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Quixotry? How a Mass. carpenter got the highest Scrabble score ever by Stefan Fatsis at Slate.

(Quixotry n. Quixotism; visionary schemes.)

On Oct. 12, in the basement of a Unitarian church on the town green in Lexington, Mass., a carpenter named Michael Cresta scored 830 points in a game of Scrabble. His opponent, Wayne Yorra, who works at a supermarket deli counter, totaled 490 points. The two men set three records for sanctioned Scrabble in North America: the most points in a game by one player (830), the most total points in a game (1,320), and the most points on a single turn (365, for Cresta's play of QUIXOTRY).

In the community of competitive Scrabble, of which I am a tile-carrying member, the game has been heralded as the anagrammatic equivalent of Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962 or Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series: a remarkable, wildly aberrational event with potential staying power. Cresta's 830 shattered a 13-year-old record, 770 points, which had been threatened only infrequently....

Not to rain on his parade, but in our house they'd never get away with zas, nam, cor, vrow, kas or ara. We're simple folk.

Including the dog who blogs: At Cnet, the worst political websites.

Geezer jobs: Job search engine Simply Hired adds a specialized search: Search Jobs at Age 50+ Friendly Companies. They have a sense of humor, too: The type is bigger inside the search form than it is at the main search site.

The hundred-million-year-old bee. Not a put on -- it's the oldest-ever, found in amber, at National Geographic. They're also excited about Ancient Manure over there.

Your recording can talk to my recording: Prerecorded campaign calls don't work by Joseph Lisanti, formerly the editor in chief of Standard & Poor's weekly newsletter, the Outlook, in the Los Angeles Times.

OVER THE LAST few weeks, I've received phone calls from my congressional representative, one senator, a former governor and about a dozen other political heavyweights. I am neither a professional politician nor a kingmaker. I just happen to be a registered voter with a phone.

These political bigwigs were so eager to reach me that they called day and evening. When I wasn't home, they always left a message on my answering machine, but no one included a callback number. That's a shame. I might have enjoyed a conversation with some of these people. Many of them make decisions that affect me every day. But even when I was home to answer the phone, the calls were distinctly one-sided: They were recorded messages urging me to vote for particular candidates....

...Candidates who use recorded campaign messages must assume that Americans are easily swayed. I can't speak for the more than 142 million registered voters in this country, but my vote can't be influenced by a machine, either political or telephonic. Let me rephrase that: My vote can't be favorably influenced by a machine. I do maintain a certain bias against candidates who annoy me with junk phone calls....

The Knitted Garden: With instructions.

Game days: With the Patriots visiting old buddy Bethel Johnson of the Minnesota Vikings on Monday Night Football (8:30 p.m. on ESPN), it's going to be a casual Sunday at our house.

The choices:

1 p.m.:
Tampa Bay Buccaneers at New York Giants on Fox
Jacksonville Jaguars at Philadelphia Eagles on CBS
Gubernatorial Debate: Gov. Donald Carcieri (R) vs. Lt. Gov. Charles J. Fogarty (D) on ABC

4:15 p.m.: Indianapolis Colts at Denver Broncos on CBS
8:15 p.m.: Dallas Cowboys at Carolina Panthers on NBC

Recipe for a kicker:

Melt-In-Your-Mouth Shin Stew

Olive oil
2 red onions, peeled and roughly chopped
3 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
3 sticks of celery, peeled and roughly chopped
4 cloves of garlic
A few sprigs of fresh rosemary
2 bay leaves
A small handful of dried porcini mushrooms
1 cinnamon stick
2 lb 3 oz (roughly) shin of beef, preferably free-range or organic, bone removed, trimmed and cut into 2 inch pieces
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 tbsp flour
1 28-ounce can of good-quality plum tomatoes
2/ 3 of a bottle of Chianti

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a heavy-bottomed ovenproof saucepan, heat a splash of olive oil and gently fry the onions, carrots, celery, garlic, herbs, porcini and cinnamon for five minutes until softened slightly.

Meanwhile, toss the pieces of beef in a little seasoned flour, shaking off any excess. Add the meat to the pan and stir everything together, then add the tomatoes, wine and a pinch of salt and pepper.

Gently bring to the boil, cover with a double-thickness piece of tinfoil and a lid and place in your preheated oven for three hours or until the beef is meltingly tender and can be broken up with a spoon. Taste and check the seasoning, remove the cinnamon stick and rosemary sprigs and serve.

-- From Cook With Jamie: My Guide to Making You a Better Cook by Jamie Oliver.

This is similar to the Beef Osso Bucco recipe we liked so much last year.

The power of words: Eric Lilius emails, "This recent post by Lakoff includes a link to the first three chapters of the book with more to come. " The book is Thinking Points: Communicating our American Values and Vision by George Lakoff.

Blog legal: Center for Internet & Society and the Center for Citizen Media team up on the Election Day Bloggers' Legal Guide. Stanford Law students eagerly await your questions.

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2 Comments

trudy said:

I think some of those "worst political websites" are pretty endearing. The rater needs to lighten up, and distinguish between badly constructed sites and ones that are fun. Let's hear it for household pets blogging :-)

Link | October 28, 2006 7:43 AM
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trudy said:

A Most Violent Month, and Many Final Farewells

New York Times article and photo essay on the 103 American servicepeople killed so far in October.

Link | October 30, 2006 10:00 AM
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