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Russian Spies for American Spies?

2010-07-09T07:07:00.000-07:00

Let me start out by congratulating the United States of America, of which I am a citizen, for not acting like a total douchebag. I am very happy to see that we did not take our collective penis and try to wave it around.

The way we do pretty much all the time.

Picture by Bondseye

But wait let me retract that. It was a giant dick move for the "Spies" to be uprooted in the first place. If they had posed any kind of threat then there is no way they would have been shipped back to Russia.

And since the spies didn't pose any threat it reveals that the State Department didn't do their homework. An asshat in Government thought they would get some kind of benefit from screwing over someone else and surprise surprise, went ahead and screwed them.

By the way, what did the spies do?

In Which There Was a Movie

2009-12-14T01:05:00.000-08:00

On the movie screen before me sat a girl in a room. The camera panned around her showing the passage of time as a change of seasons that could be seen through the window. Summer turned to fall and orange leaves fell from the trees as fall turned to winter. All the while she sat motionlessly enrapt by grief for her lost love. He had rejected her. I was waiting patiently for something to happen when something about her knee caught my attention. It was small. The distance from the top of her quadricep to the tip of her shin was dangerously short. I realized: "Her legs are tiny." I contemplated for a time on what her legs would look like without clothes. Presently a sound pierced through my haze.

It came again, a small sniffling beside me. I glanced to my left and saw in the darkness that my acquaintance was struggling to maintain composure. The scene was moving her to tears! It struck me like an arrow. This ridiculously one dimensional show of grief, which the movie had certainly not earned the right to display, was moving to her. It would have been a little silly that a middle aged woman would break down over the merest dramatic enactment of sorrow, but I remembered something she said a few weeks earlier in broken English. "I had a dream that my love was alive. He died a couple years ago. I cried." The girl on screen was all but dead to the world. A perfect mirror image for what the person beside me felt inside.

It killed my heart. I wanted so badly to comfort her. In an instant tears sprang to my eyes. Her pain was echoing in me. Which shocked me. I couldn't understand why. It was disconcerting that I would feel that way for someone who wasn't much more than a stranger.

"Another tissue," I said and jostled the girl on my right, "Another tissue." She looked at me and smiled indignantly. I passed the tissue to the lady on my left as sensitively as I could. Comforting crying older women is not a situation that I have a lot of experience with. In the future I will pretend they are 18 years old and do away with the awkwardness.

If the world is your audience..

2009-11-27T20:57:00.000-08:00

The roof outside and just below my window exists. After the roof was built and the exhaust pipes were laid down, and the power lines and internet cables were hooked up, someone painted it. They did it quickly. If God himself had appeared and ordered the elements to do a faster job, it seems unlikely that much would have happened in a different manner. So the roof and everything on it and some things near it are blue.

Next to the roof, we may call them adjacent, is a brick wall. It has windows through which I can look. If a person stands at their window, as sometimes happens and usually when I am in the nude, I can see the whites of their eyes as they gasp in shock. And awe. So the windows are close to mine.

Above the roof, as you might usually find hanging around any roof, is the sky. Except just to the left of the sky is a building that towers over me like the god damn Rock. On occasion it will be night time and I will crane my neck at a most uncomfortable angle and look into those windows. It is common to see a single person looking back down at the city. One night I saw people on both the 8th and 9th floor windows simultaneously gazing down. Neither one knew about the other and that amused me. But I could not be sure they weren't looking at me, and as I was doing my best impression of a nude person, I closed the shade. So I was naked again.

Now it has been made quite clear that I spend a lot of time in my apartment naked. Actually this is not truth. I do spend most of my time clothed. I enjoy the feeling of my soft cotton socks sliding over the heated floor. So I at least wear socks.

Child rearing tips and tricks

2009-07-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

One day a few weeks ago my boss mentioned offhandedly she had horses. I thought that was pretty cool and said so, which prompted her to invite me out to ride on them.

Uh oh. What to do. One of those awkward moments where you've expressed too much interest in a social activity and now you have to either be a dick and turn down their generous invitation, or suck it up and spend a day of your life doing something completely different than what you are certain god intended for you.

So I accepted. What the hell right? What's the worst that could happen? I spend a day riding horses instead of staring at a computer screen. No big deal. Not unless I fall off and break my ankle bone. Then Korea's probably out of the picture, because the program coordinators are very strict about their English teachers having good healthy bodies.

I accepted. I figured that my three little nieces would totally love it. All girls love horses, right? The horses were big and I was nervous at first, especially about one of the girls getting hurt. My Spanish is terrible. Just terrible. Thankfully the girls were even more nervous than me about that very same thing. Horses are pretty scary up close. Before you get on top of one you think that they might bite you or be upset about the fact that they get ridden.

Turns out that when you have hooves instead of fingers that you really appreciate being touched. Once that was realized I made short work of bonding with the horses and pretty soon they were relaxing their heads down for more scratches. It was really nice. The girls were less certain about that.

But they are so bad. The girls. Not the horses. The girls are awful. Horses great. Girls bad. Fire good. Go good.

So remember, if your girls are good, take them to ride on horses. If your boys are good play violent videogames with them.

Political correctness gone too far

2009-07-28T18:04:00.000-07:00

I guess there's no reason to be so secretive. My acute awareness of the public forum still makes me feel uneasy about a full throttle release of expletives as much as I sometimes want to run my mouth off about how damn hot it is. Or about how fascinating the conversations are in this house.

Me: "Abigail, tu no gordo." My 10 year old niece Abigail is dieting. She's been dieting for four years. That's on top of being poor and living in an impovershed country.
Abigail: "Me no gordo. Me flacca." I nod happily, glad that she understands she's not fat, and she continues, "I'm good for boys. I'm good for Joolio."
Her sister nods in agreement compleltely unaware of my incredulity. I guess I totally can't remember what it's like to be 10 years old.

It's quite hot here these days. Apparently it's 104F outside right now. This is a little later in the day and it's cooled off some since I rode my bike up the big ass hills between my house and my work.

Usually I listen to Korean tapes and recite the words. No clue what I'm saying, and everyone tells me that won't work, but it makes me happy so I'll keep on cluelessly reciting random Korean phrases on the way home from work. Unless it's 104F out. My legs are stronger than they were at the beginning of the summer and now it's rare that I can't crank it out up a hill. (Woo woo, the power of being too poor to have a car.) But on a day like today it's like I'm a Jewish slave 4000 years ago being forced to build the pyramid of Djoser in Egypt. There's no rest, there's no retreat, there's no one I can call to pick my sorry ass up and drive me the rest of the way home. It's only endless hill.

But to be honest that's fine, I could care less about the physical discomfort. In fact I rather like it. Since I'm too beat after work to go to the gym these days I have to get my exercise wherever I can get it. Whether it's brushing my teeth or getting the girls to clean the kitchen, I have to do my best to keep trim. What really scares me about the ride home is that my backpack is black. Black absorbs heat. My backpack contains my laptop. Three plus one is four. Thus, until about halfway through the ride home at which point my brain collapses under the sheer weight of existing, I am freakishly concerned that my laptop will bake to death.

I thought I was going to have to rethink the way I communicate. I thought that I would have to start to yell and scream and cause a scene whenever things didn't go my way. In that case, I would have to look to Geoffrey (Jeffrey), my 2 year old nephew, and the girls as successful role models. They would have a lot to teach me, and I would happily learn to scream and yell and stomp my feet. And leave the front door to the air conditioned house wide open in 104F degree weather. Four times.

Even the cats, who watch for the kids to be stupid and leave the door open so that they can make their escape, know enough to come back inside quickly. That means the cats can serve as a very nice upper bound on the intelligence quotient of my nieces.

That would make for a very awkward collection of role models. Fortunately I can avoid that route and still be a successful individual. I had my doubts earlier today though.

My boss who owns a tax company is a very headstrong lady. That is to say, she doesn't fuck around. For example over the past few weeks there have been a lot of discussions about what color to paint the building in which she leases. She decided on a nice blue and everyone said yes that looks nice, let's paint it blue. The blue didn't look very good on the building though and so she and her neighboor business talked it out and decided that she'd paint it purple. A very nice deep rich shade of purple with the rationale being that if your business is noticed, that's good for business.

And since the city has been busy working hard to tear a hole through the center of the Earth straight to China out in on the building's front steps, it's likely that eventually either a shitload of customers or demons from hell will eventually make their way through the front door. I swear, every time they steam roll the road outside, which has been almost every other day for a week, the entire building shakes for hours at a time. That includes my laptop. I don't know for sure what frequency my CPU vibrates at, but It's gotta be some frequency and eventually those bastards will hit it and then I won't have a CPU. I'll have a little golden mess.

Well the neighboor business was pretty pissed about this new color and decided to call the landlord. Actually you know what? This shit is way too childishly dramatic to be retelling as though it is interesting. What is important to take away is that if you act upset, you are more likely to get your way. Except that doesn't sound right. It's more like, if you are willing to make an ass of yourself, people will realize how badly you want something, and give it to you. That sounds a little closer but what do I know..

Good Views

2009-07-21T19:58:00.000-07:00

For why is this area of Beaverton/Portland, OR, desirable? I don't understand. Not even the collapse of the housing market stopped the cookie-cut residences from springing up like weeds. Brand new $600,000 dollar homes are cheap like mittens. The appliances break, the closet doors fall off their hinges, the lawn costs a fortune to keep green, and the neighbor's balcony is within jumping distance.

Also, the trash pickup is 30$ per month. Can you imagine having someone come to your house and pick up your garbage at the curb? I certainly can't. That would require someone to have paid the garbage bills.

I sure bet life is a lot sunnier just up the road from us where the nice houses cost $2 million. Here, just take a look at some of these monstrosities.

I don't know why the lower balcony is so high up. They must be afraid of bobcats. Which is silly. Bobcats aren't even as scary as dogs.

Here we go, these balconies are within jumping distance for a bobcat. Now what you can't see is the giant ass hill right in front of these houses. It's the kind of ass hill that makes your ass sore when you bike up it. The muscles cramp up and your breath comes ragged, and you stop to consider drinking from someone's outdoor rock fountain because you ran out of water.

But then you get to the top and there's a great majestic view. And you say to yourself:
I hope I don't fall down this hill. It's pretty steep right where my feet are.

Apparently my boss lives in this neighborhood, unbeknownst to me at the time of this trek. I mistakenly believed that the houses in the above photographs cost $5 million dollars, based on the fact they are the biggest houses I've seen in person in so long, and because they were at the top of the hill that was such a pain in the ass to climb.

Turns out according to Zillow, these are only $2 million.

Thanks Bing! Your uses have increased from one to two!

2009-04-27T19:14:00.001-07:00

It's no secret that I love Anki. (It's no secret that I love Anki.). And to express my appreciation and love I am on a mission to incorporate it into the entire western education institution. But first, why do I love it so much?

Well, once I figured out I could carry Anki around on a little flash disk it got really personal. Like, Anki is an extension of my memory. My Soul. As many flash cards as I can create, it can store for me and tell me when I should look at them again in order not to forget.

Let's say I get a new phone number. Yes that's right. I can plug it into a miscelaneous deck of things to know and POOF. Or let's say that I want to research something and not forget, I can simply make flash cards and POOF! Let's say that I want to study Go problems, well, I have a -HUGE- collection of Go problems that I ripped from the Chinese database, stonebase. http://www.stonebase.cn/stonebase/eng/index.html . Stonebase is hands down the best resource for studying Go if you can read Chinese.

So let's take that collection of Go problems and someone else's plugin for Anki and make it so I can study Go problems VIA ANKI! HURRAY!

Oh but wait I forgot that I ripped these problems from a Chinese database and that the plugin doesn't support Chinese. Well that's no problem at all! I'll just go onto the internet and look for a program or script that can rip out all of the Chinese comments!

Thirty minutes later.

Well, I couldn't find the script or program I wanted, but now I am certain that I can program it myself. I didn't take introductory C++ for nothing! It's really simple, I just copy each character in each file except the Chinese ones! Great!

So since I have 800 files in this directory and.. well I have 15 directories, I'd better figure out how to read the files in a directory!

An hour later..

I found several methods that should work but they don't. I also found several assholes who say it should be easy but it is not. But then it compiled and all was well. Until the next error came along.

Then my sister called. We talked. It was nice.

An hour later..

I said the hell with dynamicity, I can just hack together a stupid file name reader.

Then someone called to ask me if I would like to go down to the science lab this week or weekend to call people and ask them to support the gay rights refferrendums. I'm thinking about it.

More problems more problems more problems. The code compiled and most of the files were copied over and it only took six hours. Thank god I am still a college student with more free time than I have inches squared of pasty white skin.

------

Back to me showing my love for Anki by instituting it in western educational institutions. Like my own.

