Accordingly, I will be brief.

Adductors still sore from squatting a relatively light load of 365#x3x5. I blame skipping scheduled squats a little too often over the past couple weeks.

We played, as a training run, War of the Rings: Collector's Edition last night. The point was to learn the rules so that, on a future gaming night, we might be able to play the entire game. It was awesome. It is a bit harrowing to play as the Fellowship because the strategy is to endure the assaults of the Evil Empire long enough to drop the ring in Mount Doom. In short, you try to build some strength, then hole up in the strongholds while waves of orcs march toward you. Pretty much as in the books. It takes some getting used to.

Chess is like a knife-fight in a phone booth. Much better than go. Of course, quite obviously, the way to get better at go is the same as the way to get better at chess. Play against tough opposition, play over games of strong people, solve a lot of tactical problems, then read a little theory. Most of all, think strategically.

I was in a hurry to get out the door this morning (for no great reason) and realized after I got through the turnstile that I had forgotten my book. Drat! It wasn't worth the $2.25 to run back and grab the book, so I played solitaire on the train. I'll have to grab like one of those free papers and play sudoku or something this evening on the way home. Sigh. 

Talked very briefly with the guy I lent that book about programming for strength training. He was wondering about form tips for deadlifts as he wants to put them into his "back" workouts. That's good and bad. Good: deadlifts. Bad: back workout. I gave him the most important tip (keep back in extension! do not round! rounding only the upper back may be acceptable if you are already quite strong and know what you are doing, but you are not yet!) and sent him an article this morning on it by Rippetoe. Bad news: it seems he did not read the book and is still doing a silly split, probably something like "legs", "back", and "shoulders/chest/arms" or something. I'm not opposed to intelligent splits, but the thing is that the only one that really works well in the logic of "splits" is a simple upper/lower split. The thing is that "back" will have a lot of "lower" and "upper" to it that will "conflict" with both your "leg" and "shoulder" days. "Deadlifts" are a leg exercise and will interfere with "leg" day or vice versa. Rows, pullups, or whatever you're doing for upper back are quite trivially arm and shoulder exercises as well to similar effect. It's not immediately obvious why pullups would interfere with your bench press, but the long head of the triceps does work. Your triceps and lats, of course, also work in the first half of the deadlift if you're doing it right, but it's not likely to be too much. Whatever.

So I ordered some crap from Amazon and here's what it says in the USPS tracking thing:

Delivery status not updated as of July 07, 2010, 10:28 pm
 Out for Delivery or Available at PO Box, July 07, 2010, 8:28 am, $CITY, IL 90210

I suspect this means it has been lost. Bastards. I saw that it said, "Out for delivery or available at PO Box" earlier in the day and thought that it only ever includes the second option before they lose my stuff. It's nothing terribly important or expensive (2 pairs of shorts), but I wanted it enough to buy it. Silly me: if I ever want something without hassle reasonably soon, don't go through amazon. Good for books, but you can get clothes anywhere. Mail sucks.