WEBSITE OF THE DAY: Scrabulous.com

Scrabulous.com I'm not sure if a lot of you readers are bored in your hotel rooms or what, but the online games I've been featuring lately seem to be quite popular. There's only one board game that I play regularly and that's Scrabble, usually with my dad. In college, people used to think I cheated because I knew all the two-letter words in the official Scrabble dictionary and I seldom lost. Well, when I joined Facebook recently, a friend introduced me to the site's online Scrabble game, powered by Scrabulous.com. At Scrabulous.com, two to four players can play Scrabble online for free. It takes less than a minute to sign up and each time you make a move, your opponent(s) will receive an email notifying them that it's their turn. Players don't have to be online at the same time or even in the same country, so games can take as long as you want.



There are two versions of the game: one is a regular game where the letters put down have to form a bona fide word in the Scrabble dictionary. The regular version also gives users access to a dictionary before submitting their word, so that you can see if it's a valid word or not. It even includes a two-letter word cheat sheet, which is ever so handy! The other version is a “challenge” game; it's the same as regular Scrabble except for one exciting detail. Players can put down fake words and hope that their opponent doesn't challenge it. Also, the dictionary function, including the two-letter word cheat sheet, is disabled. Yikes! However, if you want to impress your friends, here's Hasbro's Scrabble website; it features a word builder tool. Just put in your letters and voila! It spits out every possible word using your letters. It also has the official Scrabble dictionary, though it doesn't completely agree with the dictionary used by the folks at Scrabulous.com. For example, on Scrabulous.com, “qi” and “za” are words, but not according to the Hasbro dictionary. You should definitely check this out but, I will tell you, it's addictive ... don't say I didn't warn you!