My fave Chess content creators

Since I missed posting yesterday, a quick list of champion Chess chicks currently popularising the game and helping make it more fun for everyone.

1. Anna Cramling (Spanish-Swedish Woman FIDE Master).

2-3. Alexandra & Andrea Botez (Canadian; Alex is a Woman FIDE Master).

4. Dina Belenkaya (Russian-Israeli Woman Grandmaster).

5. Fiona Steil-Antoni (Luxembourgish Woman International Master).

Easiest way to keep up with the first four is on YouTube, where they regularly share game footage. "Fionchetta" does commentating/interviewing now, so she's better followed on Twitter, where she posts about tourneys and the odd Chess news.

Why am I capitalising Chess? Because, despite not being a proper noun, it's important, damn it! :-)

Heart Strings XI

Six pics is enough to do another lady-archer compilation, yeah? I don't go looking for them, just save 'em as I encounter 'em. Babes with bows are cool.

From top to bottom:
- Cosplayer Nora as an original creation(?), from Twitter

- Gillian Alexy as Kate Matthews in 2022 flick "Avarice"

- MTG streamer Nessa as Vivien Reid, from Instagram

- Mystery gal in makeup advert snapped by RS in Japan

- Singer Rina Sawayama as Akira in "Jon Wick 4", AND

- Tao Okamoto as Hanaryo in S2 of "Westworld".

NPC

As undergrads, friends and I got addicted to MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) - online, text-based, combat-focused RPGs which we played via dumb terminals around the campus. We weren't the only ones. There was a chap who had the sickness even worse than we did. If there was no terminal free, he'd sit and watch someone else play. MG would tease him about it...but also take pity and let him shoulder-surf. What I didn't realise at the time was that, while the rest of us were naughtily skipping classes to grind our way up to Wizard rank, he was dealing with unrelated real-world issues and, I was later told, sleeping in his car.

One day, I walked into my preferred computer room and I could feel a palpable tension in the air. MG explained that the chap's father had suddenly come and collected him, pulling him out of imaginary dungeon, busy room and university itself. We never saw him again. Hopefully everything turned out for the best.

A memory dragon's breath weapon is fog

By which I mean: recent viewing.

"Raiders" and "Timeline" were rewatches.

* "Argylle" (2024) [Apple TV+]: Reluctant-spy wackiness rollicks, flags, somewhat rewards.

* "One Piece Film - Red" (2022) [Netflix]: Magnificently combines pop concert, omega-level threat. AND: So vibrantly kinetic! Such a rogues' gallery!

* "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" (1981) [Disney+]: My #1 home-sick-from-school viewing.

* "Scoop" (2024) [Netflix]: Actors' stocks rise in retelling royal fall.

* "The Last Voyage Of The Demeter" (2023) [Prime Video]: Atmospheric, gripping. Effective effects. Subverts foregone conclusion.

* "Timeline" (2004) [rental]: Curious cast. Historical romp in scifi clothing. 

* "Tramps!" (2022) [Kanopy]: Art scene that begat New Romantics. Comprehensive!

<<< Pick of the bunch is "Scoop". >>>

Sheepskin coat

I'm presently placed ahead of about seven million competitors in Fantasy Premier League. The problem is I'm lagging behind another three million. Still, it's a bit of fun. Haven't taken part in a fantasy-football league since the early 2000s. Back then, I was on a soccer-mad (magazine) subeditors bench. I also only spend about five minutes each week tweaking my team, so I can't very well expect to be among the frontrunners.

Watching: "Westworld" S2 [Foxtel].

Every family's got one?

AncestryDOTcom emails me intermittently to inform me that so-and-so, also in their DNA database, is my Nth cousin. If it's a close enough connection, I'll tell my mother the name and she can usually work out whose son or daughter they must be. With the latest person - a "1st or 2nd cousin" - she wasn't able to do so. I Googled the mystery man's name. He appears to be a professional astrologer.

A horse is a horse

Enrolled in a free online course about detective fiction. The last such course I did, I completed in December 2022. Why the break? It wasn't so much that I burnt out on online learning as that I was struggling to find topics of sufficient interest to the little grey cells. This one should be good.

In the land of the blind drunk, the one-beer man is king

My Fitness To Drive Request Notice arrived; an annual occurrence since the government changed the regulations pertaining to some forms of vision impairment. It means a trip to the optometrist, followed by a trip to the GP. The former should afford me the opportunity to photograph new street art. The GP visit doesn't suggest anything exciting. I s'pose I could drop in at the nearby South African grocery store and grab biltong. Been yonks since I had Castle Lager, but I bet it's expensive as a specialty import these days. They make the biltong themselves.

Playing: "Regency Solitaire II" [Steam]. I'm a sucker for Solitaire-based light adventures.

Watching: "Strange New Worlds" [Paramount+]. Astoundingly consistent in its beautness.