Here is classic episode #3!

Feedback would be appreciated.

I want to point out that many things the Founding Fathers put into the Constitution that were changed to make the United States a better place to live.  How about the removal of Prohibition?  Sure, it would have been better if it wasn’t in there in the first place, but if we didn’t change the damn document, we’d all be living in a very different place.  How about the 13th Amendment that abolishes slavery?  If we didn’t amend that, we’d still own black people… and that is not cool.  What about the 19th Amendment that allows women to vote?  Yeah, maybe we want to repeal that one… just kidding, ladies.  I jest.

So, what I’m getting at is that the Bible thumpers, yes I’m calling them Bible thumpers, keep hammering on the fact that same sex marriage shouldn’t be allowed.  Why not?  Is it because when you hang out with tall people you also become tall?  Is that because two gay parents will only raise gay children (like straight parents only raise straight children)?  Is it because your religion forbids it?  Well, I think your Bible also forbids all kinds of other stuff, too… let me post the image about what else could’t, shouldn’t, can’t, and isn’t supposed to be done by followers of the Bible:

Yeah.

As an American, I want people to stop quoting the Bible about should or should not be done.  I am not a Christian, thus, I do not follow your Bible.  Your Bible has no meaning to me, thus, I should not swear on it or have to listen to things that are contained within.  I don’t push my religious beliefs on you, please stop pushing your religious beliefs on me.  Extremely religious people can be quiet about their faith… like the guy below:

Sorry about this long post.  It needed to be said.

Contact trumpshairforpresident@gmail.com

JBear on the Air

Traveling Podcast

EPISODE ONE

The University of Minnesota Moorhead was done for the season and cast out the podcast giant Jared (giant in size, not in stature). He was forced to take his show on the road.

There was an evil empire that was pursuing him relentlessly as he drove around, without pants, protesting various charities for their “great work.” Yes, protesting.

Then came a man from Nantucket, who always carried a bucket… when he got high, he opened his fly, and that’s where our story begins…

Contact: jbearontheair@gmail.com

I whined, but here’s another episode of the Podcast of Darkness.

This coming week is looking up, though, as I’ve got Lime Flavored Podcast #45 being recorded TOMORROW and will include stuff about the Manchester United game (vs. Swansea City) and the Avengers movie!  We are hoping for a Scuzz return for this episode as well, since he’s tentatively going to accompany us to both the game (at a local place – Reza’s Pitch) and the theater to watch the movie in 3D.  Also this week, I’ve got at least 2 episodes worth of audio for the BobCast that I can assemble and release… I feel bad for not doing anything with what I had for the past couple weeks but I’ve been working too damn much.  I’m sure the Bad Breakers will be making another episode release this week, too, stay tuned!

As for the Podcast of Darkness and the “retro release of Lime Flavored Podcasts,” I will be doing a double release next week to make up for my lack of releases this past week.  Hell, I’ll be making a massive release of all kinds of stuff this coming week because, damnit, you deserve it!

Oh, did I mention I’ll have some special guests on a future episode of the Lime Flavored Podcast?  I’m hoping to score at least one, maybe two episodes of guest stars (former guest star Morgan Imperial and Carlos Van Vegas, who has commented in the past and is coming over from merry old England!).

The Planets.nu podcast, the Nuniverse, is being arranged to get the podcast started…

Yay!

Feedback should be sent to trumpshairforpresident@gmail.com, NOT the email address noted in the podcast.

This move is part of a larger effort which will become more apparent in the near future.  When the releases slow down, or serious progress is made on Project Garnet, I will explain things in more detail.  Until then, enjoy the audio re-releases and hopefully we can blaze a bright trail into the future with many more entertaining podcasts.

Do not send feedback to any place other than trumpshairforpresident@gmail.com, please.

Contact: jbearontheair@gmail.com

The original feed 

On the original feed you will find Lime Flavored Podcast episodes 1 through 30, Dark Green: The Blackwood Chronicles (all of them) and I believe the first one or two of the Smaragdi Noctes: Dark Green podcasts… I may also soon be linking to the original Podcast of Darkness here, the ENTIRE RUN, from episode 1 to 34… but I still have a missing episode.  Coming soon!

I am joined by Tricia and Scuzz this episode for a rollicking through Project Garnet, GI Joe, Transformers, and the parking debacle in Bismarck!

Contact us at trumpshairforpresident@gmail.com

After I finished the last article talking about how to bring the Justice League together in a big screen fashion like Marvel did with the Avengers, I thought about the scenario and came up with another way to do the same thing, but without having to worry about a gigantic budget or worrying about the large scale scope of a multi-year project.  Although my previous suggestion was only a 2 year (maybe 3) project, I think that something can be done differently to do the same thing but with a unique twist.

DC has always been fairly decent at making TV shows.  Now, some of you will point out that Smallville was the only DC show that they’ve done and that they haven’t really done anything else worthy of note.  Wrong.  They did the Flash, hop in the way back machine and go to the late 80s/early 90s for that “gem.”  That isn’t what I’m talking about, though.  DC and Warner Brothers are basically the same thing at this point (much like Disney and Marvel, though that separation seems like a deeper one).  Marvel has done really well with live action movies, DC has done well with their multitude of animated series.  Batman (all of the series), Justice League, and now Green Lantern… the characters can be done on TV, and all I’m saying is try doing a live action version.

Enter Smallville.  Smallville was a 10 year journey for a young Clark Kent from small town farm boy to full fledged superhero.  While network TV is a tedious way to build up a single character, why does a show have to concentrate on just one?  Smallville for the whole Justice League?

Using my core six members from before, you can build a full 20 episode season around the idea that you’ll get 4 or 5 episodes per character per season.  For those keeping count, that means a couple of the main players don’t get featured at all in season one.  I’d suggest leaving Superman off of season one… and maybe hold off on the Batman for season one, too.

The series, which I’ll just call “Justice,” starts out on Themyscira and builds up Wonder Woman… using her proper, or very, very close to her proper origin.  Give the writers 4 episodes to build up the beginnings of Wonder Woman and leave what happens next at a cliffhanger… episode 5 then progresses to tell the Atlantean story of Aquaman.  When the last of the four episode arc complete Aquaman’s origin, then leave his tale at a cliffhanger.  See a pattern?  That’s where the pattern ends, really.  Green Lantern’s origin is told in a massive 7 episode arc (because there is SO MUCH GOING ON in his origin, you really need a big platform), tying into John Stewart and Guy Gardner as well as dealing with Hal Jordan… don’t muck about with the origin, just stick to the basics.  Don’t do Parallax.  Don’t do Sinestro.  Try to keep it simple.  You can even tie GL into the Flash, as in he is the buddy of Barry Allen, who becomes the Flash to finish out the first season… yeah, that’s right, four of the six, and you have 4 cliffhangers for 4 different characters.  Season 2?  That goes a bit differently.

FLASHBACK!  Yes, start out with a single flashback episode that tells us about Kal El’s arrival on Earth.  Give us a story that has the Kents keeping him safe just long enough to get us through the episode.  Episode 2 shoots through to Gotham where we are privy to Bruce Wayne’s origin… not him going straight to Batman, but more the Nolan version of building up his skills before donning the mask.  Episode 3 returns us to the familiar as we see Wonder Woman go through the next phase of her story, which lasts 3 episodes and ends her up in New York (not in peril).  Green Lantern joins us in New York in a similar fashion after 2 episodes.  Flash gets a single episode moving to New York chasing a mystery villain.  Aquaman will get 3 episodes to define why he leaves the water to come to New York.  We’re 11 episodes into season 2 and that gives us enough time for two big origins: Batman then Superman.  Batman’s origin is given 5 episodes, taking him from skill building into the suit… and into a business meeting in New York.  Cut to Superman, told in 3 episodes, brought to the modern day and moving into New York for a news story.  That gives us a single episode of 6 perspectives from 6 different characters coming together to face a common foe.  Would I use Darkseid as this common foe?  I wouldn’t, but there isn’t a good reason he couldn’t be.  Leave the season at a cliffhanger giving the reason for all 6 to come together.

Season 3 would be their first combined battle and would then be about how the group functions as a unit against others… sure, it isn’t a big screen deal but it is a way to create the team.  If you wanted to skip the cliffhanger ending in season 3, use that break for a 3 hour movie of the Justice League, which leads into season 3… then, you can have a sequel between every season until the series is cut.  Don’t limit yourself to just the primary 6, either.  Bring Martian Manhunter in sometime during season 3.  Cyborg should also make an appearance.  Green Arrow could pop in, maybe even the others I mentioned last time.  Hell, Justice League 3 (between seasons 4 and 5) could be a completely different team than the originals.  That would do something Marvel hasn’t…

It’s a way to keep things focused and concentrate on many facets in one setting rather than trying to coordinate several movie franchises into a single direction.

Thoughts?

There is a lot that is going on in the world of movies and the biggest thing that is currently ready to explode is the Avengers, Marvel Entertainment’s huge project.  In my opinion, the Avengers movie will be the record breaking phenomenon of our lifetime.  There has been a lot of expectations and speculations but everything has been pointed at Marvel.  What I am about to talk about is going to deal with DC, Marvel’s chief rival.

What I’m talking about is the Justice League.

Unlike Marvel, DC’s line of travel is a bit longer to get to a Justice League movie.  Marvel’s principle super team was comprised of a very limited scope of characters, all of which have wildly differing backgrounds.  Marvel had the Ultimate Comics line to lean on to recreate their super team, though, and DC doesn’t have anything like that.  Some might look towards DC’s recent relaunch as a similar example but I would beg to differ.

Forget all of that, though.  DC needs to look at a realistic reimagining of their top super team and if they want to have something like the Avengers on their hands.  DC can’t just repeat Marvel’s path, either, they have to do something completely different… and I have some ideas.

