![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Nice machine...
Apr. 3rd, 2004 10:07 pmEarlier today, I popped over to see what was on the tube and caught After the Thin Man, a 30's movie starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles (characters born in the brain of Dashiell Hammett, who also wrote The Maltese Falcon, among many stories). I caught it a few minutes after it started and watched it for a few minutes, but then felt the tug of having to go back to work.
Normally, I'd have no regrets forgetting about the movie, turning off the tube, and going back downstairs, but with the new hardware, all I needed to do was press one button, and the rest of the movie was written to the hard drive in the receiver. I picked up watching the movie during dinner, then paused it when I went back downstairs for more translation, and finally resumed watching the movie when I went up for a break.
I'm back downstairs, back at work, having attempted to program the device to record all of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which starts in a little less than an hour from now.
* * * I've mentioned having set up a chess board and pieces in the bedroom to help while away some spare time. I've since raided my collection of chess books, noting that most of them are... old, both in the physical sense and by the fact that many of them use the so-called English Descriptive notation (where the first several moves of the Ruy Lopez are expressed as: 1. P-K4 P-K4 2. N-KB3 N-QB3 3. B-N5), which was the notation with which I learned to play, but which has since been supplanted by the so-called algebraic notation in use almost everywhere else (the same moves look like: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5).
One of my favorite books is actually a pamphlet of sorts, titled Das Gedult Buch, by Alfred Freidl (and published in German, naturally). It is a collection of games by one David Gedult, who once served in the French Foreign Legion with distinction and retired to the life of a confectioner in France.
Gedult was a player who loved playing sharp chess and his specialty, so to speak, was the miniature (a game of roughly 20 moves or so or less). There is even an opening named after him (White starts with the rather unusual move 1.f6, aiming at an eventual Blackmar-Diemer Gambit by transposition, if memory serves)... although when it comes to moves like that, there is really no clear international consensus on the names of openings.
(Heck, there really isn't even a consensus for well-known openings: the "Ruy Lopez" I mention above is called the "Spanish Game" in Russia, for example.)
Why am I mentioning this? Well, I searched for "Gedult" on eBay and - would you believe it? - there's an auction going on that offers a book of Gedult's games! What's even more interesting is that it was co-authored by Freidl and one Tom Purser, whom I met back when I edited the Jacksonville Chess Club Newsletter in the early 80s.
I first made Tom's acquaintance when he sent me an inaugural copy of BDG World, a newsletter devoted to the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, which piqued my interest as I had been playing the BDG on and off since 1967 (am I dating myself, or what?), when I impulsively signed up to play in an international correspondence chess tournament where everyone had to play the BDG. (I came in third in my section, if I recall, and even had one of my wins published!)
Anyway, I met Tom in RL one year when he came to Jacksonville for a over-the-board tournament... I'd say around 1985 or 1986, and then I drifted away from the game, devoting my spare time to freelance writing for magazines and book publishers. I am gratified to learn that Tom is still alive and kicking, and living now in Florida.
I might even bid on the auction.
* * * If memory serves, Daylight Saving Time kicks in in a matter of hours (unless you live in Arizona... or at least most parts of it). I had a miserable night last night, waking at 1:30 am with a massive headache and not being able to sleep for a while. I got up early and moped around the house until it was time to go to the store, where I spent the day.
I shall finish the aerospace translation tomorrow and start on the BJF (Big Job for Friday).
Cheers...
[UPDATE: Actually the English book on Gedult was written by Anders Tejler and Tom Purser. I don't know why, but I apparently confused Tejler for Freidl when writing this.]
Normally, I'd have no regrets forgetting about the movie, turning off the tube, and going back downstairs, but with the new hardware, all I needed to do was press one button, and the rest of the movie was written to the hard drive in the receiver. I picked up watching the movie during dinner, then paused it when I went back downstairs for more translation, and finally resumed watching the movie when I went up for a break.
I'm back downstairs, back at work, having attempted to program the device to record all of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which starts in a little less than an hour from now.
One of my favorite books is actually a pamphlet of sorts, titled Das Gedult Buch, by Alfred Freidl (and published in German, naturally). It is a collection of games by one David Gedult, who once served in the French Foreign Legion with distinction and retired to the life of a confectioner in France.
Gedult was a player who loved playing sharp chess and his specialty, so to speak, was the miniature (a game of roughly 20 moves or so or less). There is even an opening named after him (White starts with the rather unusual move 1.f6, aiming at an eventual Blackmar-Diemer Gambit by transposition, if memory serves)... although when it comes to moves like that, there is really no clear international consensus on the names of openings.
(Heck, there really isn't even a consensus for well-known openings: the "Ruy Lopez" I mention above is called the "Spanish Game" in Russia, for example.)
Why am I mentioning this? Well, I searched for "Gedult" on eBay and - would you believe it? - there's an auction going on that offers a book of Gedult's games! What's even more interesting is that it was co-authored by Freidl and one Tom Purser, whom I met back when I edited the Jacksonville Chess Club Newsletter in the early 80s.
I first made Tom's acquaintance when he sent me an inaugural copy of BDG World, a newsletter devoted to the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, which piqued my interest as I had been playing the BDG on and off since 1967 (am I dating myself, or what?), when I impulsively signed up to play in an international correspondence chess tournament where everyone had to play the BDG. (I came in third in my section, if I recall, and even had one of my wins published!)
Anyway, I met Tom in RL one year when he came to Jacksonville for a over-the-board tournament... I'd say around 1985 or 1986, and then I drifted away from the game, devoting my spare time to freelance writing for magazines and book publishers. I am gratified to learn that Tom is still alive and kicking, and living now in Florida.
I might even bid on the auction.
I shall finish the aerospace translation tomorrow and start on the BJF (Big Job for Friday).
Cheers...
[UPDATE: Actually the English book on Gedult was written by Anders Tejler and Tom Purser. I don't know why, but I apparently confused Tejler for Freidl when writing this.]
