But yes, *of course* it was wrong of me to make that "crush-like-bug" post, encouraging bad behavior that gets people banned.

No need to refund anything, I like to help out cg every now and then anyway. You can pass on the favor to somebody else some day, if you want. My first membership here was also a gift, so that's what I've been doing too.

I'm tired after work today, so just feel like playing blitz and hanging around - I'll get to some longer writing on the weekend. :)

Meanwhile, this just in:

[Event "FICS rated blitz game"]
[Date "2012.03.28"]
[White "AnnieK"]
[Black "NN"]
[WhiteElo "1527"]
[BlackElo "1054"]
[TimeControl "600+0"]
[Mode "ICS"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. c3 h6 4. d4 a6 5. Bd3 cxd4 6. cxd4 d5 7. e5 Nc6 8. O-O Be7 9. Nc3 Bb4 10. Ne2 Be7 11. Ng3 Bh4 12. Nxh4 Qxh4 13. Ne2 Nxd4 14. Nxd4 Qxd4 15. Bb5+ 1-0

If chess was promoted better (somehow) and became as popular as, say, basketball is in America (to me its just netball.. But..) this site could be as big as Facebook for chess players!

It really is that good!

<Wang Doudou is also very interesting, too.>

Ah, there you are, Ms Yanno. I'm here to tell you in person that we, that is the management, well, all right, use the perpendicular pronoun, I have decided ... to terminate your contract. Please don't cry, Ms Yanno. Security will escort you from the building.

Why? Well, it's the way you spell your last name, ackshully. We have no problem with 'Shirley', but as you might imagine, we get applications from thousands of Shirleys. You stood out because somebody thought that Yanno was a bit like 'You Know'.

But we've had the phoneticians in for the annual review and, well, it isn't like 'you know' at all, is it, Ms Yanno? The short 'a', the double 'n, the short 'o' ... it's hard to avoid putting the stress on the first syllable, isn't it?

And we've had an innaresting letter from a Mr Shirley Ulrich Noah, who goes professionally as Shirley U Noah. We think it sounds better. Plus - this is off the record - he's a man, so he won't be running off to, well, breed, or have those feminine fits of the vapours.

No, Ms Yanno, I'm not saying that *you* ever ... is that a gun, Ms Yanno? Why yes, Ms Yanno, Shirley, of course someone of your experience would do very well in a management capacity. I was about to suggest it ...

[a shot rings out]

Okay, boys, take [her/him/it*] away.

I just used the excellent 'ummigration' link in your profile to read the conversation in my forum, from about, uh, nine months ago?

My, we were all so intelligent back then. What happened to us?

I need to start some kinda 'bring back intelligent conversation' movement. Well, *I* don't need to, necessarily, but somebody should.

I'll do my bit by avoiding all conversations about who said what about whom, when and why.

Marginal futility, negative utility.

As ever,

Which ties in, in all sorts of ways, as follows. One is, that exactly one year ago, I was in Rome - and pretty darn sick incidentally, which factoid I was not, of course, going to allow to get in my way of enjoying the best of art and architecture to be found on the planet. :p

One branch offa this is to note that I got sick <again> at the exact same time of year this year. :\ Maybe hay fever or something, or just end-of-winter carelessness. So I've been mostly busy barking this week - not that this would be so unusual, except it's literally in this case. ;s

Another branch: While in Rome... do as the tourists do, of course, what else? Buy some memento, that is. Out of old habit, mostly, I bought a jigsaw puzzle. Just a small 1000-piece one, nothing serious (she says, looking over at the 6000-piece puzzle of Bavarian Castle Neuschwanstein hanging on the wall to her left...). ;)

I haven't really done a jigsaw puzzle in many years. Anyhoo, just a couple of weeks ago, I remembered the box, and hauled it out of the closet. It's a fine photo (probably taken with panoramic photography) of the ceiling of Capella Sistina. Took me about two nights to assemble it. There's nothing like doing a jigsaw puzzle, for familiarizing oneself with the finest little details of a large picture.

While actually standing in the great chapel, one tends to gawk more at the central themes - The Last Judgment Wall, and the series of Genesis scenes running down (or up, rather) the center. And there's a crowd, and noise, and one's blasted traveling companions want to move on, now they can put a check in their "visited" box - and while I never had much problem ignoring such suggestions, it is also true that there's not much place to sit, and one's neck also does get tired. ;p

So, it really takes a jigsaw puzzle to notice many of the "minor" details - all the supporting cast of angels and cherubs and demons and whatnot flanking the "main" pictures, and the minor saints and some totally non-Xtian characters - most notably, the Sibyls - off on the "margins".

Heh - for the purposes of (jigsaw) puzzle-solving, it helps to realize that the more grotesque or obscene any figure's posture is, the more likely it is to be an angel or cherub - presumably this is to demonstrate how innocent they are. :D

<My, we were all so intelligent back then. What happened to us?>

There is one who does not belong...

Be well. I'm off to try, again, to play chess. Futile exercise, I suspect, but we all have our little, eh, monkeys.

I haven't tried a jigsaw in a while. But my brother does Escher ones, ordered from Escher central. They look quite good, really, when finished.

Innaresting theory, quite possibly accurate. I'm not a big Renaissance expert, and I've never visited Rome.

Which won't stop me from proffering an alternative theory. The grotesquely erotic angels are there to satisfy the carnal appetites of popes and cardinals.

An old geezer -- let's call him Pope Innocent -- whose armies are off turning Bohemia into a killing field -- stares in rapt fascination at a naked angel. He feels a stirring in his loins.

"This is not sinful", he thinks. "How could it be, for I am Christ's Vicar on Earth and that is one of God's messengers. What I feel is an elevated physical resonance between myself and the angels, like the kind of thing that Galileo talks about regarding planets. Quite holy and celestial, this stirring. Must remember to write this down and put it in a Bull when I've, ah, finished, ah, contemplating the, ah, pull."

You know your alive when the nun standing over you puts every ounce of self enforced celibacy & 30 odd yrs of repression into the edge of the ruler that's speeding towards your knuckles. The confusing part for a kid is that small glint of pleasure you see in her eyes.