regain what was there by serendipity.

I’m still not sure we know everything.

My Friend Paul And The Twilight Zone

I was looking for something to read and so flipped through the Arts and Entertainment section of the Sunday Times. It didn’t take me long to come to an article about the new Twilight Zone DVDs – a project spearheaded by my friend Paul Brownstein.

I’ve written about Paul before, so I won’t labor you with repeated praise. However, the Times article was very flattering about all the parts of this DVD that Paul touched – interviews and commentary, re added original scenes, crisp remastered prints, and old long forgotten extras.

Here’s the article, or if you stumble upon this at some distant date, it’s also included after the ‘jump’ link.

I’ve been waiting for Paul to receive this kind of praise for years.

Continue reading “My Friend Paul And The Twilight Zone”

Theft and Deterence

Yesterday, I was commenting about protecting my daughter’s laptop. This morning, already sensitized to theft, I read Nicholas Kristoff’s column in the Times with great interest. He was talking about cars and not computers and the thrust of the article was unexpected.

Car theft, it turns out, is a volume business. And so if even a small percentage of vehicles have LoJack, the professional thief will eventually steal a car with one and get caught.

The thief’s challenge is that it’s impossible to determine which vehicle has a LoJack (there’s no decal). So stealing any car becomes significantly more risky, and one academic study found that the introduction of LoJack in Boston reduced car theft there by 50 percent.

Two Yale professors, Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres, note that this means that the LoJack benefits everyone, not only those who install the system. Professor Ayres and another scholar, Steven Levitt, found that every $1 invested in LoJack saves other car owners $10.

The article is well worth reading. To summarize Kristoff, there are two ways to protect yourself. One makes everyone safer… saves everyone money. The other saves you, but sends the thieves elsewhere.

I’m not sure how much of this is applicable to my daughter’s laptop, but it makes a topic I always thought was pretty simple a lot more complex and thought provoking.

War of the Worlds Weirdness

There’s a big article splashed on the New York Times front page concerning Tom Cruise and what has been perceived as strange behavior. I didn’t see the behavior – I don’t know.

There’s talk about how this might affect the filming of Mission Impossible III and the opening of War Of The Worlds in a few weeks.

Is everything OK? Are there problems? Officially everyone says it’s OK, but I was struck by this quote from the Times article:

The two studios have already curtailed the normal promotional press junket ahead of the June 29 release of “War of the Worlds,” limiting it to what Mr. Levy called a smaller number of “preselected interview sessions.” He said the decision had nothing to do with Mr. Cruise but was made because there had been enough promotion already.

Enough promotion already? Please! Let me put this down with, “left to spend more time with his family,” or “pursue other career opportunities,” or “settled without admitting guilt.”

Something doesn’t smell right… and with this much Hollywood money at stake, something’s surely gone wrong. After all, these are people would greenlight Hitler’s new screenplay if it promised to open big.

Sex In the Gray Lady

It’s interesting to read something in the New York Times when the Times is a little squeamish about the content. This is not a rag that will publish salacious stuff just for the titillation factor. Sometimes, however, a story requires explicit sexual content.

Take the case of the two celebrity hawks that live on the edge of Central Park:

And close observers in Central Park could not have missed other evidence in early March. For more than a week, with Lola perched on the nearby balconies or roofs of opulent Fifth Avenue apartment buildings, and with Pale Male swooping down from the sky, the two birds copulated frequently, Ms. Winn said

If you can suffer through the rest of this hard core activity, the full story can be found here.

I’m Not Currently Speaking With Mother Nature

It didn’t snow today. Oh, it will later – but that’s too little too late.

Yesterday, in the face of reality wildly deviating from my previous forecast, I was forced to change snow to rain. Sure they’re both storms, but this is like going from the Enquirer to the Times.

On the air I stepped up and admitted the radical shift. I’m not sure I’ve ever hidden from that kind of mea culpa, but I can understand why some forecasters do it. I think viewers are more likely to forgive if I take responsibility… just as long as I don’t do it too often.

In the past, I’ve read technical forecast discussions where consistency is talked about… as in leaving a wrong forecast up for one more cycle because the new data isn’t consistent with the old data. That I don’t understand.

