Let’s Play Scrabble

I had an e-mail message from my old college buddy Pete the other day. He’d made the first play in an online Scrabble game, and it was my turn: I L W E Q P I. Not good. But 20 games later, I’m hooked. The screen looks just like the real thing, bright-red triple-word squares and all, and has several high-tech features: a shuffle icon (your letters are magically rearranged before your eyes), online dictionaries (purists might take issue) and automatic score keeping and computing (no need for math, thank the Lord). There’s also a box where you can post a short note to your opponent when you play. Nice for when you’re down a hundred points and your letters suck, like yesterday. It wasn’t the first time I’d called him that—just the first time in writing.