First, let’s look at DC’s Justice League.  We have Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Flash as the core of the group.  If we look at the classic DC, you’d want to include Martian Manhunter and if you want to look at the reimagined JL you want to include Cyborg.  In my opinion, we want to stick with the core six… I don’t think that anyone else should be included because the method of getting there would take too long… so, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Flash are the lineup.  So, what next?

Marvel did the whole thing through feature films… DC has to look at doing a little more.  Marvel started with one of their “B list” heroes, moved on to one of the biggest “A list,” then went to “B” and “A” again… I think that DC doesn’t need to stagger themselves like this and can build their core six team without worrying about the heroes’ status or popularity.  (Yes, Iron Man and Thor were B list heroes, while Hulk and Captain America were A listers… I’d say that Iron Man and Thor’s statuses are different now, but they were B listers when the movies started.)  So, what’s my plan?

DC should start out with the one character that everyone thinks is lame: Aquaman.  Take Arthur Curry and put him in a big screen setting… a la Entourage’s fictional portrayal.  If you give Aquaman the origin of reclaiming his rights for Atlantis in a war against pollution, you nail two birds with one stone.  DC looks environmentally conscious while giving Aquaman the first step in their setting up of the Justice League.  The setting begins.

Batman should be next on the agenda.  Smallville breathed life into Superman (the old DC Superman), so it’s time to do Gotham (or Wayne, or whatever you want to call it).  Batman should be given a series that does NOT have the “filler” Smallville did… make it a 13 episode season series.  With Aquaman’s feature film out and Batman’s series finishing their first season in the same 6 month period, make sure that the basis for what Batman IS is finished before the second season begins.  Batman should be wearing the costume during or by the end of season 2.  That’s 2.  Who’s next?

I’m not a big fan of the Flash.  Giving the Flash a web series, no episode longer than 15 minutes, and building a solid origin during the same time that Aquaman’s movie comes out and the Batman series is on… this isn’t diminishing Flash’s role, it allows us to do to Flash what Flash needs done: fast, stories, told very quickly, and accentuating what Flash is all about: speed.  Hints at a feature film can be done, but what Flash’s web series should actually culminate in is a “web movie,” longer than the series episodes but something that can be marketed to a crowd savvy online.  We have 3, what now?

Green Lantern should be next.  I would have originally said to keep Ryan Reynolds in his spot and just launch off of the movie he’s already a star in… but further thought made me rethink that.  Cast an actor, model a 3D CGI character from him, and give Green Lantern a Saturday Morning cartoon show.  With the CGI model actually based on the actor, making the character realistic would be far easier than trying to do a live action series or a movie again, considering how large scale GL needs to be.  Run this after series 1 of Batman runs and make sure that there is another season planned to run during Batman’s second season… then we have 4.

Wonder Woman has caused a lot of folks a lot of trouble for a long time.  Thor is the analogue here and if you can’t see how to do a “demigod” angle with Wonder Woman after Thor’s movie, then the people running the show are too stupid to be in charge.  Wonder Woman should follow her actual origin in a feature film.  The film shouldn’t be out farther than 6 months from Aquaman’s movie and the budget should be through the roof.  Follow the reimagined DC’s version, using the horror style that they’ve been using.  Wonder Woman should be a no-brainer but no one seems to be able to think about how to make this thing work.  This leads into the coup de gras for DC: Superman.

We’ve had Smallville.  We’ve had the Donnor films.  DC knows how to do Superman.  But can they do it again?  I’m writing this before Man of Steel is released and I’m going to say that Man of Steel COULD, possibly, be the way to launch this whole thing.  If they do Superman right (with the new DC version), then a sequel would be best in order to make sure the Justice League has its rightful place on top of the movie world.

Whoever is cast as Aquaman in his movie, Green Lantern as the base actor for the cartoon show, Batman in his series, Wonder Woman from her series, Flash from the webseries, and the guy staring in the Man of Steel are your Justice League… make sure the villain is Darkseid and you have yourself a winner.  Darkseid should have minions and they should do the bulk of the fighting.  He should be attempting to take over the world.

Don’t stop there, DC!  Seed Martian Manhunter in there somewhere… put in a nod to Cyborg… what about Booster Gold?  Blue Beetle?  If you seed enough little tidbits in there, then you have yourself the next wave of Justice League members and you have subjects for the next wave of DC’s takeover of entertainment.  You have WARNER BROTHERS backing you, for Pete’s sake, why can’t something like this be done?  Hell, DC should be ruling the roost, yet it seems to be the one trying to play catchup…

I just gave you a roadmap.

Contact: jbearontheair@gmail.com

Tricia and I discuss the finer apps out there we’ve been privy to, Facebook can be modified by a new website, and I bore Tricia to death with the Story Bible this week.

Want more Bob? We all do… tell him at trumpshairforpresident@gmail.com and we’ll pester him together.

I’ve gotten zilch written since my Project Garnet priorities were adjusted and I’ve been given a bunch of work related tasks to do every night this week… so, hang in there… stuff is coming.

Contact: jbearontheair@gmail.com
Visit us on Facebook! facebook.com/Jbearontheair

Contact us! jbearontheair@gmail.com

We talk about stuff.  Enjoy!

Welcome them to Lime Flavored.com!

But this isn’t as spectacular without the background behind the epic win.  The journey really started in the early 60s, long before DJ ever stepped into the competition… or was even born!  Here is the tale.

Back in the “Golden Age” of paper tossing, the most dominant player of the 50s was Dick Dangle.  Dangle had started competing in paper tossing in the early 40s and finally won his first championship in the 1948 World Paper Tossing Championships.  No one had won more than two championships before Dangle and certainly no one had won back to back championships.  Dangle broke that record by winning the 1949 World Championship as hard fought as he’d won the first one.  That brought paper tossing into the limelight and made it one of the most competitive sports in the United States, and by the mid-50s, the world.

“I can remember when winning a championship other than paper tossing didn’t mean much,” remembered “Bull” Bill Schitt, the 1953 Slinky Walking World Champion.  ”I won mine when I was 14 but it really didn’t even register.  There were too many people interested in paper tossing.”

“Bull was a great brother and wanted me to follow in his footsteps,” recalled Jack Schitt, brother to Bill Schitt.  ”I just wanted to play paper tossing when I was old enough.”  Jack won the 1965 World Paper Tossing Championship and was forced to retire after a a career ending paper cut.  ”I rose to the top, won my championship, and I was on top of the world.”

Dick Dangle became the face of paper tossing when he added 1952, 1955, 1957, 1958, and 1960 World Paper Tossing Championships to his list of accomplishments.  With seven World Championships, Dick Dangle was an inspiration to multiple generations of paper tossing hopefuls.  One of the people he inspired was William Fold, Bill to his friends.

Bill Fold started world class paper tossing in 1958 by making the top 100 list of best players in the world.  When he beat 15 other former world champions, including Jack Schitt and Dick Dangle, in the 1961 Super-Invitational Paper Tossing Cup competition, Bill became an overnight sensation and was featured in Paper Tossing Today, the leading magazine for the sport.

Competing head to head in World Championships, Bill and Dick formed a friendship that lasted until Dick’s death in 1968.  Dick won the 1963 World Championship, his final, as Bill was building his own legacy.  Bill Fold won the World Championship of paper tossing in 1962, 1964, 1966, 1967, and 1970.  He was the fastest rising star in the sport everyone wanted to compete in.  Bill Fold was so good at paper tossing, people used to say “Bill Fold: Where the Money’s At.”

Unlike his idol, Bill did something that his idol couldn’t do: win three straight championships.  Breaking the repeat barrier with 1972, 1973, and 1974 World Championship wins put Bill in a class of his own.  He became the most famous paper tosser ever to play the game.  When the “1975 Mishap” occurred, many thought Bill’s career was over but it was only a stutter step in his path to greatness.

“In 1975,” Bill recalled in 1992, the year before his death, “I had to fart while I was preparing to through the winning shot.  I didn’t realize that it was more than a fart and I soiled myself, throwing off my balance and I missed the shot.  I was so embarrassed I’d missed the shot.”

The incident forced Bill into a self-imposed exile to reflect on his career.  When he knew he wanted to come back to the game, he returned to a training regiment in 1979 to get fit for competition again.  This was when 3 year old DJ Allen became captivated by paper tossing and would come to love the game for decades to come.

Success wasn’t immediate, but Bill Fold did finally win another championship in 1985, after taking on the best players out of the most diverse field ever to compete.  The game was finally world wide.  Bill had clawed his way back into the limelight with his ninth World Championship… but it would be the last time he won because the man who would come to shape the game was old enough to compete with the best of the best.

The 1986 World Paper Tossing Championships would be looked back as the dawning of a new era.  Defending World Champion, “Where the Money’s At” Bill Fold, would be the chosen favorite to repeat even when the fastest rising star in paper tossing, DJ Allen, was making his finals debut.  DJ Allen won his first championship against the defending champion, elevating his win to a height very few others had ever experienced.

“Bill was a legend,” said DJ Allen.  ”I could remember being in the audience for the 1985 World Championships shouting ‘Where the Money’s At!  Where the Money’s At!’  Bill Fold was like leather, he looked good and was tough as hell.”

DJ and Bill met 5 more times in the finals, only missing the 1990 finals as Bill lost in the semi-final round.  Each time, though, DJ Allen came out on top.  He won the 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, and 1991 World Championships, accomplishing the impossible and doing it against the legendary face of paper tossing five out of six times.  If he never threw another wadded piece of paper, DJ would be remembered as a legend in his own right.

“Bill retired from paper tossing in 1991, right after I beat him in the finals,” said DJ.  ”He was in the sport for 30 years, that was something no one else had done.”

Bill Fold watched DJ Allen go on to win the 1992 World Championship before a fatal handwriting accident would end his life.  DJ would contemplate retiring until the 1993 competition but he held off and the paper tossing world was better for it.

DJ Allen added 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997 to his list of World Paper Tossing Championships to his streak, bringing his World Championship streak to an unheard of 12 straight.  Like Dick and Bill before him, DJ became the face of paper tossing and was officially named the “Greatest Player Ever” by Paper Times Weekly magazine.  There weren’t many who could disagree.