I showed the program to advisor/professor and he was pretty thrilled about it. So much so that when I offered to prepare a few flash card decks for his class next semester he offered to pay me. WOO WOO! I was going to do it for free for the love of Anki but I guess I can accept a hundred dollars for my efforts.

So I'm showing the program to another professor on friday and hopefully he'll say yes since he has a lot of freshman classes with hundreds of kids who are all eager to learn and not fail out.

Did you know that 1/3rd of BIO100 students fail or drop out? With flash cards we will be able to remember all of their names!

Each of those boxes costs 25$ to send through the mail.

This part right here

2009-04-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

Ya know, the least enjoyable part of writing would be the time it takes for your brain to reset and allow you to view your writing in a new light. If we keep plowing through trying to get it done, ya know, the way you would try to plow through a field or a wall, we end up entrenched in the miniscule or the vague. What makes perfect sense to me might make sad bollocks for you. I don't want to make bollocks in speech class tomorrow.

Since I will be shortly graduating from the University of Maine and since I have spent so much time here it seems appropriate to take some pictures of things around campus. Today was a great day to start taking pictures, as it was Earth day and a horde of naked girls on bicycles tore through the center of campus around Noon.

I found my friend Cameron sitting on the grass by the library around 3:00pm studying for his exam and waiting for the girls to ride by. I sat with him for a while and waited too, but no such luck.

I did find a guy dressed up as a super hero meditating on the front steps of the library. It's really strange for Maine. It gets a 9 on the what the shit meter.

Brain is amazing!

2009-04-12T18:55:00.001-07:00

Christmas came wicked freaking early this year. And my gift? It's so cool. Mind blowingly sweet.

Here, let me show you what precisely I mean by "mind blowing." Imagine that the below image is a representation of my brain.

Oh hold the phone, that's not right. This is just a cute bunny rabbit examining the lense of a camera and pondering what it wants to eat for breakfast yesterday. Don't let those cute soulful eyes fool you, they are simple. Inverted rabbits think that time runs backwards. Now the next time you are at the gym or in an Economics 101 class and you see a rabbit doing backflips you will understand why. You might also be jealous that the rabbit has conqured 'The Fear' that you could not. Despite doing so many perfect backflips in the pit, which is even more difficult that doing them on the floor because the pit is squishy and lowers your jump height. You just couldn't get over the fear of that time you landed on your head. Maybe someday you will. Maybe.

Where were we. Oh yes, Santa delivered unto me whilst riding upon his golden sleigh a very delicious fruit. He said "I'm going to tell you something." And I nodded,
"After I tell you this, your brain will look like this fruit does." My eyebrows went up and I took a step back as he pulled out a gun.
"Don't worry, I am a trained professional." He said to me in a jolly laugh that went on too long.

Then he shot the fruit in the face.

Photograph by Alan Sailer

Oh God. A citation. Am I losing my mind? I might even start trying to track down the artists and get their permission before hand! First I don't steal a computer, then I cite pictures on some random blog! What is the world coming to? (By the way, if you want to see more cute bunnies like the one in the first picture, you can find them at: http://widelec.org/zdjecie,kroliki-czesc-2,2839.html )

Santa looked at me for a reaction and I smiled weakly. That didn't seem to make him happy. Which made me nervous. Which made him edgy. Which made both of us feel kind of awkward. Which led to one of us shuffling our feet, it may have been me. After that someone coughed. It was really quiet. I wanted to leave but it was my house.
"Do you want some cookies?" I asked him, "Or some milk?"
"No no, thanks. I should be going." He shifted towards the chimney, "Look," he called over his shoulder, "Just use Anki with pictures. Give it a shot. Try it out. Don't be such a worry wort and give it a go."
"Oh, okay thanks I'll do that." Is what I wanted to say. It came out more as, "When I was in fifth grade there was this girl I liked a lot, by any chance does she still have a thing for me?" I know, where does that come from? Well, I figure Santa is kind of like an immortal omniscient demi-god, so it couldn't hurt right?

"I'm pretty sure she doesn't." He said.
"Oh great, thanks." I said.
"Well. See ya." He grunted.
"Bye." I said, and closed my chimney door.

And then I gave it a shot, I spent the afternoon putting 700 images into a Japanese vocabular list. Each word looks a lot like this:

On the left we have the first flash card, after hitting the enter button we see the back. Then we are asked to rate the difficulty
of the card. The goal is to use spaced repetition in order to maximize how long you can remember the word while minimizing the number of times you have to review it.

I thought, "People are really good at remembering pictures, way better than symbols with no meaning." Which led me to plug the definition of the word into Google Image search and slap a decent picture onto the card.

600 pictures later (Joyou levels 1-4) I was ready to learn! So I sat down and reviewed them.

And to my utter amazement.. after viewing the word and picture only ONCE, and in extreme cases twice, I could remember the meaning of the word. That is to say, the meaning of the word was mapped onto the picture! You see, the picture was already related to the gist of the meaning of the word, and it turns out that mentally applying a word or words to the picture is extremely easy.

Case in point, the following five pictures are randomly grabbed from the picture folder:
Associated meaning: diameter, path

Associated meaning: garment. You might think it's obvious because she's wearing clothes, hence a garment, but with all the pictures of girls I grabbed..

Associated meaning: history, chronicle

Associated meaning: seat, mat. Okay, this one is a bit of a gimmie, I mean it's a picture of a mat. I kind of cheated on this one but I tried to do that as little as possible. Somewhere around the 560th image I just wanted to get that sucker done.

Meaning: Nation.

You can see how easy it is to remember a word that's already similar to the image. But 600 specific words? It's incredible. I am flabbergasted.

As far as mapping the meaning of the picture onto the Kanji? That's happening too!

I start off looking only at the kanji part of the card and if I can't remember then my eyes flicker
over to the picture and POOF. It's seriously like magic.

But because I am damned impatient, I'll give it a week. If I don't have a significant percentage of the Kanji memorized by then, we can see about moving the picture onto the backside of the card. It will force more CPU cycles to get burned up in the old melon.

And here is a fun tidbit:

"Can Google make you smarter? Is the more you Yahoo, the better? A new study suggests that searching online could be beneficial for the brain."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/10/14/google.brain/index.html

Scary Last Hand

2009-04-07T10:10:00.001-07:00

I play poker. I started about four years ago. My brother plays well, and I wanted to win his approval.

Today I'm no millionaire, but I'm also not broke. This is due to my ability to break even. Yes, all I can beat is the rake. (That means I win about 52% of the time.) Also, I'm very strict about bankroll management. A couple years ago I plugged the last of my tiny college student savings into a poker site and played on the highest table I could. I watched too much ESPN World Series of Poker.

My brother and I, but mostly him, lost all of my savings (what, like 300$?) on a flush draw. (40% likely to hit, which would have more than doubled our money.) To this day he defends his move because the pot odds made the call good. That is, if we were to play this hand out 10,000 times we would make a LOT of money on it. Unfortunately in order to play out the other 9,999 hands you have to win the first one, which we did not. Much to my chargin, I was completely broke. Like zero dollars and Zero cents. Thankfully I had a car which I loved dearly!

Since then I've been incredibly strict about bankroll management. I also have a very strong principle (now) of not plugging any more than 1% of my budget into poker. Since I don't actually -have- a budget yet, the last time I put money into the poker account was 2 years ago. Over 2 years and 600 games and I'm still within 20 dollars of where I started.

So, I'm extremely mediocre. I go through periods where I try to improve but when I realized that the problem wasn't with my theory or my card reading, granted those need a great deal of improvement, but the major problem with me was.. me, well, it was discouraging. I want to win, losing hurts. When I win or lose my mood is altered and my critical analysis skills become t0tal shit. Worse yet, I get into the mindset where I need to 'tough it out.' Which happens to be a great mindset when you are running around the track~ It's just not what you want to be telling yourself as your money (which we shall refer to as 'bankroll' because it makes it sound more like points, which makes you care less about losing.) is flushed down the toilet.

Lately I've had this whole 'calm' theory going on. Go, life, poker. We'll see how that goes.

But today I had a fun hand!

I was playing with a guy who was almost exactly like myself. He wanted to get it all in on a big hand as soon as possible. Which means, an ace, a king, a queen, a pair, and maybe a lucky Jack-Ten. (As long as we aren't calling an all in.) If you put all your chips in with a marginal hand it is a MUCH better move than calling someone else's all in with a marginal hand. Like night and day!

So there we are, he goes all in and I fold, I go all in and he folds, over and over again. I was at a disadvantage because he was pushing in more often than I was. It was only in a stroke of miraculous insight that I realized his eagerness to go all in was making him more likely to fold if we actually got to a flop. (Where you actually get to see cards on the table.) Because 'he didn't want to dick around with those complicated things like card reading and pot odds.' Probably. I'm adlibbing.

This goes on for 40 hands and finally I get a pair of 3's. A pair of 3's wins 52.85% of the time against an Ace hand. If you make a big move preflop with treys you are saying "I just lost my shit and need to get it all in ASAP." Which I said, so I guess I wasn't keeping my cool as much as is needed.

I go all in with 3 3 and he calls and flips over Ace 2. I'm pretty excited about that 2. I know it improves my odds but I didn't realize how much. I checked afterward and it turns out that -now- I am 68% likely to win the hand! Sweet! That is definitely beating the rake!

Then the flop comes x 2 2 and my heart drops. Now he's got trip 2's which beats my pocket three's. Game over. Sigh. Stay calm. But then I see that the x is actually a 3 which gives me a full house! I leap for joy(Stay calm!) because now I'm winning! But then an Ace comes and now he's got a full house as well and I've got no idea who's winning.

Well, it's me! I won~@#!

In my defense I'm not as much of an idiot as I sound there.. this is all happening over a couple seconds. I don't want someone to be thinking I shouldn't be playing poker, for the wrong reasons.

And here it is, the hand that won me 6$~
Wooo~

Odd KGS glitch

2009-04-05T17:57:00.001-07:00

Super strange KGS glitch..

Language

2009-04-05T10:38:00.000-07:00

The prospect of becoming fluent in Japanese and Korean is really daunting..

それはとってもいい話だ。 One sentence down, 1999 to go.
私はいい絵を見るのが好きです。When I'm working out at the gym it's easier to push myself if I count to 5 or 10 over and over again, instead of to 100. I should do that here too.
そこに大きな円を描いて. I have a bad feeling. I learned a lot of vocabulary but I don't know how to stick them together in sentences.

In that case, lets review the particles.

は　- Identifies the topic of the sentence
朝は。　足は。　秋は。　赤は。　　Now I am pro at making fragments.
の - I guess it does a lot but the only one that comes to mind is showing ownership of objects.
秋の朝。　足の朝。　兄の頭。　姉の色。　My older sister is white colored most days.
を - It takes the verb, it takes a stapler, it fills the stapler with staples because it was empty, and then it decides to use tape instead, and nails the verb to the noun.
家の腕を歌う。　If you speak Japanese I apologize. 家をうる。

Great great. Except that my verbs forgot to go to the nurses office at conjugation school and came down with a terrible disease that leaves them in the infinitive form of darkness.

家をうった。　I believe I just sold a house but I can't be 100% certain.

Do I have the conjugations memorized yet? LORD NO!
Lets do that for the past so that our ancestors aren't forced to be only dead in the infinitive. Speaking of ancestors, I would like to have a chat with mine.
う　－　った。　　く　－　いた。　ぐ　－　いだ。　す　－　した。　つ　－　った。　ぬ　－　んだ。　ぶ　－　んだ。　む　－　んだ。　る　－　った。　いる　－　えた。 Beautiful. This is really starting to come together. Very nice. It's gorgeous. Absolutely stunning. Spectacular. Or, the only way I know how to say it in Japanese, 'sugoi.'
I hope no one is going to depend on me to describe the next Miss Universe winner in Japanese.
"Please Jayme, could you describe for us in detail what you think of this years Miss Universe? In Japanese? We are depending on you."
"She is sugoi."
"If you can think of one more adjective to describe Miss Universe then she will give you a kiss!"
"Very sugoi?"
歌った。　売った。　起きった。　置いた。　置いた。　起いた。
きのうはわたしをはしった！

But Let's not stop there, not with so many dejected adjectives going unused. After all, I haven't talked about my computer problems at all, even though 私のやすかったぷすこんだった。

My computer was cheap. とても安かった. And I was glad. とてもうれしかった。 But I bought it from an online merchant. 私はばかね。 But it was Dell, you can't go wrong with Dell! いたくないDell だ、だけどFEDEX　とてもいたかった。　　わたしはほしかったひかったかみできる。
I have to wonder what I just said.

My Japanese teacher who we shall call Kaz sent me a list of adjectives. It's kind of a long list and he didn't say what to do with it. I can say for certain that 1/4th of the class will not check their email and not see the list. Another 1/4th will check the email and print it off but forget it at home. The other 1/4th will go over the list and learn a few of them but not solidly. And I, the remaining quarter of the class, hmm、what should I do?

