The original rules of Scrabble Slam! are pretty simple:
- Begin by using 4 of the cards to create a 4-letter word, such as PARK.
- Deal the remaining cards between the players equally. Note that there are 55 cards total.
- When the game begins, players change the word by changing one letter at a time. For example, PARK may be changed to MARK, then MARE, the CARE, then CORE, the BORE, etc…
– Each player plays as fast as they can, announcing each word as they make it.
- The winner is the first player to play all their cards.

We played one game by these rules and realized we didn’t like it. It was just too fast for us. It may have been more fun with 3 or 4 players, but we didn’t care for it with just the two of us. So, we were stuck with these 55 Scrabble Slam! cards. I thought about how we might be able to play a game with them that was slower paced and allowed the players to add some strategy to their play of the game. I was able to come up with a variation that has worked fairly well for us.

Here are the rules we play by now:
- Play begins by choosing a 4-letter word for a base and spelling that word with cards from the deck. This can be a mutually agreeable word, or you can take turns selecting the word. In this example, we’ll assume we begin with the word PARK again.
- The remaining cards are dealt and divided equally amongst the players. So, if there are 2 players playing, they each get 25 cards and the last card to be dealt is set to the side and will not be in play. If there are 3 players, they each get 17 cards. If there are 4 players, they each get 12 cards and the last three cards to be dealt are set to the side and will not be in play.
- The first player must change the first letter of the word to form another word. In our example, we’ll assume the player changes it the word to MARK.
- The second player must form a new word by changing the second letter of the word. If he can’t form a word by changing the second letter, then he loses his turn and the next player gets to try forming a word by changing the second letter. Let’s assume the next player forms the word MIRK. Yes, Mirk is a valid Scrabble word!
–  The next player has to form a word by changing the third letter. We’ll assume he changes it to MILK.
- The play continues with each player having to change the next letter of the word. Any player that can’t form a word with the cards in their hand by changing the next letter loses their turn. If all the players should be unable to play on a particular letter, then play will continue to the next letter. For example, if no player could change the K in MILK, then play would continue to the next letter, which also automatically rotates back to the beginning of the word.
- The first player to get rid of all his cards is the winner!
- A couple of important notes: Word can not be repeated. For example, you couldn’t play an S on the S in SILK to make SILK again. However, after SILK had been changed to  FILK, it could be changed to SILK again later. Also, the regular rules apply regarding acceptable words as in Scrabble. Words may be challenged. If a word is found to not be legitimate, then the last card played is removed and the player loses his turn. If it is found to be legitimate, then the player who challenged it will lose his next turn.

So, it’s still a pretty simple game, but it slowed it down enough to make it more enjoyable and to make us think a little more. It also allows you to use some strategy as you think about what words your opponents may, and may not, be able to play on.

If you have a deck of Scrabble Slam! cards laying around, give this variation a try and let me know what you think in the comments!

Flight Path – I fly quite a bit and I always try to get a window seat because I love looking out the window and admiring God’s magnificent creation. However, I’m always wondering which lake, river, mountain, city, or other landmark I’m looking at. I would love to see an app that would use the built-in GPS (which is allowed to be used on many flights) to display a map of prominent landmarks that are visible from the current altitude. I realize that until Internet is available in the air on all flights that maps will need to be stored on the device. It would also be nice if notes could be made so I could look up information about a landmark later, or even at the moment if I had in-flght WiFi.

Jigsaw Puzzle Helper – Have you ever been working on a jigsaw puzzle and wondered exactly where a piece goes. I think it would be cool if a user could take a picture of the completed puzzle on the box top and then take a picture of particular puzzle piece and the app would then show where in the picture that particular piece would go.

Radio Now – I have very eclectic tastes in music. I would love to see an app that showed me a list of stations that should be available in my current area (using the GPS and station tower location and power). The app should also display the format of each station and what song and artist is currently playing. Some of this data could potentially come from station Twitter feeds.

