Scrabulous pwned

I think Arthur wins this one.

Harriet Beecher Stowe Is A Bitch

The cast: Eight graduate students in various stages of education.
KRISTA, our hostess, a Spanish major who's a total Harry Potter fanatic
DAVE, her fiance, a mathematician
KATRINA, her housemate, a speech pathologist
BEN, a student of 19th-century German
LIS, a petite, chirpy pianist
CHRISTOPHER, a mediaevalist who looks the part
LEE - I think he studies Russian
me

The scene: Krista and Katrina's apartment, crouched over a guys-versus-girls game of It Was a Dark and Stormy Night. This is a relatively new board game which involves guessing either the title or the author of a book whose first lines are read from a randomly drawn card.

So far the girls are well ahead (gender stereotypes, anyone?). We've landed more often on Novels: 1900-1950 more often than we would have liked and on Children's Books and Science Fiction not enough, but Krista and I have saved two turns in a row by guessing "Hemingway" and "Fitzgerald" semi-facetiously and turning out right.

The guys roll and land on Novels: before 1900. Krista draws and reads

"In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a Man of Humanity. Late in the afternoon of a chilly day in February, two gentlemen were sitting alone over their wine, in a well-furnished dining parlor, in the town of P----, in Kentucky. There were no servants present, and the gentlemen, with chairs closely approaching, seemed to be discussing some subject with great earnestness."

resulting in a moment of bafflement before the argument breaks out.

"It sounds like Tolstoy. He does that letter-followed-by-dash naming."
"But it's in Kentucky!"
"What year?" someone asks.
"1852," Krista reads.
"Mark Twain with the 'man of humanity'? [Twain is the universal answer to any American novel before 1900, apparently] He was kinda preachy in some of his short stories."
"Yeah, but this is a novel."
"Wait...could it be Uncle Tom's Cabin, you know, by Harriet Beecher Stowe? Kentucky is a border state," Ben suggests.

The girls, who have all glanced at the card, exchange a look of brief panic which changes to glee when Christopher, head in hands, mutters, "No, no, that's too late for Uncle Tom."
There's more back-and-forth for several minutes until Christopher yelps at Lee "You saved us with Dante, what's this one?"
Lee shakes his head. (The guys got a poem earlier that sounded awfully like "The Road Less Travelled" but turned out to be "The Divine Comedy" or something.)
"Twain, then?"
"I guess so."
"Twain."
Shrugs. "Twain."

"Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe," Krista announces, smug as a cat in the cream.
"YOU WERE FREAKING KIDDING ME!" Ben yells at Christopher.
"I'm gonna go hide in the kitchen." As he retreats behind the fridge, the rest of us are treated to a frustrated screech of "HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, YOU BITCH!"
"Now that would make a great first line," says Dave.

Apples to Apples

A bunch of friends had a game night and we were playing Apples to Apples:

Matt: "Shocking".
me: Ooh! [slap card down]
A few minutes later...
Matt: I'd have to say "Electric eels" wins.
Julie [to me]: Four cards! Good job!
Steve: Girl, you like green cards a lot.
me: I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!

Spam spam spam spam

It took me a while to realize this was a promotional website (clearly I'm not very observant) but it's a pretty funny game. I'm just sad that we're probably not going to get the collector's edition Spam cans (with Stinky French Garlic) in the US.