where the streets have no names

World's first bicycle and automobile was bulit here
Steffi Graf was born here
It's Germany's warmest city
1st German Open starts in two days here

Do you know this city?
You guessed it, it's Mannheim.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannheim
http://www.scrabble.org.il/firstgermanopen.htm

See you at the WSC 2011 in Warsaw

The impossible has happened. 

The World Scrabble Championship 2011 will be held in Poland.

In a country with 3 "serious" English language players whose ratings average around 1600 (160). 

In a country where a Scrabble tournament in English language takes place only once every two years - with no prize money and rarely more than 10 participants.

An yet it's not a Scrabble desert as one might think. Poland has probably one of the strongest Scrabble scenes -  it's Scrabble played in Polish.

Almost every weekend there is a tournament taking place somewhere in Poland. The prize money isn't usually big (rarely more than 100 $ for 1st place) but it's enough to attract on average 40 participants. 

And the best thing of all - almost all tournaments are scored live on the Polish Scrabble Federation web page (www.pfs.org.pl). And after a tournament there is always a full report with photos.

Scrabble is very popular in Poland and I'm sure it will get even more popular because of the coverage it's going to get in the Polish media.

I will be very happy to welcome all the great Scrabble players in Poland.

Do come to Warsaw in October. This city has by far more tourist attractions than Johor Bahru and is certainly worth a visit!

See you all in Warsaw in 221 days!

YES, YES, YES :)

It's official:
I'M NOW THE HAPPIEST PERSON IN THE WORLD :)

Wanna know why...?

http://www.wscgames.com/2011/

If I won't come to the Causeway...

the Causeway shall come to me :)

Just 3 hours ago Michael Tang has announced the Causeway Grand Slam 2012.

There won't be one Causeway played in Malaysia anymore, but 4 Causeways all over the world.

First one in Melbourne in March, the next one in Vancouver in May, another one in Manchester in August (I'll be there!) and finally in Johor Bahru in November.

Michael, you have done so much for this game, please never give up!

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/world-scrabble/message/9534

WSC 2011 on Planet Earth

"I can confirm that Earth is current favourite as a site for the 2011 WSC. I am unable to confirm any further details at this stage, and it is not 100% certain, as budgets and venue availability still need to be agreed. I'll let you know as soon as I can, but it will be 2 weeks minimum."

How much longer are we going to wait?

Google treats and tricks

Timely with the 144th post on this blog the world's most popular search engine has given me a present.

When you search searched for my first and last name (no quotation marks) the 1st result on the list is was my own blog.

Congratulations to me :)

I don't know a thing about website positioning techniques and yet I've made the impossible - I have promoted my own name to the top of the list. I wonder for how long - probably until next WSC when all the Mattel hype starts again.

Strangely enough the search for my first and last name written with quotation marks returns my blog "only" at position 10... :)

And now to the weirdest thing of all - after I have published this post the search which previously returned my blog as number 1 now returns my blog only at number 7.

It must be that Google thinks I'm trying to cheat it by using the keywords "Google" and "website positioning".

C'mon Google, Don't be evil.

waiting for Godot

still no news... still no news... C'MON PHIL!

Meanwhile I have finished reviewing the sevens and eights with probability 1-5000. This means I'm back my to my word knowledge level from before the Polish Qualifications for the last WSC in June 2009.

It's not necessarily a highlight but I'm happy about it anyway.

It's better to stay in one place then to move backwards ;)