Apologies for my whiny comments yesterday.

May 8, 2001 6:22 AM

Apologies for my whiny comments yesterday. It was an increasingly frustrating day for me all around and I took it out on some fellow MeFiers. Sorry.
posted by starvingartist to Etiquette/Policy at 6:22 AM (32 comments total)

I think I must have missed it, but the use of this space is interesting? Time for Matt to register Metapology?
posted by thirteen at 9:32 AM on May 8, 2001

I hearby claim this thread and all its riches for the honor and glory of myself and my heirs.
posted by daveadams at 2:03 PM on May 8, 2001

Pretty convient that the natives of this thread (the 545ians) have no concept of property rights.
Do you have a flag?

Also, hidden somewhere in this thread is the Fountain of Youth! and King Solomon's mines! No fooling.
posted by sonofsamiam at 3:24 PM on May 8, 2001

There are seven lost cities of gold!
posted by redfoxtail at 3:48 PM on May 8, 2001

Dave, you're a megalomaniac. You'll give C-listers a bad name.
posted by norm at 4:17 PM on May 8, 2001

I apologize for all my bad postings of the past and the ones I am inadvertently going to make in the future.

For your penance, watch the AYBANBTU animation 20 times and listen to the IM Me song 2 times (since one time is painful as it is).
posted by john at 4:41 PM on May 8, 2001

Good, now that we have a quorem... I CHALLENGE DAVE FOR THE RULE OF 545 (or as it shall be known go-yon-go)! To make this civilized, I challenge you to a game of online chess. I will be white. E2 to E4!
posted by thirteen at 4:55 PM on May 8, 2001

c'mon, you can't call something "go-yon-go" and battle over it with something as pathetically trite as chess.

(oh, I'm going to eat that sentance in a few posts, I'm sure :-)

Play Go for ruling rights, dammit!
posted by cCranium at 5:11 PM on May 8, 2001

I think they should be trapped in a strange, alien arena composed of environments equally inhospitable to each of them, then forced to fight to the death to determine which will be the ruler of 545.

But maybe that's just me.
posted by snarkout at 6:54 PM on May 8, 2001

I challenge you to a game of online chess. I will be white. E2 to E4!

Chess seems appropriate, but can we use descriptive notation. I never could get algebraic down very well.
posted by daveadams at 6:55 PM on May 8, 2001

Play Go for ruling rights, dammit!

No, Go is much to difficult for my puny mind to comprehend, apparently.
posted by daveadams at 6:56 PM on May 8, 2001

That's "too" with two 'o's. God, I hate that when other people do that.
posted by daveadams at 7:07 PM on May 8, 2001

Go is better than Chess.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 7:16 PM on May 8, 2001

Great page Steven,

Are you familiar with Twixt? It's a decent game and fits the 'no luck' category. I am a fan of games digital or otherwise. The last new board game that I got was Torres and it is excellent.
posted by john at 9:45 PM on May 8, 2001

Alright, Chess is out. We will settle this in Peoria, IL over a game of Twister. Day and time TBA.
posted by thirteen at 10:48 PM on May 8, 2001

I have wanted to try Go for years now, but I don't know anybody interested in playing. Same with chess, I just keep myself content by letting the computer whip me on a regular basis.

Excellent article Mr. Den Beste.
posted by thirteen at 11:35 PM on May 8, 2001

Am I the only person who caught sonofsamiam's Eddie Izzard reference? Thanks for that; it made my day.
posted by toddshot at 12:23 AM on May 9, 2001

IIRC, Thirteen, you're in Japan. Finding Go players there is like trying to find poker players in Vegas. Depending on how good your Japanese is, surely you can find a class somewhere. It's well worth your while; the intellectual experience of the game is unlike anything else I've ever encountered.

It's also possible to play with a browser over the internet; I hear tell that Yahoo has a place where you can get a pickup game. But to really learn it, you need to find a sympathetic player better than you willing to play 20 or 30 games in a row. Then, once you think you know what's going on, watch your mentor play someone better than they are -- and whole new vistas will open up.

