i put my 4-game Scrabble winning streak on the line yesterday against Erica’s aunts and somehow it survived.

I played well in Game #1, and going out first at the end only padded my score. I finished with 194, and the next closest aunt had 112. I put the score up on the fridge just to be a jerk.

They roped me into a second game, and Aunt Lena had me on the ropes for a while. Her play of ‘zooms’ on a triple word score added 51 points and gave her a 20+ point lead on me halfway through the game. I came back with a 25-point play and then on my next play dropped an ‘x’ onto a double-letter tile to make ‘ex’ and ‘xu’ for 36 points and never looked back. I scored 194 again for my 6th win in a row against the women of fisher.

we’ll be away over christmas this year, so i’m not sure when the next match will be, but i’ll be ready to go for lucky #7.

speaking of 7, i think i gained 7 lbs yesterday. hope you all were able to control yourself more than i could.

i’ve just recently finished an article that i had hoped would get published over at Burnside last week, but alas, they are having server issues. So instead I’ll give you the link after this quick update and you can read it on your own time.

i’m really looking forward to this holiday weekend. Good food, family, football, playing scrabble, winning at scrabble, spending time with my kids, watching things in HD (just got it installed yesterday!), watching the parade with my kids, sleeping comfortably in my bed at 6am on friday morning knowing that there are some jokers who’ve been out there shopping for hours already.

In a totally unrelated note, i was thinking about how satellites are changing my life. And how they are changing all our lives. Every day i listen to XM Radio thanks to a satellite (and thanks to geof), and all my TV now beams in over a satellite as well. I even use satellite images when i’m getting directions from google maps. If i had a GPS, that would benefit from a satellite as well. When i was golfing with my Dad a couple months ago we had GPS yardage calculations right in our cart, thanks to a satellite. The funny thing is, i look at this huge dish a few feet off the ground next to my house and i have idea how it enables me to watch live sporting events because of something orbiting the earth miles and miles into the atmosphere. it’s ridiculous. the best thing about technology is that you don’t have to understand it to enjoy it.

last note before the weekend. I’ve updated my little area of the web here. This blog, which used to be located at bryanallain.com, is now at bryanallain.com/blog. I’ve turned bryanallain.com into a homepage of sorts that links to my blog, my photos, my writing, and some of the web work that i do. I had been meaning to do that for a while, so I’m glad to have that taken care of.

Here’s the article i wrote, which is so ridiculous, you’ll either love it, hate it, or you’ll be indifferent. It’s called Happy Tryptophan Day!

hearing people complain about John Cougar Mellencrap’s “Our Country” commercials has become almost as annoying as hearing the actual commercials themselves.

If I was in a Fantasy Hollywood league for box office moneymakers, i would take Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell with my first two picks. I would steal Johnny Knoxville in the 11th round. I’d draft my uncle Tom before I drafted Kevin Costner.

No, I’m not gellin’. In fact, noone I know is gellin’.

i have a hunch that the original lyrics to James’ Taylor’s “shower the people you love with love song” was “shower the people you love with money”. But then he liked the way that “love with love” rolled off the tongue, so he changed it up. if you want my honest opinion, i think the money idea isn’t that bad.

what would happen if all of the world’s pushpins just fell out of their walls all at once? probably total anarchy.

it’s a good thing birds are stupid. i mean, they’re faster than us, they have pointy beaks that could rip us to shreds, and they can move in 3 dimensions when gravity has confined us to 2. I mean, if they ever got together and had some sort of brainstorming session with the top bird minds, they would probably get past this whole “what can we poop on next” thing and move to “let’s desroy the humans”. like i said, i’m glad they’re stupid.

i think yellow is a pretty underrated color. it just doesnt get the love that your blues and reds get. I’d like to say that blue is overrated, but let’s face it, it’s a pretty amazing color.

What’s that thing over your left shoulder?

Made you look.

Either Cream Cheese should be called Creamed Cheese or Creamed Corn should be call Cream Corn. We can’t have both. It’s nonsensical.

If i was a terribly mean person i would go up to a beggar with a $5 bill in each hand and offer him either one of them. Then when he went to grab for one of them i would say, “uh uh uh…beggars can’t be choosers” and i would give him the other $5 bill. In the end, he still gets $5. But since I’m not terribly mean, i probably would never do that.

If anyone can ever isolate the portion of the genetic code that makes your fingernails grow, i would love to know about it and have mine removed. Keeping them trimmed is almost as annoying as having long fingernails.

i love the word “porridge”. i’m thinking about adding it to my diet so that i can start saying it more often.

That’s all i got for today, have yourself a safe one…

i hate needles. hate ‘em.

headed off to the dentist right now. this chipped molar has been bugging me to the tune of 2 advil every 6 hours lately. so whatever the fix is, i’m ready for it. only problem is that the fix will certainly involve a needle, and i hate that. especially into the soft tissue of my gums. arrrggg.

not a whole lot else going on. had a good weekend. visited the gravesite of my grandfather-in-law yesterday with his wife and lots of family. it was a year ago last week that he passed away. we sang a couple hymns and shared a few memories before heading over to an aunt’s house for some coffee. we stayed for a few hours, watched football, ate some fried chicken, and enjoyed the company of family. it was fun.

Erica and i were thinking about our families on the way home, how blessed we are to each come from an amazing one. We know lots of people who can’t (or at least don’t) say the same thing. We are very grateful.

and since i’ve been telling you of my NFL pick exploits for the past few months, i feel obligated to tell you that in the 9 1:00pm games yesterday i went a perfect 0-9. not a single game right against the spread. zilch. i won 2 of the final 4 games of the day, but what an awful effort. this is why i put about 20 cents on each game, and not $20.

off to that horizontal dentist’s chair…wish me luck.