Someday when I re-read this post I do believe I shall cringe.

あかるかった。 Was bright.
重かった。 Was　Heavy。
おもしろかった。　Was interesting.
つまらなくない。　Was not boring.
くらすつまらなかった。　Hopefully says "class was boring"
さけによわいだ。
さけにつよくないだ。　These two will be a secret unless you go to a bar with me.
てんきたいへんかった。　It's so cloudy and gross outside. Kumoi!

iKnow at www.smart.fm

2009-03-29T17:36:00.001-07:00

There was once a man of Japan
Who sat upon rocks, and ran
That man of Japan.

I would like to share with you the amazingly delightful program "Iknow." Why its delights could fill this room right up to the brim and leave no space at all for the air which we are required to be in the company of. Since the ensuing shuffle away from the room in search of our oxygen supply would be most awkward I propose that we all travel to a large field with a blue sky and a big oak tree that has a sign placed quite haphazardly upon on it reading as "Girls on top of tree." Of course we must find someone who is able bodied enough to climb up and ascertain the validity of the statement, and upon our quest for such a person we may just collect enough christmas decorations in order to light up a tree this year.

I forgot where that was going, clearly I did not study enough iKnow.

Behold. This is. I know.

Oh did I forget to mention what iKnow does?

Hopefully someday soon, maybe today, maybe in a few sentences but don't get your hopes up because I'm a mind to ramble and once I rambled upon for so long that a great Wallerbus was forced into submission and I rode upon it all the way to the candy store on fifth and Fith and let me tell you, the owner of the store was so impressed that he offered me a cotton tack.

There are ten or there are five. If you are just starting out then I highly recommend you only fill your plate with five. Ten is quite a big heaping platter of literary consumption.

Notice that some of these have a percentage beside them indicating to the degree with which they shall forever remain in my estimation.

Seen here are the other lists in my 'Home', and their percentage completed.

Also seen is a progress badge.

Also seen are six fish and a badger, by a vole in the north end of Tern forest.
I suppose that is of great importance to the Universe or the thoughts would not have been created. If you are the person to whom these thoughts were meant to be directed I do apologize for making you go out of your way to search all the blogs on blogspot to find them. Hopefully someday fate will reside in a coin operated vending machine with colorful printed pictures.

Do you know this item? I have disabled the Kanji mode because they mess with my head. Instead we only see Hiragana, in an attempt to memorize as many words as possible and provide a base of sounds for myself so that when I finally study th-

-Too much sense was made in the preceeding paragraph so that section of my brain was terminated in favor of the baked goldfish army which is now in the middle of its fifth war with the Fide Kings.

And now the language has been learned! Using only the best in spaced repetition goodness.

Only a few minutes a day to commit something new to memory.

Don't get excited when you work hard for something and it begins to reveal itself. That leads to undoing. Especially if you have a tendency to make bad decisions when you are excited.

It's our own blood thirst we see reflected in their moves.

2009-03-21T07:31:00.001-07:00

I have for you a small dilemma that when solved will lead to quite the life changing situation for myself.

Should I, as a graduating student of the University of Maine with a BS in Biochemistry, teach English in Korea or Japan? Put aside the fact that Biochemistry and teaching English have as much in common as the color blue and my zip code which happens to be 04469. When you have properly understood the issue at hand we may speak again!

Great, you're back! For those of us who don't play Go and don't immediately recognize the benefits of living in Korea or Japan, have no fear, for that would be most undoing. Please contain your surprise and awe when I tell you that Korea is the strongest nation on planet Earth at the board game 'Go.' Thus by traveling to those distant lands with mountains and streams and a strange alphabet I too can study with the zen monk masters and achieve a high level of Ki.

All I need to do is peddle my words. No, not peddle like a bike, peddle like those people you see on the street who try to sell you oranges and butterscotch candies which I must say are quite delicious.

Korea offers me a free flight, free housing, the city of my selection which I assume should be Seol. Japan offers twice as much in yearly salary, and manga. Also, I've been studying Japanese.

But I love my Go, and so studying Korean I am!

Now all that's left to do here in the states is venture to the nefarious dance club outside my college campus. (Oh, and pass all my classes.)

Hard and Fast Rules

2009-02-17T15:15:00.000-08:00

Someone mentioned on GoDiscussions that they felt offended when their opponent attacked them in the opening of their game.

This white move is pretty aggressive but it's not as scary as it looks. The reason is simple, the strongest attack provokes the strongest defense and black has nothing to worry about. A and B are the safest responses, but black can get a fine result from the other options as well. Black could also play elsewhere if he was so inclined.

Most people who play 2 are inexperienced, but there are times when a dan player will try this. In those cases they play it for the psychological impact as opposed to knowing some secret about it.

When someone plays it against me it first feels like a slap in the face, but after a moment logic kicks in and usually there is a perfectly good response.

However some people feel offended by these kinds of moves. It's natural to take offense if you restrict your own moves from a lack of experience or confidence, you feel that the opponent should do the same.

I can't help it, I feel bemusement like you would towards a petulant child when someone complains that they lost because their opponent overplayed. They tend to be people who prefer only honte moves.

Honte moves, or honest moves that don't seek to take 'too much' are perplexing. A lot of people rely on what they think are honte moves in order to avoid complications, fights, or messy shape. For that reason I felt Honte moves were usually played by weaker players but it occured to me that someone who's incredibly strong could play honte moves out of the supreme confidence that they will be enough.

Sumikaya sums it up pretty well.
Sumikaya@GD: As in "You put down your rock and I'll put down my sword and we both try to kill each other like civilized people."

Which led me to look on google for pictures of knives vs guns.

Which led me to Krav-Maga. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krav_Maga

Which led me to this interesting video of the technique for disarming someone who's standing really really close to you and pointing a gun at your face.

Hopefully you never need to use this, and they say that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing but I appreciated a couple of the insights he mentions.

2009-02-15T19:09:00.000-08:00

Vultur@GoDiscussions: "(Isn't it interesting how we all seem to want to discover some hidden, wonderful explanation of the 'true essence of Go'. Why is that?)"

It's because Go is an analogy for life and we want to know ourselves. I realized I wanted to be calmer in Go and it has had a positive effect on my win streak. Of the last 10 games I've won 7. The 10 games before I tried to stay calm, I only won 3.

Furthermore the 3 recent losses didn't really feel so bad. It seems like the 'calm' I'm looking for is an indifferent acceptance of death, the ultimate idea that makes people nervous.

Note* Lately I've been excessively worried about people around me, plane crashes or car crashes or muggers.

2009-02-15T16:05:00.000-08:00

If you stay calm, you can land a plane in the Hudson. Maybe that's the trick to getting stronger too.

So I thought, "What does it mean to be calm anyway?"

I'm still wondering because it feels like 'calm' can be applied to almost any situation with soothing effects.

Walking through the supermarket feeling tired today, I applied some 'calm' and felt less tired, more aware of the selection of peanut butter I was trying to choose.

It's kind of ironic. Today I thought "You know, I haven't bought Orange Juice for myself since moving in here 6 months ago. I should treat myself. Life is too short to pinch these pennies." I got myself some applesauce with the same logic.

And somewhere from the checkout counter to the car I lost the bag with the orange juice and the applesauce. Naturally I felt upset, and my dickhead of a roommate--

We can cancel everything I said about the Orange Juice and applesauce because my other roommate found them in the way way back of her trunk! It's very exciting, once I realized I'd lost the orange juice I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to taste more. It's found and I'm going to enjoy an incredibly delicious glass of O.J.

Note* In the future purchase the OJ without calcium.

Good Kiai

2009-02-07T19:59:00.000-08:00

Wins and losses don't matter. I finally get it. If I needed to win in order to be happy then I would play easier games. I'd be a mage in World of Warcraft and travel the lands slaying monsters and dragons with my guild, discovering long lost artifacts and ancient civilizations, no one would be able to stand in our way and all others would know us as 'The Powerful.'

I'd get married in game to the princess on the left and our in game children would bring us much joy.

But it's not entertaining enough. The graphics are colorful but blocky, and the animations are repetitive. Even when you fight against another player it feels pointless because the manner through which you compete is constrained so heavily.

Once you go Go you never go back.

If there's no result to winning or losing, what's the point? In the average game of online Go there is nothing riding on the game. Oftentimes not even pride. Pride is so much more evident in games in person when you can see your opponents eyes.

If nothing at all is riding on it then you can truly not care about winning or losing. I've gone through phases like this, usually when I'm preoccupied with other things in life and have established myself solidly within a rating range, 1d,2d,3d,4d, etc. At those times an individual victory has no chance of raising my rating, and i'm not struggling to improve, and there's no prize for winning. In those cases the games are just a way to pass time, like World of Warcraft.

For a time you can be strongly motivated to improve your strength for a higher rank. Ranks of course are a way for someone else to recognize you are awesome and give you respect and friendship. Right?

No they just want you to be a nice person. If you are their level or stronger then they feel rivalry. I didn't meet too many new people my age at the US Go congress because I was feeling a little shy and sensitive about my level.

Why would you want to be stronger? So you can tell everyone else that you are better than them? Remember, winning easy games isn't fun or satisfying. If it was I'd be the first to create a sandbagger account.

So if being stronger and winning average games isn't important to me in Go then what is?

2009-02-06T22:04:00.000-08:00

Rest in Peace Jin Chen.
Unless you want to posses my goban.

http://jinchenmemorial.com/

What goes through their heads?

2009-01-19T04:57:00.000-08:00

Like many of my Go playing peers I have dreamed of the game taking over my nation in a frenzied orgy of black and white that would leave everyone breathless. Just like in Korea. It hasn't happened yet and after a while I realized that's just fine with me. I accidentally entered a zen-zone where I appreciate everything anyone else does with Go, including not playing it.

Imagine four kids screaming at you to teach them Go. I don't know about you, but I teach beginners capture Go. It's fast, quick, easy to see how to improve, and gives them a taste of what a whole game might be like. The pre-requisite for receiving my teaching being that they speak English. In this case, the family on my brother's side does not speak English.

Without a board though, we may as well start beginners at playgo.to. Thankfully the folks at http://playgo.to/interactive have done a great job translating everything to lots of langauges.

So I sat them all down in front of my laptop, which let me assure you through the use of bold and asterisks was a *MISTAKE* and had them take turns solving the super-ridiculously-easy puzzles on the site.

What I witnessed was amazing.

Here, you too should bear witness. The following is the third puzzle on the site, which they attempted just after completing the previous two surrounding problems successfully.

Black to Play.

Between the four of them, with each of them watching what the other one was doing, they racked up some astounding totals.

Two things are impressive here. Firstly, how incredibly stupid they are. It really is just incredible. I never thought I would see anyone play the wrong move six times in a row. At least mix it up in between.

The second impressive thing was that the boy, Brayan, 11 years old, did not get discouraged. No matter how many times he played the wrong move he never got upset. He approached it with a growing level of enthusiasm and comprehension. The girls on the other hand got very upset and rather quickly.

We did this for a two days and there was definitely some improvement, the girls would click far fewer times on the wrong spot before getting frustrated and running out of the room, but I got fed up with them for being bad children. I was not pleased when I came back one day to find my laptop on, and also upside down on the floor.

At least there is a Chess club at their school which they can attend if they become interested in board games.

What do you do in your bathroom?

2009-01-05T21:11:00.000-08:00

I asked a friend for a heads up on some male dancers she liked because all youtube would gave me was strippers. Shaun Evaristo seen above is her favorite. Although I wish his movement was snappier like Wade Robson's (seen below), his creativity and expression are a genuine pleasure to watch.

Meow

2008-12-28T16:16:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wanted to play one color go on KGS? How about blind go? Did you ever want an annoying voice telling you that your byo yomi is running out? How about a little color here and there and everywhere?

How about a different alarm for private messages?
You did?
Yes! Me too!

Give it up for Pasky who has provided us with an update of most awesomeness for the KGS client.

http://www.godiscussions.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7872

Let's walk through it shall we!
Hehe, 'hacked.'

A poster noted that "Further Programmed" is more accurate.

As you are excited as I am about the next picture?

It's pretty exciting.

Ok here we go, let's check this out.

We've got some red yellow and green so it's a party.

Names in red are people who are playing. Is that not so awesome? How does it even know that?

Games highlighted in yellow are demos or teaching games, which makes life tons easier for me because I look for open demos to pop in and help out all the time.

About that, some people don't really want help and leave pretty quick. That leaves me feeling a little sad. Most people are friendly though so it's worth it.

Also note* it seems the GMT timestamps don't work in this version.
And Goproblems.com seems to be infected with malware currently. (I can't stand that site. Like a tool I did feel, when I was 3k and couldn't solve problems for '15k'. Great idea in theory though!) If you really want to study a billion tsumego then I recommend the packages at http://www.goigo.org

I always wonder if coolbabe is really a girl. And if so, is she a babe? These are the kinds of mysteries that are better left unsolved. The answer doesn't can't really help me but it can make me feel a little violated.

