frozen boards

[jbud1980]

Well sir, it looks like you're rooting for a winner.

Sunheart is ahead by about 40,000 points.

On good authority, I hear that the fellow in 2nd place is far too lazy to try any late month heroics. In fact, he's been spending a lot of time on the couch catching up on novels missed during the remodel and pandemic. He just finished his 5th book since the New Year began, and is already deep into the 6th--an Ace Atkins rendering of Robert B Parker's Spenser novels.

So, perhaps a bit premature, but congratulations to Sunheart for winning the Gold trophy. It's about time to break out the champagne and take the Tour de Victory lap.

(Speaking of winners: hope you got a chance to watch the Chiefs/Bills playoff game. One of the most incredible closing minutes of football of all time.)

I'm sure you will hold the gold again, and soon. Also, we're all winners here, right?

I didn't catch the game, but I did watch the highlights of the Rams/Bucs game, and boy, that was a nail-biter. Of course I'm rootin' for the Rams due to obligation as I was born and raised in So Cal. Also, one of my earliest memories was when I was about four or five and my dad took my younger brother and I to a Rams game in the mid-eighties. It was at the LA Coliseum, and my dad saved the paper tickets. Haha.

Anyway, happy playing, as always.

[Naboka]

The high score that you have for the month is quite impressive. I feel you'll hit the 700 club soon enough, way before me. I also see you are gunning for #1 again. I wish you the best of luck; however, I always root for the underdog, so...

Go Sunheart! :P

Sunheart has never held the coveted #1 trophy.

Happy playing!

Well sir, it looks like you're rooting for a winner.

Sunheart is ahead by about 40,000 points.

On good authority, I hear that the fellow in 2nd place is far too lazy to try any late month heroics. In fact, he's been spending a lot of time on the couch catching up on novels missed during the remodel and pandemic. He just finished his 5th book since the New Year began, and is already deep into the 6th--an Ace Atkins rendering of Robert B Parker's Spenser novels.

So, perhaps a bit premature, but congratulations to Sunheart for winning the Gold trophy. It's about time to break out the champagne and take the Tour de Victory lap.

(Speaking of winners: hope you got a chance to watch the Chiefs/Bills playoff game. One of the most incredible closing minutes of football of all time.)

[jbud1980]

Actually, the trophies are an unintended consequence.

I'm perfectly fine with Chiman and Sunheart beating me. They're both superior players, who probably don't get the fanfare they merit. Both of them deserve the trophies. They're both better players than I am.

Though it probably seems like I'm playing a lot of games, I'm playing less than half the number I usually played in search of a #1 trophy. Part of the missed equation is dumped games.
Dumped games don't appear. When competing, I dump dozens of games--and play games as rapidly as possible. Competing, I don't bother with low-score games because why get 200 points in 2 minutes when you can get 400?

Currently, I'm playing every game to completion, no matter how low scoring, then studying the boards for where I could improve. I've been filling notebooks with new words and their point values. That takes valuable time away from accumulating points for the month. And, for most games, I'm playing much slower, rather than frantically trying to get every point available.

Seems to be working out for the better. I've scored over 500 points every day in January so far, and scored over 600 half a dozen times. Would have been 7 times but I kept trying to spell forms of draughtsman without the s.

For the first nine or ten months I played every game, regardless. I learned quite a lot, but I hate to admit that dumping grids is somewhat fun. Haha. Kudos to improving your game!

I bested my longest word/highest score on a 5X5 grid today. I'm really starting to enjoy playing the 5X5 grids, perhaps more than the 4X4 grids...

Total points: 573 New record!
Total words: 83 (26 common,9 wide,9 rare,39 ultra rare)
Best word: SUPERRESPECTABLENESSES (42 pts.) New record!
Longest word: SUPERRESPECTABLENESSES (22 letters) New record!

[Naboka]

The high score that you have for the month is quite impressive. I feel you'll hit the 700 club soon enough, way before me. I also see you are gunning for #1 again. I wish you the best of luck; however, I always root for the underdog, so...

Go Sunheart! :P

Sunheart has never held the coveted #1 trophy.

Happy playing!

Actually, the trophies are an unintended consequence.

I'm perfectly fine with Chiman and Sunheart beating me. They're both superior players, who probably don't get the fanfare they merit. Both of them deserve the trophies. They're both better players than I am.

Though it probably seems like I'm playing a lot of games, I'm playing less than half the number I usually played in search of a #1 trophy. Part of the missed equation is dumped games.
Dumped games don't appear. When competing, I dump dozens of games--and play games as rapidly as possible. Competing, I don't bother with low-score games because why get 200 points in 2 minutes when you can get 400?

Currently, I'm playing every game to completion, no matter how low scoring, then studying the boards for where I could improve. I've been filling notebooks with new words and their point values. That takes valuable time away from accumulating points for the month. And, for most games, I'm playing much slower, rather than frantically trying to get every point available.

Seems to be working out for the better. I've scored over 500 points every day in January so far, and scored over 600 half a dozen times. Would have been 7 times but I kept trying to spell forms of draughtsman without the s.

[jbud1980]

Congrats on the high scores and reaching the 700 club.

As for the beaten score, it's not really relevant in the grand scheme. It's not as if you set a personal best with a mistimed game. Some of the personal bests I've seen make me wonder, but...

The high score that you have for the month is quite impressive. I feel you'll hit the 700 club soon enough, way before me. I also see you are gunning for #1 again. I wish you the best of luck; however, I always root for the underdog, so...

Go Sunheart! :P

Sunheart has never held the coveted #1 trophy.

Happy playing!

[Naboka]

No, not to my knowledge. I've noticed that obvious Bots still maintain high scores, so I'm not sure if there is anything that can be done.

