The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => History => Topic started by: jaydub on January 18, 2008, 08:01:14 pm
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http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_8010009
I guess 64 isn't crazy young to be dying, especially considering he had some sort of kidney disease - but I was pretty surprised when that headline popped out of my RSS.
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I guess I'll stop searching for him.
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I guess I'll stop searching for him.
Why? He ought to be much easier to find now.
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That's pretty nice work, A-Dub.
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That's pretty nice work, A-Dub.
August West -- Making jokes about dead guys since 1975!
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Probably easier to beat him now.
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No, no, no: Bobby Fischer is captured. If there's one thing I learned about chess during elementary Gifted & Talented classes, it's that nothing gets killed in chess!
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You got tagged as a freak and separated from your classmates with a Gifted and Talented class, too?
Neat. We definitely need some kind of survivor's therapy group for that sorta thing.
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No, no, no: Bobby Fischer is captured. If there's one thing I learned about chess during elementary Gifted & Talented classes, it's that nothing gets killed in chess!
Nice.
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If there's such a thing as a big chessboard-box in the sky, he's laying in it, just waitin' for the next game.
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You got tagged as a freak and separated from your classmates with a Gifted and Talented class, too?
Neat. We definitely need some kind of survivor's therapy group for that sorta thing.
This wasn't actually traumatic in my case, admittedly, since in that school district "Gifted & Talented" basically meant "a couple of hours a week out of class off doing fun stuff like playing chess and fuck*ng around on Apple ][s for no better reason than 'enrichment'", and that was an idea I could get behind.
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This wasn't actually traumatic in my case, admittedly, since in that school district "Gifted & Talented" basically meant "a couple of hours a week out of class off doing fun stuff like playing chess and fuck*ng around on Apple ][s for no better reason than 'enrichment'", and that was an idea I could get behind.
Been there done that, also really fun. So much Oregon Trail.
However, we had these standardized tests in high school, english sophomore year and history junior. I scored perfect on both and in junior year they tried to make me go to honors english, and I definitely refused. Knowing what I know now, it would not have helped me at all prepare for college (if it was like other high school honors classes) so I think it was a good idea to have fun.
Just to clarify, I am not trying to brag. I don't believe in standardized tests at all. I am not that intelligent. It might speak about Oklahoma's public education system, though.
Anyhow, just remembered mancala, too. I used to be bad ass at that game in 4th and 5th grade.
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You got tagged as a freak and separated from your classmates with a Gifted and Talented class, too?
Neat. We definitely need some kind of survivor's therapy group for that sorta thing.
I got separated from the whole world in a separate school. Can I join your group or does that make me way too much of a freak even for you guys?
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See, A-Adore's comment is why there should be some accomodation for me wanting to give someone 5 cans at once, somehow. That was perfectly done.
Anybody ever read the Fredric Brown story where it's told from the perspective of a pawn, not understanding why after they won the battle and captured the enemy king he got tossed in a giant cardboard box? I love me some Fredric Brown.
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This wasn't actually traumatic in my case, admittedly, since in that school district "Gifted & Talented" basically meant "a couple of hours a week out of class off doing fun stuff like playing chess and fuck*ng around on Apple ][s for no better reason than 'enrichment'", and that was an idea I could get behind.
I really loved the GT classes that I got to take. Fun times, plus none of the bullies were in those classes.
wombat, I wish I had gotten to go to a whole 'nother school. That would have been great.
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Anybody ever read the Fredric Brown story where it's told from the perspective of a pawn, not understanding why after they won the battle and captured the enemy king he got tossed in a giant cardboard box? I love me some Fredric Brown.
I hear you. I had a "Best of Fredric Brown" short story collection that was fantastic. Wonder what I did with that.
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I hear you. I had a "Best of Fredric Brown" short story collection that was fantastic. Wonder what I did with that.
Oh jesus Fred. I was in that Pike Street Market in Seattle one time and they had a 10-book collection of all his pulp mystery work for $200 total (in hardback). I didn't buy it. Later I found three of them softbound (on three different occasions) and bought them, but those are the only ones they put out in trade paper. Right now one of the hardbound volumes goes for $1500. All told it'd probably be $7500 to get the set. Fuck me in the ear for not buying them back then. Fuck me so hard.
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Hm. I have never been able to play chess. I have spent my life having people tell me that I should be really good at it. I have never gotten it.
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Hm. I have never been able to play chess. I have spent my life having people tell me that I should be really good at it. I have never gotten it.
Dude, you aren't the guy who spent 50 years on top of a flagpole.
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My GT classes in elementary school were less-crowded versions of my regular classes - all of the popular kids were also the smart kids. They were also the white kids in a predominantly black school. I got in on the basis of being smart (and, on cynical reflection, white), but not being popular, it was just like regular class as far as being the kid that didn't get talked to very much.
Mrs. Haus went to a completely different school for a couple years in her school division. I thought that would have been preferable, but after talking to her, I'm not so sure. The GT kids got fed back into the regular schools in sixth grade, and by then her old friends had kinda moved on, as had she.
