I like to understand references too, but, for the most part, the idea that reference is being made to some pop culture personage and/or quote is clear enough, and - again for the most part - that in itself is quite enough by way of "getting the reference".

<Saw some innaresting abstract paintings today.>

A real conversation.

My cousin the movie buff: Do you want to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?

That's actually not a simple question by any means.

I watched a documentary called "What is One Degree" and the narrator had all manner of grief trying to get a straight answer from an assortment of engineers, physics professors, and other lunatics.

The best part was when he constructed his own thermometer and then he took it back to the scientist he had been interviewing and the scientist told him it was crap.

He'd spent weeks on that thing! He even learned how to blow glass and everything.

And there's even an article linked there by our own User: FSR about "Fun With Morphy Numbers":

I examined all this years ago, and saw that - especially in the 'win' version - certain 'nodal' players and games had great significance. Anyone with a long career who beat some veterans in their youth and went on, maybe 40 years later, to lose to a new generation, for example.

A key game (certainly for Irish players) is E. Keogh's win over Stahlberg at the 1966 olympiad. Keogh is still active (I lost to him last year, even though we now have similar ratings) and Stahlberg was nearing the end of a long career, which included victory over Nimzowitsch. Perhaps it was the thought of getting a Nimzo-win number of NW3 that unnerved me against Keogh. (The game is in the database - I shoulda played d5! and the rest is misery).

I've beaten plenty of people who've beaten Keogh, of course, so NW4 is easy. There are also quick paths to other famous players - I've played at least four people who have played Kasparov, not all of them in simuls. But to *beat* Kasparov, I may have to run a chain via, say, Byrne-Keogh-Stahlberg-Smyslov-Kasparov.

I'm working on my Duchamp number. There are still a few people around who played him (though two well-known ones, Larry Evans and Bill Hook, died recently).

Bird vs Morphy, 1858
Bird vs Mieses, 1895
Mieses – Barden, Hastings 1949/50
Keene vs L Barden, 1967
Keene vs G McCarthy, 1977

I beat Keeshan in the 1980s - lost the score, of course, but I remember it was a Flohr-Mikenas attack in the English, he made an inaccurate move in the opening, and I blew him away inside 20 moves. One of the few times I've beaten a 2200+ player in that style: most such games are scrappier. I'm not even very efficient at 'blowing away' 1100 players.

I think I'd be a lot better off in the "numbers" department if that Moss fellow had ever managed to beat his one-time mentor Nigel Short - maybe when Short was half asleep or totally drunk? Heh. ;)

Then again, I do have several wins (both OTB and corr) over Tryfon, and he regularly beats IMs at blitz, so there may be something going in that line... I can't be bothered to research it though. :p

Which reminds me. If 'in loco parentis' means 'crazy like a parent', and 'moi aussi' means 'I'm Australian', then *kinaesthesia* is the irrational belief that one's relatives are good-looking.

As for me, it could be (a) healthy dog-walkies nanotectors, (b) serotonin boost from giving up wine - okay, technically I don't do 'giving up' as in 'never again', but I'm not currently at the vino ('in vino vomitas', as Pompeius said to Plinius).

Or it could be my rise to 9th place in the kib hit parade, having overtaken <notyetatagmeme>.

A tagmeme, of course, is a basical linguistic structural element, such as the sentence position into which a given class of grammatical items (phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, humemes) may fit.