A) If she is a hot babe, oh, that's nice.

B) Random guy -> further proves there are no women on the internet

Did I mention that when I was younger I had a really good friend online who was a girl? Yeah we talked all the time about all kinds of things. Good friends for 2 years! Except that eventually I found out it was a guy. I should clarify, I was 16. Hehe. Life is only boring when you forget how crazy it is. Also when there's nothing on TV.

Speaking of TV's my brother purchased something like this:
The problem is that his friends have 52" TV's but his is only 42" so he feels 'smaller' since making the purchase. I don't watch TV myself so I could care less, but it would be kind of cool put one in the living room and have a screen saver play on it.

http://www.electricsheep.org/

That is quite possibly one of the most amazing screen savers ever, but you need a high speed connection for it to work well.

Oh yes, back to the modification. The chat is red in games for players 4d+

Lookit all those options!

Some are better in theory than execution.

Looks good so far right?

What could go wrong?

Besides being banned from KGS for using it?

I'm so glad this fashion statement was left in the 80's where it belongs.

Gimmie some COLOR!

OH GOD! No! It's too much color! We have to stop it! Quickly now join hands and let our powers combine!

Earth!

Sky!

Wind!

Heart!

Fire!

Trinity!

Morpheus!

Neo!

When our 8 powers combine they form..

Tartrate!

Seriously go get the mod. Tell Pasky thank you. Encourage him to allow for custom board and stone graphics. Strongly.

A Most Fine way to start my day

2008-12-25T11:43:00.000-08:00

Who wants Go Stone kitten for Christmas? Isn't he so cute? He can lay on his left side to be black, or right side to be white! Now imagine 300 of these little guys. Whenever you place one onto the board they curl up into a little ball and nap happily.

How cute would it be when you capture a huge group and pick up the tiny sleeping bodies of 25 kittens. And they mew so cutely too.

Available soon from The Future.

The long voyage across the skies of the continental United States was well worth it. I have three new nieces and a nephew who I shall write about most endearingly just after I discuss the game of Go shown below.

Their names are Bryan, Irania, Najelli, and Abigail, and just now an odd thought has struck me. Has anyone named their Go stones? Frankly I don't know how you would tell them apart but we could figure something out. For example, any stone placed at the 4.4 point would be Matt.

I was black in this two stone handicap game. The results of two decisions in particular pleased me. The first was what happened after playing the black move indicated here.

The first was this move feels which both right and wrong. It seems like something a high level player would play, maybe. On the other hand, no other move seems particularly useful locally.

I'm fairly certain I need to reinforce here, yes?

It was too hard to read in a 10 second blitz game, which is quite possibly the second most addicting activity ever. Sex is probably the first most addicting, but it's a close call. If all of humanity were to suddenly start to play Go it could get a bit dicey what with the need for procreation.

Thankfully sex and 10 second blitz are not mutually exclusive and although they don't mix as well as chocolate and strawberries, or snowy roads and plow trucks, I feel quite confident that people would find a way. It would be a grand adventure for all.

Really? You want all that? That looks like so much. Can I invade? Oh shit 3 seconds left.

That looks huge. Let me tell you that I have resolved probably a great number of times to work on my counting skill to no avail.

I will make that resolve again but don't expect much.

The kids are a really good age to teach the game and are in desperate need of hobbies and structure in their lives.

They would already be doing sports, save that the school board has been using crack cocaine to excess. Someone got it into their minds that the fee for each 2 month league of baseball or basketball or soccer should be 150$.

$150 * 4 kids * a few years of school * multiple sports = infinity dollars.

When white played this move I felt considerable consternation. Does it not look like all of the places where I could make territory are going to vanish?

Yes, it does. Or if I take corner points it is at a huge cost since his moves in the center become grossly sente against any points on the top. As such I was resigned here to surrender a lot more points to the crafty white devil.

Now I can push in really far though without fear of reprieve. Yup I am pretty much in love with this move and I didn't even do a good job.

Maybe black can swallow some stones..?

Taking care of the little ones is nice. It's also a nice heads up that I should just have fun for a few more years and go out into the big wide world before having kids. Because oh my 'gooness', they are a lifestyle choice.

This one looks like it should be at A..

But by sacrificing a little move on the right I kind of get both of them!

Lucky dogs.

White to play and black to rue the day.

Hint, capture a few black stones.

Also I feel a need to clarify the snow plow and snow truck comment.

You see, there are some parts of the country where people sensibly decided that when white particulate matter falls from the skies and lands on things and makes a big mess that they should clean it up. It wasn't a hard decision to make and the hot trend has been to move it out of the way since, oh I don't know, we became bipedal.

Such a shock it was to me, that upon arriving in Oregon I found that three inches of snow had held everyone hostage in their homes for over a week.

"So no one plows it?"
"No. They just wait for it to melt."
"What you mean in the spring?"

You don't want to hear the answer. The result is that this years snow is mildly vexing.

I had no idea what the score was and to my happy surprise I was ahead by 23. I even thought I might be losing..

As you can see my counting needs desperate work and my lack of ability to judge areas is probably sending massively conflicting signals in my brain.

Attitude redirection seems to have been helping overall things.

2008-12-21T07:51:00.000-08:00

I sucked in my breath, straightened my back and stared intensely at the three ticket agents. There was a line of just three people in front of me and four people behind, but it had ceased moving shortly after the dawn of time. Some computer screen required the attention of the only 3 ticket agents alive at the United Airlines counter in the Las Vegas terminal. Other counters had at least five or six living ticket agents, but ours only had three and they may as well have just been symbolic of what a living ticket agent might look like because our line was not moving. No matter, I was determined not to buckle under the enormous pressure that had built up somewhere just beneath my head and somewhere above my luggage which was sitting on the floor. Unfortunately my resolve to appear stately broke down eleven seconds later when I had to breathe.
Thankfully the people behind me in line were too busy discussing the ticket agents in other countries to notice my momentary lapse of stature. I quite collapsed my hand in exasperation upon the ticket line post. I also turned 180 degrees away from the ticket agent counter as the sight was too much to bare for any period of time greater than what I would expect an average horse birth would take.
This process repeated itself one half dozen more times before the line was redefined as a line and not just a couple of tired travelers hanging out in the middle of an indoor ticket post maze. However before I tell you about the amazing things that happened when I reached the United Airlines ticket counter let us journey back a day.

It was Wednesday morning and not a single college exam stood in my way of venturing forth from a small town in Maine into the big wide world. The light snow however was really beginning to freak me out. Everyone who lives in Maine knows that a light snow can turn into a metric shit ton of snow in approximately half the time it takes to work up the courage to talk to the pretty girl sitting across from you in the cafeteria. Even though that could be years and years in the future there is always a chance it could happen right now and so I had to get the hell out of Maine. By way of a five hour bus ride. Which was absolutely delightful. Yes I can certainly vouch for the bus companies, they really know how to worship the heathen devils.

After depositing my person at the Boston terminal I decided that I wanted to sit down and wait for my plane which would be departing in roughly fifteen hours, thirty two minutes, and, they assured me by way of a telescreen, no more than seventeen seconds by my watch. After making such a monumental decision the only thing left to do was to plop my ass down and inquire about the wellbeing of the internet for fifteen hours and change.

Unfortunately it seemed the bus company had been consulted in designing the layout of the airport because the only electrical outlets available were well away from anything resembling a seat. In my mind a massive sheer white column of concrete holding up the ceiling does not count as a seat.

Also it seemed the devil had been asked to perform any special act of devilery that he saw fit for the Boston airport, above and beyond the usual, and had decided that the internet should not be free. I later learned that many airports had asked the devil for his services, and that he is not very creative.

After a mere seven hours of waiting and a local clock time of 10:30pm I received a phone call from a computer telling me that my plane was cancelled due to weather. Oh well, that isn't the end of the world, I thought. I will just walk over to a ticket counter and see what they can do. Unfortunately there were no living ticket agents here either as they had all gone home for the night. Obviously I should have seen the forshadowing at work.

And so I did what any normal person would do and whipped out my cellphone and redialed the computer. No reason to stress out.
"Please hold for the next available representative. Your wait time is approximately 2 minutes."
Thinking to myself, "Wow that is so cool," was my first and last mistake. After forty minutes of a masculine female voice telling me to go to Mexico or Dublin, I was told that the next available flight for me to go where I wanted was over a day away.

Time for plan B. Unfortunately plan B is too personal to explain and so you will just have to believe me when I say it was not good. The end of plan B involved staying awake from the end of my nap at 8pm thursday until my flight the next morning at 7:30am. That was the nice part.

Once plan B was over it was time to rejoice and I found myself in high spirits at the airport, chatting with other people who had been delayed by weather. It was a party. The party ended shortly after getting onto the plane and finding myself seated between two large men. There are a couple things that should have happened to me in my life, just based on pure statistics. I should have 1) Gotten all of my guessed multiple choice correct on a test. 2) Been seated next to a ~~cute~~ girl on an airplane.

Our pilot seemed rather stressed out which was reassuring. Not for me, for someone else. Someone on the plane was probably relieved that another person was more stressed out than them. I, for one, did not enjoy seeing beads of perspiration roll down the pilots face as he talked about the horrific headwinds into which we would be flying. 140knots/arc, whatever that means besides the fact that we had to stop for gas on the way. The pilot talked about accomodations and hotels for people who missed their flight but I wasn't paying much attention, I had plenty of time to reach my connecting flight. Probably hours. I was more concerned with what "horrific winds" translated to in terms of turbulence. Turns out that horrific winds means; smooth gentle ride with nothing to complain about.

The stop in Dallas was fine. Quite short. Nothing amiss. That is, aside from me holding up 120 people so I could take a dump. Apparently everyone needed to be in their seats and buckled up before we could taxi off, and not in the lavatory releiving themselves, as an angry stewardess informed me through the bathroom door. No. As interesting as it would be to say it was my fault that people missed their connecting flights, the angry stewardess was totally off and it was another five minutes after I sat down before we resumed our voyage.

It was also around then that I pondered the naming of airplanes. Why aren't airplanes called airships? Ships at sea are called ships for what reason? Is it because a Ship is a mostly self sufficient entity? Then why isn't the space station called a space ship? Because it can't travel much on it's own? Yes, actually. The mystery had been solved and I could resume my uncomfortable upright position between two large men.

Later, and I could tell that it was later because my neck was quite sure that time had passed, we landed in Pheonix. It was around then that I checked my ticket to see where my next plane was going to pick me up. And, oops, it left without me an hour prior. Huh. Oh well, I would just get off the plane and get to the ticket agent to find out about my connecting flight faster than the 84 people getting off before me. Yes. Tell me another one.

Women are so confusing. If a girl is friendly with you, laughs and smiles, and gives you strong eye contact, and talks about her boyfriend, then it means she has a boyfriend. If however she pulls ahead of you when you are walking in a group in order to walk by herself, if she frequently ignores you, and if she looks at you like something strange she discovered on the bottom of her shoe, it probably means that she wants to get to know you.

The good news is that women are everywhere and so even if you have no idea what they are thinking, well, neither does anyone else. The bad news is that the ticket agent put me on standby for a flight to Las Vegas, then to Denver, then to Portland. I couldn't even be garaunteed a roundabout jaunt through the country. Facepalm facepalm.

My luck held- sorry, I got a lucky break for the first time since the beginning of my trip, and was allowed the priveledge of sitting on several more planes sooner than later. In Las Vegas I was sent from US Airlines to United Airlines where my story began and will return to shortly. Instead lets skip ahead to San Francisco.

It's amazing how eating mediocre pizza at an airport can make you feel like you're more worldly, cultured, and experienced. And full. The hugely overpriced pizza was my treat to myself for not killing anyone in the line a few hours prior. Hey, you have give yourself a pat on the back sometimes.

Some time later I found myself sitting again, as apparently in our modern age 'traveling' means 'waiting to be somewhere,' trying to figure out what zone I was in, and when I was supposed to board. My ticket from San Francisco to Portland wasn't very helpful. Oh well, I figured, I'll just slip into the line sometime around Zone 3 and no one would notice. My plan worked and a moment later I found myself staring in disbelief at seat 1A. I checked my ticket again, and then checked my seat again.

Wow.

First class for the first time in my life.

The exhilaration turned to shame as people filed in after me and, well, looked at me. I felt like a total fraud sitting in a first class seat. Everyone was totally jealous of me, some rich kid, when in fact I am a poor college student who plays too much Go.

But I felt much better once I was reclining in my leather seat with enough leg room to put in a bowling alley, with pillows and blankets. My god. In first class you get one of each! As I was drifting off I heard a conversation from the crew outside the cockpit.

