Esperanto-USA

Can we, as Esperantists, play with Esperanto? I'm not asking if we can, or even should tinker with the mechanics, or word stock, or grammar of our language. I'm asking if we can use Esperanto in our everyday lives as Americans who speak Esperanto.

Way back before the internet, I wanted a scrabble set with Esperanto letters. The idea may have come from some mention of the idea in M.C. Butler's Step by Step. I purchased 2 Scrabble sets, (or maybe I found them in my mom's closet) and drew circumflexes on a few of the C's, G's, one of the H's, etc. The board remained in English, but it was good enough for fooling around. I understand that recently, (compared to the stone age) someone has created computer files which when printed out will transform a scrabble board into an Esperantized version. Cool! (Now if I had someone to play Scrabble with...)

Not too long ago, I had in mind to translate the popular Monopoly board into our language, when nearly complete, (or did I indeed finish it...?) Some one, perhaps Chris Zervic, suggested I instead create an Esperanto version of the game, instead of translating the American board, since different countries have translated Monopoly into their own 'local' versions. (Monopoly in Russian?! Hmm.) My version of the game is displayed here,
http://koplushia.tripod.com/Monopolo/index.html

but I was pretty much beat to the punch by a fellow Esperantist who created a rival version which can be easily printed out for more or less instant play.

(Let's see. Monopoly is for 2-6 players, and there's about 3 Esperantists in all of New Jersey...)

I also played around with creating crossword puzzles in Esperanto. This was a learning experience, and I'm not quite graduated. The crossword that appeared in the last E-USA Bulletin was exactly what I'm aiming at. It looks just like the ones we Americans enjoy. A few examples of my early work are here:
http://koplushia.tripod.com/Krucvort-Enigmoj/index.html
(actually creating the clues for these puzzles is a great mental exercise and can really improve one's Esperanto.)

One of the last things I've done, and certainly the most recent has been trying to create T-shirt sayings in Esperanto which are a) grammatically correct, b) 'happening dude', for the youths out there, and c) Something approaching clever.

over 300 designs later, I may have hit on something as recently 3 sales have gone to France. My designs are very findable by searching for 'esprimoj' on CafePress.com.

But in everyday life, I like to try and figure out how one WOULD express some Americanisms in Esperanto. I usually end up making a pest of myself on a few Yahoo groups (as I see it a war breaks out over a question like "what is the correct way to express 'peanut butter' in Esperanto" (haven't actually tried that one yet, but it's either 'arakidajxo' or 'ternuksbutero.') (and by the way, I prefer 'bonuma' over 'mojosa'.

Ni laboru kaj esperu,
Dave