I once taught the game to someone else and was frustrated by the fact that, like so many beginners, he concentrated on the tactical. So I got him to watch me play another guy who was about the same level I was, and he came away and told me that it had been completely different than he had expected. And he moved up one full rank on our next game.

(WOW am I off topic!)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 5:16 AM on May 9, 2001

Twixt is a variant on a game which used to be sold under the name "Bridge-it". For Bridge-it, at least, someone came up with a first-person-win strategy, which made it uninteresting. I don't know if Twixt is sufficiently different to have eliminated that problem.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 5:29 AM on May 9, 2001

You can play go on both yahoo.com and msn.zone.com. Both are free sites, and both have levels of play so that you can play at a level where you're comfortable.

Now. What is all this chess bashing? The linked article claims that chess is inelegant because there are so many different rules and pieces. The game is, after all, patterned after battle, and in battle, one typically has to handle a number of different kinds of resources. The real problem with chess is that if you want to advance, you have to do much memorization because serious players know the various opening strategies, and if you don't know as much as they know, then you can find yourself at a disadvantage very quickly. I prefer to play chess with people who, like myself, played more seriously in their youths and who no longer remember series of moves. In that case, you end up playing with general principles, and the game is more interesting. I taught my daughter to play chess when she was ten. She didn't complain about all the rules.

Anyway, if you want to be battling for domination of the thread, you should really play Risk, and you should welcome all comers. I wonder if it can be played on line.


posted by anapestic at 6:01 AM on May 9, 2001

It was Steven's article I'd have linked to if anyone argued that chess were superior. The chess bashing on my part is mostly fun, I suck at chess, too. :-)

I'm actually in the process of learning Go with a friend of mine at Yahoo! Games, and it's been extremely interesting to see how both our games have changed dramatically from the first game. I'm up for a game with anyone of any skill level anytime I'm online and not at work, but fair warning: I suck pretty bad. :-)

(I'm cCranium on Yahoo!, also, and I run YIM if anyone's interested)

There have been lots of Risk games for computers, if it isn't available online, it should be.
posted by cCranium at 6:26 AM on May 9, 2001

Go is better than Chess.

Well, it all depends on your point of view, I suppose.

Chess may be less "elegant" than Go or even Checkers, but that doesn't make it a bad game. I like Chess. The variety of rules and movements are what make it interesting. The fact that that makes it harder to learn isn't necessarily a bad thing.

We will settle this in Peoria, IL over a game of Twister.

I'm there. Just tell me when.
posted by daveadams at 6:27 AM on May 9, 2001

I am interested in learning Go, however, but I never get very far before I burn out. Maybe I'll catch you on Yahoo sometime, cC.
posted by daveadams at 6:35 AM on May 9, 2001

I don't understand what's so hard about Go.
posted by starvingartist at 9:26 AM on May 9, 2001

Artist, I thought you said you weren't going to do that anymore. (Bang! Back on topic!)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:34 AM on May 9, 2001

Do what anymore? Link to Bob the Angry Flower? I never said that! Why are you getting on my case? Why does everyone hate me so much? Whaaaaaaaaaaa!
posted by starvingartist at 9:45 AM on May 9, 2001

It takes a lot of playing to really get into Go. There was a 6 month period when I decided to start learning how to play that I played twice, because although it's easy to learn the moves, I find it to be a brutally difficult game. That sinking feeling you get when someone places a piece you missed completely and you realize that, no matter what you do you're going to lose half your pieces, and then you realize that this person's been setting you up for the past 15 moves and you just sauntered into their evil, evil trap whisling and looking at the clouds, and all you can say is "Oh, shit" makes it all worthwhile though.
posted by cCranium at 10:07 AM on May 9, 2001

I am going to move this to the main page.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 12:03 PM on May 9, 2001

Damn, Starvingartist beat me to the Bob the Angry Flower link.
posted by jbushnell at 12:27 PM on May 9, 2001

Woo-hoo! Another BTAF fan! Excellent!
posted by starvingartist at 1:56 PM on May 9, 2001

I hear there are Fruheads around these parts, too...
posted by Aaaugh! at 2:20 PM on May 9, 2001