QI, XU, et al.

My latest obsession Scrabulous hit the front page of The New York Times this weekend. If you still have the paper floating around your house, take a close look at the graphic and look at the players' names. Or click here.

For the uninitiated, Scrabulous is online Scrabble, which started on this website and really took off after its programmers came up an interface for the Facebook website. My sister and I played game No. 1,061 back last April. The game someone just started with me on Facebook is No. 21,427,617, so it's fair to say it's kind of popular. (I'm just about .500 in my career, if you were wondering.)

The Times story doesn't break any new ground, except to say that there are two game companies that have signed deals with Scrabble-maker Hasbro for official online versions of the game.

The Scrabble people have threatened to shut down Scrabulous because it's unauthorized. I'm sure they'd change their minds if they heard this.