The Deadliest Blogger

Wang and I played a friendly game on Chess.com. I got hosed. It was one of those games that was lost before it even began. My chessdar was lit up with bogeys everywhere. And for some reason I knew I was going to lose. Not just because I haven't really been playing much or studying much or even thinking about the game more than a handful of times a week. Call it intuition or an educated guess it doesn't really matter. It made me realize something though. More admit than realize actually. I have little desire to make my game better in any significant way. At one time I did. But no longer. I like to occasionally play, do some studying, whatevs.

Mt. Humphreys

Twigs snap, roots of large beastly trees reach out of the earth and exotic, illusive blue-green mountains disappear. Entering the Mt. Humphreys trail is like closing the door on reality. Check that. Its like slamming the door, locking the knob and flicking the dead bolt. You'll never see more than a few yards of the winding dirt path. At times its a mirage, jumping up levels, snaking around boulders and crouching behind fluorescent grass that may possibly be juiced on steroids. Its hard to tell in a place so surreal, yet so natural, exactly what this place has been doing for the last few thousand years. But one thing is definite. The path always stretches on, materializing here, immaterializing their. On and on for three to four hours up and a couple down. Down is shorter. Maybe its the rubbery legs, dreams of crammed subway subs or dreams of long naps, I don't know. But its definitely shorter. Up takes forever. Through the dense forest, the not so dense forest, the awesome views. The last fragment of rocky terrain reminiscent of lower altitudes leads to the highest peak in Arizona. The whole enchilada, you can almost taste it. But it will cost you. All day.

July 4th!

In the words of Anthony Bourdain "America the weird, America the delicious, America the slightly scary. America the beautiful."

Happy Independence Day dear readers. Enjoy your grilling, enjoy your blogging and enjoy your freedom.

Remembering the Jackson Trial

"Because in the over all scheme of things, who are we to pass judgement on this man, who amongst us can honestly say that they have never slept with a twelve year old boy after sharing some alcohol and pornography in the company of a chimpanzee."

Triumph and the.Michael Jackson Trial.
Uploaded by matzevolt. - Sitcom, sketch, and standup comedy videos.

Haven't had much time to post lately. A lot of good stuff is in the mix, for sure, but until then if you are looking for a good read try Blunder Prone's Fathers day post. You wont be disappointed... Stop giving me that look... I'm serious.

"In case you are wondering how I got to be such a chess enthusiast, you needn’t look much further than one click up the genealogical tree in my family. Being father’s day, I thought I’d take the time and tell you the story of Ray, my dad."

More #%&! Than Carter Has Liver Pills

1.The coveted Endgame crowd has finally accepted me.

2. What does doing a couple hundred mate in one puzzles and a few dozen mate in two puzzles do to my game? We will soon find out.

3. Why are people so interested in finding out what your reading when the book is enormous and dull but not when your face deep in a normal sized awesome book that your desperate to talk about, even to random strangers?

4. The person who lives upstairs from me seems to have constructed a go cart from scratch and rides it around the back yard like a lunatic. Its frightening. And I'm jealous. But mostly frightened.

5. I'm attempting a new tactic against my brother on Facebook chess. He wont have Internet access for the next couple weeks, so I'm making moves at strange hours in the hopes that he will be to slow to play in time and thus forfeit the game. Its a new low for me, kind of.

6. Gordon Ramsey Swears At You!

Conundrum

I found this puzzle some years ago. Cant remember exactly where or when. White to move. Mate in something like 9 or 12. Here are a couple different perspectives to massage your egg head. It can be frustrating, which is why Ive never solved it. No screen punching and leave your answer in the comments please.

The Goat Tower

Wang and I had a scheduled game tonight. The first game of our bloggers tourney. He cancelled saying that he had a long day blah blah. The truth is he got wind of my new piece "The Goat Tower." Its like a Bishop and a Rook but with goats in it. You'd be surprised what it does to the magnitude to my Scotch game. Don't be scared it wont hurt... much.

Holocaust Memorial Museum Shooting

After reading this story it seems like a good idea to share it.

"Regular readers will probably remember my that my father-in-law Frank Burstin, who passed away about a week before last fall's elections, was a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp. For that reason, as you may imagine, the news this afternoon about a shooting at Washington's Holocaust Museum hits pretty close to home for me and for my family."

Read the whole thing: http://www.pollster.com/blogs/this_is_personal.php

Menage a pawn

My brother showed me this set of moves in England when we were visiting last. We were analyzing a game (I lost) and talking about "The Grip" pawn formation when he busted it out gloriously. Its an interesting and useful formation that is relatively simple. I also have no idea what its called, if it has an official name at all, so were going with Menage a pawn in the hopes that no bone fide title ever emerges. Note that the placement of the king is key. If the king is within striking distance of the pawns the scenario changes completely. Take a gander, gander takers:

What shall white do?

Black now has two options. Push one of the outside pawns or capture with one of the outside pawns. Lets explore how neither option wins.
Black pushes.
White captures and can promote to whatever he wants shortly. Black has no recourse. If he pushes the center pawn white can simply capture and gain another advantage.
Black captures.

At this point the one and only way white wins is by pushing the pawn into the fray.
If black takes the courageous pawn, White modestly pushes the other.

And if black takes the other pawn, white captures the center pawn and is in the clear once again.

In other news, if your looking for chocolate covered bacon on a stick this August I have some good news for you: http://www.wistatefair.com/09_web/food/food_stick.html