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Wizards of the Coast has new social network for gamers, The Wizards Community.

While before, I have had no use for WOC and hated them for their insidious product Magic: The Gathering–the scourge of my college days–its seems my opinion may have to change.  With its new social network, at long last I can find a group to play in.  Meetup.com also does gaming, and was my site of choice to look for folks, but I’ve found their selection of groups to be rather hit or miss; and the need to pay to organize a group–while understandable–was a bit of a barrier for me.

BoingBoing led me to this Instructables post of how to resurface a table with dominoes…

… to which I thought wouldn’t it be neat to do the same thing, except with Scrabble tiles! Commenters on the post had also mentioned doing it with mah jongg tiles or dice. Anyway, this led to a search for Scrabble tiles, which led to some interesting finds…

LEET TILES – L33T Tiles are a replacement tile set for Scrabble® and other word games, based on internet slang known as leetspeak. Only $6! I’m totally getting some of these.

ALTERED SCRABBLE TILES – In the spirit of altered books, artists have altered Scrabble tiles. Feels almost blasphemous, but pretty. I might consider this if they were still usable as letters. How many points would you get for Edgar Allen Poe? There are various altered Scrabble tiles all over Etsy, too.

LOW VISION SCRABBLE TILES – These Low Vision Scrabble Tiles make playing Scrabble easier on your eyes. You’ll be able to enjoy the game more and play for longer periods without eyestrain. They are a perfect substitution for the standard tiles found in your Scrabble board game, especially for the visually impaired. They feature bold black extra-large 1/2″ letters set on a bright white tile. $12.95.

VINTAGE SCRABBLE TILES – From Etsy – “These are the most beautiful Vintage Scrabble Tiles I have ever come across, made from an early plastic they have aged beautifully. Each seems to have taken on it’s own life in the way they have aged, as you can see from the pictures, they are in various shades of cream.”

MAHOGANY SCRABBLE TILES – another from Etsy.

PROTILES SCRABBLE TILES – “The Official Tiles used in National SCRABBLE^® Association Championships.” Lots of different colors, and custom tiles available as well.

BRAILE SCRABBLE TILES – “Extra Braille tiles for Low Vision Scrabble game. These sturdy white tiles, which make the game Scrabble more accessible for the blind and those with visual impairments, feature raised Braille letters as well as tactile letters printed on them for easy touch-reading.”

SCRABBLE TILE MINI-BOOK – I <3 all things tiny, books, and Scrabble, so this is a squeee-inducing combination.

SCRABBLE TILE KEYBOARD – “Most of the keys are made from real Scrabble tiles that were all hand-beveled (truly an exercise in patience/masochism!) and built onto a USB, clicky, mechanical-switch keyboard.”

I’m sure there’s more out there, but this is the joy brought from and idle search.