830 points! Unbelievable.

830! How a Massachusetts carpenter got the highest Scrabble score ever. (Slate)

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).

Jesus Christ that's alot of points. For those who don't remember the most anyone got in one of our games was 246 by Jeff. Our scores are still available online here.

Apples and Wine

I got this from a friend... needless to say she is a woman...


Women are like apples on trees. The best ones are at the top of the tree.
Most men don't want to climb up and reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they sometimes take apples from the ground that aren't as good, but easy.

The apples at the top may think something is wrong with them, when in reality, they're amazing. They just have to wait for the right man to come along, the one who is brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree.

Now Men.... Men are like a fine wine. They begin as grapes, and it's up to women to stomp the shit out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.

Share this with all the good apples you know ....

Okay, We Goofed.

With their party rocked by the Rep. Mark Foley sexual-harassment scandal, Republicans are using the following strategies to overcome the bad press:

Releasing new, sexually explicit electronic messages that are more rooted in family values.
Coming out against terrorism.
Hiring new pages from pool of senior citizens desperate for work.
Getting out and raising a little money together.
Revealing how devastatingly handsome the teenage boy was.
Launching ad campaign entitled "Okay, We Goofed".


© Copyright 2006, Onion, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Onion is not intended for readers under 18 years of ag

Getting to Japan by train

Thom Yorke, singer with Radiohead, yesterday hit out at the "ridiculous" use of energy by such events, and threatened to stop playing far-flung destinations if steps were not taken to reduce carbon emissions.

He said: "The way that tours are structured now and the way it works is a ridiculous consumption of energy ... I would consider refusing to tour on environmental grounds, if nothing started happening to change the way the touring operates."

Unlike bands such as the Rolling Stones and Coldplay, Radiohead do not offset the carbon emissions caused by their tours, because they are not convinced of the environmental benefits of such schemes, which claim to make activities carbon-neutral by planting trees or investing in renewable energy projects.
Speaking to the Guardian yesterday as part of a climate change campaign by Friends of the Earth, Yorke said: "I think it's a necessary part of what I do, to tour or play live, but I find it unacceptable, what the consequences of that are.

"Some of our best ever shows have been in the US, but there's 80,000 people there and they've all been sitting in traffic jams for five or six hours with their engines running to get there, which is bollocks."

Tours would continue because others in the band did not feel as strongly, he said.

"It's all completely la-la. It's daft. When you discuss it you feel like a prat because you're saying I'm not happy with that and I want to do it another way. I want to go to the US by ship. The Cure did that years ago because Robert Smith refused to fly, and then I get told that if you take the ship, that's as much carbon usage."

He added: "Long haul flights just feel wrong. I'm trying to figure out a way of getting to Japan by train. I quite fancy that Trans-Siberian whatsitsname but apparently it's a bit scary."

David Adam
Tuesday October 17, 2006
The Guardian

Prayer

MY sorrow had pierced me through; it throbbed in my heart like a thorn;
This way and that I stared, as a bird with a broken limb
Hearing the hound’s strong feet thrust imminent through the corn,
So to my God I turned: and I had forgotten Him.

Into the night I breathed a prayer like a soaring fire;—
So to the windswept cliff the resonant rocket streams,—
And it struck its mark, I know; for I felt my flying desire
Strain, like a rope drawn home, and catch in the land of dreams.

What was the answer? This—the horrible depth of night,
And deeper, as ever I peer, the huge cliff’s mountainous shade,
While the frail boat cracks and grinds, and never a star in sight,
And the seething waves smite fiercer;—and yet I am not afraid.

By Arthur Christopher Benson

Machines

Once, when President William Howard Taft was listening to an aide talk about "the machinery of government," Taft murmured, "The young man really thinks it's a machine." Actually, government is people, and not a random slice of the population. Those at government's pinnacle generally are strong-willed, ambitious, competitive, opinionated and have agendas about which they care deeply. That is why they are there.

George Will
October 3, 2006
washingtonpost