I've been utterly crappy at everything, especially chess, for the last few days. I lost both games I played at lunch today. I blame it on this cold I'm still getting over as well as my mind slowly getting used to all these new ideas. I renewed my USCF membership over the weekend and just signed up for a tournament in March. It's a low-impact tournament mostly for experience, it's only 3 rounds and only $5 to enter, but that's what I need right now. I haven't been at the gym in quite a while because of the snowstorm and then because of this cold. I really feel crummy.

Did gaming last night with friends instead of watching the Super Bowl. This was good. We just played Carcassonne twice rather than anything more intense. It worked out well. The wifing unit stayed home, though. We had some interesting discussions about racism, homosexuality and transgender issues, inner city education, etc etc etc.

The kitchen sink drain is clogged. It was slow last night, so I went at it with the auger and then checked to see whether that cleared the drain, but my work turned out to have only stopped it up. I'll have a go at it this evening and not give up until the whole thing is clear. There's some disgusting crap in there. Fortunately, I have a cold, so I can't smell it very well. Tools needed: bucket, newspapers, gloves, aforementioned auger.

So everybody seems to recommend getting a FICS account (Free Internet Chess Server) and playing there. I just checked, I did register for an account 3 years ago, I've just never gotten around to using it. Excellent.

Anyway, Carcasonne: the first game sucked, I kept getting road pieces and my farmer didn't pan out, as few completed any cities. In the second game, there were a lot of completed cities, but I split my field with somebody who was 1 point ahead of me before fields were reckoned, so I lost by one point.

I am constantly reminded of that glorious haiku from years ago on K5 (by JChen, in gnovos' signature):

Fuck you fuck you fuck
you fuck you fuck you fuck you
fuck you fuck you snow.

Truly a masterpiece.

Seriously, I have to turn that switch in my hard that gets me playing "Real Chess" at some point. I'm just sucking lately...