You Pathological Lying Cheaters Are Easily Busted

I've only known one doctor diagnosed pathological liar.

The doctor diagnosed pathological liar, I used to know, who regularly lied to me, often would tell a lie when the truth would just be simpler. Often there was no point to the lie.

I'll give you one good example of this particular person's pathological lying.

One day she called me and told me that the day before she'd flown from Seattle to Phoenix for lunch, for free. That a friend of hers, who is an Alaska Airlines flight attendant, was able to fly her to Phoenix for free for lunch.

With this particular pathological liar when you ask followup questions she quickly gets defensive, because she suspects, accurately, that she's been caught lying again. I remember asking how she got to Sea-Tac. She said she drove herself there. I asked how much the parking cost. She didn't remember. I asked how they got to the restaurant when they got to Phoenix. Rather than say they got a taxi, she made up a lie about cars being available to flight attendants. I asked where the flight attendant got the key. She didn't remember. I asked what the name of the restaurant was. She did not remember.

A short while after I was told the lie about flying to Phoenix for lunch, I was at an event in Seattle with this particular pathological liar. The Alaska Airlines flight attendant showed up. The pathological liar and the flight attendant started talking about a Golden Corral in Spokane that they thought was fabulous.

I know what you are thinking if you've been to a Golden Corral, that being that these people I know are tasteless morons. Well, let's not be judgmental until we experience that fabled Spokane Golden Corral.

So, the flight attendant tells the pathological liar that he can get them roundtrip tickets to Spokane for 50 bucks, that they should fly to Spokane for lunch at the Golden Corral. The pathological liar was all excited about this plan. I sat there thinking should I or should I not ask why it cost $50 to fly to Spokane for lunch when it was free to fly to Phoenix for lunch?

But, with this particular pathological liar I had long known that one risked a temper tantrum if one blatantly exposed one of her lies. And so I did not say anything. I sort of regret this.

Changing the subject from pathological liars to cheaters.

By cheaters I'm talking about the meaning of the word that is associated with cheating to win a simple game. People who cheat to win a game are sort of like pathological liars, in that they don't realize how transparently obvious the cheating, or the lie, is.

For instance, if a person in normal conversation seems to have a limited vocabulary, with infrequent use of polysyllabic words and frequent use of cliche, and yet somehow, when playing a game like Scrabble online, time and again gets a lot of points with obscure words, the meaning of which I do not know, it is sort of a dead giveaway that the person is cheating.

Now, if you play Scrabble online with 5 or 6 different people it really makes the cheater standout, due to the preponderance of obscure words.

So, I was curious what was available online for Scrabble cheaters. I was not too surprised to find that there is a lot of help for Scrabble cheaters. Like this website called "Scrabble Word Finder."

There are websites where you enter the words that are on your current Scrabble board, then you type in the letters that you have available to play. You are then shown obscure words and where to place them to get a lot of points.

A real dead giveaway of the Scrabble cheater is if over and over again they use up all their tiles making up a word. This gets a lot of points.

What I don't understand is why would this be any fun to play this way? What possible ego gratification does one get from cheating to win a simple game like Scrabble? This just seems really sad to me.

Millions Worldwide Annoyed Because Facebook Scrabble Is Not Working

Facebook's Scrabble is causing an International Upset as Scrabble Addicts World-wide are unable to get their fix for the past couple days due to a Facebook Scrabble malfunction.

Getting beat regularly by the Scrabble Queens of Washington and California is just about the only mental stimulation I get on a daily basis.

So, with Facebook Scrabble not working I am current not mentally stimulated.

On the Facebook Scrabble page there is a link to a Scrabble Forum. That is where I learned people all over the world are not happy right now, due to their Scrabble withdrawal pains.

One person came up with the bizarre conspiracy theory that Mark Zuckerberg, he being Facebook's inventor, shut down Scrabble after being miffed that Social Network, the movie based on Facebook, did not when the Best Picture Oscar at Sunday's Academy Awards.

To me this seems a rather far fetched conspiracy theory. Though there are those who have made note of the supposed fact that Scrabble went down very quickly after Social Network did.

If Facebook Scrabble does not resume working today I am going to need to find something else to stimulate me mentally.

The Last Thursday Of 2010 Dawns Pink & Warm In Texas

The dawn of the last Thursday of 2010 looks like it might arrive with the sky clear of clouds, but I can not tell for sure at this point in time.

I can tell that the dawn of the last Thursday of 2010 has arrived warmly, as in just a couple degrees shy of 60.

In other words, no furnace running this morning.

