Lately, I've added something to my daily routine that I find pretty useful so I thought I'd share it with you.

I LOOOVE sleep.  But because I have sleep apnea, I sometimes wake up kind of groggy (must be all that insane snoring and skull rattling).  When my sister came over to visit two months ago, she got me hooked on Scrabble (for the itouch / ipod).  I hadn't played Scrabble in years (possibly longer), but I vaguely remember being pretty good, so I figured what the heck?  Anyway, I find that a dozen or so scrabble words in the morning wakes me up and gets me a little more alert.  I suppose some people pick up the morning newspaper or have that cup of coffee to get their brain going.  For me, it's been Scrabble.  I think it's something about having to think (to a degree), and the natural competitiveness in me just gets the juices going.  I also find it relaxing, so I'll play a little before a session and after a session.

I don't think I'm "great" at it - since I probably only get the "optimal" word like 20% of the time.  Even my kid sister beat me 5 games out of 8.  But my record so far is 188-24 and my rating is 1824.  Pretty good. But I think a lot of people who play are like 10 year olds because I'll have games where the score is like 450-150.  Or maybe they are just retarded adults.  One time, I thought I was playing with a pedophile because he was asking me questions like "are you a kid?"  "are you a teenager?"  "where do you live?"  But later on it seemed like he was just a kid who wanted to play other kids.  Not sure why Scrabble doesn't have have like some sort of "easy," "medium," "hard" type of thing.  But you know what?  It really doesn't matter.

I always thought of Scrabble as a game where you play against OTHER PLAYERS, but in a way, it's a game you play against YOURSELF.  I guess it's like golf.  On one level, you want to beat the other guys you are playing with, but a lot of times, you are just trying to play the best that *YOU* can.  So you can even have fun at it when playing in a foursome with Tiger, Phil and even Charles Barkley.

So if any of you guys want to take down the old man in an old fashioned game of Scrabble, look me up - I'm "doublefly22."  Send me a note so I know you're a blog reader.

Maybe I'll post some Scrabble tips later in case you have to visit your grandparents at the nursing home and they want to play.