Just lettin' ya know Eric that your gray tabby is hyper. It loves to climb and also likes to chew. We've been letting them play in our kitchen a lot lately, they are drinking milk from a bowl but not yet eating solid food. All of the kittens have razor-sharp claws, and my parents and I all have scrapes on our hands from handling the kittens. But I'm happy to report that all five of them are still doing fine. By being so hyper they're at least demonstrating that they're all healthy.

We're having to do some work on the U-Haul box now because the bottom of it became saturated with kitten pee and the box was filled with the stench of uric acid. So we're taking the bottom out of the box (we were just going to throw it away and keep the kittens in a small pet crate). One of the kittens managed to escape from the box earlier tonight (possibly to escape the uric acid stenth) so we're having to work on making the box more escape-proof as well. You can't leave these babies unsupervised-- we already had to stop one from going behind the refrigerator and another from chewing on the water line that supplies our ice maker. They sure are like a bunch of toddlers.

Don't forget to bring a pet crate when you come here next month, trust me you do not want an active, curious kitten running loose during a 5-hour car trip. You also don't want anybody to be handling it for too long because, like I said, claws are super sharp.

P.S. Just lost a Scrabble game 471-451. That's the highest score I've ever lost with, and possibly the highest ever combined score between me and my opponent (Maven, set on the highest difficulty), at 922. My first word was a record-tying 100-point JAWLINE, and after a tile exchange I followed that up with a second straight bingo, SAUTEED. I also got a bingo with TREATING later in this game.
...Anybody up for a little Scrabble at Kartamania?  

In Scrabble, both American and British spellings are accepted, because both are equally English. The number of "foreign" words in the English Scrabble dictionary is mind-boggling. Anything that has anything to do with South Africa, India, or the Philippines is going to be in the dictionary, since English is an official language in all of those countries thus those words would be used in those countries' English. Every country's words for their monetary units (old and new), administrative divisions, geographical terms, food items, political offices, etc. may or may not appear in the dictionary.

I find the arbitrariness of the dictionary used by my Scrabble CD-ROM to be a bit of a nuisance-- I've had numerous words (that really should have been valid) challenged off the board by Maven, many of which would have been bingos, including POUTINE (a classic Canadian food item). It also rejected GOUDA, the classic Dutch cheese. Maven's acceptance of words prefixed with RE-, UN-, and OUT- seems really arbitrary as well-- I learned that REAIRING isn't valid. Yet that's exactly what a TV show is doing if it's being shown for the second time. It's also very choosy about verbs converted to nouns with the -ER suffix.

I know the rules are different in other parts of the world but in the US, if you are in a tournament setting and you play an invalid word and it is challenged by your opponent-- or you challenge your opponent's word and it is valid-- you lose your turn and cannot exchange any of your tiles (you must play the next turn with the same tiles). I like this rule because it gives players an incentive to actually know the dictionary-- you can't just "guess" your way through the game by playing a bunch of words of questionable acceptability until one of them is accepted, and you can't challenge the other player's perfectly good word with impunity. You're punished for not knowing the dictionary (or at least not knowing it as well as the other player) so players have to, you know, actually study the word list. Buy an official Scrabble dictionary-- you can get them at any bookstore or even Wal-Mart-- and hope you have great memorization skills.

The only problem is, my dictionary, and my CD-ROM, are both over 20 years old now, so today's word list isn't quite the same one I grew up with. I disagree with the decision to add stuff like QI and ZA to the list-- certain letters (C Q V Z, in the '90s dictionary) are great for "closing up" a board defensively and limiting bingo opportunities, as no valid "twos" (2-letter words) contain those letters.

Remember, folks, a good Scrabble player always RETAINS certain tiles whenever possible!  

I'll consult with the rest of the Kartel Nick, and see the earliest we can pay a visit.  Im considering rebranding the Kartel if anyone has suggestions, I haven't run that by anyone in the group, but I deem it to be necessary with growing visibility outside the community.

Thanks for going the extra mile to keep a cat for me, its very appreciated!

I'll run it by Matt, and Kyle. That week presents no problems to me, so it sounds great!
I don't know if Andrew can swing coming again, but he is obviously invited.  I'll be sure to bring a TV, and console along this time, perhaps we can make room and have two sets going.
Have some mini double elimination battle, GP, I'd be down for a TT 1 try as well.

Looking forward to seeing the festive decor, and feel truly honored to be welcomed back!

Harvey Kartel wrote on 11/24/19 at 14:06:54:


Im sure we will make some time for SMK at some point, for TT your TV is borderline unusable to my eyes. I'll bring my mini TV if nothing else to switch out instead of running two consoles. Matt, Kyle, and Chris are in new Orleans this weekend working, but we should decide a weekend to come visit by Monday or Tuesday.

It very well could have been not having my pad, but I seemed to experience subtle lag.  Time flies when you are having fun, and comfortable.  Nov - Feb is rather depressing to me, mainly because there is very little gardening, and everyone stays sick.  March through May is my fav stretch, sure there's allergens.
Nature comes back to life, and its not too hot.

We are set to head your way Sat Dec 7th! Let me know if there are any change of plans!

Harvey Kartel wrote on 11/27/19 at 23:03:33:


One of my fav posts on the forum in ages

I know some have seen already on Twitter, on behalf of the Kartel here is the official forum unveiling of  ASMKC 2020 poster!

Special thanks to Heather, we were having issues posting it, lol.

Nick im glad that date works, can't reiterate  enough how excited we all are to come back!
We have more surprise gifts this time as well  

Nick I'll ask around if anyone would take the mother cat.  Is there anyway you could send a picture of her, as this might help to produce a taker of the little  *gibber.

* gibber slang term for cat

Eric Olden wrote on 11/28/19 at 22:05:23:


Took this one last night: (sorry for the poor quality)



Pretty sure she's a mix of Siamese and tabby. The father is probably black. Two of the kittens came out black, two Siamese, and the fifth a tabby.

The kittens have learned to escape from their cardboard box now, so we're having to get a new one. The forecast calls for a temperature of 34 degrees (1°C) later this week, and we don't want them to get out in the middle of the night and not be able to make their way back into the box...

We were actually going to take Billie Jean and three of the kittens to the animal shelter today-- Bubba is losing her patience with BJ and my mother is losing hers with the kittens-- but the shelter told us that they were more than 100 animals over capacity and would not be accepting any new cats or kittens until the end of January!

Humanoidgale wrote on 12/05/19 at 16:09:41:


Yeah I agreed with Scoub, it is just so the general public don't confuse it with another Mario Kart at first glance. But please don't worry Matt it is a small detail and the poster is amazing work. Please thank the artist from us  

Well seeing that Nick has sorta let the cat out of the bag (No Pun intended there) Yes I have been working on getting T-Shirts made for the ASMKC 2020. My Boss has expressed a willingness to help purchase the shirts. The art work needed some changes that will be finished on Monday and I have gotten a quote which I feel good that my boss will agree with the cost. (Fingers Crossed)

With that being said. I need to Know shirt sizes. If you plan to attend this is a must ASAP. 50 shirts are being done so this is a first come first serve. If this works out then maybe next year we can expand.

I look forward to seeing you all so that I can beat your ass

Thanks for all the effort Dave and hopefully the shirts will feature Bowser and DK instead of Bowser and Diddy Kong