studying pays off

I had a good Scrabble night at Barnes and Noble yesterday. I won 5 of 5 games, two against beginners (there weren't a lot of people playing), one against a player I consider better than me, and two against a player at my level. I found a bunch of eight-letter bingoes*: AROINTED, LOITERED, VIEWINGS; a few 7s: TENSiNG RANTING; and one 9: OVERRATES! There may have been a couple more, since I think I bingo'ed twice in each game. As usual, I forgot to bring my score sheets into the office for this journal entry. In my last two games, I was playing against Pernilla, and we played each game in less than 20 minutes -- the second game, she had a little over 20 minutes left on her clock, and I had a little under -- that means a 10 minute game! Woo! I love playing against her, because it's more instinct than study, but I was still able to come up with my bingoes* without having to think too hard (helps that I got most of the blanks), and scored >400 in each game.

I got tired of studying the three letter word list, so I skipped over to the four-make-fives. There are some bizarre words out there. I got to use one of the words that I glanced at that stuck in my head last night though: IGLU. To learn the list, I'm writing down all of the words that have front hooks that I don't yet know, and then I'll go back through and do the back hooks. Writing the words down really seems to help me. If I get crazy, I'll then put them in the computer, and sort them by first letter, so that I can learn them in that order as well as alphabetically by four letter word. And then I'll start on the back hooked four-to-fives! Whee!

Many words on my bingo study lists are defined as "an alkaloid." How many alkaloids could there be out there? According to this glossary, an alkaloid is any of hundreds of compounds found in plants with a nitrogen atom connected to two carbon atoms, and often formed in a ring structure. Many commonly known chemicals and drugs are alkaloids, including nicotine, cocaine, quinine, morphine, and ephedrine. There you go then. And who knew the Webster's Online Dictionary definition included so much cool stuff?!

pretty songs

Way Over Yonder in a Minor Key makes me so happy.

I can't stop eating right now. I attribute it to the change in the seasons. For breakfast, I had two pieces of toast and coffee. For lunch, a couple pieces of cheese, five or six crackers, half an apple, half an asian pear, a handful of nuts, and a bit of beef jerky. For snack (about 4 hours after lunch), another piece of cheese, some chips, and some grapes. I am looking forward to chicken caesar salad for dinner -- have been marinating chicken since last night.

I forgot how much I didn't like season five of West Wing. The excitement of watching new episodes is cut by the fact that they aren't good episodes. Boo.

I sold four books on amazon.com today. They have been posted for awhile, I think. I'm not sure how that works. I can go for a month without selling anything, and then, poof!