COLUMN: Wordle

I'm late. I should've had this column written and put to bed a half hour ago. Instead, it's 1:05 a.m. and I'm just now tippy-typing away.

I'd like to say I'm running behind because I'm an exciting person doing exciting things. Truth be told, I'm running late because I just spent the past 35 minutes of my wasted life pointlessly trying to guess a 5-letter word.

Wordle is evil and has plagued our fragile earth for too long. It must be stopped. 

Unless you live under a rock, and unless that rock has lousy wi-fi, you should know what Wordle is by now. The popular online puzzle game has gone viral out of nowhere and suddenly the whole world's obsessed with 5-letter words. The brainchild of software engineer (and apparent masochist) John Wardle, Wordle's daily puzzles are just perfect for those of us who like to augment our morning cup of coffee with anguishing mental torture.

The premise is simple: Each day, players get six attempts to correctly identify a random five-letter word. With each guess, Wordle will tell you: (a) which letters of your guess are NOT in the word of the day, (b) which letters of your guess ARE in the daily word, but are in the wrong position, and (c) which letters you've guessed correctly in the correct position. Given this information, you have six tries to correctly identify the word of the day. That's all there is to it.

There's only ONE Wordle puzzle per day, and every player around the globe gets the same puzzle, so don't spoil the daily answer for anyone unless you're willing to face the harsh wrath of the online masses. Wordle makes it easy to share your daily score on social media -- so now when I log onto Facebook, half my feed is taken up by people posting Wordle scores.

The first time I played, I correctly identified the Wordle of the day in TWO guesses. "Oh wow," I thought to myself. "I'm really good at this. Clearly, I am skilled and gifted at word puzzles. Let me share these results so as to impress my friends and followers with my clear genius." For 24 hours, I loved Wordle.

Then I played the next day. My first guess didn't contain ONE correct letter. My second guess revealed there was a "U" and a "K" in the word. By my fourth guess, I was desperate. "Is it CRUNK?" (It was not.) Umm, Is BRUNK a word? (It is not.) Is FRUNK a word? (No. But, let's be honest here, it absolutely should be.)

That second day, I swear to you I stared at my phone for almost a half hour, sweat dripping from my forehead. At one point, I yelled into the open air and sent various cats flying out of the room. Eventually, I threw my phone on the couch and stomped off to fold laundry, which I'm pretty sure is the adult equivalent of taking my ball and going home.

I'm finally coming to terms with the ugly truth: I am really, really bad at Wordle. Turns out it was PURE LUCK that first day when I got the word in two tries. Most days, it takes me 5 or 6. Some days, I can't get it at all. 

I can only assume Josh Wardle created this game in hopes of giving people a fun, relaxing brain-teaser to take their mind off things. Instead, it's daily torture that raises my blood pressure and drives me neurotic. Why am I terrible at this game? I'M A WRITER. I've typed a kajillion five-letter words in this column alone. Ooh, wait -- is ALONE today's Wordle? Nope. ARRRGH.

Why am I playing this daily nightmare? I don't find it enjoyable in the slightest. I find it maddening. But I'm doing it because all my friends are doing it and I have to post my stupid score to Facebook every stupid day. I have enough quite enough fear in my life as is. Now I get to add the fear of dying in my sleep and the police discovering my corpse next to seventeen pieces of scrap paper filled with 5-letter words and the one cop will turn to the other and go, "Yep, we got us a lunatic" and THAT will be my legacy.

"Here lies Shane... he was really frunking bad at Wordle." 

COLUMN: Satan Club

Once upon a 1980s, a short-lived teen dance club opened up in my hometown of Galesburg.

One fateful weekend, the club got some unexpected visitors. A group of punk and goth kids from Peoria showed up. The whole place froze as this pack of wild adventurers from Planet Cool walked in. For most of us, it was our first proper glimpse at actual counter-culture.  

The ripples were swift. Within days, several local kids had taken on the same look. Our mild-mannered high school was suddenly filled with mohawk haircuts, safety pins, and ratty jackets with hand-drawn anarchy symbols on the back. Parents were aghast. 

I was never a member of that clique. I was WAY too nerdy and my parents would've never let me dress the part. But I WAS somewhat accepted by those kids. You see, I was a DJ at that short-lived teen dance club. I didn't LOOK punk or goth, but I loved the music and spun it as often as I could. One of my proudest accomplishments was slipping a Sex Pistols song into my high school's homecoming playlist.

But one day, a teacher came up to me after class and asked the most ridiculous question ever: "Say, you and your, umm, interesting friends don't ever do... SATANIC things, do you?"

Say what? Other than the time I watched "The Omen" without my parents knowing, I didn't even know what Satanic things WERE. I still don't, honestly. But it didn't take long for rumours to fly that the local goth kids were all gathering late at night to sacrifice bunnies, vandalize churches, and commit unspeakable acts. From what I knew of those kids, they mostly gathered late at night to get unlimited refills on coffee at Village Inn.

