Scrabulous: say farewell to an era

So last week, I was dismayed to discover that Scrabulous had been disabled on facebook until further notice. When I logged in to Scrabulous, I was greeted by this little harbinger of depression:

Granted, I haven't been obsessively playing this game as much as I had in the past, but there was certainly a time where I had 10 games going at once with different people. I had a list of about 20 bingos I had gotten since joining November 2007. I was proud of my 40-8 record, dang it.

The Scrabble-beta application--backed legitimately by Hasbro--is cutesy and takes some getting used to. Not that I want to get used to it anyway. And even though I added application, I'm probably not going to use it.

My friend Matt termed this not-so-smart business move by Hasbro as "lame." According to Matt, this term is broken down in the following manner:

Lame: "Someone makes a better product and instead of paying them for it, you issue an injunction and then make everyone use your crappy version of it." And you inevitably frustrate Scrabulous' 500,000 loyal, daily users .

And I reiterate: it's true I haven't been using Scrabulous so much nowadays. But there are things I will miss about this online Scrabble experience, which could continue with Scrabble-beta, but will never retain the former glory that is and was Scrabulous:

• whining with Becca about how the Scrabble fates continually insist on doling out to us either all consonants or all vowels
• threatening use AEON on Becca for the umpteenth time
• feeling like I'm playing with Carrie Bradshaw and Jimmy Fallon when I play Carrie B and Jimmy F
  
• teaming up with Carrie to defeat Jimmy
  
• defeating Jeanne my Nemesis, even though she knows many more obscure 3 letter words than I do
• yes, even never ever beating Ellie. Not once. Guess they make them smarter in Australia...?
• seeing this little bit of happiness during my work break:
  

Yes, I am saying farewell to the golden era of Scrabulous.

But look at the bright side, Corporate America. By giving Scrabulous the axe, Hasbro singlehandedly boosted your workers' productivity in one fell swoop.