My chess game has its peaks and valleys, and I got to wondering if there was a pattern. Types of opponents? Kinds of tournaments? Perhaps I lose a bunch of games when I experiment with different opening moves.

As you’ll see after the jump, the answer is much simpler.

Proceed at your own risk »

Have you ever a movie wondered why a particular movie wasn’t a smash hit? “Streets of Fire” fits that bill, a fine piece of 1980’s Americana. The excellent cast was headed by by Willam Dafoe, Diane Lane, and Amy Magidan, and the sets and writing were better than average. The soundtrack was first-rate as proven by the video below.

This is a Dan Hartman hit (click on this link to see his hair-gel-filled video), but it’s the Sorels that make it jump: Stoney Jackson as lead, backed up by Grand Bush, Robert Townsend, and Mykelti Williamson, all before they hit it real big in Hollywood.

Dismal box office returns killed a potential movie trilogy. Ah well. What could have been.

Edit: OK, here’s a little Diane Lane lip-syncing to “Nowhere Fast” with Willam Dafoe as her stalker. Time to head out to iTunes. :)

The Thought for the Day from the University of Texas A&M ’Thought for the Day’ listserv:

          Look at those cows and remember
          that the greatest scientists in
          the world have never discovered
          how to make grass into milk.
         
                   -Michael Pupin, inventor
                    [QOTDay] 11/15/04
                    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/QOTDay/

        Or as tftd heard, “How does a red or black cow
        eat green grass and give white milk.”

Might be Photoshopped…nah…

From My Seester:

ROMANCE MATHEMATICS  

Smart man + smart woman = romance  
  
Smart man + dumb woman = affair  
  
Dumb man + smart woman = marriage  
  
Dumb man + dumb woman = pregnancy  
  
OFFICE ARITHMETIC

(more after the jump)

Proceed at your own risk »

You can blame these on her (or http://data.grammarbook.com/blog/)

1. I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.
2. Police were called to a daycare where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.
3. Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He’s all right now.
4. The roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference.
5. To write with a broken pencil is pointless.
6. When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate.
7. A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.
8. A thief fell and broke his leg in wet concrete. He became a hardened criminal.
9. Thieves who steal corn from a garden could be charged with stalking.
10. We’ll never run out of math teachers because they always multiply.
11. When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, UCLA.
12. The professor discovered that her theory of earthquakes was on shaky ground.
13. The dead batteries were given out free of charge.
14. If you take a laptop computer for a run, you could jog your memory.
15. A dentist and a manicurist fought tooth and nail.
16. What’s the definition of a will? (It’s a dead giveaway.)
17. I didn’t know where the sun went at night, so I stayed up thinking about it until it dawned on me.
18. I knew she was bulimic so I tried not to talk about food, but she kept bringing it up!

Hi – Long time no write, probably the longest time since this blog got started back when the dinosaurs still were the majority party in Congress. The reason is simple and complex: I’ve been going through a rigorous personality self-examination which is always good because complacency should get a kick in the behind. The problem is sometimes you end up facing uncomfortable realities. This is my confession.

I am descended from, and have lived with, folks with mental and behavioral health issues, notably bipolar disorders, alcoholism, and schizophrenia, yet always felt lucky to have escaped these afflictions myself, a self-diagnosis developed without the benefit of the psychiatric profession. Yet events over the last few years had me questioning this diagnosis and now I realize that I was not so lucky.

It’s at this point in an essay that the writer usually describes the events that led up to this moment of EUREKA, but I’m not comfortable doing that here and now. I’m not even too happy writing these words as it is, but failure to admit is a failure to start working on the problem. I don’t like running away from fights and this one counts for big beans.

The good news is there’s no need to medicate or institutionalize me because I’ve managed to get by without acknowledging the problem, though I admit I’ve lost friends and jobs because of those challenges and associated denials.

My hope is that by making this public that I’ll start to tear down the concrete wall I’ve been living behind and making my emotional peaks and valleys a tad smoother (or at least more predictable).

In all honesty, I’ve still got some relearning to do. Well, a LOT of relearning to do. But I’ve seen enough prescription commercials to know it is possible to live a happy life if you’re brave enough to shout down these inner demons and strong enough to go outside to the light.

Or to put it another way: one day at a time.

Thanks for listening and putting up with me.

(Wanna bet I’ll soon be hearing from Aunt Lily and her handsome, intelligent son on this subject? OK. Bring it on.)(No, not that son. The other handsome, intelligent son.)

Doing something far, far worse instead. Does anyone else remember Perfect Strangers?

Trolling the web for funny bike pix and found…me. This is why you’ll never see Bubba here in a pack…gaggle…swarm of tight-lycra-wearing speedsters: I might accidentally gobble one during a snack attack. If they slow down long enough for me to catch one, of course.

By the way, the dude needs to wear a helmet. No excuses.