Which pleases me, because I think it is the furnace running that somehow gets my eyes watering and makes looking at the computer screen a bit blurry until the eyes leaking situation gets under control.

The Scrabble Queen of Washington is heading to Long Beach today. That is one of my favorite locations on the Washington Pacific Coast. Apparently low tides will be turning the New Year's Day weekend into a razor clam digging opportunity.

Digging for razor clams, on a beach with thousands of other clam diggers is quite fun. In summer. I can't imagine doing this in winter. It seems like it would be very wet and cold.

The Scrabble Queen is bringing her iPad along so that she can continue beating me at Scrabble. I miss my Scrabble if I don't get a daily dose. It helps greatly with firing the synapses of parts of my brain that usually lay dormant.

The sun has risen quite a bit higher and I still can not tell if the sky is clear. I can see that it is glowing pink, as you can see in the latest picture, looking outside from one of my frost-free windows.

The conditions out there are such that we are under a wildfire alert in North Texas.  The way it is glowing out there right now it looks like a wildfire is in the neighborhood.

Anyway, all I know for sure that lays ahead today for me is a bowl of chili from a big pot of the State Soup of Texas that I made last night.

On Christmas Eve I Finally Won Another Game Of Facebook Scrabble

It has been a long while since the Scrabble Queen of Washington let me win a game of Facebook Scrabble.

I think the Scrabble Queen knows how much my Scrabble ineptness depresses me and diminishes my easily diminished self esteem.

So, tonight, on Christmas Eve, the Scrabble Queen of Washington gave me my best Christmas present to yet be revealed this year.

She let me win again.

It is like a pre-Christmas miracle.

In Texas Celebrating A Rare Scrabble Win Against The Scrabble Queen Of Washington

Saturday night I had me a Scrabble Celebration due to the rare occasion of winning a Scrabble game against the Scrabble Queen of Washington.

It was a decisive victory, by dozens of points.

I think the Scrabble Queen of Washington lets me win every once in awhile just to boost my easily boosted spirits.

A couple weeks ago I read somewhere that Scrabble, the actual board game, not the Facebook version, has become a very trendy fad.

It seems like the actual board game version would be complicated, figuring out how to score the points. That would involve arithmetic. The arithmetic part of my brain went to sleep a long time ago.

I see in the morning email that the Scrabble Queen of Washington has invited me to play a new game of Scrabble. The usual pattern is she lets me win one. And then decisively defeats me to remind me why she is the Scrabble Queen of Washington.

While I'm a mere Pauper in Texas. I just realized I am not sure I know what a Pauper is.

Hitting A High Of 106 This Sunday In Texas

The high today in my zone of North Texas hit 106, according to my temperature information source. With a Heat Index of 109.

One more day over 100 and then a cold front moves in chilling us down to the 90s. Supposedly.

The National Weather Service issued a Heat Advisory a short time ago, advising us that it's going to be HOT through tomorrow. How did people figure out it was too HOT before the National Weather Service came along to issue a Heat Advisory?

I just heard from a cold Washingtonian that she is sending her husband to LA in the morning. When you are in the South, LA means Louisiana. When I lived on the West Coast it meant Los Angeles.

Wait a sec, I'm thinking I'm suffering some heat related dementia. It was the cold Washingtonian who referred to Louisiana as LA. Maybe she picked that up from me.

Anyway, when the aforementioned husband was in LA about a month ago it was HOT. He coped by using the multiple cold showers a day method. It will be way HOTTER this time in LA.

I find that the HEAT stifles my appetite. Or maybe it's more that when it is HOT I don't like feeling overly fed. I prefer feeling hungry. I think the constant intake of water has an effect too, in that it keeps me feeling sort of bloated. I really don't understand how so many people manage to get so big in this climate.

I had a big webpage making project I wanted to do today, but, I'm feeling worn out. Today the Scrabble Queen of Washington kindly helped me avoid what I wanted to do, by giving me multiple Scrabbling opportunities.

I've read a couple articles of late regarding the fact that, apparently, Scrabble has turned into quite a fad. Not the Facebook version that I play, but the real boardgame version. Which I've never played.

The A/C runs and runs, but I don't feel cool. Time for another shower.

The Scrabble Queen Of Washington Takes Mercy On A Good Ol' Texas Boy

Scrabble is pretty much the only thing I've found that I like about Facebook. The rest of Facebook seems to manage to only be slightly less annoying than that has-been, MySpace.

I think I've said before that playing Scrabble has exercised part of my brain that usually lies dormant and has somehow amped up my already fairly well-amped ability to quickly spew words.