"Where are you going to sit? On his lap? HAHA."
"In the cockpit."
"Wow, but where are you going to sit?"
"What happened?"
"I got pushed out by a customer."
"Wow! You got pushed out by a customer?! Has that happened to you before? Haha."
"No."
"Wow!"

And it dawned on me that I was somehow sitting in a crew members seat and I felt pretty bad again. Thankfully he was a bit of a jerk and his jerky announcements over the intercom warning people not to be obnoxious let me feel not only indifferent, but relieved that I could do something less than kind for him.

It was then that I thought back on the United Airlines line of death in Las Vegas where I had successfully not died.

At long last another ticket agent had come out of hiding and resumed working. She was a middle aged asian woman who looked more than a little bedraggled. The first irate customer pulled up his things and laid into her about his problems and her shoulders slumped. I could just see her regretting ever getting sucked into being a ticket agent. I wouldn't want to deal with all those annoying travelers/sitters either. I really hoped that I would get to go to her counter so I could be nice to her. If all the waiting and uncertainty and uncomfortableness had taught me anything it was that people are what's most important. They make all the other stuff not matter.

"Hi! How are you?" I asked brightly and smiled as I stopped in front of her counter.
"Good. How are you?" She replied. She looked at me levelly. It wasn't like she was some poor wreck of a thing who was about to quit her job, she just didn't like dealing with assholes. Airports are full of assholes. We chatted for a moment and she informed me that my flight to Denver had been delayed. Then she typed for a while and I asked her if she flew much and if she went through the same delay process. She seemed surprised and smiled and said yes. More typing later she handed me my tickets and I smiled and thanked her again. I even used her name from her name tag which is something i've wanted to do for a while when I thank someone. Ya know, to let them know I appreciate it. I also read that happiness is contagious even from strangers so I try to smile whenever it feels natural, which turns out to be almost all the time.

And as I sat back in my firstclass seat and thought about it, she was the one who put me on this flight. She even bumped a crew member out to make room for me, which I guess is something that they do for people in firstclass.

So to recap:

Boston-PlanB-Boston-Dallas-Phoenix-Las Vegas-~~Denver~~-SanFrancisco-Portland-Bed

Got Rice?

2008-12-18T19:09:00.001-08:00

Most of the best breakdancers are Asian, just like in Go.

Embedding videos is really cool!

Charleshu

2008-12-12T21:40:00.000-08:00

Certain intangible traits about a person can be seen easily on the intimate battlefield that is a Go board. Although this is the case it has little to do with understanding Go and a lot to do with understanding people. Everyone can interpret a person to be a friendly guy or an angry guy.
These interpretations are always magnified during contests and sometimes we like the guy, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we hate their guts.

Remember that game you played against that guy? You two weren't using the regular handicap and the game should have been an easy win for you. You started the game well and it was going in your favor. Then, all of a sudden like the fist of an angry God smashing down on your head, something happened and you started losing. Maybe it was time pressure, or you didn't think there was anything he could do, or you were getting lazy because it was so easy. Remember how pissed you were? You literally hated that person's guts.

But really, we all know it's our own fault. It's just too painful to admit. Somehow I got lucky recently and realized that I didn't really hate charleshu, I was just afraid of him. His tenacity and unceasing attacks scared me. Because I knew that even if I had a better position, his spirit wouldn't break. Because he simply just believes he can still win. Thinking about that quality makes him seem like a really reliable person. I'm sure he is dependable for the people he cares about.

Ok but enough wishy washy crap, on to the point. I was able to stand up to my fear of playing him and discovered something strange. Even when I am well ahead, even as much as 30+ points and near the end of the game, I feel like I am losing against him. In the past 5 games I was easily winning in endgame 3 times, but only took down 1 win.

The reason is because he plays every single move that scares me. So it seemed like a perfect opportunity to analyze his play.

However, doing so was depressing. I couldn't find anything in particular that made his style scary or why he would be so intimidating. Below are some thoughts.

Note* The following images are in reverse order due to the way Google's uploader works. For chronicity please view from the bottom right. Like a Japanese book.

Please meet some friends of mine.

2008-12-11T18:48:00.000-08:00

Nothing pisses off blitzers like taking your time to think in a game. Really. You are committing an offense on their person. You want to use six of your ten seconds for thinking? Well shit then they only need to think for one and a half seconds. God forbid you take a full ten seconds to make your move. If you do then it is so totally obvious you are just trying to waste time and piss them off. Once you make that mistake then it becomes their personal mission to play faster than lightspeed and use negative seconds per move. This is to show you how much of a better player they are than you.

Once you have activated the angry blitzer then there are rules which you should be aware of that the players who run KGS have agreed upon in secret meetings which I have never witnessed.

The game ends when the angry blitzer wants it to end. Else you'll get a roundhouse to the face.
Desperate moves must be played quickly. This will ensure that you think your opponent has read out a long and difficult sequence in which you lose, and was just holding back earlier.
Angry blitz play must be met with angry blitz play. If you do not rise to their challenge then you are a coward and they do not care who wins. *

*Note. Since it is a blitz game they don't care who wins anyway. Unless it's them.

Regardless of who wins the game itself it's not over. The most critical test of playing skill remains; Whoever can leave the playing room faster is clearly stronger. You get extra Dans if you insult your opponent cleverly with 'tx', 'x', or 't'. There is a simple rule here. Go is full of rules, I apologize if someone lied to you and said there were only three. If you don't learn these rules then your Go will never improve. That is the way it is.
Anyway, post game the first rule is, if you lose your cool and say "Fuck you," which happens statistically once every two hundred games, you automatically lose eight Dans. People hate losing their Dans and that is why it is so rare.

There are plenty more things you need to learn about Go and KGS if you want to make it to the ranks of DAN players, and we'll get to them in good time. For now, use your newfound knowledge of angry blitz players to cause massive consternation. Tell them I sent you.

Pardon me, which way is up?

2008-12-09T20:58:00.000-08:00

I'm ready to be 5d. The way trees are ready to shed their leaves when the signaling hormone ethylene is released and forms an abscission layer. The way a soccer mom in a dingy waiting area is ready to pick up her car at the dealership. Ready the way a cat is ready to be petted but isn't willing to walk over to you, and instead must summon you with intense eye contact.

It is now established that I am ready to be 5d. However not long after realizing this I asked myself a question: "Isn't that a little bit rank obsessed?"
I'm not one to shy away from a good conversation with myself and so I replied,
"Well, so what if it is."
"Typically people who are rank obsessed only want the symbol of power. Is that what you want?"
"Well, no. I am ready to gain the next level in my Go, to add a significant level of reasoning to my moves."
"And do you really think that a 5d KGS player is someone who has undertaken this journey of self discovery? Most of them are likely players who just kill better than you, live better, and can read faster. Getting a 5d beside your name could happen the same way 4d and 3d and 2d happened. By accident. At some point I need to derive satisfaction from my Go playing and not my rank."
"It's true that I'm not looking memorize more tsumego. That would be an obvious way to get stronger. Well, it would be an easy way to learn more patterns. I'd win more games against 4d's probably."
"Right, so how about you just spell out what it is you want."

1) I would like to think more about my moves. To create plans and to maintain awareness.
2) I would like to experiment with new ideas about the movement of shapes. To balance creativity with the orthodox.
3) I would like to try my hardest. To balance winning with acheiving my general goals of increasing my understanding.
4) I would like to respect myself when I lose, and respect my natural limitations.
5) I would like to learn first what a mistake is, and then how to make the most of them.
6) I would like to feel free.

"Great but if you leave it so open ended then you'll probably get nowhere fast. Pick something you can focus on for now."

Lately I've been thinking about where groups want to move. It sounds obvious but I've been really looking at it and trying to figure out how they interact. For the next, lets say 10 games, I'll focus on guessing the available directions of movement for a group before the group is fully formed.

Theme of Two

2008-12-08T21:15:00.000-08:00

Today's theme is two. Eyes, ears, and nostrils all come in pairs. So do the movements of Go stones.

Also on the left we have a catastrophe.

Back to Go. The interactions between groups of stones are simple*1. There just are not that many choices*2.

Imagine if you will, a stone at the Tengen. Make it black. And put a white stone down beside it.

Ok fine, here is an illustrative example which you may find to be illustrative.

Our black stone cannot run to the right. Any attempt he makes to move eastward will be blocked or cut by white. If you are now convinced that our tengen stone cannot move right then all is well. If you remain unconvinced, please re-read this entire post from the beginning.

Lest we forget, the black stone can move left, up, or down quite unimpeded by the silly white stone who thinks only of the right.

Without further ado, allow me to introduce my friend the corner killing move. I play this white stone fully intending to kill the corner every time. Alas for some reason my opponent thinks he's alive and makes quite a ruckus.

Oh yes, wait. The reason for his utterly ridiculous misconception about the preposterous and obstreperous future life of his puny black stone is due to an optical illusion. What we see here, that the black stone can move up, or Northward as the old Scots call it, is simply a trick of the mind.

Any Chuck Norris could easily destroy the black stone in one move, and we should strive to live by his example.

As such I firmly refuse to believe that the black stone can move upwards. I do not foresee this belief to have any negative consequences at all.

|Horizontal Dimensional Shift|

So he will move up probably. Or maybe he will first pincer the white stone. Maybe he will play elsewhere. That would be good. I would enjoy that. That would put me only three moves away from having killed the black stone. That makes me about 1/3 as good as Chuck Norris. I don't need to tell you how much of an amazing accomplishment that is.

Black moves, white moves, on and on and on, each player taking care to look at the directions of movement of all the groups on the board. Getting cut while moving in a direction doesn't count, since eyes are important. You need two.

Around and around they dance until at last there is no where left to extend encroach or attack, and either a player has emerged triumphant and drunken on blood lust, or someone must place a defending stone that takes no points at all. That poor soul who has been surrounded in a most unequal way and defends first is doomed.

So the goal is clear. You should never defend!

Note*1 Lie.
Note*2 Since I have already lied to you and lost your trust, what is the point of telling you I am lying? Why on Earth would you believe a liar who says he is lying?
Note*3 The preceding message was theoretical and application of said ideas does not guarantee any increases in playing ability. In fact you may get weaker just from thinking about Go.

KGS Kibitzers

2008-12-07T11:10:00.000-08:00

I spy with my little eye a group of gentle, innocent, kind, mild, nonviolent, tame, tender KGS Kibitzers.

To give you a taste of the Kibitz experience it was not necessary to make up an imaginary dialogue. I simply logged on to KGS and opened up the first high dan game I saw and copied the first lines of chat.

"G0g0l [1k]: ko
Move 163
OHoffnheim: wow
OHoffnheim: some big will die soon
snowman [-]: no ko
G0g0l [1k]: w or b ll die
beeko [5k]: Let me guess its...
Chievo [2k]: b
moose: snowmannnn
Chievo [2k]: B DIES
Chievo [2k]: shhh"

While reflecting on the mysteries of the life and love it suddenly came to me in a flash not unlike the flash on my LG Chocolate camera phone; KGS is 4chan meets 3000 year old board game.

A Difference

2008-12-06T16:08:00.001-08:00

If it's too hard to change your mindset, try changing your goals.

For me changing goals transconversed a 7 game losing streak into a 5 game winning streak. And you know what my new goal is?

To lose by less than 10 points.

Go figure..

The Go

2008-08-21T01:39:00.000-07:00

His heart beats. Once, twice, steady and smooth. 'Good,' he thinks, 'I'm calm and focused.' He breathes deeply and for a moment all the sights and sounds come together. People move and talk, chairs scrape, and sharp clicks and beeps settle into a gentle rolling rhythm.

With the game only moments from beginning he feels oddly at peace. He has successfully banished all expectations save one. He must try as hard as he can and push himself to the absolute limit. He can be happy if he can do that. Otherwise, what is the point?

Then the calm and peace are shattered when his opponent sits down. His heart leaps up in protest and his chest tightens.

'Young!' His mind screams. 'Too young! Too strong!' Looking up into the shy smiling face he can't help but feel shame for thinking such things, and he smiles back. In all things there is a balance between young and old, in which experience meets exuberance on equal or greater grounds. In Go however, there is an unspoken law. One can never reach the greatest heights of skill unless they began as a child. For some, it is no small task to face the innocent eyes of a child in contest.
'At least he isn't Too young.'

"I'm James," his opponent says.
"Oh cool, my name is Jayme." They spend a moment eyeing each other. The air is heavy and full of hope and excitement, and fear. Words can come later.
"Are you ready to start?"
"Sure."

'It doesn't matter how young he is. That isn't going to stop me from trying my hardest.' Jayme tells himself. They nod their heads to each other and look down at their board. It's a nice one, a little bit thicker than most with strong clean lines. And he prefers the yellow color, signature of the Korean style.