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what? 50 years on top of a flagpole?
I mean, I have spent my life so far.
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what? 50 years on top of a flagpole?
I mean, I have spent my life so far.
Yeah, it's just a funny construction to use for someone who is younger. Not as bad as hearing a six-year-old say "all my life I've had to deal with this" but it's just funny.
Also, you should be spending your life chasing tail, not listening to people babble about chess. Get some priorities, son!
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all of the popular kids were also the smart kids.
WTF!?
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My GT classes were basically 2 hours a week in a boiler room where we played mind puzzles like "a man is found hanging in a room, dead, with nothing else in the room but a puddle of water, how did this happen?" The upside was that once you got into GT the teachers just automatically figured you were smart and gave you As. This meager program ended in 6th grade.
It has always been a thing of anger with me that the GT kids got 2 hours in a boiler room, and the retarded kids got an entire part of the building and millions in funding. Maybe if towns put more into cultivating the gifted and talented students, they wouldn't have Brain Drain problems.
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WTF!?
Golfhaus is apparently from Bizzaro-world.
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My GT classes in elementary school were less-crowded versions of my regular classes - all of the popular kids were also the smart kids. They were also the white kids in a predominantly black school.
Yeah, WTF? Are there words missing here?
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To be fair, they weren't the popular kids because they were the smart kids. They were the popular kids because they were the white kids. My early elementary years were in a super-rural, mostly poor county where the racial breakdown was about 80/20 in favor of the black kids. But the white families were the more well-off ones. That gave the white kids the environmental advantages when it came to being both smart and what passes for cool in the 5th grade. They could afford the cool fashions, and had parents that made them do their homework.
It was a little weird though. Which is part of the reason why I fit in absolutely nowhere when we moved from the country to the suburbs in the 7th grade.
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Am I the only one who didnt know that bobby fischer went completely batshit insane?
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See, A-Adore's comment is why there should be some accomodation for me wanting to give someone 5 cans at once, somehow. That was perfectly done.
Agreed. Multiple canning just requires discipline though. You've got to want to get her those cans.
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Am I the only one who didnt know that bobby fischer went completely batshit insane?
Probably, yes. The only reason I had heard of him was because of the stories of how nuts he was.
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Probably, yes. The only reason I had heard of him was because of the stories of how nuts he was.
Well some of us actually knew he was a famous chess player. I had heard about his batshit insaneness, but I can easily see someone else overlooking the one or two stories that I read about that in.
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I definitely only knew of him because he was completely batshit.
Ironic considering I was taught chess by a multiply-committed paranoid schizophrenic.
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oh, no, I knew he was a famous chess player.
But I knew of him because one time my dad told me about him when I was a little kid, about how this guy was so brilliant, and yet so crazy. And that that was why there was this Searching for Bobby Fischer movie that was on.
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I just clicked, he died at 64, the number of squares on a chess board. That's kind of neat.
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I knew he was batshit insane, I just didn't realize how much.
http://deadspin.com/346835/another-look-at-bobby-fischer
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I knew he was batshit insane, I just didn't realize how much.
http://deadspin.com/346835/another-look-at-bobby-fischer
Oh man I like Deadspin. Their breakdowns of the championship games were basically like treasure.
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If you go to blogdome on the day that story ran, the second link takes you to a crazy interview at espn.
actually I did it: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=3202460
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I didn't know he was nuts, well, I did, but it wasn't the primary thing about him. Mostly the chess thing.
I think somebody needs to start a poll to see how many of us went to GT classes in grade school. Because I think there is probably a high correlation between being labeled "gifted" and isolated from your peers as a young child and spending way too much time discussing linguistics and chessmasters on the internet as an adult.
Edit: Here's the thread (http://touamb.com/index.php/topic,4221.0.html).
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In other news:
Bela Lugosi? Also dead.
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Undead, undead, undead.
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"Bela Lugosi is Dead" sounds like a band name.
Not like a metal band or a punk band, though. Like a bullshit emo shoegazer indie-rock band.
Like they mean it ironically and are making fun of liking old horror movies... except when it suits them for the press when they completely pretend to love old horror movies.
Like they'd roll their eyes and say "Bela Lugosi is soooooooo cool".
And then I'd punch them all in the face.
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Like a bullshit emo shoegazer indie-rock band.
damn dude, you sound like someone's grandpa. "go listen to your heavy metal punk rap music!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bela_Lugosi's_Dead
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Hm, I suppose you're right.
That kind of band wouldn't consider the name ironic enough without putting a "The" before it.
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You guys are forgetting the most critical part of all this.
http://www.antigravitypress.com/gothic.htm (http://www.antigravitypress.com/gothic.htm)
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Thanks, inev. Also, Bela Lugosi's Dead. (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:jbfqxqlgld0e)
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Damn straight he is (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=07062004).
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Damn straight he is (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=07062004).
I fail.
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Damn, I am re-reading the archives, would have read that today.