If I don't find some Scrabble games to play in the morning, whilst I eat breakfast, it really starts the day off on a bad note for me.

Fortunately, the Scrabble Queen of Washington is quite good at reliably providing me my Scrabble stimulation. To a lesser degree, the Scrabble Princess of Eastern Washington, Tootsie Tonasket, does a bit less stimulating, Scrabble-wise.

I think, lately, the Scrabble Queen of Washington has been taking mercy on me and is not using so many big point words, thus letting me win a game or two. I appreciate that.

Wandering Through A Forest Of Tandy Hills Prickly Pear Cactus With Other Conundrums

That's a forest of Prickly Pear Cactus I'm wandering through, under a semi-cloudy, 80 degree warm, sky, on the Tandy Hills, this afternoon.

For reasons we need not discuss, I was stuck on the Tandy Hills longer than I'd anticipated. It is likely that even with the partial cloud cover I have managed to acquire a slight sunburn.

I got back here later than I'd planned. Had lunch. Checked email to see Washington's Scrabble Queen had Scrabbled. I answered email then went to Facebook to Scrabble. Facebook was having "Communications Errors" that Facebook said they were working on.

In other words, Scrabble was not working. So, no Scrabbling.

In the same email that told me there was some possible Scrabbling to do, I got email from Betty Jo Bouvier, the Wild Woman of Woolley, sending me a file she thought I might find of interest. But my computer can't figure out what program opens this file. I tried one that should work for a text type file, to no avail.

Also in that same batch of email was one that related to what Betty Jo was sending me, that being a comment from Sarah R. about a blogging from a few days ago titled, "I Have Had My Last Chance With the 2010 Census Bureau."

Sarah commented,"I had to fill this out for my foster son who is Hispanic. I was left stupefied as to what to fill in for race. He's definitely not white. I searched the web. The Census website was useless. I finally filled in Other and listed him as Central American Indian. Asian cultures got all sorts of choices and are approximately 13.5 million of them in the US, but 46.9 million Hispanics. Maybe Asians have better lobbyists?"

Sarah, I'm thinking a better explanation is that, along with a lot of America, the government, for the most part, has gone insane.

Another Stunning Scrabble Victory Over The Scrabble Queen Of Washington

Tuesday is off to an auspicious start. I have had another Stunning Scrabble Victory over the Scrabble Queen of Washington.

This now gives me 3 wins over the Scrabble Queen, with around 120 losses. So, in the bigger picture I'm a big Scrabble loser. I don't mind being a Scrabble loser, it's good exercise for my frequently dormant thinking mechanisms, even if losing is my norm.

If only this Stunning Scrabble Victory were some sort of omen of wins to come on other fronts. Sadly, I suspect this win is just an isolated fluke.

Speaking of isolated flukes, today I return to the location of last week's first flat tire. I am hoping to avoid any punctures.

I saw bad news whilst reading the local papers online this morning. Winter is about to return to North Texas. It was in the high 30s when I went swimming this morning, so, I suppose, winter's return may already be here.

Riding Horses In Texas With The Scrabble Queen Of Washington

That is Miss KPF being a cowgirl. I had myself a great time riding horses with Miss KPF, when she visited Texas.

Wait, that may have happened only in a dream. I confuse dreams with reality with alarming frequency.

Miss KPF would make an excellent Texan, as you can tell from the picture, what with her properly wearing a cowboy hat while straddling a horse with authority.

Miss KPF is like a Texan in other ways. Like she's married to this high powered business tycoon who is called J.R.

Okay, I've run out of what Miss KPF has in common with Texans. The reason I'm talking about Miss KPF is I realized something yesterday, that being the she has caused me to be able to spew verbiage at a faster rate. And she has caused an increase in typos.

How can this be, you ask? Well, about a year ago I was curious to see what the fuss about Facebook was all about. To do so I had to create an account. As part of the account set up I was shown names. I thought I was supposed to click on names I recognized. One of them was Miss KPF. I did not realize that clicking on a name sent out a "Friend Request."

Miss KPF sent a message back to me saying "I don't think I know you, we weren't at B-E at the same time." See, I'd not entered accurate info, for the most part. I entered my high school correctly, but not the years I went there. What remains a mystery to me, to this day, is how did Facebook come up with all these names I recognized when I had myself going to that school 10 years later? It's perplexing.

After Miss KPF went through pretty much every name in our class she finally figured out who Durango Jones was. Soon after that Miss KPF started me in on playing Scrabble. At that time I did not realize she was the Scrabble Queen of Washington. Taking pity on me, she has let me win a couple times.

