Tonight was our Chicago Mixed small group’s last meeting.  So we decided to go out and have a night of fun.  Since it’s $5 tuesdays with free parking at the AMC at River North and that place is conveniently located across the street from Fat Willy’s rib shack (excellent and tasty BBQ, if you’re there get the rib tips or the chicken sandwich) we all eagerly decided to go.  Most of us wanted to go see X-men.

It was a decent movie, and I was well satisfied, but not being an X-men geek (I tried to stay away from marvel during my teen years because I was leery of the entire “universe” concept that they were pushing — but that’s another rant) there were some things that didn’t matter much to me though they were curious.  Now, having thought about this on the drive back, I realize that I have dabbled in the dark-side of geekdom tonight.  While a fellow geek was having his rant and rightly exercising his God-given geek right, nay, his God-given geek RESPONSIBILITY to make sure that the correct information is disseminated, I had to use my geek powers to make him stop.  And not just make him stop, but with a bit of embarrasment thrown in.  I will not bore you with the details of the incident, suffice to say, I feel ashamed enough of myself.  Shame that even overcomes the smidgen of geeky pride I take in the one liner I used.  Indeed that power should be used in the service of geekdom and not against it.  Mea culpa fellow geek, I owe you a real apology.

While my fellow geek may be correct in his assertation that I may feel that X-men geekdom is beneath me (a flimsy shield for my own ignorance of the field I have to admit) it is not an excuse for my abrupt curtailing of his rant.  I should at least wait until he had gone beyond the threshold of geek propriety and then let him have it.  But before I start to rant about this I will end with the apology that my friend deserves.  Sorry Friend and fellow geek — even though you call youself nerd that was no excuse for my behavior.

A long time ago when I used to be in High School, my chess coach would do something which he hoped would burn some basic opening theory into our brains.  Generally when we start meeting for the year we get a bunch of new people who come and try out and end up playing chess.  Our chess team was pretty liberal in that we weren’t quite like a club, but not like a complete team either.  While people were asked to join the “team” there were enough guys to fill out the roster (actually quite a few more) that a number of guys can just come and learn and never have to compete, though it would be encouraged.  I really try and model my coaching/teaching after my coach as he made my High School experience in chess very pleasant.

Okay enough memories, At the beginning of the year, we would go over openings and one trap in particular would be highlighted.  Coach Carpenter would set up the position on the demo board and then proceed to explain why Black’s second move was so bad.  Then he would give us a variation where White makes a similar mistake on his third move.  He would take the entire instruction time to go over this, then he would give us this solemn warning and charge.  We are to be vigilant and check if any of our teammates will play this very bad move in the opening.  Once this happens (please note that my coach did not say “if” this happens) we will immediately name the opening after the player in question.  Without failure, every year, there was a different name for this opening.  Most of us learned our lesson and for those that don’t a year of ridicule usually cured us of this move.  I was one of the former group.

Here is the opening:

1. e4, e5

2. Nf3, f6?

The question mark after black’s second move is to indicate a bad move.  There are a number of variations, from this position depending on how black responds to white’s moves.  They run the gamut from white winning a pawn to white willing the exchange to white sacrificing material for a misplaced black king and imminent mate.

This one is a little more involved than just coming up with a mating attack, I need someone to:

1. Tell me why this second move is so bad in the first place.
2. Tell me White’s third move.
3. Tell me the three scenarios that can happen after this.  HINT:  One results in black losing a pawn, another in black losing large amounts of material, the third in black having his king chased to the center of the board and relentlessly attacked.

Since this is a much more involved chess question, I will not be offering coffee or bonus coffee.  Rather, I will treat the winner out to lunch at a place of their choosing.  I only ask that the location be somewhere in Roscoe village.  I will also spring for coffee afterward.  Also in the spirit of things, I will be vigilant while I play people and if I see this (among my adult friends), I will name the opening after that friend.

Since Casey had an issue about my chess snobbery, I will take any answer you give as long as it is intelligible.  Feel free to email or comment you answers, please note though that if you answer here, others may not be able to get a prize by answering.

***Extra bonus points if you can tell me know white can make the same mistake.

Today I received my chess coach bag.  It was a bargain and I could really use it.  It holds hanging file folders fo rmy chess puzzles and class rosters and has room to spare for all the little things that I bring to group lessons.  A worthy accessory for the excellent Chess Wizard.

Now that I’m in a chess mood…

Black to move and mate in 2.  You should be able to click the image to get a bigger diagram.  There are lots of mates in three or four, but I’m only interested in the mate in two.  I will accept a first move, but will give bonus points for detailed analysis of all possible white replies.

Please phrase answers to the problem in chess notation.  I will purchase coffee for the winner, bonus coffee if you do the analysis.  Bonus coffee = more than one coffee. 

This is a test. He’s so cute when he’s tired.