“After the 1997 tournament,” recalled DJ, “I looked around and realized that there wasn’t anyone in paper tossing I hadn’t beaten.  I’d tossed them all.  Something a champion thrives on in competition but my competition from 1994 to 1997 were paper thin… I decided to walk away.”

When DJ decided to announce he wouldn’t be returning for the 1998 World Championships made many protest.  One of his biggest fans, Harry Balzanya, famously refused to use paper of any kind the entire year… not even toilet paper.  After DJ failed to appear for the 1999 World Championships, people started to realize that perhaps the legend had finally retired.

No one from 1998 to 2011 won more than one World Paper Tossing Championship and none of them rose to become anything but a “ink spot” in the history of paper tossing.  While several “firsts” happened during that stretch (first female champion Fay Kname, youngest ever champion 10 year old Stu Pidhead, oldest ever champion 96 year old Phill McCreviss), no one really stood out as being the next big thing.  The glory of paper tossing was threatening to wane.

Until now.

Returning to the 2012 World Paper Tossing Championship with an unstoppable run through the competition, DJ Allen is once again the top paper tosser in the world.  Many are hailing this as the “Next Sheet of Paper in the Printer,” but DJ Allen wants to tone down everyone who thinks he’s back for good.

“I wanted to see if I could still dominate like I used to,” said DJ.  ”There’s a boy watching these competitions out there who will prove to be better than me… better than Bill Fold… better than Dick Dangle.  Hell, it might even end up being a girl.  It could even be a wheelchair bound sad-sack who throws like a girl named Ian.  One can never know.”

I talk about Project Garnet, solo RPGing, and more!

Bob rules.

Just listen.  It’s easier that way.

You can contact us at trumpshairforpresident AT gmail DOT com, or find us on Facebook or Google+.

Personally, the job isn’t worth giving up my way to keep in touch with the people I want to keep in touch with.  In fact, as of this post, I’ll start going through my Facebook friends and eliminating those who I haven’t got any reason to have on my friends list.  Besides, if an employer wants to know what’s on my Facebook page, then they aren’t really interested in my abilities or skills… they’re worried about things completely unrelated to the job.

Now, if the job has something to do with public media or my image directly affects that company: sure, I’d consider the move. More likely, though, I’d just get rid of my Facebook (Google+, LinkedIn, etc).

We don’t need this… really.

Again, sorry for the issues.

Also: the dangers of cooking bacon on a poorly cleaned grill and news!  Yes, news!  With an exclamation point!

You can contact the host at jbearontheair AT gmail DOT com (remove the spaces and put the actual… yeah, you know).

Fun fact: Jared cannot play the banjo.

As you will soon hear, there are short clips merged together to form Voltron… no, wait, that isn’t right.  The clips actually form a short but humorous podcast that will inevitably become much funnier and much more entertaining over time.

BANJO!

So, enjoy this first one… it’s a keeper.

With the absence of the Internet, I was unable to write a column for the New Chess Experience and I couldn’t get my podcast uploaded before just a few minutes ago… soooooo, next week I hope to be back to normal.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

We discuss the new iPad, Apple iOS 5.1, as well as diving into using social media for playing RPGs and the results of a poll I took on Facebook amongst my friends.

Be sure to go to iTunes and rate us (stars) as well as leaving a review.  You can contact us at Facebook.com/limeflavoreddotcom, Google+ by searching for “Lime Flavored.com”, as well as by email using trumpshairforpresident at gmail dot com.

What are we going to talk about? What are we going to be doing? What are we going to be wearing? Why are we asking so many questions?

Just watch it. Coming SOON!

While traveling around the Internet, I come across quite a bit of interesting stuff… but rarely does that result in interesting chess stuff.  For example, I discovered Chessopolis by randomly meandering the web many moons ago and I have now discovered the ACO, which is the title of this column.  More about that in the bulk of the column but I wanted to note that if you have a little time and think about what kinds of things are possible, you might come across something you hadn’t expected.  Sometimes that can be a good thing.

No Chess Around the World this time… there are plenty of news sites that can update you… I just wanted to get a column out this week.

Most of the chess playing world is rated less than 2400 on the FIDE list. FIDE, the World Chess Federation, should technically represent the players but does not.  Where does that leave 99% of the chess playing world?  No way to support themselves with their favorite game and permanently an amateur.

Well, now comes the Amateur Chess Organization, or ACO.  I came across this on Google+ by accident, really.  I have been following the Chess Network and recently “chess battles” started following me on G+… so I started following them.  I’m after ways to improve my thinking and my game, so why not?  Well, chess battles posted a link about the ACO and I went to check it out.  I have to say that I’m slightly impressed, though not entirely.  Let me explain the whole thing.

The concepts personally presented on the ACO website state that the point of the organization is to represent the players (no fees, asking for feedback, etc) and seems to be really adamant about making sure that the youth aspect of cultivating the game.  They seem to be very anxious to hold World Amateur Championships (which would qualify anyone under 2400 to participate) and are interested in promoting youth teams, youth development, and any means of promoting chess that anyone might be interested in presenting.

I certainly understand the excitement but I think that the ACO stepped up to present ideas without actually having any themselves.  They formed an organization and are now asking for ideas.  That’s like me standing up and saying I have the exact formula for getting chess to be the most popular game on the planet… then asking for any other suggestions.

The ACO claims to be getting ready to use a new ratings system to make up for the inaccuracies of the FIDE use of the Elo system.  They also claim there will be no membership fees, making them a non profit organization (unlike FIDE) and giving anyone with less than 2400 Elo to be able to compete in a meaningful way.  My problem with all of the above is that without membership, how does anyone know what anyone else’s rating will be?  Yeah, they want you to still be paying someone (more than likely your national federation) in order to maintain an “official” rating.  All the talk about being a supplement to FIDE actually means they want to supplement FIDE.

I personally believe that the ACO has the best intentions of the player in mind but they aren’t doing anything about the matter of giving an alternative for anyone under 2400 that wants to compete in a meaningful way.  Sure, the events they organize may be real (like the Dubai World Amateur Championships where the first three members of each nation who register get to compete) but they will still have to pay their own way, qualifications won’t be based on actual skills or any sort of criteria.

What I’d like to do is have an amateur organization for those of us without a 2400 or higher rating.  What I’d like is for our ratings to be separate from a paid membership in a national federation.  What I’d like is an alternative to what is currently out there so that the rest of us are represented.

I don’t want to sound like I’m ungrateful of the effort the ACO is putting into this thing.  What I do want to suggest to them is to separate themselves from the megalithic FIDE and have a membership list of their own that doesn’t have any connection to a paying membership.  In my area, for instance, there are no regular events I don’t have to travel an extensive distance for.  Paying for a membership in my state (and national) federation would just be throwing away money.  How is that going to help with the ACO and me participating in the ACO?

The review of the ACO is a preliminary one, but I do think I’ll be doing more research before I give a final judgment.  I hope the ACO does do some good things for chess but I also hope that they work to separate the paying for memberships from the equation… because if I’m right, I can’t even participate in the ACO.

No “Me: On the Record” this time.  It’s just too hectic at the moment.  Sorry!

Dan returns as the co-host because, basically, I’ve made it so easy that we couldn’t make it any easier.  We discuss Crazed Lime, our TV show, Project: Garnet, my original plan for Dark Green: The Blackwood Chronicles, the Cube movies, Misfits (BBC), Planets.nu and the Crazed Sanity/Buzzkill Productions and LimeFlavored.com collaborative effort to make something cool.

Firetruck an A.  I say firetruck instead of that other f-word because it starts with an “f” and ends with an “iretruck.”

You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/LimeFlavoreddotcom.  We can be reached at trumpshairforpresident@gmail.com and I’m sure I’m missing other places.  Maybe Google+, too?

What’s up with the “Garnet” part?  Well, I wanted to codename my projects so I can talk about them without giving away specifics… and like Apple’s “big cat” naming of their OS, I decided to start naming projects with a theme… a gemstone theme.  I have 10 gemstones mapped out and Garnet is the first one.

Here’s to me… so, when do I start?  Well, as soon as I podcast again… with the return of Dan to the podcast, I think we’ll get things rolling that night!

Yes, yes that is a white tiger in there…

No time to waste, let’s get this going!

A short “Chess Around the World” this time as I note that the winner of the World Chess Championship (Anand or Gelfand) will make $1.53 million and the loser will make $1.03 million.  That’s a lot of money but it is only going to the top 1% of the chess players playing professionally right now.  When I get back to my “sprucing up the modern game” talk again, I can explain how that can be expanded to include a larger number of the top players.

Chess may be slowly gaining speed but at some point its going to be a big deal.

One of the most important things you can ever know about yourself in chess: if you are not competing at the highest level, you could use some improvement.  For those of us a little lower than that (i.e. a lot lower): you suck.

Don’t take that as a harsh review of your personal character.  I’m including myself in there as well.  People at my level of playing could use improvement, and in my case, a lot of improvement.  Players at my level, though, don’t really know how to go about getting any better, so it’s always nice to see someone posting ways to improve.

Most of these suggestions, though, assume that you (as the player) are studying almost as hard as the person giving the free advice.  That is rarely, if ever, the case.

I personally would like to get better at chess.  I’ve read several books and most of them, while pointing out some important flaws in my game, have given me very little in the way of interesting content that I could use long term.  I’ve needed a “road map” in order to improve my game and serendipity has placed two individuals at my doorstep offering advice… advice I will now discuss in detail, one piece at a time.

The first list comes from NM Dan Heisman, who writes for Chess Cafe on a monthly basis.  The site has some nice columns to read and evaluates the broad spectrum of what can be learned about chess (arbitration, new players, historical games, book reviews, etc) but my favorite is Heisman’s Novice Nook.  I am, after all, a novice.

Top Tips for Improving Chess (by Dan Heisman) is the chess column in question here.  He presents “two dozen” points of advice.

