thoughts from brian samson

Chess


Checkmate!

When some wonderful person ported GnuChess to the iPhone, I remembered how much I enjoy the game. I started playing again on Chess.com, which has a great slow-paced format that doesn’t require any more attention than you choose. The minimum time limit to make a move is 1 day, so it’s a lot like mail chess, except occasionally when you and your opponent are both online it can move quite a bit faster.

Here’s a link to my first game, where my opponent developed his rook far too early while I was busy setting up mate.

To be fair, the next game I lost just as quickly after some terrible oversight in my opening.

The most recent game I played was a good match where I had a chance to develop a a pawn and a bishop behind enemy lines. I wrote an annotated blog post about it.

So if anyone wants to play, go sign up on chess.com and challange me. My name is samsonasu and I welcome the challenge.

Portobello Steak

Portobello steak
This was supposed to be Valentine’s day, but we got busy and made tacos instead. Portobello slices sauteed with oregano and pepper with grilled Asparagus and half of a huge New York Strip steak. Taken with my new Canon EOS Rebel XTi that I just got today!

Why do I know this?

Don’t click this link:

Britney spears was photographed crying while barefoot.

Why do I know this? I don’t care. At all. The reason I know, it turns out, is because Google considers this piece of irrelevant information “news” enough to include it in the Google News RSS feed.

It makes me angry, because this is clearly not news. Millions of people cry everyday. Billions of people are barefoot every day. But apparently enough celebrity-worshiping Americans care about this that it becomes news. So I plead to you: do not click that link. Quit caring about Britney. If we all band together in apathy, maybe I will be able to go through a single day without knowing the status of Britney Spears’ foot-coverings.

SK: Manicotti

I found some old manicotti and made the best survivor kitchen yet.

It was stuffed with a cut up pork chop, some old mushrooms, and a succulent 3-cheese blend featuring pepper jack, cottage, and grated parmesan. Topped with a mix of 2 jars of pasta sauce from the fridge, this was probably the best meal I’ve even had without going to the store first. And props to MB for putting tomatoes on the garlic bread.


Survivor: Kitchen

When MB moved in, we combined kitchens, and I realized that we have waaay too much food. I realized this in force when I looked in the cupboard and found four (4) cans of corn.

So I devised a game called “Survivor: Kitchen.” The rule of the game is you have to make dinner with what’s in the kitchen, not going to the store. After 2 weeks, we agreed we can go buy veggies, milk, and bread, but nothing else. So far it was pretty easy: lots of pasta and tacos. But now I’m out of frozen ground beef and tomato sauce, so it’s starting to get interesting.

Tonight we used 4 cans of food, including 1 can of corn (score). The result was corn-bean casserole and smoked salmon melts. Yum:
smoked salmon melt

Biking is great

I biked to work again for the first time in a long time on Tuesday. I took the canal for the first time, and it takes about a quarter mile off of my route. On the way home, I stopped to snag a picture of the day, ala Bob Wold, because the traffic was particularly bad today, and I was quite happy I biked instead:

Rush Hour

Smarter than a 5th grader

This game is very dumb, in my opinion. I saw someone lose on the TV show with a question that involved converting rods to furlongs. Nobody in america knows that, not even 5th graders. However, the show put up a website that at least validated my existence for now.


5th grader

Hiking with Dad

Big Tony was out here last week and between terrible rounds of golf and outstanding beer pong victories, my dad also wanted to go hiking. We went up 1,000 feet along Mormon trail at South Mountain and through the hidden valley and Fat Man’s pass. It was a lot of fun!

Me and dad in a natural tunnel

Re: Nealz Nuze 4.2.2007

My friend emails me links to Neal Boortz’s website where he rants about things like democrats, taxes, democrats, Hillary Clinton, and democrats. And I usually agree with most of what he says, but I don’t understand why he needs to make everything such an “Us vs Them” fight. Just state your opinion and let it go.

Today’s post is a good example.

I agree with almost everything he says, but for some reasons he’s still irritating to read. Since his viewpoint is on solid logical ground, why does he have to cloud it with spin and right-wing jargon.

Re-read his opening sentance:

If there’s anything the Democrat Party just loves to do that would be raising taxes … but only on those people who are not likely to vote Democrat! If you’ve been paying any attention at all, you will know that the Democrats proposed a $400 billion tax increase last week .

He then goes on to complain that the taxes are all on the 20%, and they are reducing taxes on the middle and lower class. I don’t really get his point. Am I supposed to feel sorry for the tax burden carried by people who make more than $265,000 a year?

Also , I’ll bet noone here even read the article that he links to. (you probably aren’t reading this long-wided post right now either). If you had taken the time to click the link that he cites as evidence the Democrats are raising taxes by $400 billion, you would have read this at the very bottom:

The House plan promises a big surplus in five years by allowing tax cuts passed in the president’s first term to expire. It awards spending increases next year to both the Pentagon and domestic programs, but it defers difficult decisions about unsustainable growth in federal benefit programs such as Medicare.

Bush equates letting the cuts expire to a tax increase. He said Saturday the blow would amount to nearly $400 billion over five years –what he said would be “the largest tax increase in our nation’s history.”
So they didn’t really “propose” anything, and these aren’t really “tax increases.” If bush wanted them permanent so badly he should’ve had his congress authorize them permanently while it was republican. But the fact of the matter is that they don’t do any good for 80% of America and they aren’t needed anymore to jump-start the economy like they were in 2001 when they were written. Boortz is just mad because he’s rich enough that he will probably owe more taxes next year whereas none of us will be affected at all.

So explain to me why a guy who has an otherwise very informed and reasonable opinion needs to rely on pre-spun talking points from the mouth of the president himself in order to sensationalize his article?

Arizona Proposition Round-up (Part 2)

Round 2 - “The 200 Series”

These are all voter initiated, and there is some confusion, especially on the smoking stuff, so pay attention. Once again, I really urge you to Read the text yourself.

Brian Samson’s Voting Recomendations
Prop 200: Yes
Prop 201: Yes
Prop 202: Yes
Prop 203: Yes
Prop 204: Yes
Prop 205: No
Prop 206: No
Prop 207: Yes

Read the rest of this entry »

« Previous Entries   Next Entries »