T.D.

I thought of this sweet lil comment last night when a friend said her little sister asked her if she was a fan of "The Lonliest Monk's" music. I think that's been said, in all seriousness, by an adult on national TV...IIRC, Bill Clinton was being interviewed by MTV's Tabitha Soren, and when asked what music he liked, said "jazz" and mentioned Thelonious Monk among others. Ms. Soren (who I believe is now married to author Michael Lewis of Liar's Poker and Moneyball fame), got confused and asked "Who's The Loneliest Monk"?

Damn. A veritable torrent of verbiage is going to be written about Fischer and his passing, so I'll mostly refrain. R.I.P.

Ralph Malph Elizabeth Hurley Pratap Chandra Chunder

Gummo Marx Boots Randolph Wellington Mara

Her excuse for testing positive for steroids was a claimed false positive caused by birth control pills. As you can imagine, that provoked a certain amount of head-scratching and laughter.

Yesterday, Judit won an exciting game vs. Gelfand in the fourth round of the Wijk aan Zee supertournament. Sac'd a bunch of material (first a pawn and then a knight), and Gelfand, in time pressure, couldn't keep track of the complications. Interestingly, Polgar has a very fierce attacking style of play, which you might not expect from the only woman playing at the highest level...

I wonder if Tammy Thomas, the track cyclist who was banned from the sport for life (steroids) plays chess? [it's a real photo, no joke...]

If EMI/Blue Notes disappear, the yourmusic inventory will become awfully meager.

For quite a while (weeks!), I was having the very slow page loads, followed by the switch to basic HTML view. This seems to have eased up over the past few days, but in the meantime I switched to basic HTML as default at home (I'm in a rural area and use dialup). When on public computers, the normal view has again become possible. Interesting to hear of others with similar problems; I had assumed my ISP was at fault.

I just read the AP newswire story, and didn't realize that the Cowboys have built up such a recent history of playoff failure: Dallas tied the most wins in team history with 13, but followed it by tying an NFL record with a sixth straight playoff loss. Romo fell to 0-2 and coach Wade Phillips finished his first year with the Cowboys by falling to 0-4 in his playoff career. There are other dubious footnotes for Dallas, like being the first No. 1 seed in the NFC to lose in this round since the NFL went to the 12-team playoff format in 1990 and being the seventh team to lose a playoff game against a team they'd beaten twice in the regular season; the '98 Cowboys did it, too.

Black Jack Pershing Joseph "Black Death" Blackburne Edgar Allan Poe

Big Al calls it! The Cowboys looked good for awhile this season, but something sure changed. GB/NE looks like the likely scenario. I'd love to see a Brady/Favre matchup. I'm sure that's what the league wants too. Keep an eye out for questionable calls next week in the Frozen Tundra (what's the long range weather forecast? Any hope for a repeat of Saturday's game?) Tundra's gonna be frozen. Here's the long-range GB forecast, from NOAA National Weather Service: Friday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around -1. Saturday: Mostly sunny and cold, with a high near 8. Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around -4. Sunday: Mostly sunny and cold, with a high near 7.

I thought you were just being paranoid...

I'm not really in touch with pop culture (and not just music), so won't/can't comment. I will say: (1) as the cliche goes, there's no arguing with taste; (2) it seems dangerous and even unsound to declare, as so many oldsters of my age do, that "all pop music is shit"; (3) there are so many genres/subgenres of modern pop music that generalization appears difficult.

OK then! WGM & IM Elina Danielian, Armenia, 2480! The great GM Maia Chiburdanidze (GEO) comes to mind in this connection, but I'll refrain from posting any pics...

Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. I'd heard chatter of this portrayal of the CIA's history of monstrous ineptitude. Had read Robert Littell's novel The Company, which gave a pretty damning chronicle of abject failure. (Littell's an excellent spy novelist.) Then Legacy of Ashes showed up on The Economist's books of the year list, so I had to check it out. Excellent, but mind-blowing and very strong stuff. The CIA's history is worse than you could even imagine. It's difficult to comprehend.

Marion Jones got the maximum sentence. Commentators are saying that the ballplayers facing perjury charges should be worried.

Hey, you're a WCJ enthusiast, right? How about Shelly Manne Checkmate and Gambit?

I once read in Chessbase that Maria Manakova was the subject of a somewhat soft-porn cover story in a Russian mag. Looks like the caption is Champion Maria Manakova: 'I love eating...Bishops!' Brings back memories of Faye Dunaway in the original Thomas Crown Affair film. ["Slon"="Elephant"="Bishop" in chess]

I thought FIDE ratings didn't go below 2000. But I won't quibble about chess rating in her case...

Isn't Sharevich, GM Alexander Grischuk's squeeze? No, Grischuk is married to (WGM?) Natalia Zhukova. There were recent pics in Chessbase. Here, "Pivdenny [recent tournament sponsor] Chairman Vadim Morokhovsky (suit) supports Natalia Zhukova in the final hand against her husband. Natalia's King-Ten must compete against the Jack-Nine of Alexander Grischuk (said husband) [who is said to be a big-time poker player]"

It was widely reported (well, in chess circles) that Kass was dating German GM Eric Lobron. The reports caused a certain amount of amazement. The couple has since broken up.

Checking in from Angola, Valquiria Rocha:

Well, absent nerdish tendencies it'd probably be difficult to achieve an international chess title, even WIM (Women's International Master). Might be more hotties in the WFM (Women's FIDE Master) category; certainly more candidates.

The photogenic Ms. Sharevich is a special favorite of Chessbase... I've always been fond of Regina Pokorna (SVK):