In thinking about what transpired, as I write this entry, I realize my own expectations for accuracy have changed. This forecast change was made long before the onset of the precipitation. It was Wednesday and the snowiest and stormiest weather was never expected before Thursday. Five or ten years ago, that correction would have been a coup.

I can’t quantify it exactly, but I think what I used to expect in 1-day accuracy is now what I expect two days out.

Where have I gone wrong? I kid around when I make speeches to organizations. “We know the laws of physics. They are inviolate. So I’ll never make a mistake.” Cue the laughter.

What upsets me is how far off the temperatures were above the ground, especially in the two to thousand foot level. That was really what changed this from a snow to rain event. The rain snow line was way north – into central New England, not along the Connecticut shoreline.

Yesterday, a few friends and co-workers consoled me. “Everyone” had gotten it wrong – not just me. As far as that goes, it was nice of them to say. It is, however, no consolation at all. I want to be (and I’m sure I’m not alone) better than the others, with more insight into the future. Getting it right or wrong is an individual thing, not a group effort.

Anyway, the good thing about forecasting is, I get to go back and try again today.

At some point I will look back, or read some scholarly retrospective on this or a similar storm, and have a “Eureka&#185” moment where it will all make sense. Right now, it does not.

&#185 – I have used the phrase “Eureka moment” before, and realize not everyone knows where it comes from or why it’s fitting. “Eureka” was the word supposedly exclaimed by Archimedes when he discovered how to measure the volume of an irregular solid and, in doing so, determine the purity of a gold object. It was a scientific breakthrough that opened the door for more in the future.

Scrabble – Obsessing Again

In 1978 I moved to Center City Philadelphia, on Rodman Street between 11th and 12th. After years of living in homogenized apartment complexes in the suburbs, I moved into an older building on a street so narrow there was only room for one car to pass with no parking at the curb! I moved into an apartment one floor above my friend Neal’s.

Center City Philadelphia was great. I could walk out my front door to get the paper or have a bite to eat. No car was necessary in the neighborhood and almost anything you wanted was in the neighborhood.

One day, early on, I found Neal played Scrabble and I asked if he wanted a game. That began a Scrabble obsession.

We played that first game and I immediately realized Neal operated on a different Scrabble level from me. He put down “ani” and “zygote.” My jaw fell. How could I compete when I didn’t know “aa” was a Hawaiian volcanic rock?

Of the first 20 games we played, I lost 19. Actually, I lost 19 in a row before winning one, and that was probably because of incredibly lucky tile selection.

People who don’t play it think poker is a game of luck, not skill. They don’t realize that Scrabble has many of the same elements of skill versus chance… yet no one thinks of Scrabble as a game of luck. After 19 losses I certainly didn’t.

I played Neal enough to get better, though certainly never anywhere near as good as he was.

When I moved from Philadelphia to Buffalo, the Scrabble playing ended. With Neal I had the willing partner and convenience that I’d never find again.

My going away gifts included a Scrabble dictionary with this inscription:

To my protege –

May your Neilson ratings never fall as low as our first game. May your future be a seven letter word with a triple word score.

Neal

When I first got on the Internet in the late 80s&#185 I found a server (in Toronto I think) which hosted Scrabble games. I played for a while, but as the net developed and there were other things to see, I lost interest.

A few nights ago I watched a Scrabble documentary on the Times/Discovery Channel. All of a sudden I was motivated to play again.

After a few minutes of searching I found a site which hosts free online Scrabble games. I know the Scrabble trademark is incredibly well protected, so the only reason this site survives probably has to do with the fact that it’s in Romania.

I downloaded the software and started to play Thursday. By Friday I had 5 games under my belt (4 losses, though the last was only by 2 points).

Since the site records all your games and understands the competition you’re playing against, it ranks you as a player. Now I will have a goal, improve my ranking.

As with online poker, it is not too difficult to cheat while playing. I am hoping that the others I play against, who have sworn not to cheat, uphold their end of the bargain.

In the meantime, I wonder if Neal knows about this? Before long I could be losing to him again!

&#185 – When I first got on the Internet (thanks to a co-worker who was able to get me an account from his university) it was a very different place. Web browsing was done in a non-graphical way. Information was found on Gophers and Archie servers. It was totally non-commercial.