Jayme begins the match as he does any other, feeling completely clueless about what to do. In the beginning of the game there is an empty grid, and however you proceed is entirely up to you. Some number of thousands of years ago people saw this empty grid and began to discover meanings. Advancements in opening theory have been wonderful, and more people than ever find themselves drawn into the mysteries of the board and are able to contribute amazing insights. Yet in all this time no one has yet discovered the best way to start.

As such, the freedom at the start is unprecedented by any other stage. But if you should be one of the hapless souls who wants to win more than you want to discover, you may find the stress tax of freedom to be too large.

In this respect there may be some players who prefer to play second, and so ease off their shoulders the responsibility of creating a brand new world. Perhaps it was in this light that Jayme chose to look at the board, as his opponent played the first move.

Any momentary relief he may have felt was quickly dispelled by the sight before him. He scowled at the familiar position. It was used so often in the Go world that it earned the nickname 'Kobayashi', after the original player.

For Jayme, the Kobayashi felt like someone was pulling their arm way back to punch you as hard as they could. You knew that such an obvious movement was supposed to be incorrect, but your terror as their fist hurtles for your face says otherwise.

The worst part was that even though you wanted to leap out of the way of the fist, to kick and punch back, to slam him into the ground, you couldn't. The Kobayashi has been studied by hundreds of Grand Masters, and the punishment for deviating from the usual paths can be extreme.

'Shit.'
Jayme steeled himself and struck out in a different direction.
'Hundreds of Grand Masters be damned.'

James seemed unphased by this unorthodox development, and the flow of his stones was natural and strong.

'Ah,' Jayme thought, 'I should take a picture.' He considered asking James if he minded, but he didn't want to distract him.

Although his face was a mask of emotion, it seemed that James had been a little bit more affected by the deviation than he was letting on. His flow faltered for a moment and Jayme seized the initiative. After a little bit Jayme was feeling more comfortable and relaxed than he expected.

He nodded to himself, 'If we just keep this pace up then I'll be able to win.' Although it was reassuring, the match was still long and he he quelled that voice as quickly as he could, pushing his consciousness back to the world opening up before him. It wasn't becoming the world he had envisioned.

James had regained his composure and fought back hard, creating a path that made a simple situation complicated. Jayme was exhausting himself just trying to stay aware and alert of the possible attacks.

After a time Jayme stood up from the table and stretched, looking out across the vast hall. Scores upon scores of eyes gazed intensely on their own individual battlefields. Their wills virtually blazing against their opponents. It gave him a shiver. What drove them all to try so hard?

Heading towards the bathroom Jayme noticed a small room off to the side with a sign reading "Strong players room. Players only." Just beyond that door were some of the strongest people in America. And a Chinese woman sat in a chair reading a magazine. Jayme did a double take in surprise. 'Is she that confident in her game?' He wondered, and hurried off to the bathroom.

Loud voices greeted him as he pushed open the door. Looking about curiously he saw a couple guys at the urinals looking very happy. It wasn't as though he hadn't expected to see other people in the bathroom, but he thought they would be mulling silently over their matches too.

"Yeah, He tried to invade my area but it looks like I can kill him no problem. Haha." The man's voice boomed off the bathroom tiles.

"Yeah same here, my opponent is trying to make a big moyo but I think I'll destroy it no problem!"

"Haha, way to go man, see you later."

Their confidence was refreshing. It felt as though Jayme had been trapped in a fog and everyone else was incredibly relaxed. 'Still need to push harder though,' He thought as he looked at himself in the mirror, and he agreed.

On the way back he glanced at the Strong room again. She was still reading her magazine. 'Oh, she must be someone's friend or family.' Everyone inside was so close, he could easily watch as they battled. He didn't think anyone would ask him to leave, but just walking through that door was one thing. The years of hard work and talent that separated him from actually competing in there rose up in his thoughts like a towering monolith. Brushing it aside he returned to the hall.

Sitting down at the board again, he and James shared a small look and polite smile.

He had successfully split James, and all that remained was to finish the attack and make a few points. Of course, that could mean up to an hour left of devout concentration. Each.

*Click* Of the stone *beep* Of the clock, and James looked intently at the board.

'Wow,' Jayme thought, 'To attack me there huh? I don't think so. I'll just defend, and then what will you do? '

Jayme placed his stone and looked up, stretching his stiff neck.

When he looked down again he saw James had let off the attack as expected, and was just trying to survive. Not that Jayme could stop him. Disappointedly, Jayme agreed to finish saving his group.

In Go the first thing people learn how to do is capture stones. In fact the essence of the game is to surround your opponents stones while not being surrounded yourself. Unfathomable effort is is dedicated to just learning to see when your group is in danger of being captured. And as we are all just mortals, it is usually too hard to resist the urge to kill when the opportunity is presented.

Perhaps in ancient Japan when the game existed as a means of creative expression, and attractive shape and honor were more important than winning, perhaps then you could find players who would not chase their opponent all around the board, smashing the towns and hillsides into smitherines but loving every minute of it.

But that was then, and this is now.

And James then placed a curious move. And Jayme looked at it skeptically.

'This move.. it doesn't make points.. it doesn't keep him safe. I can cut him apart here. I can attack his whole group! I can kill it all and end it here!' Excitement pulsed through his core and he looked as deeply as he could. 'Yes, it's close enough!'

*Click* *click* *click* And the red blooded chase was on!

'How can you escape? That area is completely under my control. You have no buddies there at all.'

James dove in further and Jayme narrowed his eyes.

'It's true.. You will destroy all of my territory. If I don't kill you here, will I have enough? It seems so favorable though!'

He attacked harder, unwilling to relent, and James pushed through the previously strong defenses. At least, Jayme had thought they were strong. Jayme groaned to himself, now that he could see the border it was clear he still had to defend. He had to waste a whole turn defending.

'It should be ok though, where is he going to run to?'

After thinking for a time, Jayme placed a move that he was confident would lead to the complete demise of James' huge group.

*Click*

But at the sight of lead this move James inhaled slightly and quickly slapped down a stone of his own.

Jayme looked at it skeptically. Then more seriously. Then a feeling of pure terror overwhelmed him and his breath caught in his throat.

'Oh my god.' Jayme stared in amazement. 'It's so good. It completely works..' Out of the corner of his eye he noticed James shift and then relax. 'Just.. wow.'

Looking deeper did not show him something he wanted to see. He saw his groups being split. He saw James slashing him apart. He saw James viciously capturing the same group that Jayme had thought would be so easy to save.

'Damn. It's either that or I let him live inside my territory, no, I can't even consider that way. I have to block him from entering further. Then after I have to find a way to save these stones.'

Elsewhere pairs stood up and silently put away their stones, unable to bring themselves to speak. A grim forshadowing of what would soon be happening here.

James breathed a large sigh and looked back down at the board. 'Yeah, I know,' Jayme thought as he glanced at the clock, 'but I have no idea where to go.'

"Sacrifice." A voice whispered in his head. 'Huh?' He thought, and quickly shifted gears. 'Okay good idea, forget saving them, what does it look like if I sacrifice?'

"And can't forget to count the score." Jayme quickly surveyed the board and raised an eyebrow in surprise. 'I can..' And his brow fell, 'Not, I can not. I won't have enough. It's close. Too close, agh, I can't tell. I think he wins it.'

Jayme felt himself begin to glaze over as he stubbornly read the same things over and over again, desperately. searching for a new path. Time was passing too quickly.

'It can't work.' He thought. His entire body felt hot and the world tilted. 'Dammit.' He thought. 'Dammit dammit!'

'There's no chance here. I can't win. There's no way.' Glancing at the clock he realized he'd already used thirty minutes. 'That's longer than I usually spend on an entire session.' He thought glumly.

'Agh. Maybe. I didn't think of that before. Maybe I can run away. Agh, dammit, he can just counter the whole plan!'

Jayme looked away and sighed in frustration, he couldn't do it. There wasn't a way.

Idly he looked at the board, resigning himself to his loss. The only question now was how did he want to lose? He just couldn't kill the dragon. And his group couldn't live. He'd have to sacrifice it and pray for a small miracle.

'Can't connect them back to the safe group,' he thought as his eyes strayed across a part of the board he hadn't thought too much about. Something about the shapes made it far too forboding. But then.. something about the shapes caught his attention. He thought this was already a done deal, but was there something he could still do? With a renewed burst of hope he pushed himself to look deeper into the board, striving to see just one extra move.

More time passed, and eventually he came up with an answer, it wasn't ideal, but it was better than nothing. It was better than losing a war of attrition.

'We both need that spot. I can make it work if he doesn't take it.' This was his decision, and after a few more minutes of deliberation he placed his move to set the chain reaction into motion.

*click*

'Yes, i'm cut.'

*Click*

'You get to cut me, of course.'

*click*

'It's painful.'

Jayme looked at the point of no return and grimaced as he put down his stone.

James also paused for a moment before taking his stone up and placing it down with a sense of purpose, accomplishment, and in completely the wrong spot.

Jayme stared at the board completely dumbfounded. Never in his wildest dreams had ever considered James would make a mistake here. It was totally unexpected. It was bizarre. Most of all it was wonderful! But what did this mean? What was he supposed to do now?

This was too much to take and he stood up, snatched his water bottle from the table, and set off for the bathroom again. He had to clear his head, there was no way he was willing to mess up now.

'It will be different,' he thought in relief. Sure enough, moments later when he sat down everything was different. What had been one of the most agonizing decisions in his life was miraculously changed into a birthday cake. A delicious cheese cake.

All of the stress that had been piled upon him like a ten thousand pound dumbell had just toppled off, and the path became crystal clear. Not only would he live, but he could kill. Maybe not the big group, but it wouldn't matter. He would swallow up these offending stones simply and that would be more than enough to win. It was over as far as he was concerned.

And then it wasn't.

'Argh. No, of course it isn't. That would be too easy.' It was all Jayme could do to restrain himself in his seat while his opponent seemed to be completely missing the critical spot. The move that would throw Jayme from the frying pan into the fire.

'Just let him miss it. Don't play there. And dammit Jayme, don't be obvious about it, look somewhere else. What if he sees where you are looking?'

But Jayme couldn't tear his eyes away from the impending trainwreck that was about to happen to his entire lower side group, one he had left alone far too long.

Sweet cool hands tousled his hair though, and left a quick squeeze on his shoulder. Lady luck was firmly on his side.

James played elsewhere.

And Jayme stared. Could it be? Another mistake? 'Wow.' he thought, 'That sucks so much.' He looked up at James who seemed unaware. Jayme grimaced and looked back at the board, and gingerly but utterly ignored the last move.

James frowned and laid his next stone on the board.

*Click**beep*

"Oh man, ohhh man." James started upright as he realized. "Ahhhhh!" Pain etched across his face and at the corners of his eyes. A pain that Jayme recognized all too well. "Heh." James sagged and struggled internally. At last he resolved to continue onward into the impossible situation.

The end came moments later.

"I resign." James said, lowering his head.

"Thank you." Jayme said, also bowing his head over the board.

It was hard. It was just so hard. Jayme had won, but where was the feeling off accomplishment? Where was the rush of excitement? Instead he just felt drained. The battle had left him completely exhausted. It was over three and a half hours since they began. James was strong, he reflected as he sat in his seat. Sharp like a knife.

'Need to challenge him again,' Jayme realized.

It was finally over. And yet it wasn't. His own contest against himself wasn't even close to being done.

2008-08-11T17:56:00.000-07:00

Go Congress O8

The main playing hall was gorgeous. Can't you just picture yourself sitting here staring at a block of wood for three hours every day? I can. It's hot. Enough said.

Akane looks very happy to see Nakano-san, and who wouldn't be?

Nakano is one of the coolest people I've met. From the way he dresses, to the way he walks, and the relaxed composure with which he places his Go stones. He seems to be perpetually lost in thought, neither here nor there and everywhere in between.

Nakano was the first pro I met.

He was also the first pro I played in my life. Of course he crushed me like a bug. In a very gentle way.

Before I met Nakano I thought pros were different than normal people. Like maybe they had six arms and halos around their heads. Or costumes. Nakano san would make a good Batman.

I guess I thought that pros would all be like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Instead, people who are strong at Go are just like everyone else. Some are nice and some are jerks. I'm happy to say that all of the people I met were extremely nice!

And fun! Janice Kim definitely doesn't fit the image of a Go player. Check out that tat. It means "Get some luck."

Plus if you've seen pictures of her when she was younger you'd know she was a babe. She still has that cute charm if I do say so myself.

Feng Yun~ Wow! This was a big moment for me, and when she arrived with her entourage I felt a ripple go down my spine.
"Wait, are you Feng Yun? I asked."
"No, that is her over there." The lady replied, and sure enough, the real Feng Yun was already sitting at a board showing some lucky strong players how to get even stronger.

