I am writing term papers and do not have the mental reserves to say anything worthwhile on this blog, so instead, I'll allow Mr. Chris Onstad, of Achewood fame, do my blogging for me. So here is a compilation of "The Saddest Things"
If you can think of anything sadder, please leave your comment...
This week, I have been involved in an epic struggle. Some of you might recall the time I challenged the internet to a game of online chess and promised ONE MILLION DOLLARS to anyone who could beat me. Well, guess what. I finally got a challenger. A man who goes by the chess name of "Big Thama" recently took me on and boy did I dodge a bullet (figuratively, of course - since it is impossible for the internet to kill people...or at least we hope as much). Big Thama came roaring out of the gates, repeatedly harassing my King in the early stages of the game. As the match progressed, Thama held on to the piece advantage, taking both of my knights early in the game. It was only due to some sassy pawn maneuvering that I was able to hang on for a victory. I was almost out a cool million for a while there!
The final board looked like this ^.
Here is some of the in-game commentary for your perusal:
bigthama: i'm guessing you're a defensive, combination player, as you keep sinking back into a shell when i attack
bigthama: MARAUDING PAWNS!!!!
thedudehasgotnomercy: oh yeah
bigthama: that was one sticky situation that i didn't see coming :p
bigthama: nicely done
thedudehasgotnomercy: :)
thedudehasgotnomercy: thanks
bigthama: you win this one. Either you have mate in one, or i have to sacrifice my rook and queen just to keep out of mate, and then it's inevitable.
p.s. Thama and I are playing a rematch right now, but I might ease up on the chess commentary for a while because I don't want people to get bored. I have much more exciting things to talk about, such as, which is the better sport, curling or darts? Stay tuned.
Read more...
UPDATE:
We find John with a significant material advantage, although Joel controls a much greater area of the board. So, if I win, I will be declared champion and if John wins, it will be "best out of three". Stay tuned for more thrilling chess updates.
Hi. My e-blog is totally redesigned. All that stuff is on the left side now and the text stretches out to fill the entire screen. I'm pretty sure this is an improvement, and that twenty-five years from now I will be pleased that I made the decision to totally redesign this e-blog.
[edit] seven minutes later... I am regretting this decision. I think I might change back. If anyone has experience totally redesigning e-blogs or just has an opinion, let me know. [/edit]
[p.s.] If you do a google image search for "totally redesigned" this is the first image that comes up. Extra appropriate when you consider that today is a major day of birthdays (JD, Mary, Katharine, E-bro (Brother of Bill-bro), Tim, and Thaxton). [/p.s.]
The most popular band according to the internet is a band called TIME CUBE. I have it on good authority that TIME CUBE is currently in the process of recording a SWEET album. The first track is called "Fan Death" and early reports say it's going to be awesome. Stay tuned for links to hear the tracks.
ps. If you have a music blog or you are the NY Times, please write about how awesome TIME CUBE is.
So, John thought he could pull of a cheeky little check with his Queen...but it's not going to be that easy...not as long as my pawn has a say in the matter!
Can you believe that some people actually watch basketball games when they could be reading a blog that documents a game of chess, play-by-play as it occurs over a few days and possibly weeks? I know, it's hard to believe. But 53% of American adults have not read a book in the past year (National Endowment for the Arts), so WHAT DID YOU EXPECT!
Have you ever seen this man before? Have you ever survived to tell about it? Anyone who reads this blog on a semi-consistent basis is probably aware of my INFAMOUS MILLION DOLLAR CHESS CHALLENGE! in which I challenged the internet-at-large to a game of chess. The prize for anyone who could defeat me (I am officially half as good as Bobby Fischer, to put it in perspective) was a cool million dollars, later raised to a BILLION!
The man in the picture has challenged me to a game of chess, presumably because he wants to win the one million dollars. WELL I HAVE NEWS FOR YOU, JOHN. I AM HALF AS GOOD AS BOBBY FISCHER AND I AM NOT MESSING AROUND! So I hope you bring your A-game because this is going to get UGLY.
Here is the first move. I am playing as white... John is playing as Black.
Also, I will give a million dollars to anyone who can correctly predict the outcome of this game...
Here, I programmed this. For REAL!
Play Games at AddictingGames
Who would triumph in this epic, though highly unlikely, matchup:
We tied a great game...here are some videos to celebrate.
What is larger,
the expanse of the universe,
or the gap between semi-conductors
where a computer's heart would be?
And what is sadder,
that all of your friends will grow old and die,
or that a computer cannot die,
and will never have any friends?
for more of these suckers, go to computerpoetry.blogspot.com
There have been rumors going around that I don't know how to read. These rumors are both HURTFUL and FALSE. So, to set the record straight, I will be doing a public reading this Sunday (20 April 2008) at 7:30 at the Caldwell Lounge of NCSU's Campus.
