All the things you'd want to do this Monday through Thursday. On the schedule this week: our monthly Shanghaiist Scrabble night, some professional ladies drinking beer, and loads of local rockers gathering for a concert! Read on (or check out our calendar) for more! more ›

If you’re able to drag yourself away from the Asian Games on your teevee at home (I’m assuming you all tuned in yesterday for women’s judo, badminton tourneys, men’s chess, and of course “Latin Jive” dance-offs) then we’ve got you covered with our weekly list of whatever brouhaha is going down around town this Monday through Thursday. In the line-up this week: premature Christmas bazaars, another one of those neat Shanghai photography nights, a clown on a bicycle, and some free booze! more ›

It's that time of month again! We're breaking out the giant scrabble board and giving you great drink specials at Cotton's on Xinhua, so come enjoy this undoubtedly beautiful night with some friends and fancy wordplay. more ›

From 6pm to 10pm, we'll be hoisting up our giant scrabble board and inviting everyone to engage in cunning word play. more ›

From 6pm to 10pm, we'll be hoisting up our giant scrabble board and inviting everyone to engage in cunning word play. Rules rehash:
• Each Happy Hour drink gets you five tiles. You can wait until you've got a couple orders under your belt - heck, we're not putting a limit on how many tiles you can come up to the board with - but just know that someone might take that triple word score from you if you wait too long.
• We'll be using the SOWPODS dictionary. If you don't know what that means, don't worry too much about it.
• You can come up to the board as many times as you like between 6pm and 10pm. But you can't make words consecutively, you'll have to wait until at least one other person has tried first.

The team of Adam (lumber baron) and Griff (Haibao trader) proved too mighty last night at the Shanghaiist Scrabble Happy Hour at Cotton's on Xinhua Lu. The duo rode fancy words such as "saltpeter" and "xeroxing" to a record-setting win. Nine-hundred-and-forty-six points! That's a lot of 2-for-1 beverages. For their efforts, Adam and Griff get to share an RMB 250 Cotton's gift certificate. Check out some "action" photos! more ›

We mentioned it briefly in our Pencil This In, but we figured we'd give it a louder shout out too: tomorrow is our monthly Shanghaiist Scrabble Night, where all you wizened wordsmiths can pit your wits against each other on our especially oversized Shanghaiist Scrabble board! more ›

Hey guys! Looking for something to do? Come tonight to Cotton's Xinhua to play scrabble with us! The weather may be frightful, but inside Cotton's it's delightful! Plus, we'll be playing a newly compiled setlist of the best indie rock songs from 2010 (in case you wanted to check out The National or Titus Andronicus' new albums). more ›

Its PARTY TIME! Things are about to get busy in Shanghai with the long weekend coming up as well as the opening of the World Expo. We in particular are lusting in anticipation of the soft opening of the much-hyped Obama Club (which happens tonight!). So dust off your dancing shoes and grab that martini glass, it’s time to do the boggie! more ›

It was a rainy night, unfortunately, but that didn't stop us Shanghaiist Scrabble fans from enjoying a cool game and a warm drink anyway. While the competition was lower than other nights, our winner didn't need the help anyway. After all, Sandy's won before... at our first scrabble night in fact! That makes her the only team/person to win twice! more ›

It's the last Tuesday of the month, and that means it's time for Shanghaiist Scrabble! Come out to Cotton's on Xinhua Lu tonight to partake in a couple of after work drinks and word smithery! The day has been warm, so the night should be wonderful. more ›

Egads, could it be? Our first Shanghaiist Scrabble TEAM NAME? Whoever the mysterious L/J/N/H were, they managed to win this session with a pretty spectacular 348 points. Unfortunately, since they didn't leave an email (tsk tsk, guys), we have no idea who they are and how to give them the 250RMB Cotton's voucher they deserve for words like PICQUET, QUEEREST and a 62 point QAT. Man, they got a lot of Qs. more ›

We know where you're gonna be tonight. Or at least, we know where we hope you're going to be tonight: at Shanghaiist Scrabble having a drink and making ten dollar words on our shiny Shanghaiist-specific scrabble board! Yes, after a month of waiting, Scrabble night is here again, so come on over to Cotton's and prove yourself the cunningest linguist in the city. more ›

Can you believe we've had three of these already? We barely can. Nor can we wrap our minds around the fact that this will be the last Shanghaiist Scrabble of the year... nay, the decade! So, if you happen to be around Shanghai tonight, come out and join us for a fun wintry Scrabble match. We've got warm drinks, good music, a sweet fireplace, and - of course - a way to exercise that big, big brain of yours one last time before you lose your mind for the end of 2009. more ›

It's that time of the month again. No, we're not talking about that time of the month: it's time for Shanghaiist Scrabble! Luckily, the last Tuesday of this month falls on the 29th during the anticipatory lull between Christmas and New Year's: it's the perfect time to reminisce on all the fun we've had in the past year, and what better place to do that than in front of Cotton's cozy fireplace? Come down and share a few drinks with us as we remember all the crazy parties, ridiculous stories, and good times we've had in 2009. Plus, if you're good enough at Scrabble, you just might win 250 RMB worth of Cotton's drinks! more ›

Last night's Shanghaiist Scrabble was full of warmhearted, frenetic spelling: players scrambled to push their way to the board to capture coveted double letter and triple word scores as others sat with old friends and new Scrabblemates, drinking and trying to think of words that could possibly combine two F's and a Q. In the end, Liz managed to blow away the competition with "PSEUDONYM," catching the elusive and coveted Quadruple Word Score, a Shanghaiist Scrabble exclusive, for a whopping 76 points. Congrats to Liz on winning a 250 RMB gift certificate to Cotton's, which, of course, you can use at the next Shanghaiist Scrabble night! more ›

Okay, let's get a few things straight. We love happy hours: you love happy hours. We love Cotton's: you love Cotton's. We love Scrabble: you love Scrabble, but probably not as much as we do. If we're off on any of that, you can take it up with us tonight as we spend the evening combining all three at our very own Shanghaiist Scrabble @ Cotton's! more ›

Hats off to Sandy from Sarnia for rocking the board all night despite your surprisingly limited amount of drinks. Your winning word "FOXIER" managed to garner you 48 points and delivered you to victory. You win a 250RMB Cotton's voucher to be used (hopefully!) at the next Shanghaiist Scrabble happy hour night. more ›

more ›

Does the fact that China doesn't have scrabble get your goat? Does the fact that Craig Beevers won the UK's national Scrabble championship AGAIN and you know you could take him down bother you? Have you ever wanted to battle with the Shanghaiist editors in a match of lexicons? more ›

We've got a whole new bag of tricks to spice up our semi-monthly Shanghaiist Happy Hour at Cotton's. Well, technically, it's a bag of tiles- Scrabble tiles. After searching in vain for a game of Scrabble and only finding Maonopoly sets, we decided that we would maverick it and just make our own. And since we all know how witty and clever Shanghaiist readers are, we'd like to cordially invite you to join us next Tuesday, October 27 for the first monthly Shanghaiist Scrabble night! more ›