1. Find strong chess players and analyze with them as much as possible.

This sounds like a great plan of action.  One problem with that: I don’t know any.  In my personal circle of influence, I am the strongest chess player and I’m barely rated over 1000.  I’ve recently taken to randomly messaging top players on Game Knot, but of the twenty or so requests I’ve sent out, only one has responded.  He’s been very kind in helping but I don’t want to be a “pest,” so I’ve held off with my barrage of questions and items for him.  Any other option I have requires chess lessons and those are expensive.

2. Play as many long time control games as possible.

I play most of my games on Game Knot, and most of those at the standard (default) 3 days per move.  I don’t get down to under 1 day very often but that is simply because I can’t get to the computer and has very little to do with staring at the board for the next best move.  I don’t know how to think, so staring at the board isn’t going to do me any good.

3. Once you are past the beginning level, play a mix of fast and slow games.

Not past the beginning level, so this doesn’t help me.

4. Play almost entirely against humans (computers play differently).

Check.  But, as I’ve stated, players at my level are all looking for the quick win and aren’t really looking to get better… at least that’s the impression I get from their move selection.

5. Play mostly against higher rated players to push yourself to learn.

I’ve taken this advice.  When my participation in the Game Knot 90th Tournament ends (I’m in the lowest rated group), I will sign up for the next available tournament at the highest group so that I can play people rated higher than me (because I’m hoping that not many other 1000 rated players on GK have this same idea).

6. Play in every event you can.

I live in North Dakota.  There are zero events I can play in.  Moving along.

7. Join a chess club.

No chess clubs in my town.  Start one, I can hear you saying… tried that.  Failed miserably.  Well, there was one club that started in town but they meet while I am working, so I can’t join.  Life is convenient for everyone else, almost never me.

8. Don’t worry about your rating or try to protect it with artificial progress.

I use it as a measure of my ability, not as something I need to make sure is always at a certain level.  If your idea behind this number is different than that, I don’t want to play you because you’re not thinking like a winner… you’re thinking like a number.

9. Practice good time management: use almost all of your time every game.

I don’t live in a world where this is always a viable option.  See above for the time controls explanation, which is my situation.

10. Don’t make moves based on hope or without a reason.

I’m TRYING to do this… but it’s hard.  Part of my issue is not knowing HOW to think.

11. Pick your opponent’s brain in a postmortem.

You’d be surprised at how many players around my rating level don’t give a rat’s ass.  This is why I’d like to start “punching above my weight” because the GK community may have a large number of members but there are a large number of those members who don’t care about getting better.

12. Don’t mask your weaknesses – learn about them and minimize them.

How do I figure out what my weaknesses are?  Who can help me figure this out?  Part of the problem with this suggestion is that I’m not going to go pay for chess instruction because I don’t have the money to do so.  I want to get better but the players at my level aren’t thinking like winners and don’t want to talk about it.  Mr. Heisman is obviously living in a great place because this situation isn’t what I’m in at all.  While this suggestion might work for someone who has loads of time on their hands and doesn’t need to work two jobs to make enough to get by, I can’t use this.  Before I get angry at this, I’m going to move on.

13. Read many annotated games, master or otherwise.

I don’t know that I personally get a lot out of this.  I’m a visual learner, I need to see what I’m doing in order to get it.  I know at least this much about myself.

14. (Paraphrased) Not every chess book is conducive to helping you learn.

Yep, got that one down.

15. Improve your chess vision.

How?  This is one of those vague things that probably needs someone of a higher level to help me figure out.  Now, in Dan Heisman’s defense, he’s got references to how to use these bullet points in other columns he’s written (with referenced links to said columns) except for this one.  What I’m getting from this list so far is that I have to spend a lot of time reading and less time playing chess… because there WILL be a trade off in situations like mine.

16. (Paraphrased) Get intimate knowledge of tactical situations.

How?  How do I know what to do?  I use the tactical trainer in Game Knot (I only get 10 per day) and there are a lot of times I can’t get the puzzle because I don’t understand why the move was made.  Why did the person setting that up move that piece there?  Why would I know what they were thinking?  How can I change my thinking to be that kind of thinking?  What am I doing wrong?  I need someone to talk to that can help, for free.

17. Do everything you can to make your work fun.

I’m not going to even address this.

18. Don’t worry about your opponent (online or otherwise) cheating.

I don’t because there is no point.  If they want to maintain their artificial rating, I’m certainly not going to stop them.  I can only worry about myself.

19. Play with consistency.

I’m trying.  The only inconsistent part of my game is my opponent.

20. Have perseverance.

Or in other words: you need to be a masochist.

21. Don’t put up barriers.

For a description of what he’s talking about, he’s saying that one needs to get out of the mindset that “humans are too arrogant,” “you can’t find people to play on the Internet,” and “not wanting to read descriptive notation.”  I’ve stated all of these things in this column alone, but I’m not putting up a barrier.  Players at my level almost never choose the “strong player” moves.  They choose moves I can’t fathom, and if I do, those moves never work against stronger opponents.  I “can’t” read descriptive notation, I’m a visual learner, so if I want to see what’s happening, I need to set up a board and run through the moves.  That eats up a lot of time I don’t have… and the final point is that I can find plenty of people to play on the Internet, I can’t find many STRONG players to play on the Internet.  I’m not paying to be on a website, so my options are basically Game Knot or subscribe to something.  I guess I’ve got barriers.

22.  (Paraphrased) Don’t self fulfill a losing mindset entering a game.

I never go into a game thinking I’ll lose.  At least, I don’t think I do.

23.  Learn generic ideas before specific.

First time I can say I’ve heard this.  Honestly.  Now, what do I learn?  Where do I start?  This is my dilemma.

24. Don’t perceive your chess abilities as “I’ve got this one or I don’t.”

Isn’t this just rephrasing the idea in point 22?

I occasionally read Dan Heisman’s columns and I often feel like I’m missing the “joke.”  Like, I’ve needed to have read every column before to understand every column after.  Shouldn’t every column of the Novice Nook be geared for a first time reader?  Isn’t that the mark of a well written column?  Sitting down and reading something takes time and I know from my own experience, I don’t have that much time to read.  I listen to my books now because I can do it while I’m working.  If I could find a chess audio book that would help me improve, I’d give it a shot.

Let’s get to the other improvement item I came across recently.  His name is “Jerry” and he’s also a National Master.  His is in video form!

10 Ways to Improve Your Chess

1-Figure out the type of learner you are and your style of play.

I’m a visual learner, so I know I need to see things to get them.  I also know at this point that I should probably have someone pointing out my thinking errors to me in the midst of me making them so I know when to slow down.  The strong player who has been nice enough to help me did this in our game, pointed out a major mistake I made as I made it… now I know what I should be thinking in those situations instead of bumbling through another error like this again.

2-Solve checkmate/tactical puzzles.

I solve the maximum number of these I’m allowed to in a day on Game Knot.  I’ve not found another great source for these yet, but I am actively looking.

3-Play blindfold chess.

I’m a visual learner… but I’ll give this one a go.  I already doubt I’ll make it very far into the game but I can take baby steps.

4-Play against those stronger than yourself.

Like Dan Heisman’s point, I have a very hard time to find players stronger than me willing to play.  Would I be annoyed by someone weaker than me nagging me for games?  I think I might be, so I’m not holding this against them… I’d just like some help.  In turn, I should also probably help others when I can.

5-Find a strong player with a style similar to your own and review their games.

I don’t know my style.  I need to figure this out.

6-Develop an opening repertoire that suits your style of play.

See above.

7-Find a book that meets your needs.

I’ve done this!  It’s the Chess Player’s Bible by James Eade and it’s a visual learning manual!  I’ve gotten a few pages under my belt but that’s because I’m so busy.  I’m trying, though.

8-Review your games.

That’s the point of the next section of this column!

9-Diagnose your defeats.

See above.

10-Have a good internal dialogue.

I’ve been told talking to myself is a bad thing.

This would help someone, all together (both sets of points), if they could accomplish all of these things.  I find that Jerry’s list (if you listen to the video) comes from knowing how he got to where he’s at as opposed to Dan’s points feeling more like someone on top pointing down with generalities.

I commented to Jerry after reposting his video on Google+ and made mention I’m glad someone explained things as they figured them out rather than trying to follow a road map when you don’t know how to get to the starting point.

I want to be a better chess player.  I don’t have the time to devote to sitting with a stack of books pouring over annotated  games learning to play like a player I may not play like in order to grasp concepts I’m not even sure I need to be grasping.  The problem is, and always has been, how do you get started and how can I get to the end of this journey without at least one person to guide me?  Heisman calls that thinking a barrier.  I call it reality.

The truth of the matter is that people can be dicks.  Very few people want to help others out and very few people think about explaining how they got someplace to allow you to follow the same path and get there, too.  That’s like me going from Bismarck to Chicago without explaining how to get there.  ”Well, you drive east.”  Sure, thanks… that’s great.

I’m a cynical person but I want to learn.  I want to improve.  I want to know how to think like a grand master but I can’t find anyone to help me achieve this goal.  I’m a padawan who needs a Jedi teacher.

Hopefully these help you out, though, and if I’m stronger than you and you’d like me to help, I will.  Drop me a line.