Now, at first I didn't like Scrabble all that much. I had trouble coming up with words. Then one day it sort of clicked. You have to see patterns where you can spell multiple words, that's where the big points come from.

And I'm constantly trying out weird letter combos in the hope that it's a word.

And that is where the increase in typos comes from, I think. I'll type oar when I mean oaf. I'll type boob when I mean boon. I'll type done when I mean down.

Sometimes the typo will still have the sentence sort of making sense. But usually not. I catch most of them before I hit the 'publish' button. But quite a few don't get found til later.

The other thing that I think has happened due to Scrabbling, is I think it exercises the part of my brain that fires the synapses that puts word strings together. I've always been able to pretty easily spew stream of consciousness verbiage. In the past year I've noticed this has changed, as in sometimes I have no clue where a sentence or paragraph is going to go when I start in typing. I just let my fingers fly on the keyboard and check if it makes sense after the fingers quit flying.

That also may be contributing to the typos, as in typing too fast.

Usually I Scrabble while I eat breakfast. This gets my synapses all fired up, with an additional firing up due to coffee. A morning like this morning makes evident to me that I've developed some sort of dependence addiction to Scrabble and it firing up my brain, because this morning there was no Scrabble, because Miss KPF and J.R. are down in Portland.

I won't return to full function til I get Scrabbled. Miss KPF may Scrabble from Portland. She's managed to Scrabble from all sorts of locations, Hawaii, Canada, Seattle, Ocean Shores, Tri-Cities, Leavenworth, Pullman, American Falls, Idaho, I forget where else. Miss KPF is constantly on the move.

So, there's a good chance I'll get a note telling me it's my turn to Scrabble. Maybe I should look for a backup stimulator for when I have Scrabble withdrawal.

I Beat The Scrabble Queen Of Washington Again!

I'm so happy. I beat the Scrabble Queen of Washington at Facebook Scrabble for the 2nd time ever. I don't know if this means I am getting better at it or if the Scrabble Queen has grown bored with how unchallenging I am, Scrabble-wise.

I find Scrabble works a part of my brain that is likely dormant most of the time. The same part of my brain that processes a complex math problem. Complex math problems are something my erratically developed brain has never been good at.

When you win a game of Facebook Scrabble you have the option of going for a re-match. I did so. My first word was "vexer." Worth, if I remember right, and again that erratically developed brain and memory storage is in play, but I think I got 32 points for "vexer."

So, I am well on my way to another stunning Scrabble win. Most likely not though.

Energized By Carrot Sweet Potato Bacon Pea Soup I Hike The Tandy Hills

Today has been all mixed up from my usual tightly organized schedule. Freezing temperatures, along with wind, kept me from even considering my usual early morning, neither rain nor sleet nor dark of night shall stop me, swim.

And then, when the usual time came when I escape to the outdoors to do something aerobic, events conspired to prevent that from happening.

My Carrot Sweet Potato Bacon Pea Soup lunch was put off til almost 2.

After lunch I needed to go to the bank to do some depositing. The bank is right by the Tandy Hills Natural Sanatorium Area. Even though I hiked the Tandy Hills yesterday, in shorts and no shirt, in 70 degree plus temperatures, I thought I'd get myself all insulated in winter wear, including gloves, and brave the wind, as you can see in the picture.

The afternoon light makes the Tandy Hills look different than the noon light when the sun is high in the sky.

I got gas yesterday, but it was not convenient to call my mom. Usually the drive-through at the bank is a semi-long wait. So, I made my tardy mom gas call then. But no answer. There are way too many fun things in the Phoenix zone that keep them way too busy. My mom will likely call back this evening. I won't hear the phone ring. Mom will then leave a message that I won't notice til tomorrow morning. It's a vicious cycle.

The Scrabble Queen of Washington had gone missing for a few days, lost in Seattle doing Christmas shopping. I just got a Facebook message telling me she is home and has Scrabbled. This means I will be needing to do the most serious hard thinking I've done in a few days.

I'll likely get a headache.

Things Are Looking Up. I Won Another Scrabble Game

Finally. I won something again. I thought it was a miracle of good luck and good letters when I beat the reigning Scrabble Queen of Washington State the first time.

And now it's happened again.

This almost cheers me up. Almost.

I enjoy Scrabble. It really does strain a part of my brain that prefers to not be disturbed. When I first woke up that part of my brain I had a lot of trouble coming up with words or seeing how to make multiple words.

But as more strain was put on the Scrabble part of my brain it became less of a strain. I'm thinking it's causing all sorts of new neurons and synapses to form. I have no idea if those are the proper terms.

