I've never attended one of those blogger gatherings.

First, who can stand bloggers? Have you tried talking to these people? Bunch of narcissistic blowhards. Here's how the conversation would invariably go:

"Did I ever tell you how I control my flatulence? It's in my blog!"
"Neat! That reminds me, did I ever tell you about my crotch itch? It's in my blog!"
"That's a lot like everything that's every happened to me or my precocious daughter! It's all in my blog EVERY FREAKIN' DAY!"

Your mother must be very proud.

Anyway, the second reason is that no one has ever invited me to one of these gatherings, but that's besides the point. I'm too cool to go. Bloggers, blech.

Online Scrabble players, however, are an entirely different lot. I will travel to the far reaches of civilization to hang with them. This weekend I undertook just such a journey. The wife and I traveled to a remote outpost known as San Ho-Zay. It was quaint.

One of my online Scrabble buddies, whom I had never met, was coming to "town" to visit another one of my Scrabble buddies, whom I had met a couple times. We were all going out for dinner.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Aren't those Scrabble sites illegal? Aren't you worried about meeting these criminals in person?"

Admittedly, the illicit nature of our mutual hobby was a bit troubling. Also, the out of "town" visitor was coming in from Texas and we all know that Texans are a pain in the ass. Dubya. Tinyhands. Need I say more? I need not.

Two things at dinner put me at immediate ease though. First, our San Ho-Zay host, when discussing her love of goiters, instantly anagrammed the word "goiters" into "goriest". That kind of word play always breaks the ice at these types of events. We knew we were among friends.

Then, later, when the waiter was pouring the small glasses of wine for the wine pairings for the second course of our prix fixe dinner, the Texan rolled her eyes and graciously drawled, "Why don't you just leave that bottle here." I couldn't have said it better myself, even if I could approximate a Texan drawl.

When all was said and done, after we had spent hours in San Ho-Zay watching the tumbleweeds lazily drift by, we had had a charming evening amongst friends, with nary a pesky blogger in sight.