I think I've had the second one -- some sorta horrible eye condition - but I'm glad I've never had the first one. Anything ending in -ectomy tends to be bad news for the body part in question.

No tasteless jokes about <strapadictomies>, please.

(alarm clock)

G'morning <Dom>!

Does the <Limerick Chess Tournament> start today?

Here's what I wish most for you as you battle on the board:

HAVE FUN.

Number one.

Chess is fun
OTB chess is bliss
OTB tournaments must be like Nirvana.

One day I will play in one too!!

Just to copy you, of course.

You posted this ages ago and it made me laugh so hard I spit up my coffee:

<I'm almost certain Jess knew how to spell when she first started kibbutzing at CG.com>.

Where are you guys?

I've been coming over to your house but it's temporarily boarded up.

I have to confess I was tempted to break in and steal a few chess books, but I resisted temptation.

The place is locked and next Tuesday I have to give the keys back, too. I then become faceless, I think... It's just the avatar, though.

But there is always Frogspawn- and your house...

In the meantime, you can set up shop at my house any time you want.

In fact, you can take it over if you like.

It could use your influence, to "tone up" the place.

Is there only pain and hatred and misery?

My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes...

So where are the strong?
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?

Sweet harmony.

Cuz each time I feel it slip away,
It just makes me wanna cry...

What's so funny 'bout chess love and Frogspawn?

Wow my new heaphones are excellent. I got some "expensive ones" and <Elvis> is thumping and vibrating through my brain--- in stereo!!

Will wonders ever cease?

I'd kill a million penguins through the global warming necessary to produce my new headphones.

Just saying.

I never met Brian O'Nolan/O'Nuallain/Flann O'Brien (etc) as he died in 1966. He drank quite a lot in later years -- there wasn't much else to do in Dublin back then -- and was variously described as curmudgeonly, crabby, vicious, sneering, and cranky. Can't blame him, really.

I imagine I'd have been a lot nastier, in his shoes, with my evident genius being overlooked and my work ignored by tribes of gobshites and, er, looderamawns.

I hope that last one's right. The vocabulary of Irish invective has declined since the 1960s.

However, I *did* play chess with his brother, aka 'the brother'.

Off to Limerick now. Oddly for a weekend tournament, it doesn't start today, ie Friday. The schedule is two games each on Sat, Sun and Mon -- Monday is apparently a holiday, a fact of which I would otherwise have been unaware as I run on a different OS and a different calendar ('Pataphysical, at the moment).

I'm going to travel there now, ie Friday, anyway, in order to 'acclimatize'. It's more than eighty miles away, you know. I may get train-lag.

I'll try to post reports here, depending on such factors as: my dodgy laptop continuing to function; my state of mind; broadband access in hotel. If necessary, I'll call up IdleNomad. If I can't remember how to do that, watch for A.N. O'Middle or Mean Dil Do, usw.

It's funny, the way you talk about chess tournaments. They are now the *only* chess I play, as a friend I used to play with moved away, and I haven't got around to playing online or going to a chess club.

I like the atmosphere at tournaments. So would you. Try it whenever the opportunity arises. [I wrote 'bopportunity', then corrected it... what could that mean? My <inner thug> preparing to get down'n'dirty with other people's egos?]

Thank you for your... you know.

<A sense of a great profundity to be delivered- that never gets delivered.> is bang on target. I figured it was too central a concept to waste on a mere book, so I'm doing it with my life instead.

as ever,

Very like Nirvana. Many of those participating also do that thing with the shotgun, however metaphorically.

I'll try not to be among them this time.

yrs

I think you're destined for greatness, buddy!

You WILL remember how to play chess, dognabbit!!

<Three point one four one five nine Logarithm, algorithm
Hyperbolic sine ...>

Good to see you're listening to the *real* Elvis, btw -- Mr Costello (Now look what I've done -- <Ohio> will never speak to me again). A Nick Lowe song, I believe: What's So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding?

I almost elbowed Elvis aside in a crush at a bar counter once... I believe Shane MacGowan was in there somewhere too.

- Come to the point man!

Is there a <Dublin And Great Neck And Bishop Berkeley Institute of Technology>?

That's a useful rule of thumb, actually, isn't it? Whatever you get, check for the attached moron...

M Serik vs D Kononenko, 2007

Fascinating game!! I will not pay attention to my curiosisty re your olfactory epithelium and how it alerts you when a game like that has been played, somewhere...

... So I'll zzooom straight to move 27 in that game: 27. Qf5 Kf8

click for larger view

...where Black has started a first of consecutive King moves towards b7: K-f8-e8-d8-c7 P-b6 hxg5 and K-b7 === remarkable plan

Well, I will hold my horses here as there are several points later on where White looked optically winning- and a bit later at least able to get a Draw - but no... things ended up rather different.

I will save my findings to a word-file and release them until you will have some time to look at it - You're probably right before your first game in Limrrrrick - so good luck to you there first!