Watching her play in the Ing cup was just too cool. At times she will rock gently over the board and radiate a sense of maternal goodness. Other times she will slap her stones down in a way that lets you know in no uncertain terms, 'You silly boy. You cannot do that.' Yilun Yang 7p, you silly boy.

Seung Chul Park is another cool guy. Actually everything about him was stylish. The suits, the oxford shirts, the look on his face when playing against Nakano-san. Pros always look at the board with such intensity. It was as they played that it dawned on me that for pros, the game is work. Not work in the normal sense of a job, but it is like the internal workings of a giant machine start up and gain momentum, spinning and churning into the endless variations. For them, when they look at the board, it is a another state of mind.

I met him at dinner and the first thing that strikes you is his smile. He is a really friendly guy. We chatted for a moment in English, Spanish, and Japanese, and then I slipped into another dimension. The one where I am currently, the one where ByeongJun does not speak English.

"ByeongJun doesn't speak English." Eddie said.
"What? You're kidding right?" They had to be teasing me, and ByeongJun clammed up right away, looking at me with those eyes that say "I understand what you are saying!"
"No he really doesn't speak English."

"But we were just using it!"
And everyone looked at me a little funny. And ByeongJun wouldn't say anything else in English. I thought it was just a really long teasing joke, tease the white guy day, but eventually I caught him saying "Thank you." It turns out he doesn't speak English, but he can pronounce any word perfectly, almost completely without an accent. If you get the chance to meet him, say "Fujiwara no Sai." It is the secret code greeting.

I saved my favorite for last. Meeting her was a real pleasure. Please meet Cho Hye Yeon!

We were so lucky she chose to come to the USGC, she was so nice, and really cute too! She would make a cute kissy face when she saw a move she thought was silly. I tried hard but it was too fleeting to capture on camera.

It was also surprising how good her English is, and when she said she taught herself my jaw dropped.

She was a lot of fun to hang out with, and I really hope we can meet again in the future~

Ah, Congress was so good~

It leaves you with a warm sensation, the same satisfying feeling as a bite of delicious cheesecake.

2008-08-06T04:36:00.000-07:00

I told myself, "I can't get off this bench until I figure out a way to prevent that from happening again." But how?
"It's not enough to say I'll try harder in the future. There has to be a way to change how I think, so that the process by which I choose a move is different, more mature."
Yes, that sounded good. But how?

"I can burn the image of this bench into my mind so that I'll never forget the ache in my throat, the pain in my chest. So that I'll never play an impulsive move again!"
I stared hard at the green bars of the bench and thought about how upset I was.

"Hum. Wait," I thought, "It would be a big hassle to have to think about this green bench and how upset I was feeling before every move." There had to be a way to add a layer of thought that wouldn't interfere with the game itself. Eventually I came up with a solution that I was satisfied with, and I got off the bench to go find my friends.
I made it as far as the railing overlooking campus.
Sigh.
Looking down I saw a lot of people walking around looking happy and chatting about their things. It made me feel better. After a little bit I felt relaxed and not so sad anymore. Life was good! Look at all those happy faces~
So I went off to have some lunch with my friends who promptly told me I looked really depressed.

"Ah, yeah," I said to Jun, "But you know the feeling." He nodded compassionately, and we continued to eat the only vaguely edible cafeteria food. We talked about other things with Hye, and after a few laughs I was feeling pretty good.

Then there was a pause in conversation and Jun looked at me, and told me to shut up.
I stared in surprise.
"Shut up." He said again, more firmly. When I still didn't say anything he asked me, "Shut up?"
"Uh?" I said. I hadn't been speaking. Was he telling me to stop talking about the loss? I didn't think I had said much about it, but maybe it was more than I thought?
He looked confused too, and after a quick exchange with Hye she turned to me and translated, "Cheer up!"

"Cheer up!" He repeated.

Good friends. :)

82 assumed he would play left of 79 and connect, and when he played his 83, I read only one variation, and played within a couple seconds. I noticed that in a previous post I also lamented about playing impulsively, so it seems I really need to work on this!

2008-07-25T19:19:00.000-07:00

The Mass Boston Go club held a tournament recently. The number of people surprised me. There were almost 25 people there! I thought it was a lot, because I almost never see that many Go players together. The last tournament I went to had like 9 people.

I didn't think to ask if the biker girl was a player or not, it seemed like she was just signing up a Polish kid. Check out that speedo!

On the left we have some visiting chinese 5 dan kids. They were incredible!

I wish.
They were 18k.

Ke Lu

Meet Ke Lu 5d. Handsome devil. Intensely strong too.

I definitely felt the fear in this game. The sweat on your hands when you look down and think it's all lost, and you struggle to find a way.

Your heart beats faster, and you pray that the blind path ahead of you is the right one. That day, Lady luck smiled at me, and everything was alright. Next time though she will laugh at me and tease me, and tell me to count more for myself~

SuCo, for those who don't know her, is apparently a top notch recruiter for the AGA. She loves teaching new people the game and brings in 20 a month!

She captured this shot during the game, and you will have to pardon my bed head. I almost didn't make it to the tournament and barely had time to brush my teeth!

Good hygiene is important though!
(note the nalgene, don't leave home w/o it!)
((Also, those boards might look nice but the are really cheap! Hollow inside! Plus the wood is super thin almost like cardboard!))

Keith

Keith 4d is a good guy. Not enough confidence though. He tried to get me to sign up as 6d before the tournament but I wasn't having none of that! These newfangled board things always get me confused. Give me a mouse and a monitor.

The first time we played I managed to eek out a win from a really bad opening, it took a lot of BS tho. Ever since that game he's given me more respect than I deserve, and I get the feeling I won this game more out of intimidation than anything else. He missed some really strong moves at the end right before he resigned.

This is after he resigned.

I've heard the debates back and forth about whether or not to record your tournament games with a PDA or Kifu or not at all, and I can't decide what to do. I definitely want my games to be reviewed and discussed later, but it seems really distracting to have to record your own game and I can't remember the moves for the life of me.. Not sure.

Cho

This man was the beginning of the end of me! Look at him smile about it!

He and I played a fast game right before the tournament started and I got the sense that he thought I was a bit weaker than him. I got that same sense about him.

So then it turns out he's from England and over there he's a 2dan, so TD signs him up as a 2d over here. I give all my respect to the time and effort the TD's put into these, but setting him as 2d AGA was a bit of a mistake and made for a really annoying game. (Although I guess not everyone knows the BGA->KGS->AGA rank conversion.. hehe.)

Here I have resigned. Giving him 3 stones was too much.

Despite that, I wasn't as upset about losing as I was about losing focus during a critical moment. There are just some times when you need to be alive at the wheel, and I kick myself for not doing it.

If you look at the top middle of the picture you can see a little 4 star shape, well, the middle of that was my mistake. It should have been on the right to the stone to the right of it. And then maybe his group would have died. Maybe. Who knows. It really irritates me that I wasn't able to maintain focus at such a critical point! And being irritated about it now, irritates me~ Just relax yo, accept it and move on~

(Cho went on to win all 4 of his games, and I'm assuming the tournament.)

Hum. I should probably apologize to this guy. But he was kind of pushy before the game. Something about wanting to be in a different room. I relented.

The situation goes like this: I give him 5 handicap stones and say to myself "How the hell do I win this in a non blitz game?"

Well it turns out that they do all the work for you.

Just sit back and let them make mistakes, or try to be fancy, or be nervous, what have you.
Then get yourself into a winning position and hold it for most of the game.
At this point I quickly recommend being greedy. Also, don't read out important moves. It will probably work out for you!
If you followed step 4 above then you will have now lost the game and can proceed to flip out.
Ok, so I didn't mean to flip out. He was really pissing me off by slamming his stones down, and then slamming the timer. It felt like he was attacking me personally.
So I responded in kind, by deciding to slam my timer too!
Except I'm not used to slamming timers, the whole business isn't really my style. So I hit it too hard and knocked all of the stones off the board.
Oops.

I had to leave after that. I was too upset. Someone later said they gave me 4th place and 10$ or something. But you all know that feeling you get at times like those. It's really heavy. Really too heavy for one person.

Luckily, I had some great friends who could talk me through it! Big thanks to all of them! <3

2008-07-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

After a recent loss, a thought struck me.

Yes that's right. Lions are the reason that losing hurts. To sum it up quickly, from an evolutionary perspective winning is not as important as losing. If we do not win over the deer and get to eat it, it's no big deal compared to losing to the tiger. Plenty of biochemical incentive not to lose.

2008-01-22T06:50:00.000-08:00

A few of my friends went to the Oza over the weekend, and had a great time. I heard there were tons of parties and lots of outrageous Go players. Seeing Feng Yun getting down is definitely in my top 5 list.

So, in order not to feel sorry for myself about missing out on some absurdly good times, I decided to play 100 blitz games over the long weekend. I thought that if I could distract myself enough, I wouldn't even notice all the fun I wasn't having at the Oza.

Recently I noticed that on Tygem there are a lot of users with 10,000 games, who are only 2dan! 2dan Tygem is 1kyu+- KGS!

Thread here.

It's very difficult to make core changes in the way we do things. I was looking at the latest physics material and it was kicking my ass. I couldn't understand a sentence on the page!
I stopped to think about why I wasn't getting anywhere. Some of it was the terminology, but I thought a lot of it was the way in which I learn.

I thought back over my life and realized that reading with me reading is usually a passive process, in which I emphasize speeding through the book over enjoying the imagry. I thought that maybe if I read more actively I would have an easier time understanding the material.

But then I realized that I didn't know what it meant to 'read actively.' I remember one of my teachers rambling on, something about interacting something. Eventually I concluded that I should try to visualize the concepts, not necessarily the words the cocky Physics Authors were putting on paper, but their meaning.

We'll see how that goes, as I had to rush off to play some more blitz games at the time and wasn't able to experiment further.

Well, I failed.

After 3 days I played 51 games. That seems kind of pathetic to me, since my goal was 100. I probably watched too many episodes of Scrubs. In fact, I definitely watched too many. Normally I don't watch TV, I hate commercials and most shows aren't worth watching. That, and I can't look away. My eyes are glued to the screen for every worthless second. It could be an advertisement about getting a third loan on your mortgage, and I'm hooked.

So I don't own a TV and plan to avoid owning one until the latest and greatest gaming system absolutely demands that I purchase a high definition 40" plasma screen TV. I saw one of those recently. In someone's house. It was big. And good.

Also, I played some minigames at Casual Collective . Com . I am a Buggle master, but I suck at everything else. I can't even beat Tower Defense on easy mode.

However, I feel great about those 51 blitz games. In fact, never have I felt more optimistic about my Go playing. The skies opened up and the rains of a thousand burning suns slammed into the world, igniting in my soul a fire that would ravage the world for a billion years to come.

I don't know what it was, but losing stopped feeling so lossy, and winning started feeling more like winning. I won some games by time I should have lost, and lost games by time I should have won. Maybe it was skimming over one of my 20,000 Tygem 9dan games in between matches. Maybe it was having a goal of 100 games that made each game less painful to play. Maybe it was realizing that Go isn't mystical, and 5dan KGS players aren't amazing in some transcendental way. In fact, each player is just playing.

They are just making stuff up as they go along. And they can lose.

I'll leave you with a screenshot of a win that made me feel quite good. It was a satisfying win. The flow of the stones felt good and solid, and unfearful.

Bonus points to anyone who can source my Avatar. :)

Milestone

2007-10-20T14:33:00.001-07:00

I had the honor of playing against TheCaptain, yesterday. This is the first time that I've played him evenly, and I was given white. It was surprising that he challenged me to play, since I haven't seen him play anything but blitz, and the time settings were 10 minutes main time, 50 seconds byo-yomi, x 5.

For people who are unfamiliar with the KGS community, TheCaptain is one of the most idolized players, renowned for his fighting style and big battles to the death. He is a constant in the Go universe. He is one of the players you never actually expect to play evenly anytime soon. And if you do, you probably won't win. His reputation is that scary, casting a massive shadow over everyone except Tartrate.

Our opening started off with a fencing of moyos. I am not such a great player, and so I don't expect to either kill or invade very well. I will try hard though!

I wanted F8 to have more impact on the center, but perhaps E9 would be better?

He invades first and I secure a few points along the bottom, and create what I consider to be an almost heavy group in the middle.

I next made a couple invasions that were not quite completely shots in the dark. I was not familiar with his enclosure shapes, and so could only hope for the best.

I believe this white marked stone at E12 is a massive blunder. If he cuts it off at G10 then I believe his advantage in the fight will become clear. He can worry about securing c12 at a later time, because he has a number of sente moves at e17.

I sacrifice at D11 in order to gain a few sente stones but it was probably not enough, and I cannot see for the life of me why he chose to invade here as opposed to cutting at g16, which is a much stronger move, aiming at whites thinness on the right, m11.

With all the groups secure it is time for the endgame, another one of my weaknesses. To be honest, I don't have any strengths, only weaknesses and effort. ^^

White was favorable going into the endgame and so the result was W-84, B-80.

