The check's in the mail. (Well, truly, it is about to be.)

Got up early this morning and am trying to be productive on some fun stuff before the regular chores and duties of day get under way.

One thing I just did was write a check for my membership dues to the new NORTH AMERICAN SCRABBLE PLAYERS ASSOCIATION, which I will mail shortly when I run out to the store. $30 gets you in the NASPA through December 31, 2010, and beginning July 1 of this year, you must be a member of NASPA to play in sanctioned Scrabble tournaments. Here's a link to the NASPA page with all the details.

Brad Mills from West Virginia beat me to signing up (of course -- he's always on the ball), and Terry Schroeder, from Pennsylvania, too, but I may be the first Kentuckian to join. I'm not paying the extra $20 bucks to get a custom number though -- I don't do special car license plates, either LOL -- but I must admit that the added cost does go to a good cause here.

Now the question remains, do I continue to be an NSA member when my membership expires? Right now I think not. I'm not eager to do anything to promote Hasbro or its activities after the way they are abandoning club and tournament Scrabble. Maybe some of you who read this can persuade me otherwise.

A couple of afterthoughts --

I thought I was posting this over on my personal blog, the Bluegrass Scrabbler, but was on here instead. Oh, well. So be it.

And not only am I upset with Hasbro about turning its back on club and tournament Scrabble, but also (still) about changing the colors for premium squares on special editions of Scrabble -- totally unnecessary and resulting in needless confusion. Just another ploy of money-hungry marketing folks. Selchow & Righter was a class act; Hasbro is not.