I think I’m going to quit my day job and go on the Scramble Pro Tour.

As regular readers of ye old blog of whall know, I recent switched from Blackberry 8700C to iPhone 3GS.  There are some major drawbacks from that move (which I will explain in more detail with a dedicated post) but there are some awesome benefits.  One of the benefits is Scramble.

Scramble is a free iPhone app/game that I learned about at pool last Wednesday night.  I love word games, word finds and word play.  I can’t believe how addictive this game is. 

Equally unbelievable is how relatively bad I am.

When I first started this game, I think I earned 8 points.  On the next game, I doubled my score to 16.  I thought I was pretty good until I connected to facebook and saw some of my friends’ scores:

(I’ve blurred out the names to protect the awesome. 
However, some of you may recognize the avatars)

374 points?!??!?!  HOLY COW.  Congrats, my BFF BF.

So far, I’ve gotten a high score of 116 points, and that wasn’t until I figured out I can change the grid to 5×5 instead of 4×4.  This makes a lot more words available, even if it does make selecting the letters a little harder when the screen is rotated.

The simple idea behind this game is: you’re given a grid of letters, and you drag your finger across letters to make words.  The longer the word, the more score you get.  You keep getting as many words as you can in the 2- or 3-minute time limit.

As with most addictive things in life like golf or blogging, there are aspects that are frustrating.  The frustration adds to the allure, counter-intuitive as that may seem.  Four of these frustration factors are

1. Seeing other people do better than me (aka, the “competitive factor“)
2. Seeing simple words I missed (aka, the “embarassment factor“)
3. Having the time run out before picking all the words I already see (aka, the “anxious factor“)
4. Learning that the English language has some stupid made-up words, probably just for this stupid game wait let me play it again because I can get that word next time and what do you mean utui is a word?!?!?! (aka, the “sore loser factor“)

I’ve resorted to blindly trying words in the hopes that they are real words, and whaddyaknow – it works half the time.  Not only is TEA a word, but so is TAE!  I’m guessing possession and memorization of the Scrabble Dictionary would be a good thing for this game. Knowing the magic 3-letter list is probably a good thing as well, and when there’s an “S” nearby, you pretty much double all the words around it.

I think there should be levels of the game – one version where you just need to know that a word exists, but another where you need to know what a word means.   And then I’d win because this would be my board:

(bonus points: what total score
could you get from above board?)

Then, I found out there’s an online Facebook version of Scramble, and you don’t even need the iPhone!  I played it a couple of times and it took a little getting used to dragging the mouse around the letters instead of my finger, but it gets easy enough soon enough.  I still prefer the iPhone version for now.

I also like how the game likes to point out the obvious

Do you scramble?

I’m guesting today over at Cissa’s.  Check out the magic going on over there.

But I also wanted to let you know that I love this song.

I’m writing guest posts so big I’m steppin on leprechauns.

Everyone and their brother posted TequilaCon pics back in whatevermonththatshindigwas.  I still haven’t.  Some people even posted videos of me with a hot blonde that isn’t my wife.  Also, about the only photos of me on facebook are the ones from TC09, including one of me looking like I’m grabbing the Poppy in some sort of possessive freak-out episode.

I really should upload more photos to facebook.  And everyone knows you don’t touch the Poppy.

My DITL creation phase is on a break, but I should mention that I captured a decent amount of video for a TITLE (Tequilacon In The Life, Excellent) and a RITL (Roadtrip In The Life), but I have not made the time to do those the justice they deserve.  I still plan on it, but for now you can have some of my photo collection. 

Perhaps these would be better in something like a flickr album, or maybe a facebook thingy, but for now, they are whall.organisms.

Which one is geeky? BOTH! HA!

SagittariusBoy and LibraGirl

Bellaventa, OhSarahJoy and Libragirl. and drinks.

Hey look! It's that guy. and that girl. I think.

Pink, the adobe.

Some sort of neat thing I took a picture of

This was neat. Neat neat neat

Interestingly, this interesting thing was next to that other one

You might think this is a shot of an silver ornate bench, but really it's just a zoomed out photo of Ren. I'm not that good at photography.

We’re on a decent sized property out where the country meets civilzation, and we’re used to lots of creatures coming across the plot.  Deer, skunks, snakes, bunnies, hogs, even coyotes.  Oh, and tarantulas. 

On the driveway from the road to our house in the back, I can count on one or two bunnies running across from left to right as I approach half-way.  It’s our little routine – I turn the corner, they squeal amongst themselves after noticing me, and then run from a fence corner across the driveway and into the trees on the right.  I always go real slow in that area because I know they’re gonna do their hippity-snippety.  It happens every single time.

Deer frequently graze and sit with their blind stares for days at a time.  Usually in packs of 3-5, they seem like a family since they have all shapes and sizes.  Sometimes we walk out onto our deck with the dogs and they quickly look over, growl a bit and the deer seem startled, and then go back to what they’re doing.  Sometimes I try to walk towards them but then they pounce away.

