O d' Groucho

if i have a snuffy, you bet i also have an oscar...he's one of the wittiest & highly intelligent beings i've ever come across with, perhaps it's why he's a grouch sometimes...but don't get me wrong, his grouchiness is, quite surprisingly, on the endearing side - he refuses to admit it but generally, he is more of a stickler rather than being complacent and agreeable...am not so sure if it's circumstantial - him being an oxford grad, took phd immediately after, taught in the university while preparing his dissertation, completed the thesis and now a full-pledged doctor of mathematics - more importantly, and this is where my inclination lies the most, i find that his grouchiness is in effect because he's a brit...

stewart, or stew (altho his other friends spell it as stu, i stuck with stew by choice as i tried my best to match his wits like a witch - read: there were times i wished i'd stew him alive with his irascibility - i've always felt something is a-brewing everytime we have our usual conversation matches by email), he knows he's my oscar d'grouch, in reality my ideal (and honestly, most welcoming) devil's advocate...he keeps me on my toes all the time...he corrects me with my notions, he debates with me as regards to movies i watch or books i read (or don't watch and don't read) not excluding certain film or book characters; he continually finds it amusing because i'm apparently too mushy and loves banal movies (his words, not mine) such as jerry maguire; he gets irritated with my spellings (one time he asked: "why do you spell LITRE like LITER? like the french and the americans. you're insane - get it right and learn ENGLISH.") - i called him prof. higgins after that (from the film, my fair lady), but the grouch got back at me quoting prof. higgins too : "you'll get further with the Lord if you learn not to offend his ears - and mine"...

next he would randomly address his emails with alternative names and i should be fast enough to get the drift and do the same on my replies...the only clue we have for this would be in the previous mail (say, we were talking about certain movies one time, his next mail he'd use sera and sign it as ben - turned out it's from 'leaving las vegas' cos we discussed nicolas cage - or random names from books he was reading that time and i would end up doing some homework first before replying as i had no idea who claude or pierre auguste may have been, not to mention other unfamiliar characters he used on me which seemed totally alien to me...one way or another, we were testing each other's wits with these continuous 'name that film/book/character' of sorts...

he's the only one i know who says "i expect you to talk idly and at length. be palaverous, be prolix, be sesquipedalian and tautologous" when all he's actually trying to say was 'write back and blabber away' sheesh...

anyways, i was recently in a movie-download-frenzy, took the opportunity to download some films i didn't get to see the past couple of years, one of which was 'goal' - needless to say, i thought about stew and how the grouch is doing these days...the movie is about english football (stew's passion) and shot in manchester (his birthplace) - i would think he won't like the movie tho' and would probably put it in his banal list, save perhaps for the scenes featuring football games and team practices in them...still and in fairness to him, he really makes great reviews and i usually heed his critical advise although reluctantly at times...

if there's anyone i would want to be with on an all-night drinking spree and we're not allowed to do anything else but drink and talk, stew would be IT as he definitely can, despite the random grouchiness, give me the most interesting topics and debatable issues i'd ever need in this lifetime...

could this be what the other players are seeing everytime stew plays on the field?

seriously, he's harmless, carefree, intense, independent (sometimes way too much)...i once called him hugh grant especially when the movie 'about a boy' came out, i guess you could go figure...

the only place and time i could beat him is when we're playing WordOx (and it has to be a No S No Pinks game), a word game which uses TWL...i'm deadmeat when we're doing scrabble tho' as he's a SOWPODS fanatic and he has that killer instinct for bingoes...he taught me those weird words i never knew existed, just as i taught him those few spanish words allowed in the games...