But not a correspondence game- I don't know how you guys do it.

I just resigned my second correspondence game in over a year in a position where I have the advantage, to a player hundreds of points lower than me.

I just can't do it- it gives me hives because I can't stop thinking about the "constantly adjourned" positions and after dreaming about the damn position- literally- all night last night I just woke up and pulled the plug.

Forever.

When <Steinitz> went mad he complained that he couldn't stop replaying the chess games over and over in his head.

I refuse to end up like that without being World Champion to show for it.

I have nothing but the greatest respect for you correspondence players.

To me, it's the most difficult kind of chess there is, provided that you take it seriously- meaning try your very best to win each game, as you and <Deffi> do.

I love the D-5@@!!!!! interference resource in the last FEN- not so easy to see in an OTB game under time pressure because you have to think "laterally" with your chess vision- to see the Rook supporting the <d5> square.

It must be wonderful to post ridiculously abstruse endgame studies and have the wherewithal to say "here's a cute position" I swear to GHOD if he does that one more time I'm going to "send some guys over" to his forum.

However, I've actually come to grips with that by mentally forcing myself to believe that by "cute" <Howard> means "insanely difficult."

lol yes you can bring your real work to "work" if it's in your head...

Good call on the time zone!!!!

It's actually 24:38 O' Clock here.

However it's Friday night and I didn't have to go to work today so I spent about 14 hours in a row researching chess history and then another 4 hours or so poking people with a stick on this website, apparently- although that wasn't my initial intention.

I even quoted you for the second time on that one time you said "we have it good here" which is so true.

I used to get my "chess companionship" at social lounge on <Yahoo Chess> which is kind of like trying to get companionship in Nazi Germany if it had been less well organized.

Four summers ago? I had it REALLY good because I had you guys here online and the friends I made at my OTB chess club too.

Don't tempt me. I have Van der Heijden's endgame study CD with over 60,000 studies. It <is> insanely easy to pull something and post it, especially when you have the solution right in front of you in PGN. I was posting a few in his forum. Now that he's a free man again, I may have to start again.

<However, I've actually come to grips with that by mentally forcing myself to believe that by "cute" <Howard> means "insanely difficult.">

What's "cute" is watching the steam stream out of the ears of potential solvers.

<As in "Hey look at that <insanely difficult> girl over there!">

<Shams> thanks for dropping by! No it's hard to feel lonely on New Year's because we celebrate it twice- every foreigner in the country has a giant party on Jan. 1st even though we can't stand foreigners.

Really we can't- the national expatriate sport is running away from other expatriates in case they "try to talk to us and never stop talking".

Because nobody can speak English in this country.

But I prefer "Lunar New Year" because we get three freaking days off work.

Also, as <Deffi> noted, on CHEW SOCK we get four and sometimes five days off work.

LOL!!!!

I hope <Howard's> ears are burning, though if your intelligence is correct they are *literally* burning at this very moment.

Where did they go? To the Hotel Cap d'Antibes in hopes of running into "Hem" or Scott Fitzgerald?

Must be nice to be able to afford a nice cruise like that.

I already know about girls. I find myself to be insanely difficult already.

I'm considering having "a stern talk" to myself, but I keep putting it off. I'm afraid I might set myself off.

One of the reasons I think this is that my stats page tells me the vast majority of views so far have come from a "viral source."

Now that sounds ominous- but it doesn't mean that most of our viewers are shut-ins with Malaria.

It's youtube "shorthand" for saying <we don't have the slightest idea how any of these people found your video>.

Looking at the "viewer type rations" on all of my videos, the bigger the "virus to known" ratio, the greater the overall viewership.

CHESS HISTORY VIDEO (starring that photo of a dog a few posts above this one):

"The Sicilian Vespers", also with appearances by Efim Geller, Bobby Fischer, and Miguel Najdorf and music by the Red Army Drill Band (really no kidding)

Can you help me with this?

I pass through one every day on the way to work, because I live in a Medieval farm village.