My favourite fact about chess ever is how Garry Kasparov, a Russian grandmaster and former world chess champion, once said during an interview:
“Well, in the past, I have said that there is real chess and women’s chess. Some people don’t like to hear this, but chess does not fit women properly. It’s a fight, you know? A big fight. It’s not for women.”
Only for Kasparov to get absolutely obliterated by Judit Polgar, a Hungarian woman, a few years later.
Another fun fact: Judit Polgar, at the time of receiving her grandmaster title in 1991, was the youngest player to EVER receive the title at only age 15. Judit Polgar is straight up a chess legend. She was also the youngest player to ever be inducted into the FIDE top 100, ranking 55 at only age 12.
Judit has defeated numerous other chess legends, such as Anatoly Karpov, Viswanathan Anand, and Boris Spassky, all former world chess champions. She has even won a match against Magnus Carlsen, who is the current world chess champion as of 2021. When I tell you this woman is a beast I mean she is RUTHLESS.
Famously, in 1994, during a match with Judit Polgar, Garry Kasparov cheated, taking back a move after realising it was losing, even though this is very much against the rules of chess. At the time, Judit was only 17. Imagine being so good at age 17 that you make the world champion cheat!
Anyways. Stan chess legend Judit Polgar because she is a beast!!!!!
Yet another fun fact: her sister, Susan Polgar, is ALSO a chess grandmaster and was women’s world champion in 1996!
And, their sister Sofia Polgar, is ALSO a chess international master! Meaning that all three Polgar sisters are chess masters!
also, she’s Jewish! Bobby Fischer refused to play her because of this. She played in the men’s league, and at the height of her career was 7th in the world
we do a lot of stuff we don’t realise like breaking someone’s heart and never suspecting they had a crush on us, or having your hand on your boob for 3 hours straight
I think a lot about who I am to other people in the world–particular who I am to strangers as a mere concept in their lives.
Today this woman called our information desk and said, “my son’s band is playing tonight. I want to come see him, but he never answers his phone…..I want to be there. Have you heard anything about his band?”
And I felt so bad for this lady but I’m not in the music scene around here so I had to tell her no, sorry.
Five hours later, I’m hiking and run into a group of guys setting up for some outdoor performance, and as I watch them unload the drums it hits me.
“Hey,” I said, “are y’all in a band?”
They said yeah and smiled and I told them “one of your moms called today. She wants to watch you play, but she can’t get a hold of you. Call your mom.”
And they all pulled out their phones and started discussing whose mom it probably was as they presumably dialed their own.
And now, unless we meet again and recognize each other, that’s who I’ll be forever to those guys–some mysterious courier for mom-messages who came out of the woods and told them their mom called.
I didn’t even tell them why their mom called me. Who am I to their mom?? Nobody even asked. They just took my word for it and called their mothers.
An unexpected tenant—after at least three years, a cocoon resting on my mother’s cabinet eclosed this evening to reveal a handsome male Cecropia moth:
He flapped around my kitchen for a while before I managed to get him outside. Talk about a late bloomer!
How long are they normally in the cocoon for?
A few weeks, if born in the spring, but late-summer broods stay in their cocoon all winter.
There’s a lot of variation in moth metamorphosis. Some will simply not spin silk cocoons at all and will just pupate in the nude, which is sort of awkward, and once in a while we’ll have one emerge a year later than expected. This guy takes the cake, though—he was actually born in 2017, meaning that he’s spent FOUR WINTERS in his cocoon! Talk about procrastination…
it doesn’t matter. you will still have fun baking a distastrous looking bread loaf. you will still have fun painting a technically bad painting. you will get happy brain chemicals dancing like a weirdo. be bad on purpose.
yes i want to listen to new music. no i can’t stand any music that i don’t already know. do you see the problem here
the sequel to: yes I wanna watch new shows and movies. Alas, I cannot in good conscience enjoy something new I have not enjoyed previously. I can’t take that risk. No, I will not take any criticism at this time.
