you are my mask...
and i am yours...

It's all minor stuff, really. Despite one trip to hospital accident & emergency, I haven't been near death's door, or even the pergola in his extensive grounds. But I *have* endured a weird succession of minor mishaps, involving the body - hands, mostly - and the computers. I've been totally offline for about ten days, which is surreal.

Want details? I dropped and broke two laptops in two weeks. Spent some time surrounded by *five* non-functioning 'puters, trying to cobble something together. No luck.

Meanwhile, my beautiful pianist's hands with tapering alabaster fingers ... cut. Sorry, that crept in from my forthcoming unwritten erotic novel about orchestras and carthorses, which are anagrams of each other.

My hands. The left one, which is 'dominant' - I write with it - got infected, balooned up painfully, took a pile of antibiotics and minor surgery to mend. It's mended. But then I sliced a piece off the other hand - le main man, as we Frogs might say - with a sharp knife. While chopping a potato - I don't even eat the things, for ethnic stereotyping reasons and a basic preference for rice. Knife slips, another hand wrapped in bandages.

Two hands, two newly busted computers. Simultaneously, Ireland experiences nonstop rainfall of the sort that would have old Noah looking for his carpentry set. I live on a hill, which became a waterfall. The largely flat city centre areas - including the computer repair guy, and other useful features, were under metres of water.

That climate change, huh? I've had to watch the fallout on TV, and an occasional surreptitious peek at somebody else's laptop. Emailing flood pics seems to be the new thing. See that nice lake? Washington Street. And so on.

I haven't even been able to do much work, apart from the finger damage. Art galleries and libraries flooded. Nearby college campus closed for a week or more. Travel hazardous. Nothing to write about and no way to send it.

Weird side-effects. Or maybe accumulated karma. I've been giving the world the finger for so long, and it hit back. At one point the gas heater in my house began to explode -- I heard this ominous woo-woo-WOO sound and presumed it was kids with a cybertronic halloween machine.

One good thing. Without Fritz etc, I resorted to setting up an old-fashioned chessboard and slowly playing thru games. From books. So retro. But oddly enjoyable.

I still feel vaguely like I'm trying to communicate with you all from The Bureaucracy on the Other Side. Ectoplasm optional. This, the 5th laptop, is borrowed. And of course I might 'accidentally' break it at any time. At least I seem to have done all my hands. As it were.

I can't promise yet to get back to the old daily routines ... but progress is being made. Normal service will be resumed.

SOOOOOOO glad you checked in ...

Right! Make sure you get back to us.

Now I just need to work out whether to simulate this effect on screen, or on a RL OTB thing with ketchup bottles for bits.

"Piscophilia" means fish loving.

A "Piscatory" is a thingie in a Mall or an office building where they have this pond and a bunch of bloody carp in it.

Look man you can't be the "main" man around here unless you take better care with your "mains" OK?

And you dropped chessboards too. In fact, didnt' you drop a marble chessboard on top of a computer?

I suggest putting them all in one place and never moving them.

Also, "ichor" is what the Intelligence wing of the American army is called.

Hey <Jess> ... thank you for correct-ect-ecting me. So nice to 'hear' your stern but sweet voice again.

A damson with a dulcimer
In a dinner once I saw
It was an Abyssinian dish
The fish was probably raw.

Didn't Coleridge say that in The Xanadu Cookbook?

When I wind up in a correctional institute I'd like you as teacher/ warder/ governor.

I'll keep les mains in les manches.

- Ees el hombre invisible de la mancha. Quixotic chap. Likes 'Tilt' by Scott Walker mashed up with 'Windmills of your Mined'.

'Putting them all in one place and never moving them' ... is that some kind of Hippo/Hedgehog/Rat Thing?

The Rat Thing Defence? As in 'my rat thing is bigger than yours, resign now and save yourself the hassle' ...?

PS. My Spanish virginity is wobbling, tho' I'm still holding on. Last night I carefully played through one of Korchnoi's *Ruy Lopez, Open Defence* games vs Karpov. (Shock, horror... looks like fun... what have I been missing by ignoring 1.e4 e5 ...?)

'Piscophilia', as Jess correctly pointed out, means 'fish-loving' -- but in a high-minded philosophical way.

I know I've already mentioned it <over 9000 times> at this website, but the "ultimate Rat" is the <Beckett defence>- still one of the pleasures of my life when I read that book-

Remember? The annotated chess game where neither guy wants to win?

And the frustration of the one player when the other moves his minor pieces out to the third rank- and then promptly returns them to their starting positions...

There is an odd "internet message board activity" similar to this- it's called <the game>.

You can only win the game by forgetting that you are playing the game. The main strategy to win is to remind the other players that they are playing a game. But in doing so, you also lose the game. So the game only has one real move- you say to the other guy "I lost the game."

Now mind you, this "game" was invented by 14 year olds who will never once hear of Samuel Beckett in their entire lives.

Now I just need to work out whether to simulate this effect on screen, or on a RL OTB thing with ketchup bottles for bits.>

There have been computer versions of "gory" captures floating around for years. I had (still have?} one program that ran on the Amiga. The capture sequences were cute, but most of those programs played dreadfully.

Btw, I think syrup and dye are the preferred fake blood these days...

This is one of the principal things older Koreans say to each other when it's time to console someone.

If somebody is very distressed, you say to him/her:

"To win is to lose."

Carnal fish?

Maybe, but not very romantic.

The "higher fish" (like salmon) reproduce by the men just dumping their semen on some gravel and swimming away.

I've seen slugfests with slime trails all over the board.

Perhaps the pieces could ooze some fragrant substance we will call "chessence".

This would expand the description of chess to another sense.

We all know the significance of laundry scenes in classic Western movies, viz Once Upon a Time in the Vest - with washerperson Claudia Cardinale - and John Wayne in The Starchers.

Why did the bad guys wear black? What was so high about High Noon? Was it *A Scent of Evil*?