Fun, Humor, Life experiences, Nature, Travel, Food, Work, Silly Verses, Nostalgia, Random Thoughts
Lessons of history
Ain’t no mystery;
Getting in may be easy,
Getting out will be messy.
Seen state of many a Union
Watched some State of the Union
Force don’t make an Union
Nary an accord ain’t no Union 
Today it’s Ukraine. tomorrow it could be a different place. Pushing the envelope to see what one can get away with is a quality we have seen and continue to see in politics, war, sports, business, entertainment and all other walks of life. Inhuman is becoming all too common human quality 
After couple of weeks of wordle and absurdle mania earlier this year got back to playing good old word game Scrabble. Tried playing other human/s online few times but the games were taking too long and instead of a quick fix I was looking for it turned out to be a multiple days affair at times. Then I switched to playing virtual characters on a tablet. It’s been an interesting experience. Big benefit with playing virtual characters is that the virtual opponent plays fast. You don’t have to keep waiting for minutes, hours (or days at times) unlike humans who play the game squeezed between their other regular activities. Which is understandable but kinda frustrating if you want to be done fast. Sometimes when the virtual opponent doesn’t play a word within a minute or two I just close and reopen the game which has a triggering effect of opponent playing a word. Virtual character names are interesting. Don’t know if it’s because I started playing around the year-end Holidays last year but the opponent names are either Nordic or Holidays themed names. Some of the names I remember are Santa, Rudolph, Gingerbread, Freya, Hera, Thor, Odin, Loki, Merlin, Grumpy, Boreas. There is some artificial intelligence built in for these virtual characters. They take advantage of human hard work by either going for plurals or seizing opportunities to scoring high with a tile placed on multiple letter or word squares. Kinda like a boss taking credit for subordinates hard work 😉 But their intelligence is limited in that they don’t appear to learn from earlier playing experience playing the same opponent. For example I have couple of short words for high value but hard to find word letters Q and Z that are my go to words. For both Q and Z it’s a 2-letter word and when I land those letters I look for opportunity to strategically place them in letter or word multiple squares for maximizing scoring potential. The Q word does not require the letter U. In my play never seen a virtual opponent play those words. Probably those words are not there in their word dictionary. Who cares, humans have to take advantage of every opportunity 😄 Other interesting observation is that most times when I google by starting “Is XYZ” one of the autocomplete suggestions near the top is “Is XYZ a scrabble word”. Makes me wonder if google is making a guess using the phrasing or other folks have already googled that question before 😊 Other benefit of playing virtually is that whenever I am at a place that may involve waiting (oil change, urgent care etc) my attitude has changed to “Take your own time” instead of the irritation of boredom I used to feel before. Don’t know if something else will capture my fancy but playing Scrabble online against virtual opponents sure has been an interesting experience! What more could a hard snacking, socially not so active, word and puzzles loving person ask for? 🤣
After a long time back with words of the day. Today’s words are chortle and wordle!
Why those words? No reason, just rhyme! 😃
Chortle is a safe choice as the word already exists in the dictionary, wordle is a bold choice as I decided to go into predictive mode. Assuming it’s going to be added to the dictionary based on its popularity.
Let’s start with the meaning of the words.
chortle
verb : laugh in a breathy, gleeful way; chuckle.
noun : a breathy, gleeful laugh.
wordle
noun (likely) : a daily word game
Nothing better than a story and using new words in sentences as examples for illustration.
Wordle origin has a nice personal touch. Was created by Josh Wardle, a software engineer in Brooklyn, for his partner who loved word games. A friend sent a link to the game about a month ago and being a word enthusiast with a love for puzzles and games gave it a try. Liked it, after couple of words decided to use the “cheat words” or “seed words” approach to save the effort of thinking what first word/s to use as guesses. First choice of cheat words were “iotas” and “nerdy”. Words chosen to cover the vowels and consonants most commonly found in words and also as a nod to software nerds. Later settled on “adieu” and “story” as first two guesses. This approach increases the possibility of finding letters likely to be in the word of the day. But it also means correct guess in least attempts will be 3 unless the puzzle word is one of the cheat words. Found the one word a day limit a bit restrictive and tried “absurdle” for a few days as it had no restrictions on words/day or # of attempts/word. After a few days seemed that the second (and subsequent) bites tasted the same and feeling sated stopped playing after 2 weeks. Nowadays when I have the urge to play word games prefer to play good old Scrabble online against virtual competitors with interesting names! But that’s a story for another time 🙂
I find it mildly amusing that people who play wordle like to post on social media daily how they performed with the word of the day. In recognition of that I would want “Irresistible urge to try word puzzle and post on social media” added as a meaning for wordle when it gets added to the dictionary 😉 I can hear chortles greeting this suggestion 😄
Kicking off the Guilty Pleasures series with my #1 guilty pleasure: Watching food/cooking shows on TV. With the restrictions on travel in recent times I am sure everyone has sought comfort in hobbies and activities that have a comfort feel to them. In the past couple of years I have taken to watching food and cooking shows. The language of food is probably one of the most universal and nothing beats the fun of drooling over a well cooked and well presented dish 😊 Apart from the creativity, passion and skill of talented chefs what I like about cooking is the fact that in its own way cooking reminds of software development with the chefs bringing in different components in a way they all work well together and are presented in a eater friendly manner: in short making it a memorable user experience!