Airport Guide – Since I fly often, it would be nice to have guides to all the major airports in my phone. Show a map of each airport along with gate locations and the locations of stores and restaurants. It could use the built-in GPS to show me my location in the airport and the fastest way to get to a certain gate.

Email Voice Reader – I have the windshield mount for my Droid, which really helps when using the built-in GPS Navigation tools. One feature that I would like to see added is that when the Droid is in this dock, and an email arrives, I would love to see in really large letters the subject of the email and who it is from along with two buttons to ‘Read’ or ‘Ignore’. If I clicked on the ‘Read’ button then the phone would use text-to-speech to read the email to me. This would allow me to keep up with incoming messages without taking my eyes off the road.

Location-Based Alarms – I love the Locale app that allows me to make my phone behave in different ways depending on my location (for example, when I’m at church or the library it automatically switches to silent vibrate mode). I would love to be able to get alarms and notifications when I’m in certain locations though. For example, if I needed to pick up something at a particular store, as soon as I was near the store I would get an alarm reminding me to do whatever I needed to do in that location.

USB Direct – I would love it if the USB port could talk to other USB devices. For example, if there was an adapter I could plug a USB thumb drive into to move data between it and the phone.

It’s possible that some of these apps already exist for the iPhone (I wouldn’t know since I don’t own one) or even for Android and I just haven’t discovered them yet. If you know that apps like this exist, please let us know in the comments.

I’m an idea generator. I generate lots of ideas–constantly. Many of these are ideas for new products, enhancements to products, and sometimes even full business ideas.

I keep lists of many of my ideas. I’m sure that I miss the opportunity to document many of them, but I do make notes about any ideas I think I may want to begin executing at a later time. I also make notes of ideas that I may want to share with other people.

As I reviewed many of my idea lists while setting my goals for 2010, I realized that it’s time to start sharing some of those ideas with others. After all, each one of them is only worth less than $.01 as long as no one is executing it. It’s rather stingy of me to hang on to all these pennies when there are people in the world who are just looking for the perfect penny–a penny only they can invest and turn it into much more.

So, I’m going to begin sharing a lot of those ideas here on my blog in a new category named, Ideas. I hope that some of my readers will take these ideas and run with them. Feel free to comment on the ideas and add to them.

I can’t guarantee that non of these ideas have been done before but only that it’s an idea that occurred to me that I wanted to share with you. Good luck!

It occurred to me this morning that calendars repeat themselves. 2010 began on a Friday and it’s not a leap year. Every other non-leap-year year that began on a Friday had the same calendar dates that we will have this year. The dates in 2010 are the same as they were in 1999 and 1993. This also means that 2021 and 2027 will have the same arrangement of days we have this year.

It seems that people are always interested in things from their past–you can call it nostalgia, antiques, or retro; and people are willing to pay good money for things from their past, or that remind them of their past.

Although many of us have made the switch to electronic calendars, we still often keep a wall or desk calendar nearby for quick and easy access. I don’t see this trend totally going away. In fact, printed calendars still seem to be a very big business. Companies that don’t sell all their 2010 calendars within the next couple weeks will probably discard them entirely.

Since calendars can be very cheap over the next few weeks, my idea is to purchase a number of popular calendars (with themes like movies, television shows, popular people, etc..–you know, those things that really define our time) and then store them in mint condition until 2021 or 2027. Calendars can probably be purchased for a dollar or less each since the year has already began.

In 2021 or 2027, these calendars will have an appeal again. It’s an interesting conversation piece to have a calendar on your wall that is 11 or 17 years old, yet still accurate. It can help people connect with their younger years as well. And people are willing to pay a premium to have this type of item in their home or office. So, that calendar that originally sold for $15 or $20 that you picked up for $1 or $.50 can now be sold for $40 to $50. I know that 11 or 17 years seems like a long time to wait on this kind of investment, but I think it can have a good return for someone that willings to try it and execute the business of marketing and selling them at the right time.

What do you think?