2 More W's

I won both my games today. :-) So I'm at 4-1-1 after 6 rounds. There are still 3 more rounds. But I'm guaranteed now to at least break even for the tournament. (i.e. finish at .500 or above). The standings are here.

No! Don't Move There!

I managed to get myself into a slightly inferior position in my first game today, which deteriorated into a losing endgame. By some miracle, however, I managed to salvage a draw. For my second game today, I got into horrible time trouble yet again. (Recall that if you run out of time then you lose). I made my first significant screw up of the tournament and lost a piece as I didn't enough time left to properly think about my move. The position was total chaos, but I think if I played properly then I would have ended up with the better position. Oh well, such is life. So I'm sitting at 2-1-1 and currently tied for 6th of 22 in the U2000 section. (There are five sections, U2000 being the middle one). Perhaps tomorrow will bring better luck.

A Good Start

Not very many people showed up Wednesday night for the blitz tournament. (For the uninitiated, that means you get 5 minutes to make all your moves. If you run out of time you lose). Barely more than 10% of those playing in the tournament proper played. I went 6-7-1 to finished tied 9th-13th of 18 players. Needless to say, the Grandmaster won.

Today was a little more successfully. I won both my games. I'm tired beyond belief now. I need to search the Internet to see if I can find cheaper parking at the University of Guelph, have a snack, prepare for tomorrow's first game and then get some sleep...

8 Days Of Chess

Yesterday was the first day of my eight days of chess. It was the third round of the summer round robin at the local club. I won. :-) But I seem to have reverted back to my old habits. I almost ran out of time. Today the Guelph Pro-Am International starts. While, there is just the "opening ceremonies" (whatever that entails) and then a blitz tournament. It starts for real tomorrow and run through to Monday. (Nine rounds in total). Then next Tuesday will be the fourth round of the tournament at the local club. I think I'll be really tired by then. I think I found the website for the Guelph tournament. Perhaps there will be updates during the tournament. (For reference, I'll be playing in the Under 2000 section).

More Photos

I put up photos from my convocation as well as my camping trip. So that brings my photo gallery "up to date".

Round 2

Last night was the second round of the chess tournament that I'm in at the local chess club. Somehow I misplayed the opening and ended up at a slight disadvantage. There wasn't too much choice on what to do after that - I managed to force trading off lots of pieces to (more or less) equalize. The result was a fairly unclear endgame. I accepted a draw offer at that point as it seemed like a decent result. (Although, it probably would have been a good experience to play out the game and see what would happen).

I've finished posting all my photos from my trip to Europe. (While, technically that's not all the photos I took, but it's all the photos that I'm going to post here).

I'm Back...

After a two year hiatus, I've started playing chess again. Last night was the first round of the summer tournament at the local chess club. It is a double round robin with various groups of four. (So you should end up playing six games). I'm in the second group and seeded first (by a fair margin), so that adds a bit more pressure to do well. I played a decent, but conservative game to fetch a win in 53 moves, so I'm pleased that things are off to a good start.

Fahrenheit

Despite the fact that my primary occupation right now is loitering in my parents' basement, I seem to be busy all the time.

Thursday I went to see The Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind with some of my friends at the Princess Cinema. The movie was different, but good. I've never really been a Jim Carey fan, but I thought his acting was decent. I'd have to say that it's a film that is worth seeing.

Friday, I finished reading Hegemony Or Survival: America's Quest For Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky. I've never read anything by Chomsky before, but I have heard interesting things about him. I thought he gave compelling arguments for his thesis that America has held the prolonged goal to dominate the World at all cost (while eroding social programs and further enriching the elite). There is no doubt that the Right would describe it as seditious if the US was actually well read. (The National Endowment for the Arts said the other day that 53% of adult Americans don't read books at all). However, Chomsky is equal scathing in his criticism of Democratic presidents as well. (Although the Reagan-Bush-Bush administrations receive the bulk of his attack). Overall, I would say his assessment is a reasonable one. That said, there are a number of aspects where his argument is susceptible to a counter-arguments. (e.g. He scathes Clinton for acting in Kosovo, but also scathes Clinton for not acting in East Timor. If action and inaction are both reprehensible then it is hard not to be condemned). It is definitely a book worth reading as it adds perspective.

Yesterday I saw Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 with some other friends. I thought it was a good documentary. A lot of material was covered, but the current administration can be reproached along many avenues. However, I didn't learn a lot of new facts nor did the movie seem overly damning of Bush. Perhaps, it is because I live outside the US, where the media is not so sycophantic or perhaps it is rather hard to top the degree of criticism reached by Hegemony Or Survival. Or maybe after all the fuss made by the RNC, I expected the movie to be more assaulting. Again, this is worth seeing because it adds perspective. However, it lacks the entertaining moments contained in Bowling For Columbine or Supersize Me, so go expecting a more serious movie.

Camping

I'm back from my camping trip with my friends Darryl, Martin, and Austin at Ferris Provincial Park, which is outside Campbellford. (i.e. North of Trenton). But we had to drive to Kingston first to pick up Austin. It was a good weekend. We mostly spent it just hanging out, but we also did some fishing. I've never been fishing before. (Darryl and Martin were the fishers in the group). We caught a lot of small bass ("panfish"). Some of them we ate and some of them we threw back.

I've added photos from Florence, Pisa, and Monaco to my photos page over the past couple days. The only part of my Europe trip left to add is France. Afterward, I'll add some photos from my Convocation as well as from the camping trip.