But a few weeks ago, we started noticing a distinct lack of bunnies.  And no deer.  It was weird.  I take the dogs out for a walk and they have no bunnies to run out after.  There aren’t any deer to be startled by our ambulatory presence.  Bunnies and deer were a regular part of our existence and they were just gone.

Then we heard there was a cougar in the area.

Coyotes are one thing, but a cougar?

A few days later, we saw the following, right outside our front door:

That’s Caitlin’s hand for sizing.  I don’t know what that’s a print from, but it’s pretty darned big.

One night after pool, I saw a HUGE shadow leaping across our road as I drove, about 1/4 mile from our house.  It was right in front of me, and it made a gigantic image that made the entire road disappear.   I felt like it was from a movie.  It wasn’t tall like a deer.  It wasn’t small like a dog.  It was just creepy.  And fast.  Sleek.  Purposeful.  Scary.

About a week later, the bunnies came back.  Several deer were in our woods again.  Jaden was still around, as were the dogs. 

I guess we made it.

Here’s my problem.

I have a fantastic idea every now and again. Not a “good” idea.  Not just “great” even.  AMAZING.  High Caliber.  Uber-wicked.  Super.

When I have an idea like this, my brain explodes with all the details, and pieces taking form all at once.  The wonderment of it all excites me as I revel in the newness, creativity and anticipation of all the accolades I’ll receive upon completion of the idea.

However, many times, I never work on it.

*sigh*

Recently, while chatting w/LeSombre I had another one of these ideas.  Well, it was a decent idea; not necessarily awesome, but also not shabby.  And given an appropriate amount of effort, it could resemble awesome.  If executed properly, and if the vision in my head was actualized, it would be really darned cool.  But I’m starting to self-realize the “dreamer” aspect of my life and that, when I get an idea like this, I really should either drop it, or actually write it down and come back to it and pay some attention to it.

In this case (chatting with LeSombre), I formed the idea while chatting, and then even lamented out loud to him that I’d probably never work on it, and then he sorta offered to help, and that kinda sounds cool, and then I start thinking “at what point should you share out cool ideas for the sake of getting it out there vs keeping it and trying to be first and innovative.”

On the one hand, it’d be cool if there was an idea registration site, so if you had a nifty idea, you could login, describe it and kind of get social credit.  Others could view, add to it, “digg” it up, refine it, volunteer, maybe monetize it, etc.  I’d hate to lose the royalty-aspect of a really killer idea, but I have to believe the benefit to humankind would outweigh any minor squabbles.  Plus, if someone did monetize the idea and it was first documented on the idea site, coding ninjas would come out and levy swift justice.

Great. I just did it again.

Showing love for NYCWD.  Cereal Kisses, Dawg.
(for more info, read this post or this post)

As promised, here is a more detailed description of my journey into the choice of getting the iPhone 3GS over keeping my older Blackberry 8700C.

Summary: It’s a better phone + PDA + music + social media tool + web browser + gadget.

Details are in the extended entry.

(more…)

Remember way back when?  Back when I was wondering if I should upgrade to the iPhone?

I’ve made my decision:

click to embiggify

WOOHOO!

I wanted to share some of the details that led to my decision to choose an upgrade to the iPhone 3GS over continuing with my Blackberry 8700C.  That will probably be tomorrow’s post, so I’ll start with these details:

Detail Area #1: The fine print

The subject of the message says “Your iPhone reservation.”  The first paragraph of the email starts with “Thanks for reserving your iPhone” and even says I can “come to the store [I] selected anytime on the day of my reservation.”

Upon reading these constant reminders of my reservation, I was filled with a fulfilling sense of fulfillment.  This confirmation of my reservation was there in front of me, in black and white!  I completed my reservation at apple.com (Detail Area #2), tied it to one of the eligible phones on my AT&T contract (Detail Area #3), and got this email a few seconds afterwards.  Nice process.  Clean procedure.  Great result.

I. Am. Reserved.

I even reserved some time with my wife (who I’m taking care of at home while she heals from knee surgery) to make sure I can be gone for a few hours Friday morning and that she’ll be ok without me. 

I know. Saintly.

However, down at the bottom of the email, in small print (and light grey on dark grey instead of black and white), it says:

Pre-authorization does not guarantee iPhone availability at an Apple Retail Store. iPhone is sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

Say whaaah?

The pedantic side of me is noticing that it mentions “pre-authorization”, not “reservation,” so that makes me think “oh well, that disclaimer isn’t for me.”  But it still bothers me a little.

My Apple store opens at 10am, so I plan on getting there early just to be certain I’m seen and I score.

Detail Area #2: Reserving my phone

Right when I decided to go iPhone, a friend I was IM’ing with at the time told me he heard that pre-orders had sold out.

GAH!

Some quick googling confirmed that there was a June 12th cutoff that meant anyone ordering after that date would just get their phone shipped approximately “whenever” and it might be weeks before I got the phone.

Thank goodness I found an article online that dispelled the rumor, explained the June 12th mumbo-jumbo and told me how to increase my chances of pre-ordering.  I called AT&T and the person couldn’t help me (that took 45 minutes btw).  I went to wireless.att.com and they were having problems with the website.  Once I did get online, I couldn’t tie the iPhone to MY number, but I could upgrade one of the other lines on my family plan.  It bothered me to try to do this online, so I skipped that method.