Holy buckets, another game!  As noted in the Event, this is also not the first game I’ve asked to play but I’m not going to get picky.  I have a “tournament” game I wanted to include, too, but I’ll only do that if I don’t have another one to review (which I know I’ve got at least one in the pipe ready to review).  So, let’s get to the game itself:

[Event "4: Vorpal Bunnies!"]
[Site "GameKnot.com"]
[Date "2012.02.17"]
[White "papasal"]
[Black "limeflavored"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1016"]
[BlackElo "1009"]

1. e4 c5 2. c4 b6 3. Nf3 e6 4. Ne5 Bd6 5. Nd3 Bb7 6. b3 Nf6 7. f3 Nc6 8. Bb2 Qe7 9. Nc3 O-O-O 10. g4 Nd4 11. Na4 h5 12. h4 Bg3+ 13. Nf2 hxg4 14. Be2 Nh5 15. fxg4 Nf4 16. Bxd4 cxd4 17. d3 Kb8 18. Rg1 Bxh4 19. Rh1 Bxf2+ 20. Kxf2 Rxh1 21. Qxh1 Nxe2 22. Kxe2 Qg5 23. Kf3 f5 24. Rg1 Qe3+ 25. Kg2 fxe4 26. Rf1 exd3+ 27. Rf3 Qxf3+  0-1

This game ended with my opponent resigning.  It was a good game, I thought, but I wanted to get it under review to see if there was anything I could do better.  This was the first game I knew I’d review WITHOUT the “parlor tricks” approach to it, so I’m at least happy for that.  To the diagrams!

1. e4 c5 2. c4 b6 3. Nf3 e6 4. Ne5 Bd6 5. Nd3 Bb7 6. b3 Nf6 7. f3 Nc6 8. Bb2 Qe7 9. Nc3 O-O-O

This was an excellent start, and a logical one (in my mind).  My opponent was just as determined to develop a solid opening as I was.  In this position, I have more pieces developed but my opponent is occupying the center.  As for who controls the center, I think it’s almost an even split here, but the game just started and we keep going.  I’ve included an animated board below to “see” how things developed (and as an example to use vs. my static board).

10. g4 Nd4 11. Na4 h5 12. h4 Bg3+ 13. Nf2 hxg4 14. Be2 Nh5 15. fxg4

I’ve developed into attacking my opponent early because I felt that if I didn’t bring the fight to him, I was going to be fending him off the whole time (I shouldn’t use the gender since I don’t know but it’s easier than just being vague).  My next move is 15… Nf4, which will put more of my pieces into his section of the board and start putting heavier pressure on multiple pieces of his.  I’ve got to admit that I managed to develop myself into a strong position here and my only concern was making sure I had a little pressure on my opponent while I was actively attacking his king.

15… Nf4 16. Bxd4 cxd4 17. d3 Kb8 18. Rg1 Bxh4 19. Rh1 Bxf2+ 20. Kxf2 Rxh1 21. Qxh1 Nxe2 22. Kxe2 Qg5 23. Kf3 f5 24. Rg1 Qe3+ 25. Kg2 fxe4

After a few exchanges of pieces, I actually felt I’d won at this point.  I was leery of thinking so confidently but my pressure has paid off and I’m really in the stronger position, especially with so many pieces aimed at so many of his pieces.  A simple move or two and I’d have his pieces forked… my first instinct here was to take out the rook but something told me to wait and try going for the queen instead.  If you look at the final few moves, I accomplished my goal and my opponent resigned (26. Rf1 exd3+ 27. Rf3 Qxf3+  0-1).

This game puts me at 2+ 0= 0-, but I can tell you that some of my tougher games are coming.  It’s nice to start out with a couple of wins but I personally believe I’ll get better by analyzing my losses more.  The strength of my opponents will grow as I get better, which is my goal, but I do have a 2100+ rated player (on Game Knot) who is currently playing me and will give me a couple of games.  Hint: he’s smoked me in game one… I’ll add that to my official review here when we’re officially done.

Things just didn’t work out, but the podcast will explain it all.

I’m also at trumpshairforpresident – gmail.com (you can figure out the email addy) as well as Facebook and Google+.

Old York Times says “Please stop bothering us.”

Podcast Magazine says “What’s a J-Bear?”

New Audio Frontier.com boasts “It’s a podcast.”

Someone randomly grabbed on the street and asked to listen is quoted as saying “I’ll promote anything you want for $5.  Thanks.”

Join the new podcast!  Join J-Bear on the Air!

I’m getting a stride going and I think the format works for me… I may end up working up another section or two, depending upon need in the future, but I think what I’ve got for right now is good.

Oh, hey, I have a game of mine to review!  Yippie!

Okay, chess fanatics… the World Chess Championship candidates tournament will be happening in October in London.  Yes, I’m pretty sure that qualifies as being outside of Azerbaijan and Aronian can play, which means this will be the first WCC candidates tournament I’ll witness with the correct players participating in it for the Undisputed World Chess Championship held by Anand.  When I started following competitive chess, Garry Kasparov was the Classic World Chess Champion and Alexander Khalifman was the FIDE World Chess Champion, so it isn’t an epically long time that I’ve been watching this but I think that a decade or more is long enough.

On Google+, I’ve been following the ChessNetwork page and they recently posted this video.  It’s 10 ways to improve your chess and I was glad to find it because there are very few players who get to be titled (National Master in his case) who give you the path on how to get there rather than the vagaries like “oh, just study more.”  Pfff.  I could give you the 10 ways to improve your chess but then you wouldn’t need to listen to the video.  I wouldn’t want to deny you that glory, plus I don’t want to drive DOWN the views on that video.  It has been helpful so far, although, I’ve got a long way to go.

This section is going to become a joint section for the first time.  I have a bit more of my personal history to impart but I also wanted to talk about a style of play I’ve encountered with enough frequency to name it, and it’s a style of play that really wouldn’t allow a player to rise above the rating of (for instance) 1500 or so.  But first, the history.

After the WCO had “died,” I tried to make the idea behind a chess league continue.  By this time, I’d discovered FIDE and dug into enough of the history to realize that I was a bit silly in believing that there wasn’t a governing body to the sport of chess.  My own desire to be part of a organization, though, was strong enough to keep trying to bring the idea behind the WCO back to life.  All of my efforts were focused on an online league.

Unfortunately, after searching for static websites that haven’t been updated in quite sometime has proven to be fruitless.  Every example of a website I had used for each of my organizational ideas is missing from its previous home.  I’ll do my best to explain things in detail.

I had started the Internet Chess Enterprise (ICE) about two months after I let the WCO die.  There was zero activity on this website (which I’m pretty sure was on Geocities) and I had advertised enough to try to create an IECC or IECG style organization but there just didn’t seem like there was enough interest.  In hindsight, this advertising effort probably resulted in the membership of my other endeavors later but I was highly disappointed that ICE didn’t go anywhere… this was also the point where I figured I’d try “jazzing up” chess a bit in presentation.

Remember, I was using professional wrestling as the merger example and thus went forward with that in my next attempt.

The Virtual eXtreme Chess group, or VXC, actually boasts up to 12 members.  I had gotten 11 other people interested in playing in the VXC with the theory that smack talking and a little bit of showmanship was needed in the playing of these games.  The VXC had three games played between a couple of the more active members (I was not in any of them) and I’d decided to hold the inaugural event that would crown us a VXC World Champion.  I called the event Chessmania and tried to host the event (a KO tournament) on Chessed.com, an online server that no longer exists.  No one showed up for the event and the VXC never held another game.  I don’t know the reason for this or why no one seemed interested in returning my emails, but the VXC died so mysteriously that I still am not sure what exactly happened.

The VXC spawned the Computer Chess Confederation (CCC or C3).  In C3, I was determined to remove the smack talking aspect of chess to try again for another ICE style chess league.  It was brought to my attention, many times, that anyone who discovered C3 thought they were coming to a website with a computerized chess system to play games.  There were two other such websites that I can no longer locate online that had the ability to send in your moves to a server who would compute the move and spit back the PGN at you and your opponent.  Despite my best efforts, I didn’t want to continue fighting this war against people too determined to understand what C3 was about.

This led me to what I like to call the clone of the WCO.  The Alliance of Chess Enthusiasts (ACE) was basically WCO with a new face.  I’d done some more advertising and managed to attract a player or two but no one who wanted to stick around for a league.  Everyone was just looking for casual games.  I was baffled as to why I couldn’t attract the type of player I really wanted: someone long term committed to competing at chess against others will to rebrand the presentation.  ACE led me to understand that it didn’t matter what I called the federation, I just needed to figure out the formula and start the WCO over again (keeping the history helped bolster the federation… but I’ll get back to that).

Using the idea that Brain Games.net bought the rights to the Classic World Chess Championship (then held by Vladimir Kramnik), I decided that the World Chess Organization would use the branding of my own website Lime Flavored.com.  The World Chess Organization became the Lime Flavored Chess Organization (LFCO) and I stepped away from the actually playing to formulating how to run the LFCO for future success.  To do this, I simply started playing more games online and talking to my opponents.

Due to my actual play strength being less than 1400 at the time, I continued to run into a particular type of play style that I found unsettling.  The whole concept behind the style was to end the game as quickly as possible by putting your opponent off his game quickly and not allowing him to fight back without a significant loss of pieces.  The most infamous of this style, which I’ve come to identify as “parlor tricks,” is evident most in 1. e4 e5 2. Qh5:

Against an inexperienced is when you see this most, or when your opponent feels that they are vastly superior than your own.  By the time this move is played, though, any hope of having a game that is “decent” or well thought out is out the window.  Your opponent has disrespected you and trying to play any specific opening for exploration.

This is what I refer to as parlor play and it’s upsetting.  I want to think like a stronger player and playing in a game where this opening happens ruins my ability to do much from my side of the board.  As you will see in the “Me: On The Record” section this time, I have a game where something along these lines occurs.

Seeing so much of this style of play made me look into how to counter it (or really, discourage it) when I play chess.  While my attention wasn’t completely distracted from making the LFCO into something, I was determined to actually make myself into a better player in the process.

While I’m still not the best at defending against these parlor tricks, I’ve learned what type of player to avoid for the future.  This has led me to approaching my presentation of chess in a different way, too.  The types of players I want to avoid are these described here and are of a greater playing strength, though I know that the top players in the world aren’t right for this, either.

There is still a lot of work to do but at least now I can move forward knowing what to look for in the future.