But the general consensus around town was if you looked weird, you must be a devil worshipper. I will never forget going to a friend's house afterschool and finding a church pamphlet titled, "What To Do If Your Child Is A Punker Rocker."

This was the 1980s, and Satanic Panic was in full effect. Parents were terrified you could spin a record backwards and be brainwashed into Satanism, whatever that was. In West Memphis, three kids were wrongly convicted of murder on the basis they wore black and listened to goth music. It was a weird time to be alive.

Now here we are, some 35 years later, and the devil is once again scaring people. Last week, flyers were posted inviting the children of Jane Addams Elementary in Moline to an "After School Satan Club." As you can imagine, this didn't go over too well.

In reality, it was a pretty effective stunt. The organizers of this club seem less concerned about turning your children toward Beelzebub and more concerned about making a point that religion and schools probably shouldn't mix. Board of Education policy in Moline allows for community rental and usage of their facilities after-hours, and several religious groups take advantage of this. But if you're going to allow one religious group to rent your place out, you need to allow ALL religious groups to do it, even ones you might not subscribe to.

The organizers of the club say they're not attempting to convert children to any religious ideology. Instead, After School Satan Club promotes "benevolence and empathy, critical thinking, creative expression, and personal sovereignty." It's all just shock and awe on a ridiculous flyer that's meant to raise as many red flags as possible. Not to both figuratively AND literally play Devil's Advocate, but their plan sure worked. Some people were outraged, others were supportive, and the first club meeting went down the other day complete with protesters, counter-protesters, and an outraged Tucker Carlson on Fox News. 

I'm no devil worshipper. But I also think kids of ALL religions and backgrounds deserve equal footing and the chance to go to school without being made to feel different. I wouldn't send my kid to Satan Club, but I respect its right to exist, and I respect the Board of Education for playing fair. If you're worried about all this, don't be. I don't think this particular stunt will lead to a new Satanic panic. Let's face it, we've lived the past two years in a moderate state of perpetual panic as is. Most of us are fresh out of panic at this point.

Still, you know you're a product of the 1980s when you see a headline like "IS SATAN INVADING OUR SCHOOLS?" and all you feel is a sense of nostalgia for the good ole days when our biggest worry was what Led Zeppelin was saying in reverse. I've got some news for the devil: we don't need your backwards messages in songs. It's 2022. Today's chart-toppers are bad enough when you play them FORWARD, thanks much.    

COLUMN: Internet Crackpots

Once upon a time, someone invented the computer.

Many agree it was John Vincent Antanasoff, a physics professor from Iowa State University. One day, Professor Antanasoff needed to clear his head, so he hopped in his Ford V-8 and went for a drive that ended up, as legend tells, at Hunter's bar in Rock Island. It was there where he ordered a bourbon and jotted down notes for what would eventually become the first digital electronic computer.

Decades later, a team of like-minded tech experts -- and, supposedly, former Vice President Al Gore -- came up with a revolutionary idea for an interconnected network of computers -- an "internet," if you will. 

Imagine the hopes, dreams, and possibilities that went through the minds of those dreamers. Perhaps their concepts would one day lead to global communication, electronic commerce, streamlined business solutions, and exponential growth of global education and outreach. They had to be so proud.

I'm going to wager a guess that not ONE of those technological innovators ever once said, "With this, mankind can finally aspire to a day in which we can more easily tell the world that NASA faked the moon landing, aliens walk among us, and humans should consume great quantities of horse dewormer." 

There was a time I used to love and appreciate the weirdness of the internet. If you ever need proof that the world is deliciously bonkers, just visit the deeper nooks and crannies of the world wide web. If you keep opossums in your house, there's a website for you. If you cook opossums and need new recipes, there's a website for you. If you like to dress up in furry costumes and pretend you're an opossum on the weekends, there's an entire online community waiting for you with open arms -- err, paws.

But it's 2022, and the weirdness of the internet no longer hides in the back alleys of the information superhighway. Nowadays, it just stands on the medium hitchhiking -- and an alarming number of people us give it a ride. Last night, I opened my computer to two back-to-back newsflashes.

The first was a TikTok video stating that concrete evidence now exists proving that America's greatest treasure -- the late and universally-loved Betty White -- was, as you can guess, part of a secret Satanic cabal that drinks the blood of virgins in unholy rituals to achieve global domination. Oh, Q-Anon, it's good to know you're still out there. What's their damning evidence? I have no idea, because I rolled my eyes and scrolled past the video after 2.5 seconds.

