I added the css to change the color border of a form input text but it didn't work until I removed all references to CssClass from asp:TextBox *and* I had to refer to the input using div#billingInfo div input.error instead of just input.error.

What it is?

Wurdle, in a nutshell, is a Scrabble like game that is word search in reverse. You work only with the tiles/letters you start with, which can be 16, 25, 36, and you form as many words as you can by connecting on a grid adjacent letters as quickly as you can. You get more points for longer words. Dupes don't count. It uses the official Scrabble library.

The name, Wurdle, is a good hint at what it is. It sounds like muddle - you're dealing with a random letters, letter salad. It also sounds like riddle - you're basically doing a mass, randomish decryption.

Playing Wurdle

I am no Scrabble expert and feel especially so after having read a New Yorker piece on the annual Scrabble tournament, but I have found some ways to score better. I mostly play in the 5x5 grid for three minutes mode. Suffixes like "s", "er", "ed" lets you double up on words that can be pluralized or tensed. "S" in the right place is like a suffix two-fer. Letter groupings like "est", "ing", "oo", ee" usually are chock full of opportunities. Certain patterns come up frequently: a, e, t together in a triangle gives you: tea, eat, tae, eta, ate.

Those are small potatoes though - the way to score is to find all the long words just like you would with Scrabble, but the more exotic letters like "Z" don't give you higher scores. However, I really don't have an simple method for finding many lettered words. I take it that that is one of the innate abilities that identify the really good players but that's something I'm working on. I have a feeling it's got more to do with your visual than language ability.

I saw this around labor day. V for vote? Victory? Love the tags!

Brandy, a standard Schnauzer with a dark pepper coat, was one of the few who strutted around with his tail intact, thanks to Danish law. He was well traveled, living mainly in the beautiful environs of Vancouver and Denmark. He had a funny walk. A side to side wobble with his hind legs that suggested a dance from the bebop era. He tended to stare a little too long at other dogs, sometimes sparking a minor ruckus, other times opening up a friendly heart to heart, dog to dog. He never talked much, perhaps a soft bark here or there. Brandy lived a privileged life and was knowingly and unabashedly spoiled by his owners, as it should be, enjoying walks in verdant Stanley Park and dining on delectable Vancouver Chinese takeout. He will truly be missed, especially by Kim, Laura and Bjorn. Brandy was 13.

Brandy slideshow
Brandy photos

Got an error trying to load a simple html page.

Calling LoadLibraryEx on ISAPI filter failed

Removed the following from the ISAPI section from IIS7 Administrator and page loaded.

ASP.NET_2.0.50727.0
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework v2.0.50727\aspnet_filter.dll

ASP.Net_2.0.50727.0
%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_filter.dll

ASP.Net_2.0.50727-64
%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\aspnet_filter.dll

This didn't happen before. Perhaps because I ran IIS Admin 6 Administrator? The above dlls exist. Probably permissioning.

This was the best US Open I've ever witnessed live since I started watching, the first being the 97 US Open, where Lee Janzen outlasted smooth swinging, likeable Payne Stewart, who had the bad luck of landing in a divot during the late final round, which may have cost him the Championship.

For selfish reasons, I'm glad Woods didn't listen to his doctors, but for his own good, I question whether he should have played or not on seeing his first painful wince. None of the press really asked him what specifically was wrong with his knee, especially during the lead up to the Open. Only after he won, did they press. I wasn't at the press conference, but I'm only guessing no one asked him if doctors thought there was more cartilage loss than believed or if the healing was not progressing.

Woods himself said a successful year consisted of at least one major win. Perhaps he thought the chance of winning was worth the risk, given he nearly owns Torrey Pines.

So while the world awaits the status of his knee, the coverage by NBC this year was as expected. Instead of focusing on Tiger and Mickelson, how could you not do a segment on a guy with a name like Dinwiddie, one of the unknowns on the leaderboard? Justin Hicks, the first round leader from the minor leagues, was all but forgotten by the weekend.

I wanted to root for both Rocco, the underdog and Tiger, in a quest that's lasted 11 years so far, so I stayed neutral. Miller said that guys with the name Rocco don't get etched on the sacred US Open trophy, I guess referring to his everyman-ness, but the name, Tiger, which sounds pretty everyman-ness to me, is already inscribed twice.

Warning: There are *NO* spoilers ahead. Read on to remain in ignorant bliss.

"Raiders of the Lost Ark", when it was released, was so novel and groundbreaking, it would be too much to expect the same from the fourth installment, "Crystal Skulls", after almost 30 years. Where to begin if you try to list all the changes the action movie genre has gone through since the early eighties?

Below is a clip from a WSJ piece, 5/21/2008. The author buys a nearly 7ft Steinway for $22K. I'm guessing it's a B or C. Damn, girl. That is a deal. Most people pay at least 50k, even for a one that's not new. I had a chance to get a Steinway B for a good price, similar to the author's buying price, but there was a old crack in the harp. Uh-uh, not going to buy that one.

When I'm undecided about buying a book, Amazon customer reviews comes in very handy. It's easy to be cynical and think there's some kind of manipulation going on, since you really can't tell if a review is authentic. From the looks of most reviews and the star rating distributions, it looks like there's no manipulation.

It's easy enough to judge by the number of stars, but that's like judging a movie the same way and it doesn't work. There are movies I like that rate 2 stars and those that I dislike that rate as 3 or more (out of 4 stars). What I find more useful is to go read the one and two star reviews. If most of the negative reviews are ad hominem attacks or just plain old loudmouthing with no good reasoning and factual proof, then that bodes well for the book and increases my likelihood of buying it. Also, if the used price is really low, it can't be all that great - unless it's a "classic" - the books you have to read in English Lit.

Now if the negative reviews make sense and are objectively written and a good percentage of folks found the reviews useful, then I probably won't buy it.

Most of the 4 and 5 star reviews aren't really very revealing. They usually consist of high praise, but not really much backing for it.

All this is irrelevant for political non-fiction. If you support Bush, you're not going to agree with any of the Iraq fiasco books and vice versa.

So Clinton just declared victory although both CNN and MSNBC haven't declared a winner because both have a case of CYA. She quoted Obama saying that Indiana will be the tiebreaker and declared she's on the way to the White House since she won Indiana. They're both wrong. Clinton took Indiana, but she didn't break any tie in terms of delegates or the popular vote. Obama still has those numbers going for him. Pack the suntan lotion baby, looks like we're going to Puerto Rico!

All the pundits are saying that a long drawn out Democrat (a disparaging moniker coined by the GOP) primary is no good for all the obvious reasons, but maybe it's not so bad after all.

McCain gets less press because of all the attention on the Democrats. His "get to know me" tour and his distancing away from Bush hasn't got all that much attention. The Democrats sign on more and more voters to the party. Yeah, he gets to add to the treasure chest, but if Obama wins, McCain is toast - Obama will raise gazillions more dollars than McCain.

More importantly, the eventual nominee will have less time to duel with McCain and that means less exposure to the Republican attack machine (RAM). Less time for all those RAM super negative ads on the air, pounding voters into submission. I can imagine McCain learning from Bush's black baby ad and putting out something more vile to demean Obama. Suppose Obama won New Hampshire and took California. Obama and McCain would have been having it out starting in March (I think). And do you really believe that they're going to have a civil discourse? More like "a frank and serious exchange of ideas".