All Ways are the Queen's Way

One of to-day's random Wikipedia articles alerted me to the existence of Almira Skripchenko, another hot, world famous female chess grandmaster, and apparently friends with the one I learned about on Twitter, Alexandra Kosteniuk. Here they are playing against each other;



It's interesting to me Kosteniuk sounds genuinely sorry to be playing against a friend, as though a chess match is inevitably a very personal contest. They've both been playing since they were little, and I'd have to think they've both lost countless times on the road to getting better, so you'd think they'd have thicker skins. But maybe the fact that it's a prominent tournament makes it a little more sensitive.

Anyway, I've watched several videos of Kosteniuk and every time she plays a woman, that woman is always gorgeous. I really don't get it--practicing chess as much as it must take to get really good would seem to me a pretty sedentary lifestyle, one where personal appearance isn't given the lion's share of attention. But maybe brains wired for chess come packaged with great metabolism and skin.

I've pencilled two pages to-day, feeling frustrated with myself I can't draw faster. I've got four pages to ink now, and I'm starting to get the feeling Thursday's going to be another long day. Then I've got jury duty scheduled for Tuesday--I may go on Friday, since one can go up to two weeks before or after the scheduled date. But I'm getting really tired of there being some big thing I have to take care of when I'm between chapters. Oh, and I'm tired of getting called for fucking jury duty. I guess it's been a couple years since the last time, but gods, I've gotten called four times at least in the past eight years. I really wouldn't mind it if it were at hour sensible for me. Instead, I'm liable to be waiting three hours too tired out of my brain to concentrate on book.

Anyway, I'd better get to inking . . .

Last night's tweets;

The tomato juice is spiked with pepper.
A strange body failed to notice vodka.
One dame got in transformed from a leper.
Mata Hari written in by Kafka.