[Event "6: Revenge Cheddar"]
[Site "GameKnot.com"]
[Date "2012.02.11"]
[White "limeflavored"]
[Black "dandymontuno"]
[WhiteElo "1014"]
[BlackElo "976"]

1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d3 d5 4. exd5 Nxd5 5. Qf3 c6 6. Nh3 f5 7. Bg5 Qb6 8. Nd2 Qxb2 9. O-O e4 10. dxe4 Qxc2 11. Rac1 Qb2 12. exd5 h6 13. Qe3+ Kd7 14. dxc6+ Nxc6 15. Qe6+ Kc7 16. Bf4+ Kb6 17. Qe3+ Bc5 18. Rb1 Bxe3 19. Rxb2+ Kc5 20. Rb5+ Kd4 21. fxe3+ Kc3 22. Bd5 Ne7 23. Rb3+ Kxd2 24. Rf2+ Kc1 25. e4+ Kd1 26. Rb1#  1-0

As you can see from my first “official” win (and the fact that this was the sixth game I started before getting finished with my first “official” game) that things were a bit… uh… interesting.  Wait, what?  You can’t “see” it?  Well… I will employ some DIAGRAMS!  Whooo hooo!

1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d3 d5 4. exd5 Nxd5 5. Qf3 c6 6. Nh3 f5 7. Bg5 Qb6 8. Nd2 Qxb2 brings us to the following:

I wasn’t really sure how my opponent figured this was going to put them into a great position.  Sure, I can see that the queen way down in my zone on the 2nd rank might intimidate, but I had already planned on castling in the next move or two, so I wasn’t quite understanding what he was trying to accomplish by launching this offensive.  If the attack came before I managed to position myself in his area of the board, I would have considered it one of the aforementioned “parlor tricks,” but I’d laid down the first gauntlet and now I had to reap what I’d sown.  My castling move allowed me to put myself into a better position in only two moves.

9. O-O e4 10. dxe4 Qxc2

So, now with my opponent’s queen deep in my portion of the board, I’ve bee presented with the dilemma of losing yet another piece without any form of retaliation that I’d find satisfactory.  Rather than go into defensive mode, like I’ve been prone to in the past, I decided my best defense was a stellar offense, so I tried to figure out the way to get my opponent into check or start clearing out his pieces.

11. Rac1 Qb2 12. exd5 h6 13. Qe3+ Kd7 14. dxc6+ Nxc6

My strategy completely worked out.  I threw my opponent back on his heels as I ran through a series of checks (which would continue) while I maneuvered my pieces into better locations.  Although the goal wasn’t to flush his king out into the open, I’d done a pretty good job of making sure that none of my pieces were in danger while forcing his king out into the middle of the board.  Due to the early nature of my opponent’s movements, I’d figured he couldn’t live without his queen (or at least survive very long), so my goal was to get the queen while keeping pressure on his king.  It was at this point I figured that the game would go my direction, at least for a while.

15. Qe6+ Kc7 16. Bf4+ Kb6 17. Qe3+ Bc5 18. Rb1 Bxe3

My opponent was feeling pretty good about endangering my queen after the first time since I started checking his king that he avoided being in check.  I did, though, make sure that his queen was in direct harm if I was going to lose mine, though I wasn’t as concerned as he seemed to be about the piece.  At this stage, I was to move and would be taking his queen, which I’d pinned the move before, and would place his king back in check.  I’d lost a fair number of pieces but he was in a far worse position than I was, so I wasn’t tremendously worried.  My lack of concern for his bishop up against my king’s pawn protectorate was also something that I would have previously been concerned about.  I was, for the first time in recent memory, completely focused on my opponent’s king because I could smell checkmate.

19. Rxb2+ Kc5 20. Rb5+ Kd4 21. fxe3+ Kc3 22. Bd5 Ne7 23. Rb3+

I stopped the diagram generator here because I wanted to show that I knew I’d beaten him at this point.  I had a brief concern about losing my knight in this position but couldn’t really avoid the situation.  Bringing my other rook into play was imperative and I was positive I could place the king into checkmate if I just didn’t worry about saving that one piece.  I had to keep the checking situation up to maneuver my rooks into the two rank checkmate on MY END OF THE BOARD.

23… Kxd2 24. Rf2+ Kc1 25. e4+ Kd1

The next move was  26. Rb1#  1-0.  I was so proud that I’d finally defeated a player who I believe in my heart was trying to use the parlor tricks to get my fluster factor up instead of playing chess like someone who wants to be better.  This game came about when I tried to set parameters to play against a much stronger opponent (1500+) but I couldn’t set the minimum to 1500, I could only put it at 950.  My maximum was 1550, which wasn’t pleasing but I thought that maybe someone fromt he upper range of strength would come in for the game.

What I have taken away from this game is that don’t let the focus become solely about the highly threatening move my opponent just made.  Push forward with a plan of my own, keeping my opponent on the ropes, and making sure that I continue to dictate my own strategy rather than simply play defense and probably walk away from this one with significantly less pieces and cursing the parlor play for getting the better of me yet again.

So, my official record (as contained within this column) is now 1+ 0= 0-.  Sure, it’s nice to start off with a win (even though this was game “6,” according to the Event tag) but I really want to play some stronger opponents to get deep into evaluating that.  If I want to get better and play chess against someone who won’t use parlor play, I need to play those people who think like champions.

J-Bear on the Air debuts with a few little bumps, mainly in the first 15 minutes or so, but will improve to perfect as newer releases spew forth!  Welcome to Lime Flavored.com and iTunes, J-Bear!

Welcome back!  This is becoming regular.  Three posts, three weeks… excellent!

This edition will contain more about my historical chess experience and with any luck, I’ll also have a little bit about the digital age attempts at bringing chess to a broader audience.  We’ll see when we get to that part of the column.  I’ll also be discussing some of the top players and their current playing exploits.

What are we waiting for?  Let’s get this party started already!

The Anand (Champion) – Gelfand (Challenger) 2012 World Chess Championship will start off on May 10 and run through May 31 of 2012.  Both players will be in the Skolkovo region near Moscow, Russia to play for the Undisputed World Chess Championship.  Neither player, champion nor challenger, is number one rated in the world and that (to me) is odd.  I understand why Carlsen (number one rated player) bowed out of the last candidates cycle, but that would still have been better protested by winning the championship.  Carlsen shouldn’t be bowing out of the next cycle as the new rules for candidate qualifying takes place for the 2013 World Chess Championship.  Already qualified for the tournament are Carlsen, Aronian, Kramnik, Ivanchuk, Grischuk, and Svidler… though if the matches are held in Azerbaijan then Aronian won’t come because of the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict, which would mean that Aronian would be replaced and that would eliminate another fully qualified player from the competition.  FIDE, get your head out of your ass and start holding these competitions in places 100% free of controversy.

That leads me to the illustrious President of FIDE, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, and how the man is embroiled in constant controversy regarding FIDE business decisions and yet no one will vote him out of office.  Chess should NEVER go to a war conflict area.  Chess should NEVER go to a country where there are limitations on certain genders (promoting the equality of those genders).  Chess should NEVER be someplace where a candidate in one of the most important tournaments cannot compete due to religious or patriotic reasons.  FIDE under Ilyumizhinov?  Constantly pulling this crap.  Sad, really.

Kramnik and Aronian will be playing a 6 game “friendly” in the near future… not sure why, but this is a great way to put two of the top players in the world against each other in a focus on great play.  I’m looking forward to it.

I left off with the death of what I call the Beulah Chess Club, my sixth grade class’s own little chess league.  Almost four years later, a group of my friends and I (not limited by a class, grade, or region) formed what I would call the Chess League.  I’d ended the Beulah Chess Club as the World Champion but I wanted to legitimize the “championship” in a new setting, so the founders of the Chess League (CJ, Daryl, Tim, and myself) played a round robin tournament to be crowned the first Chess League Champion.  I won narrowly and would get the chance to lead another effort into the future.

The Chess League had anywhere from four to twenty members at any one time.  There was a lot more playing going on and only the one championship to worry about.  All four of the founders would hold the Chess League Championship multiple times because, much to my delight, we were all fairly evenly matched.  If I had to guess at a rating, I’d say we were between 800 and 1000, somewhere good enough to be competitive but not so good as to be “snobbish” about it.

Fluctuating membership was a side effect of being outside of a limitation of venue.  The Beulah Chess Club happened exclusively inside the walls of our sixth grade classroom, the Chess League had no such limitation.  We played at Daryl’s house, my house, the high school, Hazen (our nearby city rival), Zap (opposite direction from Hazen), and I even took in a game in Golden Valley (further west than Zap).  We stretched MUCH farther than the Beulah Chess Club and the championship was actually sought after by anyone who could beat one of the founders… because we were the benchmark.

The Chess League lasted about two years, right around when CJ had to stop playing due to moving, and instead of carrying the championship on like I did before, the coveted “top spot” just sort of left with him (he was the Champion at the time he left).  Interest in playing towards the end of our school year in 93 let the rest of us just kind of drift apart.  There would be plenty of personal issues to arise to drive a permanent wedge between a couple of us and that would really end the Chess League as we knew it.

During a research project in April of 1994 (I’ll explain why I know the date in a bit), I and a couple of others had known what we were going to be doing after high school… I would be joining the United States Navy and would be able to actually PLAY chess in foreign countries.  Four others (who have since chosen to remain nameless) and I signed a document forming the World Chess Organization on April 21, 1994. A ten game match was played between myself and the next best “founder,” whom I’ll call Tiger.

The series between Tiger and I was nothing to write home about.  We’d played in the past but I knew I was significantly stronger in play than he was.  We played only six games and I won all six.  I was the first World Chess Organization (WCO) Champion.  That would be the last time I’d have contact with any of the others in a chess capacity.

As the WCO Champion, I wanted to make sure to branch out into the world actually defending the championship against decent opponents.  I had no concept of FIDE or that there was an actual World Chess Federation out there, so my concept of the game was that it was a casual competition just about anywhere I’d go.  Locations where I’d defended the championship (successfully or otherwise) were Mississippi (multiple cities), New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Okinawa (Japan), Anchorage, and San Juan (Puerto Rico).  In an epic match and rematch, I had lost the WCO Championship to a man who goes by DCP, who then gave me a rematch and I won it back.  So, I was a two time WCO Champion.

