Guilt - it is a powerful motivator.

Okay time bring up a new subject here at Irregular Blathering namely the game of chess.

I’ll spare everybody the detailed analysis of how I became a chess player if for no other reason then I’ve already written such a post for roleplaying games, and I am planning to write another for anime. I will say many of the same players who were featured in my post about roleplaying factor into me picking up chess as a child. Namely my parents directly because they were basically just good parents, and more indirectly because they owned a really cool chess set that I like to play with as a child. Add to the mix a decent chess program that I’d play on the family computer (an IBM PCjr just to give you an idea of how long it has been since I’ve “owned” a computer). And to bring it all home my local public library had a book called Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess by Bobby Fischer, Stuart Margulies, and Donn Mosenfelder. I highly recommend the book to anyone looking to learn chess, because it focuses on teaching how the pieces move, and how they can be used to either checkmate your opponent, or avoid checkmate yourself.

I bring this up because this evening I received an e-mail from a good friend and former college roommate, Erik, with whom I’ve been engaging in a chess match via e-mail since November 2005. In his message he was nice enough to compliment my blog, but suggested it was taking time away from our chess match because it had been quite sometime since I last made a move (for those interested I’m inferring here and not actually quoting). He went on to request either a move, or at least a post about chess. I have in fact given him both (obviously I’m a very good friend).

For a number of different reasons I’ve decided to post the moves of our chess match here. I’m doing this mainly because I hope it will provided me with additional incentive to promptly reply to Erik’s future moves. Also chess and kibitzing go hand-in-hand. For anyone curious this is an example of the opening called the King's Gambit Declined. I am white, Erik is black:

Move	White	Black
1	e4	e5
2	f4	Nf6
3	fxe5	Nxe4
4	Nf3	Nc6
5	d4	f6
6	Qe2	d5
7	exd6	f5
8	dxc7	Qxc7
9	c3	Be6
10	Ng5	Nxd4
11	Nxe6	Nxe6
12	Qb5+	Qc6
13	Qxf5	O-O-O
14	Be2	g6
15	Qa5	Nd4
16	Bg4+	Ne6
17	Bf4	Bd6
18	Bxe6+	Kb8
19	Qd5	Bxf4
20	Qxc6	Pxc6
21	O-O	Be3+
22	Kh1	Rhf8
23	Na3	Nd2
24	Rfe1	Bc5
25	Nc4	h5
26	Nxd2	Rxd2
27	b4	Bf2
28	Rf1	Kc7
29	a4	. . .

While on the topic of Chess, I have a certain other good friend from college with whom I've also been engaging in a game of chess via e-mail, and I'll just point out it has been a few months since I sent you my last move.

A few other things in brief. . .

Well I finally did it, I forced myself to watch the fifth disk of Tenjho Tenge. It wasn’t as bad as I was afraid it might be. The first two episodes continued the flashback that had been going on and on since the last disk. The events depicted remained confusing, but at least the fight between Tawara Bunshichi and Natsume Shin at the beginning of the first episode (and continued from the final episode of disk four) was interesting. The third and final episode on the disk returned to the present, where the majority of the characters I care about are active, so that was pretty good. However I fear I’m do for another visit to the past as it has yet to be explained how and why Takayanagi Mitsuomi kills Shin, nor has Mitsuomi and Natsume Maya actually started dating which the present alludes to them doing before Shin’s death.

After that I moved on to disk one of Saiyuki Reload. It was a pleasure to watch, but none of the four episodes advanced the plot in any noticeable way. I’ve heard from a friend that much of Saiyuki Reload is like that, but if I hold out I will be rewarded with plot advancement before the end of the series.

My BESM campaign should continue on Sunday, so I’ll probably post something about that on Monday. I’m really looking forward to it, I’m even more excited that for the first time in quite a while I won’t have worked the morning before running the gaming session. So game mastering while wide awake will be quite the treat.

Finally on the iTunes front the total number of items in my library is up to 1166 or 2.8 days worth of music. My jazz collection is up to 140 songs or 12 hours of music. My anime OST collection is up to 204 songs (11.8 hours of music). There are 419 songs on my iTunes that haven’t been played (1.1 days worth of music). That is actually fewer songs then last time that haven’t been played, but the songs themselves seem to be longer in nature since last time I had 24 hours worth of music that hadn’t been played.