Mojoe’s lets Mochi come in while his daddy get’s his Mocha fix.  Did I mention, they also have free internet?  I hate Starbucks.

Blogger just isn’t working for me.  I wanted to use it to post from my cellphone, but there are lots of crappy things that cellphone companies add on to the email you send from your phone so that you’re not able to post.  I have verizon!  Hmm… Starbucks, Verizon, I’m guessing that there are a lot more things for me to hate out there.

Here’s a cameraphone shot.  Mochi was waiting for me while I was making a Mother’s day delivery:

Do you hear him calling for his daddy?

http://mochithepug.blogspot.com/

I needed to find a place where I can send posts from my phone.  I’m sure I can do this with xanga, but then, I’d have to start a new blog.  If I were going to start a new blog it may as well as be with blogger.  Check it out soon as I may not have it up for too long, or not.

Transformers the Movie
I know one person who might want to see this with me.  I know I’ve probably posted too many entries about midnight movies at the Musicbox, but I’m pretty sure I want to see this one… yeah right!

Oh wait — I forgot…this was playing May 12-13.  Life sucks.

I wrote a while ago that I believe that we have started using language as a tool to keep people from understanding.  The argot of Christianity is particularly troubling.

In other news I’ve tracked down a copy of the original Infocom text game for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and am madly playing it now.  You can find it here.

Food and Circuits
I had a nice dinner (though it was cold) with Casey on Saturday and he told me that he’s thinking about building a new computer.

That got me thinking about it again too.  i’ve been looking around for a decent barebones solution that I can plug in my old video card and hard drives into for another desktop gamer machine but nothing has been really satisfactory, and they’ve all pretty expensive.  But talking with Casey made me want to build a new machine from scratch.  The last machine I built from scratch I sunk just under $1000 into and was a passably good gaming machine.  This isn’t the one where i went crazy and installed all sorts of windows and lights into, rather it had a muted antec case and sported all of it’s flashy components under the hood.  Yet all of these machines were built over long periods oftime, 6 months for the first and 3-4 months for the second (counting time from the first component I bought that could go obsolete — i.e. I’m not counting when I bought the case, monitor and optical drives.)  Generally I bought the components in this order:  Hard Drive, Motherboard, Memory, CPU and Video Card.  I always wanted to get all of the components at once, but never had the money to do so.  Hopefully soon.

I was planning on going for the OS part of my A+ certification this week, but with mother’s day coming up, I will be needed at Rea’s mom’s flower shop this week, so I’m thinking of some time next week.  I will then be officially A+ certified having already passed my hardware test.  I’m already boning up on my Net+ studies and hopefully will be MCSE by early next year.  Of course I’m working my way toward that cisco cert, but I think I will need to find a job where they have an actual router I can play with, I’m sick of these simulators.

Goodbye Senility
Rea and I bought that new DS game Brain Age a few weeks ago and I’ve been havng a blast with it.  Basically it gives you little exercises you do every day and then you can test the age of your brain.  The exercises are supposed to stimulate your cerebral cortex and help you to think more efficiently.  Most of the exercises are simple math and counting exercises with memory components.  The brain age tests are a little different, they include a few components which test your computation, memory and other things and then they return a number which is supposed to be your brain’s age.  I’m registering at 26, so my brain’s age is -9 from my real age.  Alright, some more of this and more chess and I’m gonna be a freaking genius by the end of the summer, well — a genius at chess and video games…  hmmm not sounding so great.

Mochi has Short Legs
Mochi and I have been taking longer and longer walks recently and whenever we get back he basically runs around the living room for a couple minutes and then plops down on his bed and goes promptly to sleep.  What a wonderful life he has, he gets walked daily, goes to the day care twice a week and everyone who sees him (except for a few questionable humans) loves him.  He wa very good today.  I walked over to Mojoe’s (neighborhood coffeeshop) to get some air and walk Mochi.  I wanted to get a mocha and use their free wifi to finish some work.  Well, it turns out that the one in my neighborhood closes at 7, while the one a few miles away is the one that opens late.  Since this was the only place that would allow Mochi to sit inside with me, I wasn’t sure what to do.  I ended up walking over to Starbucks and getting a seat in the window across from where I tethered Mochi to a marking meter.  I sat and compiled my class rosters and did some other chess paperwork while Mochi watched me through the window.  He said hi to people who walked past and despite the lack of wifi at starbucks, I got a majority of my work done.

Well I shouldn’t say a lack of wifi, there is wifi, but you have to pay for it, you have to pay a lot.  I could understand if it was like McDonalds where they charge you like $3 for a couple hours, but they have this stupid tmobile hotspot thing going on there which just bugs me to death.  Panera offers free wifi, so does staples (though they have no tables or amenities) and Mojoe’s does too.  I hate starbucks (my apologies Kenny.)