I think the big takeaway here is the knowledge that, even on your worst day, when you're fully convinced that you're wasting your life, you can take comfort in the fact that someone somewhere at this very minute is watching reruns of "The Golden Girls" in slo-mo to see if they can find evidence that Betty White was a reptilian extra-terrestrial. Feel better about yourself?

Newsflash #2: Did you guys hear there's a surefire cure for COVID? According to a new wave of crackpots on the internet, the easy solution to ward off COVID is... drinking urine. (Note: Do not ever do this.)

I have at least 37 jokes here that I simply CANNOT tell you, because I like to operate within at least a modicum of good taste -- and I'm pretty sure I can guess one thing that does NOT taste good. But let me just say this: Those folks may be on to something. I bet they won't get COVID. Know why? Because the minute you start doing something THAT gross and stupid, no one will EVER want to come within six feet of your crazypants ever again. Problem solved. 

But that's what we've turned into. We can laugh at the foolishness all we want, but there are now chatrooms and message boards devoted to these crackpot theories, and all week long medical doctors have been forced onto Twitter to beg people not to drink their own urine, which is about the most 2022 thing I can possibly imagine.

So here's to your technological innovation, Mr. Antanasoff. You made something neat, and the world used it to prove just how utterly stupid we can be. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to power this laptop off and go pet a cat.     

COLUMN: Ich Spreche Deutsch

Sometimes it's good to find a new hobby. I'm just not sure I picked the right one.

I've been laying low in what will probably be a failed attempt to avoid the Omicron surge/scourge. I've already alphabetized my music collection and cleaned the basement. I'm running out of ideas to stay productive. This is usually when I give up, belly-flop on the couch, and zone out to TV and Tik Tok.

Last week, I discovered a content creator whose videos are fairly addictive. He's a random guy who happens to be conversationally fluent in over two dozen languages. He films himself walking up to foreigners and getting their reaction when he starts speaking in their native tongue. 

There's something deeply, deeply stupid in me that whenever I see someone do an impressive feat like that, my immediate response isn't to appreciate it for what it is. MY reaction is usually to say to myself, "Well, I could do that." For the record, in 99.98% of those cases, I could NEVER do that, whatever "that" is.

Regardless, I decided that night in my infinite wisdom to download an app that teaches you other languages.

When I was in high school, I took a couple language classes. I chose German for the important reason that "Rock Me Amadeus" and "99 Luftballoons" were pretty cool songs at the time. I was never good at it or anywhere close to being fluent. Upon graduation, what few German words I'd memorized fell right out of my head into a pile alongside chemistry, the rules of dodgeball, and whatever "algebra" is. 

But I'm smart, right? I should be able to pick up a new language. I decided on Spanish, a language that might actually come in handy once in a while. So I downloaded the app and set about my exciting journey of education and discovery.

I discovered things right away. Specifically, I discovered that (a) Spanish is hard, and (b) I didn't wanna learn it. Within days, I had completely abandoned Spanish and decided to try German again. I realize this makes absolutely no sense. I can't think of one possible scenario where knowledge of the German language might possibly impact my life.

But German seems way easier to learn. English and German languages are in the same family. Many English words are of Germanic origin. "To cook" in German is kochen. "To swim" is schwimmen. There's a better than average chance that if you don't know the German word for something, you can just add "-en" to the English and say it in an accent and you might be right.

Also, it turns out I didn't lose ALL of that German from high school. Some of it just ended up deep in a file cabinet back in the ol' hippocampus alongside the Pythagorean theorem, the correct way to write a cursive Q, and the lyrics to Madonna's "Vogue." As the app drilled me with German quizzes every night, I found myself constantly going, "Ohhh, I remember THAT!" 

I've been studying every night for two weeks now, and the app has taught me several useful phrases that will clearly benefit my life in untold ways. Phrases like:

- Der Bar ist schon! (The bear is beautiful!)

- Die Eule ist sehr nett! (The owl is very nice!)

- Die Pizza ist zu groB! (The pizza is too tall!)

- Das Wasser ist lecker! (The water is delicious!)

- Oh nein, das Brot ist zu lecker! (Oh no, the bread is too delicious!)

- Ja, Kanada ist cool! (Yes, Canada is cool!)   

Clearly, these are important phrases necessary to slip undetected into daily Germanic life without raising suspicion. These will be good to have in the back pocket next time I'm in Berlin faced with a loaf of bread that is problematically tasty. 

Still, it's strangely fun -- the app is encouraging and positive, and when you get phrases correct, little cartoon people in lederhosen come out and clap. There might not be much point in my learning German, but it's good brain exercise and makes me feel more accomplished than watching Tik Tok videos for two straight hours.

So I've got your back, people. The next time you find yourselves in Munich needing to complain about the height of your pizza, just call me up and put me on the phone with your waiter -- sorry, I mean your Kellner. Or just skip Germany and go to Canada instead. I hear it's pretty cool there.