I will be reading a short story that I wrote and that has been published in the Windhover Literary Magazine, celebrating the official release of the 2008 edition. So, if you're not busy or if you have doubts about my ability to read...come on out.
[edit] 7:30! I said 7:00 in the first post. [/edit]
I'm sorry internet. I have tried to goad you into a game of chess with me, but apparently, one billion dollars is not a good enough prize to entice EVEN ONE SINGLE PERSON to play against me. I guess it probably is due to the fact that the dollar is pretty weak right now. I would offer to make it a trillion, but I'm afraid I just can't afford to do that. Honestly, I was going to have to take out some loans to pay the one billion dollar prize, and a trillion just seems out of the question. To put it in perspective, this stack of money is less than a trillion -- since a trillion is mostly just a HYPOTHETICAL NUMBER!. (side note: I like bolding and italicizing key words and phrases. It makes me sound insane!)
If I were to lose this game of chess and were to pay my opponent at a rate of ten dollars a minute, I would be paying for 3,155 years. So, anyway. Way to go internet. I'm sorry that I can't
even buy your internet camaraderie. I hereby rescind my challenge. The gauntlet (see images for examples of gauntlets) which was once thrown with such gusto has now been ingloriously picked up off the ground and put back in the place where I used to keep the gauntlet.
Side note: Where did they throw the gauntlets back in the day? On the ground? At the unguarded face of the foe? I think that would be the coolest. If someone threw a SOLID METAL GLOVE and hit me in the face with it, I would surely want to duel that jerk.
So far, I have no takers on my chess challenge, so let's sweeten the deal.
If you win you will receive ONE BILLION DOLLARS!
Also, in case you were wondering, this is my win-lose record:
| Total: | 23 |
| Won: | 15 (65%) |
| Lost: | 6 (26%) |
| Drawn: | 2 (9%) |
| Unrated: | 0 |
| In Progress: | 4 |
Also, my elo ranking is 1420, which means I am almost exactly half as good as Bobby Fischer, who's peak rating was 2785. I guess it's nice to know that technically I could defeat half of his brain in a game of chess.
Read more...
Step One: Go to www.chess.com and sign up (it's free).
Step Two: Find me on there (my chess.com name is "thedudehasgotnomercy")
Step Three: Add me to your chess.com friends or just challenge me to a game.
Step Four: Play the game against me (game play is asynchronous, so don't worry about the time committment. It's usually three days limit per move.)
And here's the kicker...
I WILL GIVE ONE MILLION DOLLARS ($1,000,000.00)* TO ANYONE WHO CAN BEAT ME IN A GAME OF ONLINE CHESS!
To put it in perspective, one million US dollars is worth:
10,489,500 Mexican Pesos
265,500 Kuwaiti Dinars
7,868,500 South African Rands
1,191,800,048 Iraqi Dinars (Sorry, Iraq. Our bad...)
So sign up and challenge me for the chance to strike it rich!
* or the equivalent of $1,000,000 (see conversions above)
This short little video explains CD/DVD burning speeds and it is my proposal for the worst video on the internet. I just kept asking myself: who made this video, and why?! It isn't totally amateurish, so I assume so real work went into this.
If you find a youtube video that is worse than this one, please post the link in the comments section so that the rest of us can enjoy it. I'll put some of the good (i.e., bad) ones on the blog.
As most of the internet already knows, today at 9:00 or something, THE OFFICE is coming back for the first time since the writers' strike. If you haven't ever seen THE OFFICE, then you are missing out. If you've never heard of THE OFFICE, then you probably don't know anyone younger than 30 years old, since this is the official show of college students and recent grads and everyone who watches the show likes to talk about it and how smart it is. Sometimes these people will just say things like, "Remember how awesome THE OFFICE is?" (I include myself in this group.)
THE OFFICE follows the adventures and mishaps of the employees of Dunder-Mifflin, a fictional paper distributer, as they deal with such hilarities as, diversity training, corporate mandated lay-offs, and consumer debt. Apparently, THE OFFICE is exactly like real life except funnier. Most of the people who tell me this have never actually worked in a setting like the one portrayed on the show, but this assertion is still generally accepted as true.
Incidentally, if you do a Google image search for real life (as in: real life except funnier) this is one of the first images that comes up...
For anyone who doesn't follow sports, let me fill you in. Last night, JOCK JAMS FC, the most enthusiastic team in the Co-ed C division of our local adult soccer league, won an emphatic victory over rivals, Diosynth. The final score was 6-2 (we think. It might have been 7-2)! To celebrate our victory, here are some weird soccer pictures and videos (and one pictures of greco-roman wrestlers).
To put this in perspective - I can stand on a soccer ball and it won't deflate that much.
To put this in perspective - I can stand on a soccer ball and it won't be as sad as this dude.
They are as strong as they are hairy.