My First Win Ever At Anything! The Scrabble Queen Comes In 2nd!

It is official. Facebook Scrabble has declared me the WINNER! Scrabble added the exclamation point, not me. I can't tell you what it means to me to have finally triumphed over the Reigning Scrabble Queen of Washington.

My final letter was an 'I.' I used the 'I' to make 'IT' for, I think, 2 points.

Those 2 points gave me a final score of 346 to the Scrabble Queen of Washington's 307 points.

I feel with this victory my life may finally turn around and steer me away from this hell I have been living.

As an extra omen of this stunning reversal of fortune, I am currently in the lead in another Scrabble game with the Reigning Scrabble Queen of Washington.

I do not know how many times I would have to defeat the Scrabble Queen of Washington to take her crown away, making myself the Reigning Scrabble King of Washington. I suppose to take the title I'd have to move back there.

I would not mind that fate. Too much.

For The First Time In My Life I May Win Something

I have never been a very good game player. Except for Monopoly. Since January the Scrabble Queen of Washington, aka SQW, has beaten me at a lot of Scrabble games.

Over that period of time I've learned that taking a Scrabble break is good brain exercise. I think figuring out Scrabble words must use the same side of the brain as doing math. I am not good at math.

Over time I've found by not trying to think too hard about it and just slightly pondering it, a word will pop up, usually quite quickly.

And now, today, in one of 2 games being currently played, SQU, aka Miss Karen, has conceded, saying unless I mess up real bad I'll be winning the game you see in the picture.

I do not know how I am going to celebrate. But this is huge. If I do win this Scrabble game it will mark the first time I've ever won anything. This is a momentous, possibly life changing event.

I don't know when I've been happier.

Getting Tweeted, Facebooked & Super Poked In Texas

I got Super Poked, again, from Facebook this morning. I don't get the point of Poking, let alone Super Poking. And to make it seem even more pointless, when you get Poked or Super Poked Faceback seems to insist that you return the Poke or comment on the Poke.

So, a minute or two after the Super Poking idiocy I went to Gar the Texan's Random Ramblings Blog for some of Gar the Texan's own highly evolved type of idiocy and there I saw the image you see here, that I stole from Gar the Texan's Blog, which he stole from his friend Ed's Blog.

Or maybe it was Gar the Texan's friend Ed's Facebook from which Gar got the above. Wherever it came from it was pertinent to what I was thinking about getting Super Poked from Facebook.

Apparently Gar the Texan's friend Ed is out of the country and mentioned, or Tweeted, that he'd had a small banana for breakfast. To which someone Tweeted that they'd like Ed to Tweet a picture of his banana breakfast, which is what prompted the above and Gar the Texan's Blogging about the subject.

If I remember right, Gar the Texan's friend Ed is from the same small West Texas town as Gar, but he now lives up in Seattle and works for Microsoft as a psychologist. I don't know why Microsoft needs a psychologist. Maybe it is to help make sure that Microsoft's products keep driving us all nuts.

In addition to Super Poking me this morning, Facebook also got its Scrabble game back working. Washington's Reigning Queen of Scrabble, Karen, has gained what seems to me to be an insurmountable lead, again, having something like 146 points to my 22. It is sort of embarrassing. I used to think of myself as being good with words. Well, the delusion is now shattered!

It was 33 and very windy when I went down to the pool at 8 this morning. I managed to stay in it for about 10 minutes before I retreated to the hot tub. The next 2 nights it is supposed to freeze here. I thought we were done with this type nonsense for the year.

I think I'll go Super Poke someone now.

Scrabbling in Texas

I continue to be vexed by Facebook's Scrabble. It won't let me take my turn due to, I guess, technical difficulties. When I try to take my turn Facebook says they are working on fixing what's vexing me.

It is particularly vexing due to the fact that ever since Wednesday I've been trying to play my biggest word ever for a whopping 15 points. That word is "faunae." I have no idea what it means.

So, currently Washington's Queen of Scrabble has 65 points to my pathetic 10.

Windows remained open all night (Alma, that refers to both types of windows). This morning, due to being way too warm all night long, getting into the pool felt refreshing, not bracing.

I have to go to Arlington again this morning. I think I'll add a bike ride to the schedule, again. Then it's to Fry's Electronics, again, to get a new keyboard. I don't know if I'm in the mood for Sweet Tomatoes again. Though their Friday Clam Chowder is pretty good. Not as good as my Mom's Clam Chowder, none is, but Sweet Tomatoe's is better than most.

Reading back the above paragraph I see I used the word "again" 4 times. That seems excessive.