Indie Rock jems recently discovered!

1. midlake – roscoe
2. benoit pioulard – palimend
3. peter bjorn and john – young folks
4. the teenagers – homecoming
5. munk & james murphy – kick out the chairs
6. rah rah – winter sun
7. califone – pink and sour
8. andrew bird – a nervous tic motion of the head to the left
9. jose gonzales –teardrop (massive attack cover, live at bazaar curieux)
10. beirut - postcards from Italy

Movie of the week: 300 (2007)

Ancient greeks, kicking ass..

Big screen and faithful adaptation of the historically-inspired graphic novel series written and illustrated by Frank Miller. This is a retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae and the events leading up to it from the perspective of Leonidas of Sparta. 300 was particularly inspired by the 1962 film The 300 Spartans, a movie that Miller watched as a young boy.

Worth watching for being visually stunning, catching up with your history and getting an overdose of washboard abs!

A very early zugzwang!

Zugzwang: “Compulsion to move.” A German term referring to a situation in which a player would like to do nothing (pass), since any move will damage his game.

Well, in this case, my oponent spent most of the game in this situation. Pretty much everything after move 10!

Game 13 (23-03-2007) Division 5

My best game! until the next one..

A game for the Club Championship, against a 120+ rated oponent.
After a normal opening (rather clumsy on the black side) an underdeveloped oponent wasted valuable tempi by manouvering his queen and tempted his luck by castling long.

I think it represents my best game so far, look out for the cool knight sacrifice (19.Nb5) that can not be refuted! I also think that the timing of the sacrifice is quite unique, less chances of being effective if played sooner or later than the given moment.

They're back!!

Portishead delighted fans in Bristol on Sunday night by playing a surprise show and previewing material from their forthcoming album. Geoff Barrow, Adrian Uttley and Beth Gibbons were billed as 'Grumpy Man DJ's', but surprised everybody by performing live as Portishead for the first time since 2005 at the tsunami support concert alongside Massive Attack (By the way.. I was there! Not Sunday though..).