I AM sorry you were abused ... by anyone! The individual that you cited is mentally ill, I no longer have any doubt about this. I could tell you some things abou this individual, however, I promised Daniel Freeman that I would not mention him (specifically - by name) anymore. However, he (and his sock puppets) are everywhere. I believe that he wants to have 100 accounts, hoping to convince everyone - by sheer numbers - that I am an evil monster.

I'd said before - you probably missed it - that being attacked by Lemming/Pockmark (etc) gave me some sympathy for what you have to endure. I also think this creature's arrival some months back kick-started the whole business. Now some people can't stop kicking.

Let me tell you about my day, (after I got my three girls off to school, no small chore in itself!); I deeply annotated a training game I lost last Saturday. (I sacked an exchange, but it did not pan out. However, I believed in my attack, I wanted to see what Fritz had to say.) Then I got tired, I took a nap. Kids came home from school. I took my autistic daughter to Burger King - she had a good week at school, this was her reward.

I went and studied chess for a couple of hours, (with one of my chess students); then came home and fixed a frozen lasagne for dinner. Its 10:48 PM now. I checked my e-mails, apparently this "sock puppet" (that you mentioned); caused a tremendous brouhaha, but I missed the whole thing ...

But after a few moments of reflection, I thought better of it ... maybe I am better off not knowing.

BTW - he (you-know-who) can seem like a normal, OK guy at times ... and then suddenly go off the deep end. I read (online) that some suffer from "multiple personality disorders." In the real cases, what one personality does, the other is completely unaware of it.

This type of statement ... "I have many accounts, I can level/humiliate anyone with them." This rings true.

He said the same thing to me in an e-mail, at the time he was threatening to attack <JFQ> and "show her up." I implored him not to do this, at the time, I told him that "Jess is one of the few friends I have on this site." (Apparently, she has had a change of heart about me. In the past, this would have devastated me, however, I now have come to look on such betrayals as commonplace in the "Peyton Place" that is my life.)

I'm not trying to flame here, but she criticized you, AJ. That is nothing close to betrayal, and it's unrealistic to expect friends to <only> tell you things you want to hear. That's <not> what real friendship is.

Her advice was good too, but that's besides the point.

<the "Peyton Place" that is my life.)>

You may actually be referring to things beyond <chessgames.com> here, but if you are only referring to the site, I have to tell you: <You> are creating the drama. <The AJ Bashers> (and I have joined with them in the past) mean to provoke you at times, and you give them exactly what they want by responding to flame with more flame. If they are on the <Ignore List>, there's no reason to respond to them. But you do, and thus you empower them. You create and escalate all the drama you claim to loathe.

What's more, you treat actual chess critique the same way you treat flame posts: with more flame. You discredit yourself in this way, <AJ>. If your 8...b5 pawn sac is good, defend criticisms against it with analysis. If your line is busted, tip your cap to the guy who demonstrated why. Admitting your line isn't sound does not make you a lesser player or human being, AJ. One cannot know everything, and even some Garry Kasparov moves have been shown faulty in analysis.

***

It was 4am last night/this morning when I posted the previous message, which should explain why I signed off at that point.

I agree that MF is a very damaged person. But his writing style is unmistakeable and unique (lowercase 'il' and 'im' for <I'll> and <I'm>, recurring bad spelling, North of England slang, etc) -- he's attacked us both repeatedly. My latest crime, it seems, was to address you amicably. So he rebroadcast his ludicrous but very libellous notion that I'm some sex criminal. He presumably found somebody with a similar name while googling.

Point is, I don't think he's mentally capable of disguising himself. You sometimes seem to be saying that he's behind other 'AJ-haters' as well. Of course others have insulted you - and I apologize for my part - but they're not all you-know-who sockpuppets.

Jess is about my oldest friend on this site and I'll stick by her no matter what. As <Fred> says, I doubt if she's 'turned against you'. As she says herself, she can have a short temper and lash out ... she can also brilliantly lampoon her own erratic side.

I'm not going to get <new era, day one> off to a bad start by *seeming* to criticize you, AJ. But you sometimes jump to conclusions that are unwarranted. Among others, <Once> meant well and <Ohio> is a genuine Christian (one of the few who really walks the walk, and I respect him hugely for it): I know them both well enough to be confident about their motives. But you've, dare one say, over-reacted on occasion. It's quite understandable, though, given the bad stuff. I'd overreact too in your situation, and I usually have a Zen calm.

It's when we see the truly toxic speciments like MF that we can see that others just belong to the broad spectrum of humanity.

This, btw, is a reason I don't like or trust the Ignore function. It can work, say, if somebody enjoys live games but wants only analysis, not chatter - so they ignore chatterers. Fine. I'm sure some people ignore me for that and other reasons.

But when you use ignore as a way of cutting out many posters -- both the toxic hater and the well-meaning but mildly critical type -- you risk not seeing what's going on. This disengages one from 'reality'. Sometimes your posts have a surreal flavour, as they 'introduce' a topic that several people (invisible to you) are already discussing.

I'll post something about FIDE ratings (I don't have one either, for similar reasons - I've mostly played in the 'wrong' tournaments) in your forum. That was my original plan.

Finally, <Fred>, you are right about Jess and I very rarely delete anything here. I deleted some of my ripostes to Pockmark last night, as they no longer had a context. But, hey - I didn't get a 758-page forum by *deleting*.

Onwards, my friends.

With any luck, CG will have nailed Mark's IP address (a new one?) along with his latest team of sockpuppets.

That may be a very good idea, akshly, along with some general and further-back history.

I can has update on other matters, not-here, plz? ;)

Years ago, it was possible to beat most engines with moves like 1.e3 - they were out of their book and reacted badly. Now they're stronger, of course.

Your forum has become very colorful lately =]

I wanted to say to this: <LIFE Master AJ: <DOM>

<<I completely agree on both points.>> (KOOL!!!!!!)

<<(This is such a pleasant change, isn't it?)>> Totally!

<<I agree books are better. You can't scribble your own annotations on a DVD, for one thing.>> Haha, I did alot of that. Some of my older books have thoughts - and notations - on every page.>

Strawberry Fields Forever! but then realized I might have another person hunting through my sock drawer.

All very interesting.

About McLuhan's 'amputates' versus 'atrophies' ... he came in for lots of criticism, back in the day, for his colourful metaphors and unscientific approach. He always said he was just throwing out ideas, not constructing a coherent edifice. And colourful metaphors stick.

<And colourful metaphors stick.>

Yeah, but they also justify the application of the "sensationalist" label, after which one can forget about being taken seriously.

I think I mostly find these recurring attempts of his to influence by emotionally loaded terminology both manipulative (which only annoys and antagonizes me) and inferior to precision.

He was a smart guy, and had some interesting insights, at least to consider, but he wasn't doing himself any favors with his choice of style of presentation.

Oh, and you're welcome. :)

Now, generally, I don't think much of "enemies of my enemies" as an algorithm for finding friends. A lot of the time, I find the enemies of people I dislike to be just as unlikeable as the "common link".

I'd say it may be best to keep the selection of friends a process entirely separate from anything to do with "enemies" whatsoever.