Scrabble

I like to absorb stuff.  Garbage in, no garbage out, sometimes is how I feel.  I love to read and pick up mundane new tidbits of information, remain ahead of the game or the curve or the pack or whatever have you on tons of different things, be it the news or technical stuff or sports or art or geography or history.  It's like I have a bottomless pit that I need to fill up with knowledge, stat!

Be that as it may, I do like to engage in battles of wordsmithing.  Not so much that I would hold up an airplane by playing "Words with Friends," but I could dig a sit down session of Scrabble and see how many points I can score with the dictionary in my brain.

Funny thing is, I clearly remember which game got me into wanting to know more words to use and put together and have fun doing so.  Boggle, which was a fantastic game for me at 5 or 6, was a blast to play, making a ton of noise while shaking up the word blocks (drove my parents NUTS) and then competing against my big brother to put words together.  I don't know why, but not too many other people liked playing that game with me, opting for the more mainstream Scrabble.  I can definitely remember a few nights at CSUN playing against my roommate Kyle and my buddy Charlie and Kyle would almost always win, it was sooooo infuriating!  Stuff like that kept my brain fresh as we studied to compete in the National Association for the Deaf College Bowl which is held every two years at the NAD conference, alongside events such as the Miss Deaf America (now the Miss Deaf America Ambassador contest).

So, I really started drooling when I saw this over at the rather ridiculous portion of Hammacher Schlemmer's catalog - Hammacher Schlemmer, for those of you who don't know them, have been around for more than 150 years and have offered some oddball things in their catalogs, and this one takes the cake... and I want it!  Scrabble on my basement wall!

http://www.hammacher.com/Product/Default.aspx?sku=11995&promo=Category-NewArrivals&catid=60

Edit: Bah, the college bowl link has zero, zilch, nada information as of this posting.  I'll link to the 2012 NAD conference program page for some information, at least.