So, I was able to go to the Apple Store online and reserve my phone.  Score one for the whallster.

Detail Area #3: Tying the iPhone to my cell

It took a long call w/AT&T to confirm this, but it did get confirmed.  I have four (4) lines on my AT&T family plan.  Two (2) of them are eligible for upgrades and two (2) aren’t. 

Of course, MY line is one of the ones listed as not eligible, but AT&T allows you to use upgrades for one line and apply it to another.  They just can’t do it online.  So I actually tied the upgrade to my wife’s line and then I’ll have to call AT&T to swap them in their system once I have the iPhone in hand.

However, this probably means some weird service experiences are in my future on Friday when they try to do all this for me while they’re handling Black iFriday for everyone else in the US getting the new phone.  And if service sucks on Friday for AT&T customers, it might as well suck on an iPhone instead of a Blackberry.

My next post will detail some of the deciding factors for choosing the iPhone. 

I’m thinking of just making a graphic that says “It’s better” but since when do I use brevity?

Inspiration comes in many forms.  One of my favorite forms is Ren.

Ren is way smart.  And I’m way lucky.  Between the two of us, I’m pretty sure we’re going to figure out a way to solve the world’s energy problems.  Or maybe I’ll make a lot of money when he solves the problem.  Something like that.

There’s an ability Ren has of being able to discuss a subject devoid of annoying emotions that get in the way of logic, without coming across as if he’s Spock or Sheldon Cooper.  In fact, probably what makes Ren most endearing to me is his ability to not get annoyed.  That’s probably why we’ve been able to be friends so long.

A number of years ago, he impressed me by losing some weight when we worked together.  I ended up finding the weight he lost and now I’m ready to lose it.  Recently, Ren blogged about the one hundred pushups plan.  This is how he went from “impressed me” to “inspired me” in the fitness category.

I’ve now started the program.

The plan is a 6-week regimen of being able to do one hundred consecutive pushups. you do an initial test (where you max out how many you can do) and then choose three days a week to do a few sets.  It starts out easy enough, so it should be within reach of anyone.

My first suggestion, for those of you planning on trying this, have at least a full day between the initial test and your first day of the plan.  I did my initial test Sunday and chose Mon-Wed-Fri as my 3 days.  Of course, my abs and arms hurt like heck Monday afternoon when I tried the first set.

Also, since I play pool on Wednesdays, I figured out too late that it’s not a good day to actually do a lot of strenuous upper body work.  Therefore, I’m switching to Tue-Thu-Sat for my chosen days.

So far, I’m of two minds – on the one hand, I’m elated at the pumped up feeling my arms have after the first real set (Day 1).  I’ve been through Army Basic Training and I’ve also worked with personal trainers three different times in my life at a gym, so it’s not like this is an alien feeling.  I’m a little high from actually having my body be happy for being used up a little.  It truly is an uplifting feeling, if you forgive the pun.

On the other hand, I’m a little shamed at how bad I’ve let myself get, both weight-wise and physical strength-wise.  Some of it is that I have a 20 year High School reunion coming up.  Some of it is how big I look in pictures or the mirror.  Some of it is a nagging suspicion that it’ll only get harder as I get older, and I’d better grab that steer by the horns now if I’m going to make this analogy work in my favor.

If I have success, I’ll share some incredible before and after pictures

PS: thanx for the inspiration, Ren!

You may have seen some of my recent tweets that I’ve been trying to decide between keeping my Blackberry 8700C or upgrading to an iPhone 3GS.

Side note: I like how each of the manufacturers like to double up their graphics whenever showing off a phone.  It’s like you subconsciously get TWO phones.

I have my personal list of PROs and CONs about each phone/service.  What I’d like from you is not necessarily a vote for one of the other (because WHICH phone YOU would choose is less applicable than WHY), but instead, list your likes and dislikes of each.

Here are the facts first:

• I’m currently with AT&T and I qualify for the upgrade discounts… so I’m pretty sure that means $99 for 8GB old iPhone, $199 for 16GB new iPhone and $299 for 32GB new iPhone.
• I believe I’d save $15-20 a month on the iPhone all-inclusive plan over the Blackberry all inclusive plan.  I still have to confirm this, though.  (We already have unlimited texting on our family plan)
• I’m an Enterprise user and my group administers the BES at work (some of you know what that means and why it’s a factor).
• I’m an extremely fast typer and I rely heavily on email functionality, both work-related (Exchange) and personal (Gmail via IMAP).

I think what I’ll do is this: I’ll let Dave2 make his very witty and comedic-yet-unrelated comment, and then I’ll sit and watch the PROs and CONs filter in from all you smart and helpful folk.  Later, when everyone’s had a chance, I’ll see if any of mine were missed and I’ll add them in.  I guess really what I’m saying is I may steal the thunder from a lot of comments if I list out all my factors, and I don’t want to pre-empt comments.  I love comments. 

Feel free to be as technical as you want.  Or as frilly, I don’t care.