Or, for Dom,

"_ hate arama_c font".

If times new roman was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me.

Stupid Ariel font.

I've now swapped it with a key I hardly ever use ... one of the lesser spotted functions. Which will do as a makeshift fix until I see about getting a new I.

Ahhh.

Perhaps you'll be interested to know that in <Korea> there is no distinction between "eye" and "eyes."

They only have one word for both:

<noon>

Heh.

Question-report: freelance whining/bragging division.

OK- a year ago I would have been THRILLED to be competitive in my current ratings range--

And yes, I feel happy that I have improved a few hundred points over the last year.

HOWEVER.

Since I've taken to analyzing pretty much all of my games with my Chess Engine, it's become painfully clear to me HOW POORLY my current opposition is playing in relation to <Shredder>.

Which means I'm playing almost as poorly.

And, in comparison to my <Shredder3>, I'm a rank amateur patzer BAD PLAYER.

Whine.

I'm consoling myself with the "knowledge" that if my <Shredder> whipped off his top in a crowded bar, nobody would look.

Not so in my case.

I haven't done this yet (well OK not since I quit drinking), but I'm certainly looking forward to it.

But for how long?

Chess Engine: can't live with it, can't ignore it.

Stupid engines.

maybe, you should try analysing the game yourself before using the engine and then use the engine to see if you have missed improvements in your own analysis,

you will be surprised that you may find that you see many of the ideas on your own after the game rather than in the heat of it

So I will not join the Frog Chorus of <Oh Jess dear, belay those whines for life is beautiful>. Sometimes, to bowdlerize a popular American term of disapprobation, it makes like a vacuum cleaner.

<mack> Good to hear about Suttles tomes. But is chess "ultimately" a game between two humans or just "sometimes" a game between two humans?

I've had opponents, lemme tell you, who seemed to belong to another branch of the primate family. Orangutans, bonobos, a gibbon or two. Some of them weren't even mammals.

But most of my ancestors weren't mammals either.

Here's my latest ruling on the topic. *Chess* is a game of skill. But all the attendant stuff -- who you play, how they play, blunders, brilliancies, soundness, the vision thing, pheronomes, endorphins, ratings, revenge, emotions, angst ... that's just like life, and mostly random.

The latter features games derived from closed openings - English, Nimzo-Indian, QGD, etc. Every so often we are asked to choose one of three possible moves - the point being that the choices are strategic and any tactics are incidental.

I find I score better than Fritz at this - even at 20-ply in quiet positions it often picks ugly, stupid moves. (Of course in tactical simulations the beast will out-calculate me every time).

I've noticed the same effect in many Petrosian games. Fritz thinks Tigran is losing almost up to the point where his opponent resigns.

But what did the Times New Romans ever do for us?

<Jess> - <noon> Hmm. Is the movie High Noon popular in Korea?

I suspect, btw, that if your Shredder ever 'whipped its top off' people would be amazed. Chess is easy compared to top-whipping.

Or do I mean top-dewhipping? Top-whipping-off?

There must be a classical term for this, apart from the obvious "ecdysiasm".

And ecdysiasts go 'all the way', or so one has heard.

Not to mention film titles:
The Eye of Laura Mars
Eye for an Eyes
Eye in the Night
Eyes of the Cat
Eye of a Stranger
Eyes of the Needle
The Eye of Hell
The Eye without a Face
Eyeswitness

Thanks for your kind permission to whine.

Also, thanks tons for this:

<Here's my latest ruling on the topic. *Chess* is a game of skill. But all the attendant stuff -- who you play, how they play, blunders, brilliancies, soundness, the vision thing, pheronomes, endorphins, ratings, revenge, emotions, angst ... that's just like life, and mostly random.>

That insight, along with <mack's> makes a fine pair of mental bookends for me.

I just love playing chess against humans with a time control and a board where you can scowl at them in person.

I miss my club so much I can't really express it.

My Dream- is to play at a Chess Club again and participate in Real Tournaments and get a Real Rating.

The virtual world-- this I am viewing as "Chess training" for my "Chess future" as a girl who loves to play other people...

Last summer I was in Paradise once a week at my Chess Club.

heh

How the heck do I know? <King Sejong> made our alphabet, but the origins of our language itself are obscure.

I can say every single Korean word I know inside of 2 minutes and I've been here almost a year.

Also. I've never actually tried TEFL during my checkered [sic] career - apart from a brief foray into Teaching Ewok as a Foreign Language, when it was forcibly pointed out to me ("in no uncertain terms" = "in certain terms"?) that Ewok is not a 'foreign' language, but an alien one - and if I didn't know that, what use was I as a teacher.

But I dimly remember that teachers like you are thought to perform better if they don't speak the pupils' first language. Because it avoids laziness and throws you back on your own resources? Is there any truth in this?

I've read too many books. As a result, some stuff that I regard as "facts about the world" is actually fantasy. For example - just among the H's alone - Hobbits aren't real, and Humbert Humbert's tongue never did that three-step dance along his palate.

If only everyone was so easily satisfied.

Dom de Domme
Personal Secretary to
The Wishmonger

No attachments please.

I now seem to be the highest one left not to have reached this landmark. And at my current rate, with over 700 to go ... I should get there sometime in late 2012.

BUT THEN it dawned on me...