The Spitting Tulip Opening

I'm running a little late to-day, having been caught up in six games of chess starting when I was eating breakfast and lasting for five hours. So much for my ambition to get some cleaning done.

I watched episode 22 of Twin Peaks last night, the one directed by Diane Keaton, and it was about as bad as I remembered. Lots of weird dissolves and the stupid motif of rows of identical guys in uniform. I'm also disappointed to find that the chess game Cooper's playing with Windom Earle isn't a legitimate game, so I've read. It hasn't exactly gone off the rails yet, but I've noticed the three opening moves have changed slightly, episode to episode.



Here random pieces appear to be missing. It's also retconned a few episodes later that the dead man's hand is pointing at one of the unmoved white pawns, for whatever reason.

When Cooper says he played chess with Earle every day for three years and never won, I know it's supposed to make me impressed with Earle, but mostly I just think that's pretty pathetic for Cooper. This is coming from someone who loses 90% of the time--but the thing is, when you play the same person over and over, no matter how good they are, you get a sense of their personality in chess. Sooner or later you beat them.

Though maybe that just goes for the players I've played. I've never played a grandmaster. I found this match between Sting, the singer, and Gary Kasparov rather fascinating;



Not so much because it was an exciting game, but because it was interesting to see the solid foundation Kasparov built when he didn't have any real opposition.

Last night I got caught up in the "Lawn of the Dead" minigame quest in WoW, wherein you strategically plant a number of killer plants in order to fend off zombies. It was actually really absorbing, and I got a goofy, singing pet sunflower out of it;