When I detached from the Navy, I remained the WCO Champion until October 31, 2005… when I officially vacated the championship and allowed the WCO to “die.”  As the only regular and active member for over three years, I felt the organization needed to be laid to rest.

That did not end my endeavors, though.  We’ll pick up in the Internet era of my chess experience in the next column (which will complete the saga of how I got to where I’m at today).

I don’t have a game to evaluate, yet.  I do have four started and a fifth has just been sent out into the void to request another opponent.  When I get to actually evaluate these things, I’m wondering what kind of mess I’ll be in with the rest of them.

I’m a member of GameKnot.com, as I’ve noted before.  I would really like to get some opponents that will be around my own strength to discuss both sides of the game to figure out why moves were made.  I do have a friend (an official “friend”) on GK now but I’ve not approached him about this concept, yet.

So, without a game to evaluate, I’ll push this column out and I will pick a game of mine to go over, whether or not its one of the official recorded “w-d-l” games or not.

John Carter (the character) is a Civil War veteran (Confederacy) that gets chased into a cave and thinks he’s dying only to wake up, completely naked, on the surface of a planet called Barsoom by the locals.  We know this planet as Mars.  The novel, A Princess of Mars, introduces us to the inhabitants of Barsoom, their culture, and some interesting characters (including Tars Tarkas and Dejah Thoris).  As I’ve “read” (i.e. listened to) the novels, at least the first two, I am hoping that the action is contained to the information in the first book because each book has enough to put in it’s own movie installment.

I’m going to see this one in the theater because I know what to expect.  I only see big budget special effects movies in the theaters anymore and this one promises to be a good one.

I hope that I’ve enticed at least someone to go see this movie… and hopefully read the novel (or listen to the audio book, both of which are public domain and free).

The Sensational Second Edition!

This column is going to be packed with all kinds of little goodies.  I wanted to have a personal game of mine to include here to begin my official “record keeping” within this column, but the two games (and soon to be third) that I am involved in are nowhere near complete, so I’ll go ahead and include that for the next one… hopefully.

I will be releasing a column per week and with any luck, I should be getting on some sort of schedule with it.  Right now, as long as the week (beginning on Sundays) is different than the previously released column week, I’m going to go ahead and write and release.  That just makes things simpler.  So, let’s get this thing started.

The Tata Steel 2012 event, which happened at Wijk aan Zee, was one by Levon Aronian.  Magnus Carlsen, the number one rated chess player in the world, was second place (and was joined with eight points by Teimour Radjabov and Fabiano Caruna).  Why this event was called Tata Steel instead of just carrying the Wijk aan Zee name it’s used for however long it’s been running, I don’t know, but the event was won by someone whom I’ve not heard of.

Before you get all indignant on me, I haven’t followed chess competitions really closely since Anand won the World Championship match against Veselin Topalov back in 2010.  Sue me.

Anyway, Carlsen was the one that I believe should have won the event and the fact that Aronian fared so well made me realize that Carlsen’s impending reign as World Champion (shoosh, it’s going to happen) isn’t as likely to last the length I previously would have believed.  Aronian is the second ranked player on the FIDE ratings list right now, 30 points behind Carlsen, and that means he’s liable to become the World Champion as well.  Where’s the World Champion on this list?  Viswanathan Anand is currently rated at 2799, fourth on the list.  Carlsen bowed out of the championship qualification cycle this time in protest for FIDE weighting the qualification of other event winners higher than they should have been.

Magnus, my boy, the way to protest that isn’t to bow out of the cycle… it’s to win the candidacy for the World Chess Championship, walk into the WCC later this year, and wipe the floor with Anand… then lording over FIDE as the World Chess Champion, the strongest player in the world, and getting FIDE to pull their head out of their ass.

Kasparov tried, sure, but I’m sure that it wouldn’t take FIDE 23 years to realize that they have made ANOTHER mistake in how they run things.

But, I digress.  Congratulations to Levon Aronian and I look forward to seeing Aronian and Carlsen lock horns in the near future!

I’ve written about this in the past but it isn’t anywhere online, so I’m going to write about it again.  I’m going to write about how I came to learn chess and why I think chess has a future in a different direction than what FIDE is currently presenting.

Let’s hop in the way back machine and go to 1987 (when I would have been in the sixth grade).  There were plenty of chances to do all kinds of things when not actively studying because of the large number of breaks that we took back then.  (Side Note: if you told me I could have finished my schooling 2 years earlier by not taking so many breaks I probably would have gone for it.)  Living in North Dakota, the weather sometimes prevented us from going out to recess, which meant we needed to figure out something to do INSIDE from time to time.

A couple of my classmates would head over to the chessboard, set it up, and knock out a few games while they had time.  That couple turned into a few and that few turned into a group.  By the time I joined, interested in learning the game (because I was honestly fascinated by it), I became one of about 12 people involved in the creation of what I’ve been calling the Beulah Chess Club.  That was about half the class, in case you were wondering.

Considering who was involved (12 children who were almost all avid professional wrestling fans), I am not surprised that we modeled ourselves after the World Wrestling Federation a little by creating two championships and setting up mini-competitions to become a champion.  We had a World Championship and an Intercontinental Championship, the two top championships in the World Wrestling Federation at the time.  The Intercontinental Championship was, as it was for the WWF, the “intermediate” championship… for those of us who weren’t the strongest players.

Throughout the entire 87-88 school year, we’d established that there were really only two “strong” players and the rest of us were not as good.  We’d gained and lost up to eight other players over the course of the year, and a couple of us rose in playing strength to be able to compete with the “big two.”  Thankfully, I was one of them and a former three time Intercontinental Champion (the final reign vacated as I wanted to “move up” against some stronger players).

We were all very interested in playing games against one another, making the competition more interesting than anything else we could think of, and really got better over the course of playing the school year.  If I had to guess, I’d say that the best four or five of us at the end of the year were probably rated (Elo) around 700 to 750.  You think that may be low but we were a small pool of players not studying the game and only learning through play.

Towards the end of the school year, I’d say the entire month of March in 1988 (I say that because it was close to the end but far enough from the end to allow for regular competition to resume after what I’m about to explain) became a giant class-wide tournament.  The teacher (her name was Mrs. White and only our class was involved in the tournament) felt that some of the girls were being excluded from being able to learn and play chess with the rest of us.  We honestly weren’t preventing anyone from playing but I can understand that testosterone filled boys pretending chess was akin to professional wrestling might have been a bit intimidating.  Mrs. White declared that the class would be seeded into a giant knockout tournament and the winner would be given the prize of a passing grade on a specific assignment (I don’t remember what it was but it was worth the playing for it).

I don’t remember the particulars of the tournament as a whole or how many of the 24 or 25 of my classmates were involved, but I know that it took us nearly a full month to get a final winner.  To add to the prize, the World Champion at the time (a kid named Justin, who was damn tough to beat) declared that the winner would get a shot at his championship.  Even the girls who were playing for the first time were excited that we were including them in the regular cycle of things.

For the players who had absolutely no exposure to chess before the tournament began, they were weeded out in the early rounds.  In fact, only two or three “new” players made it into the middle of the month, about the halfway point of the tourney.  Almost all of the originals were involved and the World Champion Justin wasn’t one of them… he’d been taken out by his chief rival (a kid named Travis).  My toughest game was against Travis.  I beat him, soundly, and brought some well deserved attention to my own skills.  I was eliminated in the very next round by one of the new players after making a monumental error… I can’t tell you what it was, I just know that when it happened that I realized it immediately.

Travis was stunned at being eliminated by me so soundly and we agreed to a three game series (winner to choose their color for each game, starting with me choosing black first).  Travis won the first game and I won the next two… Justin was so impressed (and had easily dispatched the tournament winner, the guy who knocked me out) that he gave me a shot at the World Championship.  Guess who won?  ME!

I was a fighting champion and defended the championship twice before the school year ended.  The championship remained with me and I figured that we’d pick back up next year, so we all let summer come and go… the Beulah Chess Club never played another game.

That isn’t the end of the story… but it’s the end of this part of the story.  You’ll see this one continue in the future… I don’t want to put it all out there right now.

As I stated before, I wanted to include one of my recent (and well documented) games to include in this section but none of the ones I’m monitoring are complete, yet.  So, let me explain what this section is going to be doing and why I’ll be doing it.

I do not belong to the USCF or to FIDE.  That means that I do not have an officially established rating but I do have a general idea about my playing strength through the numerous outlets online that offer me such a thing for free.  I am currently playing at about 1009, according to GameKnot.com (which is my primary source for games at the moment). Since these games are pseudo-real time and I’m actively reestablishing my presence on the site, I believe that the rating is fairly accurate of my current playing strength.

I’ve been a member of both the IECG (International Email Chess Group) and the IECC (International Email Chess Club).  The IECG has closed its doors, conceding to the fact that people are playing chess less through email and more through online services like Game Knot.  The IECC is still kicking but since they were born out of the IECG, I’m actively wondering how long they’ll be around before they come to the same conclusion (or adapt).

My rating when I stopped playing in the IECG was at 1512.  Yes, I was playing at a 1500 strength at one point… in 2000 and 2001.  The rating I had in the IECC when I stopped playing was just a hair over 1400 (I played longer there, had to cut back on my playing).  After an almost full decade of not playing chess, I came back to Game Knot to see my rating was at 996 (due to several abandoned games that added up).  I’ve fought back up to 1009 but I notice that I’m nowhere near as good as I was… so this is a perfect chance to rebuild myself in a public forum.

This section will contain my declared “official” games and will be thoroughly reviewed and kibitzed to improve my play.  Almost all of the games will be via Game Knot (though I am actively trying to find local players to play against) and I will put down what I was thinking, what I was aiming to accomplish, and what I think should have been my course of action.  Being rated at 1009, I think I have a lot of improving to do.

