February 2011 “Happy Birthday!” Thread

Known Muser birthdays and “K Days” this month*:

02-01 Keiffer’s birthday (1997 – *confusion* purple, black, and gold
02-02 groundhog22’s birthday (1989 – denim blue)
02-04 Tessera Rose’s birthday
02-08 Birthday of Cerulean Pyros (1996 – red and black)
02-16 cromwell’s birthday (1996)
02-18 TreeCafe’s 5K day
02-19 muselover’s 5K day
02-26 Ötzi’s birthday (1993 – cerulean)
02-26 KaiYves’s birthday (1993-purple)

You turn 5,000 days old this month if you were born between May 26 and June 22, 1997.
You turn 6,000 days old this month if you were born between August 30 and September 26, 1994.
You turn 7,000 days old this month if you were born between December 4 and December 31, 1991.

*Note: Listed MBers who have been inactive for several months won’t appear on next year’s birthday calendar unless they show up again.

Hot Topics, v. 2011.1

This thread is a place for careful, clear, respectful discussions of difficult topics. It is not a place for having two-fisted no-holds-barred discussions.

MBers should be able to express their opinions without attacking others personally, and be able to listen to people who disagree with them without feeling personally attacked.

Easier said than done, of course. But MuseBlog is a good place to practice trying.

Happy National Pie Day!

For whatever it’s worth, the American Pie Council (www . piecouncil . org/) has declared every January 23 National Pie Day. Although the APC seems to focus mainly on eating pies rather than, you know, we think this new holiday is a peach of an idea (peach pie — yum!) and encourages MBers of all lands to embrace it wholeheartedly. Those who can’t will get another chance when Pi Day rolls around on March 14.

Pie stories, anyone?

Capablanca Chess: Ducky vs. bookgirl_me — 0-1

Chess: SudoRandom vs. Radiant_Darkness — 0-1 FORFEIT

White forfeits. New ratings: SudoRandom, 50; Radiant_Darkness, 140.

Chess Game: Radiant_Darkness vs. pie girl, 1-0

Chess Eterna-ment Rankings

Inspection of the chess games on the blog found only one game (Tesseract vs. bookgirl_me) still in progress*. To keep things tidy going into the new year, the Chess GAPA (Robert) has adjudicated and closed all other games** of standard chess and calculated new MuseBlog Chess Ratings on the basis of the results. Ratings for Capablanca and Turbo Chess are unaffected.

Here are the new ratings, as of January 4, 2011 (numbers in parentheses indicate number of games on which the rating is based).

*(Finished on January 8; ratings updated to reflect the result.)

Latest update: 24 September 2011.

Continue reading “Chess Eterna-ment Rankings”

Happy 119th Birthday, J. R. R. Tolkien!

As hobbits might put it, Professor Tolkien would have been eleventy-nine years old today.

The world was young, the mountains green,
No stain yet on the Moon was seen,
No words were laid on stream or stone,
When Tolkien woke and walked alone.
He named the nameless hills and dells;
He drank from yet untasted wells;
He stooped and looked in Mirrormere,
And saw a crown of stars appear,
As gems upon a silver thread,
Above the shadow of his head.

The world was fair, the mountains tall,
In Elder Days before the fall
Of mighty kings in Nargothrond
And Gondolin, who now beyond
The Western Seas have passed away:
The world was fair in Tolkien‘s Day.