A strange way to celebrate a goal. (And look at his face...How would you describe that expression?)
GREAT NEWS! Someone from Portugal read this e-blog. I want to dedicate this next post to our Portuguese friends, down South America way.
So here are some facts about Portugal:
1. In Portugal, the decimal separator is a comma: 1,5 = 1 & 1/2
2. Thousands are officially separated by a space : 10 000 = 100 x 100, although a decimal point is commonly used: 10.000 = 100 x 100
3. Despite it's small size, Portugal has produced some of the best soccer players EVER. Many of which also have great hair: Eusebio, Cristiano Ronaldo, Luis Figo (shown).
4. Despite popular belief, Portugal is not a part of Spain.
5. The capitol of Portugal is Lisbon (which happens to be its largest city as well).
Here is a video clip from the TV program Arrested Development, that explains the geography of Portugal.
Some people on the internet think heroic couplets are uncool. They are basically the new haiku; easy to write and often lame to read. So, I confess, I am not being original, in fact, Geoffrey Chaucer (->) did the same thing on his e-blog.
A heroic couplet consists of two rhymed line of five stresses each, traditionally iambic, often with a full stop at the end of each stanza.
So here we go:
If Dwight K. Schrute and I had had to share
a dorm my freshman year I would not care.
He would have taught me all about crossbows
and beets and paper sales, and all he knows.
We'd stay up late, just watching the TV,
and he'd explain the myths of LOST! to me.
And Dwight and I would certainly agree
that we would go with Locke, 'cause Jack's a freak.
Well, I hope these heroic couplets will 1) inspire you to write epic poems, 2) inspire you to watch more TV, 3) inspire you to invite Dwight K. Schrute to move into the empty room in your apartment. He seriously would be just how I described him...just a knowledgeable and helpful roomie.
PS. There is a rad new computer poem, by Justin Harris, posted online at http://computerpoetry.blogspot.com/
Well, it turns out I've been immortalized on the internet! My friend, and local LINUX expert Jo Jo Felonious, pointed out to me that I HAVE BEEN PHOTOGRAPHED BY GOOGLE MAPS! If you google my old address and click on the street view you can see: 1. My car, 2. Rochelle's car, 3. Rochelle, 4. with me (in sweet red shorts and a green shirt)!
CLICK THIS LINK TO SEE!
I think probably google has to pay me royalties or get me to sign a release or something, so if anyone knows how I can cash in on this, please let me know.
I wish that politicians used haikus more frequently as a form of politicking. Somewhat paradoxically, I think the haiku is over-used and I promise to use some other form next time.
Barak Obama,
you give crap-loads of hope
to America.
Hillary Clinton,
people are nervous about
you and the future.
John McCain, wisdom
is a product of old age,
and you're "old as hell".
If you have any sweet haikus...post those suckers in the comments!
2. COMPUTERS ARE THINGS THAT YOU CAN HACK WITH.
Hacking is like when a fireman chops down a door to a burning building, where the fireman is the hacker, the axe is a random number generator, the door is a firewall (I know that's confusing in this analogy), the rooms of the building are the computers, and each individual thing in the rooms is a file, and the people in the rooms are Gigabytes. Hacking is basically the coolest thing you can do with a computer but you have to be able to type really fast to be able to pull it off. This is how you hack. (Warning: real hackers sometimes say cusses while they hack...)
So, that's basically it. Now you know what a computer is.
The first one is a Marmaduke cartoon that I think is absolutely hilarious. The second is from Achewood and is also hilarious. The third is from a website called Garfield minus Garfield where they take a Garfield strip and remove everyone except John. The results are very sad and lonely. Enjoy.
I can't honestly say that I "get" this (^), but I like the concept, you know? It's like: the dog enjoys the sound of the cereal because it makes him think that he's eating the cereal or something. This is high-brow stuff.
You'll have to click on this one to see it. I don't have the technology to make it fit on this e-Blog in its correct resolution. I am SO sorry.
See what he did there?
It's just so sad.
General Ambrose Burnsides. Historians recognize these babies as the first sweet 'burns in history.
Jules Ferry. One time Prime Minister of France. Ferry was known for his radical imperialist political views and for his radical "chops".
Henrik Ibsen. This Norwegian playwright not only created many of the plays that we all hated reading in High School (The Dollhouse, Hedda Gabbler, The Wild Duck, and Spamelot), he also looked great in his sideburns. By 'great' I mean, 'like an insane lunatic who I would never want to meet and I would be terrified if I ever did'.
Elvis Presley. You might know him as the star of the 1967 film, Clambake. Others might know him as the alleged, "KING OF ROCK AND ROLL." Few people know that Elvis was such a fan of George C. Scott's Film, Patton, that he memorized every single line (this is true, according to the internet). Everyone knows that he "rocked" some rude sideburns!
Leave your vote in the comments section. The winner will be announced later.
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