Of course, after I won this game I was incredibly happy. I had won as white against one of the most popular players on KGS, surpassing my own expectations for the game.

Which is strange. I am not strong, how could I have won? Could it be that TheCaptain is weak?

I have never thought of myself as strong, regardless of what rank I currently hold, and now is no exception. The result is that I think of my peers as weak as well, and people below us, I have no idea why they are not beating me down every time. Sometimes it seems like people of a 'weaker rank' just try awfully hard to lose.

I look forward to more matches with him, and hope to have many more good games. I was lucky to win our first encounter, but I'm sure his bloodthirsty nature will prevail in our rematch and give us a great game.

Playing Well

2007-10-08T19:04:00.000-07:00

The difference between playing well and winning?

"I lost, but I played well and so I am happy."

For the longest time this sounded like something the loser would say to console themselves. The attitude that losing can make you happy seems to conflict with the nature of Go, at least, the way I see it.

My experiences have shown me that Go is about winning, and the way to achieve a win is entirely up to the player. Gan Siyang, for example, uses completely unorthodox openings and has some nice results in the pro world.

So how, after investing immense effort toward achieving a goal, can you be happy with the result if you fail? The verdict of a Go game does not come in shades of gray, it is black and white, win or lose.

I admit to being overly critical at times, but I reasoned out a few ways that would explain how people can be happy with playing well even if they lose. Essentially, by "playing well," the player can -feel- as though they -could- have won, if they had been more fortunate. This is fundamental to our psyche and ego, imagining that we are -capable- of performing well under pressure, say, when a tiger charges our family.

And so being happy with a loss is nothing more than a result of the mind lying to us, to make us happy. (Which the mind and nervous system do quite often, scientifically speaking.)

But if you are happy, you are happy, right?

In last month's tournament there were a couple bittersweet victories that nearly left me in tears. I had won, but I didn't feel as though I had played well. I had come back from terrible positions to win marginally.

According to my theory, I felt bad about not playing well because it means that I won due to circumstances which are unlikely to repeat when needed. (Sharks attacking my boat, don't know enough Kung Fu to beat them away.)

Interestingly, Shark attacks occur most often when the shark mistakes a person for a fish.
So next time you are in shark infested waters, don't act like a fish.
(Sharks can also smell 1 part blood per ten million parts water, so don't bleed either.)

But to be honest, I am having a hard time coming to a conclusion about what the right attitude is. Do I want to value good plays over desperate plays?

In conclusion, I feel that I am unable to make sense of this until I am stronger, when a desperate move can be read out, when positional judgement is sound.

Maybe in a few years I will be content just to make good plays, for now, I want to win.

By the way, in September I was lucky to take first place in the KGS+ tournament. Each of my opponents left something of themselves with me, and I am stronger for it.

I was very lucky to go undefeated, 9 wins and 0 losses.

Getting first place just made me want to get stronger and study even more. Maybe I am a little obsessed? :)

Faces of Defeat

2007-10-06T11:28:00.000-07:00

For every rise, there comes a fall.

Respect yourself for getting up again.

Strength is Sought

2007-09-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

What is it I seek?

.....

Why do I play go?

.....

What do I hope to achieve?

.....

A few weeks ago I would have said that I played Go in order to learn how to work hard. It is important to me that I not fear hard work, that I embrace it as the pathway to success in life.

And the efforts have paid off, classwork is no longer boring nor tedious. Taking my time to do something well has been branded into me through my toils. Tsumego are perhaps one of the most tedious exercises known to man, visualizing black and white stones on points, side by side, for hours on end. Yet this has become exciting, and fun, and rewarding. This has taught me that anything can be an annoying hassle, or a rewarding experience, regardless of how mundane it may seem.

I don't want no regrets at the end of the line, neh?

And now I am 5 wins and zero losses in a KGS tournament. The strange sensations felt during an important game are hard for me to find elsewhere. Certainly college examinations don't give that spine tingling pressure.

I can feel it through my opponent, the way he responds to my moves shows me the respect he is giving me, or the lack of it. And I give back to him the same, pushing with my all. This battle of wills, on and off the board, is the most intense experience I have ever felt.

This is the energy that unites all Go players, all people who compete, who strive, who live their lives as hard as they can, who fear and hope and smile.

This human experience that we all want.

....

For some people, that pressure is unbearable.

....
Me too?

I am in first place, but there are 11 rounds left to go.

Three of my games were won from a vastly inferior position. I am not entirely certain how I want to feel about this. My game is weak enough that I fall behind easily, yet my intangible spirit is strong enough to persevere. Barely.

I cannot rely on myself to win for me, I must do the work.
....
I will temper my soul through the intense heat radiating from the Goban. Maybe this will make the world a better place.
....

"What you want" vs "What you know is right"

2007-06-14T02:22:00.000-07:00

Name me one go player who has not hummed and hawed over a position, trying to decide between playing the movie he has been told is correct, and the one he wants to play.

Both moves look fine to that person, with one giving up maybe a little more locally, or being a bit more crude, or maybe too territorial. There are as many reasons as stars in the sky, and sometimes the move may work out for us, and sometimes it may not.

The battle within is as fierce as the one on the board, and losing a battle to yourself too many times can have adverse consequences on your psyche, not to mention the flow of your moves.

Ultimately it occurs that all players wish they were stronger, regardless of their current level of skill. When someone indulges that desire and takes an active stance towards studying Go, it naturally follows that new ideas and concepts will be introduced into our already cluttered minds, and a very hard time will be had by all.

It is during that very hard time when the desire to study Go wanes, and other priorities re-emerge from their banished lands in the deep corners of our 'Sense of Purpose.'
Wasn't work piling up? Or maybe it's time to mow the grass. It's probably a good time to check your email. It is probably -always- a good time to check your email. It's still a good time, go ahead. Indulge.

It seems to be a learned reflex to shy away from things that are too difficult and pursue more attainable pleasures. Some children are all about playing on for hours until they win. Probably that's why they become better Go players than the rest of us.

And so returning to our original line of inquiry: "When is it okay to play what you want, and not what your 1kyu teacher said his 4dan teacher said a pro said to play?" Or, heaven forbid, you heard it directly from a professional.

A seasoned player may tell you to play whatever you want, whenever you want. I'll second that, though I am not by far a seasoned player.

If you really want to know what the right move is, then you will study the situation. If you choose to play under the informed ignorance pretense, then you should play the move you want to play anyway.

Playing just to win is not as enjoyable as actually playing the game itself.

The above image ripped from http://www.roflcat.com
Support the kitties.

Study vs Play

2007-06-08T23:58:00.000-07:00

Physicists do not build Rockets in one attempt. They do not stay up into the wee hours of the night, cramming in as many calculations and theories as they can, only set the books aside halfway, saying "Alright let's do this!"

There is just so much that they need to know in order to get hunks of metal off the face of the planet. We Taxpayers and space enthusiasts would rather they didn't try to make a competition out of it, with testosterone pumped NASA geeks out parading their own creative attempt at space craft.

Although that would be a lot more entertaining.

And yet a Go player is expected to sit before a board without any materials or notes and play with his or her pitiful amount of knowledge.

Humans probably believe there is something innately deep about high level Go players, that although the move may look simple there is amazing complexity hidden within the stone. That humans are capable of playing incredibly deep and satisfying games without even realizing it.

That must be how a lot of players get started.

And then you realize that you don't know anything about Go, and you freak out because you have so much to learn.

That must be why a lot of people quit.

And some are just too stubborn to realize they don't know anything, and go on to become 7dans.

A good ratio between study and play would be to study until the point that you need to play in order to retain it. Then play until it is retained, and repeat.

An issue is that studying a large variety of sequences nearly guarantees that some of them will not occur in the games.

And why is emotion needed to finalize the memory? Why isn't desire enough?

Reading Skill

2007-06-08T01:15:00.000-07:00

Healthy mind and body? Tis but a pipe dream when racing through the mean streets of angry Tesuji and bewildering Joseki.

All Go players wish they could read just a few moves deeper, see just that one extra Tesuji to ensure a win. Some of us wish we could see any moves at all.

Hopefully many of you have already given some thought as to the nature of what reading is, probably in the wake of a particularly frustrating fight in which your opponent grabbed all of your vitals and left you dead in the water, it occurred to you that maybe you should have tried to read the fight out.

And then maybe in your moment of despair you gave thought as to what the easiest way to improve your reading skill would be. Someone may have mentioned doing lots of life and death, but you brushed that off, because honestly who has the time?

And then it occurs to you that all you need to do to improve your reading ability is to think about why reading is hard? You know that you can imagine that attractive person down the street in stunning detail, so why are a few lines and circles giving you such a bad rap?

I don't know. Hopefully you figured out the answer and can let me know.

In the past few days I have done a few thousand tsumego and it finally dawned on me to try to see the shapes formed, not the intersections occupied. It works a lot better, amazingly so.

So far, roughly on schedule.

2007-06-07T03:30:00.000-07:00

Although I intended not to have much in the way of 'I want to improve' in this Go blog, it seems as fine a place as any to organize my plans and ensure they are carried out.

Let's say my goal is to beat KGS 6dans a fair amount of the time, so either KGS 5 or 6 is fine for me, as long as it is achieved by the end of the summer.

Which is to say that I want to:
1) Eliminate opening mistakes through the study of all common openings.
2) Eliminate close contact fighting mistakes, probably through the study of fights after complicated joseki.
3) Eliminate Life and Death errors via Tsumego
4) Eliminate invasion errors through the study of such.
5) Obviously, eliminate joseki errors.
6) Temper the killing flame to the bare necessity, through the understanding of life shapes.
7) Improve endgame through reverse game review.

I noticed that a great deal of the learning process is removal of mistakes, as opposed to adding good moves. The general feeling is that when my mistakes are gone it will be time to work on playing good moves, not before.

Which leads to an interesting idea.

Is a sufficient move a good move, or is it merely adequate and expected of a passable game. Certainly a normal move in response to a mistake is not a good move, even if the result is highly favorable.
Therefore a normal move in response to a normal move is probably no more good.

A normal move would be one seen by most players at the higher levels.

To define a good move is beyond the scope of my current.. well, tired self.

Perhaps it is enough to say that a move is defined by the player who plays it? The intentions are what allow a stone to move around the board although it stays still.

A Human Adventure

2007-06-06T00:50:00.000-07:00

I am continuously amazed by the variety and depth of character of the Go players I have met.
Often it seems the only thing people have in common is their enjoyment of the game, and that is usually enough.

They are fascinating, those people who play Go

Some choose to hide their faces while they play, pulling their hoods and hats down over their eyes as if to better hide their true intentions.

Others with straight backs sit grandly before the board, letting their moves fly downward like bolts of heaven from the skies. It is an impressive view regardless of the players skill on the board.

Young and old alike will hunch over the board and try to sniff out a tesuji from a complicated position.

Grudging respect is given and received, as people grow from each encounter.

So rarely these days do the generations partake in a similar activity together, it is heartwarming to see old and young connect together in mutual respect over the board. Language is also no longer a barrier because the stones carry as much meaning as a thousand words. A thousand years of words.

Go is a game of harmony between two, whether in the whistling clash of swords or the gentle strumming of a breeze through the leaves.

Two must find a way together.

Emotional Investments

2007-05-22T14:37:00.000-07:00

There are emotions that every Go player is well acquainted with. The strongest are undoubtedly Fear, Joy, and Desolation.

I do not enjoy fear or desolation any more than the next person. And the pleasure found in Go is something that you must work for. Hard. It is a rare individual who is happy beating people of levels long surpassed.

When actively studying at Go, depression seems like a normal part of the cycle. It is always there hiding, threatening to strike from behind every failure. Getting out of it is sometimes easier and sometimes harder, but it seems slightly masochistic that one's favorite past time induces periods of wallowing self pity.

Other times I am overcome by a feeling of weakness, lacking the will to play, to study, to do almost anything. I feel detestable and uncomfortable. Even with my Inner voice supplying me with plenty of rational thought, it is sad.

Fortunately, I have found a way around those feelings, for the most part. Whenever I need a break from the exhausting and never ending battle against myself, and time, I read a book. This may be old news to many of you, but I have not read seriously in many years and it is a refreshing past time that I am grateful to have picked up.

Maybe it's something about the fantastic nature of story or strong characters, but just like a good episode of Hikaru No Go, I feel ready to tackle the field again after a short time, spirit renewed.

There is a definite feeling of strength from having overcome the despair. Like my guts went up by three points.

I am not quite ready to seek out the most harrowing experience just to increase my will, but I don't want to run from things that stand in my way. I don't want to live my life that way.

Although I am not a fan of the first person perspective, the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs is a light fast read that readies me for the battles on the board.

Finding relief like this is essential to progress. The pressure must be alleviated.