Cheater, Cheater, Odor Eater!!

"My computer can beat me at Chess... But it is no match for me at Kick-Boxing..." - Emo Phillips.

Tonight I made an amazing discovery...

My computer cheats at "Scrabble"!

Last weekend my brother-in-law and sister-in-law were over here to hang out with the Wife and me. My Wife and her brother were playing "Mario Smash Brothers Melee" on the Game Cube, and my sister-in-law was playing "Brain age" on her Nintendo DS Lite, so I was left with nothing to do.

I decided to go to "Yahoo Games" on the internet and see if there were any games there that I liked.

I found "Scrabble" and downloaded it.

And was immediately hooked.

I have played "Scrabble" against my computer for several hours every night this week.

I noticed that the computer would occasionally deny me a word that I knew was legitimate, but it didn't bother me until I tried to use the word "Jews" on a triple word score for 42 points.

The computer denied it.

Then I started to notice that the computer was using some really funky words like "xi" and "emmend".

Tonight it used the word "smews" for 27 points.

I used the Dictionary function and looked up the word, and it said that a "smew" is a Eurasian duck.

Okay... I remember this from when I was a kid playing this game. This is the opponent who sits on the Dictionary and challenges YOUR words, but makes up his own words and won't let YOU look anything up. (Because it's HIS Dictionary.)

Now, maybe a "doit" actually is an out-dated Dutch coin... but I cannot be sure of that. I either have to take the word of the computer, or go out and buy my own copy of Mirriam Webster's Official Collegiate Dictionary, and even that would not explain why the computer can use "noir", but I can't use "que".

And I don't have the same option, even if I had my own Dictionary. I can't put down "queijrx", and then tell the computer that it is a Turkish Cockroach or something. The computer either allows the word, or it doesn't. No argument whatsoever.

I can usually beat any human opponent at "Scrabble", but I can't stand a cheating computer, and I have caught mine red-handed.

Maybe next we'll see how well it does playing Dodge Ball.