If anyone out there has an official rating that is higher than mine (I’m speaking of 2000 or better) that wants to jump in with suggestions, I’d love to have them.

Thanks for reading.

The Fantastic First Edition

Welcome, one and all, to the first edition of the New Chess Experience, exclusively produced for Lime Flavored.com.  As you can imagine, I’ll be talking about chess in this column.  Surprise!

Well, writing a column and actually having to research a specific subject can be quite enlightening.  I was originally going to come out swinging at the fact that there is no effort by anyone to put chess on TV, or more so the case in this Internet based world, in video as a regular feature.  Imagine my surprise when the research began and I discovered Xtreme Chess Championships.

The XCC (I don’t know if that’s what they call themselves or whether they ONLY use the full name, I am going to refer to them using the acronym) is, at this moment, an eight-player chess tournament between some of the younger American chess players in the country.  A quick search of the names shows that the ratings of these players are all over 2000, which means that there is some legitimacy involved in this effort.  If you want to see more (including their sole released episode to date), do a search on Facebook for X Chess Championships (also on Twitter and YouTube).

Originally, my article was going to comment on BBC’s Master Game TV show back in the late 70s and early 80s.  The technology they used was top of the line for the time and the concept was brilliant as far as bringing chess to the masses.  While the XCC is a nice concept, utilizing a portion of the Master Game’s technique, it fails to capture the game the same way or with the same impact.  Too much emphasis is placed on the players in really boring interviews and very little emphasis is placed on the actual PLAY of the games.  They are promoting the IDEA of chess without actually promoting chess.

Another attempt at bringing chess to a wider audience sees some of the same people involved in an effort called America’s Next Chess Star (or for the purposes of the show are just Chess Star).  Some of the personalities are over the top and except having a chess themed atmosphere; almost nothing about actual CHESS is being done in a public way (or at least in an easy way I can discern).

I cannot fault BBC’s Master Game for not having the most up to date technologies in the twenty first century because the show no longer exists.  We can only look back and fondly wonder what the show would have become if it were still on the air today.  I would even wonder if chess would be as obscure as it is if the Master Game were actively running.

Roughly five years ago, I began formulating an idea about how to bring chess out into the public consciousness instead of languishing in the distance.  My initial concepts related more closely to the WWE, where the games would be real but the action would be overblown drama.  The idea of “World Chess Entertainment” to most people, I’ve since discovered, turns them completely away.  My idea wasn’t to fictionalize chess; my idea was to make chess more of a spectacle.

Time passed and I realized that relating chess to something that wasn’t wholly an entertainment was a better bet.  So, I began comparing the idea to televised poker, which is all about the actual game being played but focus on the player’s personalities is as much a focus as the game.  Anyone who is a chess enthusiast, though, has been somewhat averse to poker.  So, I’ve once again failed to reach the masses with my message.

Before I continue, I want to stress that the idea I have is to bring chess to a larger audience and expand the conscious to chess among the general populace.  I don’t know how much on the minds chess is in countries that are not the United States but in the United States, no one who does not actively play that game (at a somewhat high level of competitiveness) gives a rat’s ass about chess.  Period.

Now, let’s get back to my quest.

When I was introduced to BBC’s Master Game, I realized that what I was trying to relate chess to was leaving out the important factor of teaching the game to the casual viewer, who might be missing the point of what was going on.  The education of the viewer was my missing component.

Since I’ve discovered the Master’s Game, and subsequently the XCC, I’ve reformulated my ideas for bringing the chess to the masses in an entertaining form.  But wait, there’s more!

I’m one of the millions who has (relatively) recently left the cable industry and the satellite television industry in favor of getting all of my television entertainment online.  I watch NetFlix, Hulu Plus, and I utilize the network websites for shows that aren’t a part of those two major distribution points.  For anything else, I either wait or figure out another way to watch what I want to watch.

There is a major trend of consumers moving away from “normal” outlets of television and that means that the Internet is quickly becoming the “mainstream” as far as entertainment goes.  Moving away from the stationary computer or even the laptop, entertainment is becoming cell phone (or tablet computing) based.  That means my chess idea should be consumable in much smaller portions than I’d previously needed to consider.

I could go on and on about bringing chess to the masses in one single column but I think that would be overdoing it.  That, and I genuinely believe there is so much more to talk about while I drop small tidbits more about this particular subject in the future.  After all, if I’m going to be a chess columnist, I should do some actual talking about chess.

With Wilk an zee coming to a close soon, there will be more to talk about: like the upcoming World Chess Championship between Boris Gelfand (the challenger) and Viswanathan Anand (the champion), Dortmund, and the odd event that I can’t come up with off the top of my head.

After that, there is the numerous chess websites that are all about the Internet.  But, I should save that for future columns.

Thanks for reading.

The wife of someone I had considered a friend, yesterday, made a comment that I was a worthless piece of shit.  Well, I responded by referring to her as a cunt and blocked the both of them because I’m not putting up with that.  And I didn’t.

If you piss me off, I’m done.  If I don’t like something you’re doing on one of those social media sites, I’m done.  If you say something that conflicts with a deeply held belief of mine and you want to argue about it, I’m done.  If I end up with only relatives on my list, so be it.

I am enlightening.  I am entertaining.  I am quite often right.  I am probably better than you.  I am done playing social games because I’m too old to care and I don’t have the time to play them anymore.

Enjoy.

Lime Flavored Podcast #30

Smaragdi Noctes: A Dark Green Chronicle is our actual play podcast set in ancient Rome! Set around the time of Julius Caesar, well, ol’ Julius is alive, anyway… and the players will be discovering the new and exciting, which will eventually connect to the world of Dark Green: The Blackwood Chronicles. Centuries apart, yet connected in ways you never knew.

Stay tuned!

This year, I will write everyday.  Every.  Single.  Day.  It doesn’t matter if its 15 words or 5,000.  I’m writing… and I’m going to keep track of what I write and how many words.  That will entice me to keep it up because I likes me some progress.

I’ve got a lot of stories mulling about in my head and its time to get them out there.  I have a website to release them on… I can podcast release them, too, if I so choose.  If I happen to make money on them, that would be wonderful, but I’m wanting to get them out there first and foremost.

There is a lot of stories I have to tell and most of them are completely original.  I’m hoping to write 2 different Mars based things, a police idea, a pentalogy (five part story, like a trilogy but with five parts), something akin to Jedi stories, a space opera, a fantasy set in the same place as the space opera (only hundreds of years earlier), a vampire story (based on the White Wolf games), and more… hell, I’m even contemplating drawing my own comic universe (because I can’t find me an artist).

WIth any luck, I’ll be pumping these things out one word at a time… hopefully I’ll be doing more than one word at a time because I really want to write and I need to get back into the habit of things.

TTFN!

P.S. – I’m probably also going to get back into column writing, which won’t count towards my word count goals but will keep the “news” flowing on this website.

For most of the year, I’ll be clearing up my Facebook friends list… eliminating those people whom I don’t actually know and I don’t interact with. My game playing on Facebook will be returning to “not” until a game is created that doesn’t require me to load up with “neighbors,” doesn’t try to pile on too many tasks, and isn’t a chore to play.

I’m on a quest to lose weight and get healthy. I will be eating more non-starch vegetables with my meals, which will be significantly increase the amount of vegetables that I currently eat. I’m also going to learn how to shuffle (the dance), which will increase my physical activity. Weird, if you think about it, considering my job is pretty physically active.

I am going to be jumping back on the podcasting wagon. I will attempt to put out a weekly podcast again, though the format of the Lime Flavored Podcast will change once again because of other things going on in the background. I will be posting a NEW feed in iTunes, too. If you aren’t using iTunes, then you’ll still be able to listen to them from this website (which won’t require you to have QuickTime, though you guys need to get on the bandwagon and stop bitching about the awesomeness that is Apple).

So, let’s rock 2012 (twenty twelve), starting with the ceasing of pronouncing the years like we’re from the Middle Ages.

What I’m displaying here, I think it’s obvious, is a love for time travel.  In particular, time travel stories are awesome for their potential and very few people take advantage of that potential (the exception being the ones listed above).  So, I’m going to say that I want to join that group and take advantage of some cool time travel storytelling.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve got a lot of projects on my plate but I have something that can already convert to be part of that.  Time travel can be cool.

What am I talking about?

In Lost, the cool parts of time travel were the Losties discovering and interacting with the past.  FlashForward showed everyone the future and we watched as they made their way to that point (I think the book was better, but isn’t it almost always?).  Back to the Future was all about changing the past (accidentally) and changing things back through various means.  Doctor Who is all about interacting with historical events.  Terra Nova is heading in the direction Lost did, bringing up mysteries and hopefully getting a chance to explore them.

Why not create a story around a found bit of historical weirdness?

I won’t name this thing, I won’t promise that it’ll be anything beyond written, and I won’t even give you a hint about what I’m planning other than to say it’ll be something cool.  Here I go, saying something you’ll get to hear from time to time on my new website:

STAY TUNED!

I’m limeflavored on the game and I invite everyone I know to come on over and join me as I am looking for some quality games against people I know in a game I’ve come to love.

Yeah, I couldn’t wait, either.

Enjoy!

In order to have this website ready for the January 1, 2012 launch, I had to begin working on it at the beginning of November… and then the spammer comments started rolling in, BEFORE the site was even live. How ridiculous is that? That isn’t all, though… let me tell you what some of the comments WERE!

“I can’t see this website in Firefox, there must be something wrong.” No, there isn’t.

“This is my favorite website!” Really? This partially built, unsearchable website is your favorite?

“I’d like to buy some of those.” Some of what?

Enough of the dripping sarcasm… welcome to the new website! This will be THE go to place for everything that is Lime Flavored… podcasts, fiction, newsletters, columns, and all kinds of other stuff I haven’t thought up yet. Yeah, I’m cool like that.

So, if you like the look, the feel of cotton… I mean of this website, stop by and see stuff.