On a side note, I'm part of the 700 club now! However, I scored over 700 on a 5X5 grid, but I'll take it! I bested my high scores on both grids today. Happy playing!

Congrats on the high scores and reaching the 700 club.

As for the beaten score, it's not really relevant in the grand scheme. It's not as if you set a personal best with a mistimed game. Some of the personal bests I've seen make me wonder, but...

[jbud1980]

Did admin nullify your score?

Bilbo's a tough one. Was on my nebulous New Year's wishlist of players I'd never beaten or seldom beat.

No, not to my knowledge. I've noticed that obvious Bots still maintain high scores, so I'm not sure if there is anything that can be done.

On a side note, I'm part of the 700 club now! However, I scored over 700 on a 5X5 grid, but I'll take it! I bested my high scores on both grids today. Happy playing!

[bwt1213]

Thank you, Stephen. And now everyone else knows how to change their password, too.

[admin]

You can do it here:
User Settings - Puzzle Baron

Or from the main Wordtwist page, click "Settings" under your login name (top right), then "Account"

[bwt1213]

Emailed you this morning bwt1213.... let me know if you have any problems resetting your password now.

I can log in with the password you sent. I still don't know how to reset my password. It's not in the FAQ, and I can't find such instructions anywhere.

[bwt1213]

Emailed you this morning bwt1213.... let me know if you have any problems resetting your password now.

I can log in with the password you sent. I still don't know how to change my password. I don't see any reference to it anywhere, and it's not in the FAQ.

[admin]

Emailed you this morning bwt1213.... let me know if you have any problems resetting your password now.

[bwt1213]

I have a problem. I need to change my password. I tried to send a message to admin, and was told I had used up my "quota" of private messages. There is a quota? What is it? Why? I have a new computer, a present from my grandson. I would like to play Wordtwist on it. I can't remember my current password. I want to set a new one of my own. This is all really straightforward stuff. I have been trying for several days to do this and I'm getting nowhere. QUOTA? Golly gee whillikers. If I am not allowed to send messages to Admin, maybe someone else IS.

[bwt1213]

I haven't had the problem lately, though I remember in the past having this same thing happen that jbud1980 described. It hasn't happened in a while though.

Could it be your browser? I use Chrome to play here and I use a iMac desktop computer.

Just a thought, could you set your updates to be @ another time other than 3am? On my computer a little message pops up, yes it wants to do the updates as soon as I begin using the computer which I find annoying too, but I always say no ask again tonight, but instead of waiting for it to ask me again, when I'm finished using the computer, I just reboot so the update can happen when I'm not using the computer.

I can set my updates to happen at any time I set, and I figured I'd be off the computer at 3AM, and I wanted to give plenty of time for it to do the updates; I'm almost never on my computer before 10AM. But what seems to happen is that the actual loading of the updated files and altering the registry and all that kind of stuff happens at 3AM. Actually installing the updates (which you would think ought to happen at 3AM, because it makes SENSE to do it then) doesn't happen until you start your computer up the next morning. I guess I shouldn't find this surprising. I knew Bill Gates back in the day, and he cared as much for everyone else as Steve Jobs did -- zero. But there have got to be marketing types at Microsoft by now and Bill isn't running everything any more, and this is just so obvious.

So, here's the deal: I think there are several parts to this particular problem. The first part is the internet service. My grandson (soon to get his BS in Math from the University of Wisconsin) built me a new computer, a desktop. When that computer is not connected to the internet, I can type on it all day long and marvel at the big high-def screen. When it is connected to the internet, every once in a while the screen display drops out -- but not the sound, and if I'm scrolling at the time it still scrolls. That computer is using the local WIFI connection, which is perhaps two whole feet away. The other computer, the laptop with the update problems, uses an ethernet cable. And just once (as opposed to not ever in more than four years before) in the last two weeks, ITS screen has also gone black while on the internet -- for about a second or two, not four or five, and just once and not dozens of times.

The second thing is the browser. I checked online for things that could cause my particular problem, and "corrupted browser files" was mentioned. That supposedly can be fixed by loading the latest version of the browser and clearing the cache. That seems reasonable, except for one thing: I no longer remember AT ALL what my password is for this site. So I sent a message asking how I could change my password, hoping to get a response within the implied 48 hours. I didn't. Clearing the cache would mean I'd have to re-enter my password, which I do not know. At all. I'd like to play WordTwist on my new computer, but since I don't remember the password I can't.

The third part of the problem is the updates. Microsoft, for all their faults, does normally do the updates (part of them, anyway) at the time you set. Chrome, not so much. I'd go back to Firefox again, but I'd have to know the password. This password nonsense is like death by a thousand cuts or being pecked to death by ducks. Anyway, those Chrome updates happen when Chrome wants. And, to be honest, most of the time I barely know they have happened. But sometimes, they're really intrusive.

What I intend to do is to take this laptop computer and convert it to a Linux computer and play with it. I can go to dangerous websites and sneer at their viruses and refuse permission for their scripts. I can alter my own operating system, something I haven't done since CP/M days (alterations done in machine language, which blew all the other programmers away -- who writes printer drivers in machine language?) and if I mess something up I don't hurt anyone but myself. This computer will then run the Firefox browser to access this site, IF I KNOW THE PASSWORD.

Stephen, if you have read this far, you are a gentleman and a scholar. Please let me know how to change my password. Or, at the very least, to discover what my password is.

[Naboka]

Yes, that's correct. I ended up besting Bilbo's high scores, and I knew it was unfair, so I reached out to the admin to see if there was anything I could do to nullify my scores.

Did admin nullify your score?

Bilbo's a tough one. Was on my nebulous New Year's wishlist of players I'd never beaten or seldom beat.