Picture This
AKA Give Me A Vowel: Since my friend who I frequently play scrabble with won’t let me post the picture I took of him playing, I’ll just have to describe it. It came out great.
We’re playing at the Café de Sol wireless café in downtown Floyd. It’s his turn. He’s burly with a full beard, leaning forward over the checkered scrabble board with his hand resting across his beard, as if someone had instructed him to, “pose like your thinking.” He has a silver ring on his pinky finger. On the white cotton background of his T-shirt there are black silhouettes of people dancing in various wild poses. I can almost hear the drum beat they’re moving to.
Behind him, there’s a computer at a table with a cardboard giraffe mask hanging from the back of it. The top of a man’s head is peeking over the computer. Standing next to him is a woman wearing a zebra printed shirt.
I am not making this up. I love this picture. It’s an exciting composition, and if I were to name it, I would call it “THE SCRABBLE ZOO.”
By the way, have you noticed that the word verification pop-up boxes that bloggers are using to deter spam ask you to type in the most unusual combinations of high scoring letters to prove that you’re not a telemarketing monkey? The most recent ones I got were ORXZUTFA and JJJKWVQP. Stretching my fingers wildly across the keyboard, I’m thinking…these letters make me drool. Have I been blogging more lately just to see what letters I’ll get?
Comments
Good morning. I'm here from Michele's, and you are the person I'm visiting before I leave for the Irish Fest in Indianapolis. I hope you have a lovely Saturday too!
Posted by: Mamacita | September 17, 2005 9:30 AM
The letter combinations that the word verification system uses are the very ones that a monkey would use!
Here via Michele.
Posted by: Jean-Luc Picard | September 17, 2005 9:56 AM
ok this is just a thought...
maybe you are playing scrabble a bit to much...hehehe....
hey you could start word verification scrabble....
here via michele today...but you know i would have came anyway! ;)
Posted by: Lu | September 17, 2005 9:58 AM
I wish you could post the picture. Maybe he would let you if you just blurred out his head like people who want to remain anonymous. Have a great Saturday. By the way...I posted my first song.
Posted by: vashti | September 17, 2005 10:15 AM
Here's your vowel Col, OOOOO...actually that's Ohhhhh (as light shines on marble head), so that's what those "required" letters are for! Guess I don't get around much. I didn't know what they were for but wondered only minutes ago when I posted a comment over at The Cerebral Outpost: http://thecerebraloutpost.blogspot.com
Posted by: Kathy AKA Ben | September 17, 2005 10:21 AM
vlleihhaesel-ehceoimr* - what can you make with those letters?
Love the story, could you not post the photo and then apologise profusely? I love photos taken when no-one realises - candidly. You get some of the best shots that way!
*Here via Michele's - Hello!
Posted by: Jo | September 17, 2005 11:05 AM
Many of my friends enjoy a good game of scrabble. It is never been a favourite of mine as I am one of the world's worst spellers. My Dad could never spell either. He used to say it was a sign of superior intelligence. :-)
Posted by: Simply Coll | September 17, 2005 11:48 AM
I plan on showing my friend the photo, and maybe he will like it and feel okay about me posting it.
Coll, have you ever heard of this quote: "It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word." It's from Andrew Jackson. Poor spelling runs in my family too. I have to play with a pen and write words out to see if they look right.
It also helps to know that standardized spelling only came about in the late 1800s.
Posted by: colleen | September 17, 2005 1:35 PM
Hey Colleen. I feel badly that I've had to activate that word verification thing on my own blog. The comment spammers were really making my life miserable.
BTW, I'm randomly dropping in from Michele's and saying hi to everyone. It's my way of making folks smile on a quiet weekend.
I hope you have a great Saturday!
Posted by: Carmi | September 17, 2005 1:44 PM
Sounds like a great pic!
I love playing scrabble but Prince Charming refuses to play with me because I always win. He is a sore loser. LOL
Posted by: Nik | September 17, 2005 2:13 PM
Hi Colleen,
I LOVE the quote by Andrew Jackson. It is a "keeper" :-)
Posted by: Simply Coll | September 17, 2005 2:25 PM
I love trying to make words out of those random letter combos, kind of like the way I need to trick my brain into finding a word out of my license plate letters. My brain doesn't handle random letters well - it needs words. ahahaha
Thanks for stopping by my blog - thought I'd come check yours out, too. :D
Posted by: JustLinda | September 18, 2005 5:41 PM
I bet your wonderful written description is better than the actual photo! So it is our gain.
Posted by: jo(e) | September 18, 2005 6:17 PM
What I like to do is figure out the "acronym" for the comment verification letters. Some of them would be funny, I think!
Posted by: kenju | September 18, 2005 7:42 PM
Colleen, I'm not sure if you've ever used this Scrabble game online, but my hubby and I used to play while he was in Iraq. It's a lot of fun to play with online friends! :)
http://www.thepixiepit.co.uk/scrabble.htm
Posted by: Leanne | September 18, 2005 7:59 PM
I have noticed those verification letters, too. I really noticed last week when I read a post about someone's former husband giving her kids a hard time. The verification word was "exhusb." I think that's called irony.
I'm thinking about collecting a series of those words and seeing if I can come up with an entertaining blog. You probably could do that well.
Posted by: Paul N. | September 19, 2005 7:56 AM
I've got some friends who are weird about letting me post thier pic and some who love it. STrange.
Thanks for visiting my site last week by way of Michele. I went on vacation the next day and I'm still trying to catch up on visiting everyone:)
Posted by: Becky | September 19, 2005 1:04 PM