Caro's Scrabble Cafe

One more loss I haven't been able to mention. My dear friend Leona passed away after a brief battle with cancer on December 12, 2010. She asked me to plan her service (thanks, Lee <grin>). We will be having a Celebration of Life for her January 8th, 2011 at the Massey Theatre in New Westminster, 1pm.

Here are Rusty's own words, written a couple of years ago, kindly forwarded to us by Chris and Carole, her kids.

Here I am, wavin' at cha, Rusty North. 0 yr. old, going on 86. Rusty because my hair was flaming red. Now its too late to change. I like to consider myself a matriarch with 5 children, seven grandchildren and one great grand-child.

The years have been full of excitement and adventure. The great depression taught me the meaning of poor -- but also the joys of an extended family. I had a minor talent for art and won a number of scholarships. I followed my husband to camp during WW2. I earned my livelihood as a printer until my right hand was smashed in the press. We went home to a photo studio that I equipped with money from insurance. Learned to set type and run a press one handed. It was uncommon in those days for a college student to be pregnant, but someone told me a one-handed woman could not raise a family. Hah!!

We had an old house we were refurbishing as a studio. It caught fire and we had to start over, salvaging every board and nail to construct a wing on our new home. Pick and shovel, hammer and saw and our own hands we constructed a 32' by 16/3 story wing. Then came Vietnam and a life of anti-war activism. It became clear we were out of step with the conservative suburban neighbors. We sold everything and headed west to pastures new.

Dear John had had a childhood bout with rheumatic fever that damaged his heart and lungs. It killed him at age 53. Again starting over. I decided to return to college where I established The Poet press and resurrectred 350 drawers of type and taught my fellow students to publish their own poetry. I continued on to graduate work in Psychology. At the tender age of 60 got a job in social work and finally retired at 70. Bought a small press and have had a fine time publishing small books of poetry. STARTING Over again.

Right now I'm starting over battling Cancer. It may be the most challenging project I've ever had---unless I count learning to use the computer I resisted for years. So here I am Scrabble buddies, wavin' at cha. I like to think you are wavin' back.

Our dear friend in scrabble has passed away. Elizabeth "Rusty" North died mid-September at age 88 in Port Townsend, Washington State. I do believe that Rusty had been on borrowed time for quite a while, but I'm still at a loss to accept her passing just yet. I just played with her on the day before her passing. I've played approximately 4 games a day with Rusty for over a decade. I was trying to remember when we were first at MSN Gaming Zone what year that would have been. I think possibly as early as 1999. I will miss her terribly.

Another interesting note on the Gamespy front is that (thanks to Max) we've found out that people can get the benefits of being a paid subscriber - for FREE. All you have to do is click on the menu that says Help at the top of the Gamespy screen. (you'll see a bunch of words in a menu list horizontal on the top of your screen - Starts with Gamespy, ends in Help. Click on Help). After clicking on Help, then go down to "Verify My Subscription Status". After clicking on that, your name will then get a 'cross' or a plus sign. Next step is to go back to that menu, but to the top LEFT selection which says Gamespy. Click on that, then go to Options/SubscriberFeatures/Advanced Then put a tick mark in the selection that says Advertising (Disable Full Screen Ads). Also where it says Startup Game, click on USE CURRENT. That will take you to Scrabble directly. Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (do not PAY the $9.95 per year subscription fee).

For some reason the servers on Gamespy have been acting up, working, but we have to do a lot of dancing around. I find that if you sit in the lobby for a while, then if someone starts up a game, you cant see the game. When that happens, we need to go out of Gamespy and come in again, then the game is visible, and you can join it. Under the MY GAMES area on the lefthand side is a scrabble tile. Just click on that, then you can click to get back in the lobby. It takes all of 3 seconds to go in and out that way.
In addition,Gamespy's game servers were behaving oddly recently and for a few days we couldn't play. Now they seem to be working, not perfectly, but we can again connect. Here are IP to IP instructions:

Steps for Hosting a Game via IP to IP:

1) Open the game as if you were just playing against Maven. Start/AllPrograms/HasbroInteractive/Scrabble2

2) You will see a screen that says Start New Game, Start Network Game, Start Scrabble Mini Games, Quit.

SELECT Start Network GAme

3) Click on your username (it will show Top Score, Wins, Best Play, Rating), then click Okay on bottom right of screen.

4) Next screen has two options: Host Multi-Player Game or Join Multi-Player Game. Select HOST. Press Okay (bottom right of screen)

5) in the box, there is a place for you to enter the name of your game. Make up ANY name it is fine, or just type in your own name, it doesn't matter. Write down your IP address exactly with the dots, etc.

6) communicate to your playing partner(s) your IP address. Press START in bottom right of screen.

7) When u see them joined, press PLAY like usual.

to JOIN a network game

1) Open the game as if you were just playing against Maven. Start/AllPrograms/HasbroInteractive/Scrabble2

2) You will see a screen that says Start New Game, Start Network Game, Start Scrabble Mini Games, Quit.

SELECT Start Network Game

3) Click on your username (it will show Top Score, Wins, Best Play, Rating), then click Okay on bottom right of screen.

4) Next screen has two options: Host Multi-Player Game or Join Multi-Player Game. Select JOIN a Network game.

5) Next screen you will see a panel on right hand side. You will see the word Internet in lower part of right hand panel. Click on that. then type in the IP address the host has given you. Type it in exactly. Press Enter (or RETURN).

6) You will see the name they've given the game now show up after a couple of seconds. In top left, click on that name. Then bottom right of screen press CONNECT.

I decided to create a Yahoo group for us at Gamespy. I don't know if it'll get much action, but any way we can get the word out about our merry band the better. The Files section has the patch there available for download. That's one way you can get the patch without having to contact me to get it emailed.

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