Second, I noticed that you take great care to answer and comment on virtually every single post that comes in here. This makes the kibbutzers in this forum feel very warm and fuzzy.

So cheers to you, and looking forward to having a peek at <Entropanto>.

Your fan, Jess

You must be thirsty from all that talk.

Also, the two games in the <Beer> forum. Did a vat of beer actually play chess? My Cat can play chess, but I don't play black against him anymore because he always opens d4.

Or is that what happens when the celery won't stay down?

<Jess> Thank you. Some of those fisherman set out about 20 miles from here, from a village I know well, and I used to live in another fishing village further along the coast and still have friends there. Small communities - though more cosmopolitan that people might think, with all those seagoing influences. It's been rough for them.

As for bushels, it's probably either this mode or total OTT gonzo Teutonic Filmdirektor Megalomania -- "We move through a complex pattern of darkness and light and in all humility I am one of very few who can comprehend the totality of it all...", as Der Springer sez. Maybe I'm just a naturally self-deprecating megalomaniac...

And I may have read a few books and seen some films, but you're astonishing. I've had about 20 years extra to plod through it all.

Uh, technically 'we' here left the UK around 1922, though I'm not one to quibble. I can't wait for Scotland and Wales to cut loose, so people will have to use an acronym for Former United Kingdom. Wonder if they'll get that one past the CG censor.

Sarstedt? "Where do you go to my lovely, when you're asleep in your bed...?"

I'm not going to post anything for the next 36 hours, maybe 48. Which is a long absence for me. It's nothing startling: I'll just be in transit to the local metropolis and back...

I'm shocked at your cat. You'd think that it'd be more adventurous...have you tried feeding it raw steak? I hear that some felines that have been on canned food for too long have been know to resort to the KID reversed.

There's no end to the degeneracy of modern domestic urbanised animals. You slave away, working your fingers to the bone, keeping them in catnip and fresh litter, plasma TVs and Tom & Jerry reruns, and how do they repay you? With a Queen's Pawn opening...

I got rid of my goldfish because they were constantly playing the Petroff. I gave them to some Russian, Vlad someone or other, and got a budgerigar instead.

My budgie has a whimsical sense humour and style, generally tests me out with 1.f4. Never a dull moment. I put this flight of fancy down to the organically grown seeds and the run of my chess library.

Who could deny that a budgie is a <Pircy> creature? This might explain his penchant for f4.

As to goldfish favoring the <Petrov> and your tropical fish's addiction to <gambits>, I'm at a loss...

True though-- the pet keeps the owner, rather than the other way round. I'm a slave to my Tabby, and he's been known to take a leak in my shoes on the sly after a tough beat.

I think that's why he won't allow me to play my favorite- the Accelertated Dragon.

I hope you'll be around again tonight?
I'm not sure if I'm inclined or have the energy to watch a bunch of draws again.

Cheers, smiles, and giggles,

<Herman Melville>, 1850 (while composing <Moby Dick>)

Is this a piece of literary profundity, or an official endorsement of the idea that one's literary life is best lived perpetually inside of a good Pub?

Could get irritating after awhile...

"Outside the medieval Belgian city of Ghent, there is a brothel with the intriguing name, <Moby Dick Fun Pub>."

If my "literary career" doesn't pan out, do you think I should apply for work there? Open to suggestions...

<Andrew Delbanco> wrote this about <Melville>:

"With his ambulatory style--always digressive, never consecutive--he was happier to wander than to go straight. Restlessly experimental, he was by turns playful, ironic, somber, and uproariously funny, sometimes dropping into bawdy comedy, sometimes soaring into soliloquies worthy of <King Lear>."

Now, who does this description remind us of?

Hint: his initials are <D> <D>.> I have no idea, but maybe the host of this forum would know the answer to that.

Btw, best Melvillean tit bit of all:

Best Short Story in Christendom!!!

The kind manager actually moves his offices across the street rather than fire Bartlelby!!