I really appreciate how substantive your notes were on technical aspects.

I am in fact working on a new chess film right now, and I'm testing out Arial and a few others as well to see how they look compared to Times New Roman.

And your suggestion of a split screen with a sidebar is great- I've been trying to find out how to do that with Windows Movie Maker but no luck so far.

I believe I may have to find some better film making software- I've seen lots of videos with such features before.

Nyet. I *may* have been in vaguely analogous situations ... but I can safely say that I have never been equal to the squares on the other two sides.

<And your suggestion of a split screen with a sidebar is great- I've been trying to find out how to do that with Windows Movie Maker but no luck so far.>

From what I've seen of this program's output, it *centers* everything you throw at it? You could try to "cheat" by actually using a picture sequence with a growing size of black margin added to the right of the board, which will, if done meticulously, with lotsa frames, create the illusion of the board sliding over to the left. When you have it sufficiently on the left, then you can use that final picture as background, and add the text with a right-alignment - if that's possible (and "cheating" by adding lotsa spaces to the left of it is worth a try, if not).

<Open Defence: <I have always considered my self a 'girl' ... must be the secret of my good looks.>>

Whatever works for you, <Deffi>. :D

<...btw have you ever been the square on the hypotenuse of a love triangle ?>

I love Dom's answer to that, so let it stand... just trying to figure out how this would work as a pick-up line. Probably not very well. :p

<Dom> I just remembered a few more points to address -

<Maxbet> - usually 200 chessbucks.

<...in Russian...> sounds like somebody has a lot of time on their hands! Say... so, how *are* those emails coming along?! ;)

<Here in Cork - though not in Ireland generally - both 'boy' and 'girl' are used as friendly greetings between persons of all ages. A pair of 75-year-olds, on meeting, may say "How are you, boy?" and get the reply "Not bad, girl".

There are occasional misunderstandings. One Australian woman I knew swore she'd punch the next person to call her 'girl'. I tried explaining the idiom ... but I suspect punching guys was *her* idiom. Cultural variation, innit?>

Hmm, probably a custom that originally grew out of a joke between some friends and spread locally, until the humor gradually faded out of it, and it just turned into habit. There's more to be said on that subject, but I'll get back to it some other time.

P.S. - re. my question <Have you read the HP series?>

.... resounding silence ...

But I've read four of the 'Tuesday Next' books by Jasper Fforde. Light but amusingly clever - something like Douglas Adams with gentle bookish references.

There *is* more to be said on the boys/girls thing ... one point I omitted was that it's usually heard among older people. From what I hear of student vocabulary - which is far too much - young twentyish women now call one another 'lads'. As in "the taxi's here, lads!!"

If you can't pick yourself up from the floor without snorting a line of marching powder, you shouldn't be down there in the first place.

As Mr Dylan sez:

Leonard Cohen wrote a short poem, as follows:

<I did not know until you walked away You had a perfect ass.
Forgive me for not falling in love
With your face or your conversation.>

Heh. :p Try to correct the omission sometime, you won't regret it. :)

Rowling has a wonderful sense of humor, as well as being a master of myth-incorporation and -creation, and other thoroughly enjoyable literary in-jokes.

<There *is* more to be said on the boys/girls thing ... one point I omitted was that it's usually heard among older people. From what I hear of student vocabulary - which is far too much - young twentyish women now call one another 'lads'. As in "the taxi's here, lads!!">

Aha - though, actually, the point I meant to return to later is the one about the tendency of jocular customs to gradually turn into "plain" common mannerisms, with their humorous origins sometimes completely forgotten a generation or two down the line... which is why some types of "humor" are simply ticking multigenerational time bombs.

About the "lads" thing - I am reminded of some discussion here, back when Hillary Clinton was still in the running for President, about the possibly upcoming replacement of the "First Lady" post in the White House, with... what?? Even people who thought Bill Clinton was a very good President (such as myself) had to admit that "First Gentleman" would have been a bit of a misnomer in his case. :s

I have seen some entertaining suggestions on this topic at the time, but IMO the definite eventual winner was <Calli>, with the brilliant entry of <First Laddie>.

So this "lads" terminology might be some similar application...? :)

<Pick-up lines discussion> -- ohmygoodness what did I start here?!

The post with the Leonard Cohen quote is great in its entirety. Fifty points to Gryffindor, er, I mean <Dom>. ;)

Couple of comments -

<Argh. 'Corny' doesn't even *begin* to ... do guys imagine that these things *work*? "Baby, you're a problem to be solved with a verbal formula ...">

1. Well said; but

2. It's actually one of those "protective distancing mechanism" thingies, dontcha know? :)

"I didn't fail, the line did".

<<I did not know until you walked away You had a perfect ass.
Forgive me for not falling in love
With your face or your conversation.>

At least it's honest ... more or less.>

Wonderful... really wonderful - seriously, it's progress. :s

<more or less> is also very correct - "your face" - yeah, sure. Come on, when a woman asks a man to look in her eyes, she usually needs to clarify further that her eyes are not down there...