Virtual games based on classic real-world board games have taken the social media world by storm; bored office workers and easily distracted students everywhere play Draw Something (aka Pictionary-on-the-go) and Words With Friends (Scrabble for the attention-span-challenged) obsessively on cell phones and tablets.

Toymaker Hasbro naturally decided to get in on the action by producing tangible, real-world board games based on everyone’s favorite online distractions–which were based on board games in the first place. Confused? So are we.

Anyone notice the right-before-the-holidays release date? The company has even chosen to market these shameless ripoffs as “more social” than their digital versions, since fans can play them at parties with other actual humanoids. But no one seems to be falling for it. Some related Tweets:

Just saw a commercial for the Words With Friends board game. Also known as Scrabble for you oldies out there. I don’t understand…

— Nathan Kress (@NathanKress) October 24, 2012

Words with friends is now a board game. What’s next, are they going to turn the Harry Potter movies into books?! #scrabbleorWWF?

— Alli Christensen (@5ft2_andluvinit) October 16, 2012

Did you hear they’re making a Words With Friends board-game?Did you hear that, makers of Scrabble?

— Regan Adcock (@Regan562) October 16, 2012

Here’s the kicker: the makers of Words with Friends the Board Game are the makers of Scrabble!

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Alec Baldwin has used his column on The Huffington Post to further explain the little incident that became the big international story — his expulsion from an American Airlines flight the other day.

After apologizing to fellow travelers who may have been “inconvenienced” by the brouhaha, he addresses the airline directly.

“I suppose a part of my frustration lay with the fact that I had flown American for over 20 years and was brand loyal, in the extreme,” Baldwin writes. He then continues to talk about the tendency for passengers these days to use their electronic devices until the last minute and the ways in which air travel has become “inelegant.”

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