Some of the shows I have watched and enjoyed are “Beat Bobby Flay”, “Chopped”, “Diners, Drive-ins and Drives”, “Hell’s Kitchen”. Like different foods for different seasons different shows for different reasons.
“Beat Bobby Flay” features chef Bobby Flay, who is a beast in the kitchen, taking on challengers and trying to beat them at making dishes they are known best for. Majority of time Bobby emerges as a winner because he keeps it simple. Makes flavor, texture and taste as highest priority and making sure the dishes work in a cohesive manner as well as focusing on the presentation. What that calls for is time management discipline, not going in for anything overly ambitious if it increases risk. Even if it’s a dish that Bobby is not familiar with he ends up winning many a times making sure that the ingredient which is supposed to be the star of the dish does stand out while the competitors may fall into the trap of either going in for something quite ambitious or try to do too many things ending up with not enough time to present well or the star ingredient getting lost with all the other flavor profiles at work.
“Chopped” features 3 courses: Appetizer round followed by Entrée and finally the Dessert round. Chopped is like watching an Agile approach project at work. It’s iterative in that there are multiple courses and it’s adaptive because contestants get feedback after each round which they can use to deliver a better eating experience in subsequent rounds.
“Diners, Drive-ins and Drives” features restaurants in different parts of the country offering their own specialities. Good to see chefs that may not be very well known outside their own immediate vicinity get exposure to show their passion and creations to a wider audience. 👍
“Hell’s Kitchen” and other Gordon Ramsay hosted food shows feature talented chefs offering their own creative take on different dishes with the bonus possibility of the host of throwing in some F-bombs in the show 😀
What makes it a guilty pleasure for me? With the amount of food tasted by the judges not being much I always hope that no leftover food or ingredients are wasted. For the effort that goes into making the dishes and the fact that quite a few people do not have the means to afford a decent meal it would be criminal if food gets wasted. I have never experienced food insecurity but volunteering couple of times in a food pantry is enough to understand how many people may be struggling to put food on their table and the effort that goes into making food available to people who need it. It’s a humbling and learning experience 🙏
Today is the last day of 2021. Right time to look back, look ahead.
Put simply 2021 has been an extraordinary year!
A year in which
• Good and bad were engaged in a constant battle
• Many lives were saved, many lives were lost
• Prosperity soared and paucity increased
• The bright lights of democracy were threatened by inimical forces
• We witnessed courage and cowardice in plenty
• Truth tried to emerge while misinformation exploded
• Olympian heights were reached along with plumbing of depths
• Welcome jabs were followed by unwelcome jabbing
• Lessons were learned hard and quickly forgotten
• There was a lot gained and a lot lost
• Hope and fear seemed to be juxtaposed
It has been a year to reevaluate priorities and relationships, both personal and professional, for many including yours truly. Will be interesting to see how historians view 2021. When 2021 and 2022 meet I hope the intersection is at love. 🥰 Hey, even the number 2022 has a good feel to it! Like beautiful swans together, one followed by two! Humanity needs to transition from a world of pain, loss and grief to one that abounds in love. My optimism is tempered by reality and reality is tinged with optimism. 🙏
Sayonara 2021! Welcome 2022! 👍
In the limelight if you must bask
Remember without fail one task
Always wear a face mask
Y’all will agree it’s a simple ask. 🙏
Time person of the year 2021 is Musk
For thy safety though, dawn or dusk
Timely protection of the year 2021 is mask!
Federal agents from the U.S. Marshals led by the great Samuel ‘Fiery Sam’ Gerard are investigating a case of twins apparently separated at birth. Fiery Sam is known for his steely determination to bring justice whatever it takes. Nothing illustrates that better than below conversation heard between Fiery Sam and Deputy US Marshal Cosmo ‘CR’ Renfro 
CR: What the hell is the matter with you? Sam, you can’t do this. I know how you feel. Look, I feel the same way. I loved that kid, too, but this is wrong. I’m telling you this as your friend.
Fiery Sam: You’re not my friend.
CR (enraged): Fine. Forget it. You wanna kill that SOB who separated that kid, go ahead, you do it. But remember this: You forget everything you taught me about this job. The rules, the regulations, the code. You do this, and it’s all about you. It’s not about bringing justice to the unfortunate family. It’s about you. The great Fiery Sam. 
Fiery Sam (goes into the elevator by himself): Yes, I am.
CR: And you always have to win.
Fiery Sam (as the elevator door closes): Yes, I do. 😉
Alpha, Beta, Gamma
Delta, Lambda, Kappa
Zeta, Eta, Theta
Random Greek alphabets?
Or name of Greek fraternities?
Or basics to learning the classics?
Could be any of the above
Yet these are names WHO appears to love
For coronavirus variants on the move!
A recent variant labeled Omicron
Sounds like combination of Ominous and Cron
Has the feel of a ticking time bomb;
Are humans stuck in a loop
Of never-ending alphabet soup
Or will we find the will to regroup?
For starters, to put the public at ease
Stop using wave to describe outbreaks of the disease
For waves do not cease!
TheRajBlog 