random asides

[Aspen]

So, did you get it? I see that bidding's over now.

[Charlie]

I would guess no.

As the price is exactly £31 (approx $47.18). This suggests a British bidder won as most people would bid in whole (or tenths) of a unit currency. However, there is the possibility that with ebay automatic bidding Sophist could have won as say the previous bid was £30.50 and the bid increments were 50p, then a bid of $50 would make the "winning bid" £31.

So there is still a big chance of me being wrong.... but I would guess not

[Charlie]

And if you did not get it then this may be of use. Most of them are US printed and based, but if you want an original London printed one there is at least one listed (the first one!)

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/Searc ... 1&yrl=1921

[Sophist]

I would guess no.

As the price is exactly £31 (approx $47.18). This suggests a British bidder won as most people would bid in whole (or tenths) of a unit currency. However, there is the possibility that with ebay automatic bidding Sophist could have won as say the previous bid was £30.50 and the bid increments were 50p, then a bid of $50 would make the "winning bid" £31.

So there is still a big chance of me being wrong.... but I would guess not

I won. It occurred as you suggested. I had a maximum bid of 50 GBP and the other bidder only went up to 30.50 GBP to test the limits. --Oh I should mention that even though I was a US bidder, on the UK website you have to bid in GBP. It'll tell you how much that is in USD, but the bidding is GBP.

And if you did not get it then this may be of use. Most of them are US printed and based, but if you want an original London printed one there is at least one listed (the first one!)

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/Searc ... 1&yrl=1921

Glad you brought this up, as this has been a two-week obsession of mine. Forgive the short lecture but it's taken some slight research on my part to finally figure out what I was buying:

At present, I will have bought 4 copies of this book. Originally, I purchased a US version from AbeBooks, thinking it was a 1st edition. The book arrived, and while it's certainly an older copy, I quickly discovered that it isn't a 1st edition. The original publishing companies (Harcourt, Brace, & Co. in the US, and G. Bell and Sons, Ltd. in UK) failed to adequately mark their editions. So, while the 2nd and 3rd editions LOOK like they were produced in 1921, once you get to the cover letter by Capablanca dated 1934, you realize they aren't 1st editions. And unfortunately I wasn't able to find any information on the history of this publication, on the book publications themselves. But after having now purchased 4 copies I know at least more about the first three editions of the book, particularly those in the US. The 1st edition was published in 1921 in both the US (by Harcourt, etc.) and the UK (G. Bell, etc.). Following this, the US brought out its 2nd edition, including the Capablanca cover letter, in 1934: this book is hardbound and the hardbound cover is red cloth. (I haven't gotten the editions straightened out for G. Bell and Sons, Ltd. The 2nd edition may have been released 1937, but I'm not sure and have no idea what it looks like. Clearly, the 1st edition out of London was not a hardbound book but a softcover-- the one I just won.) The 3rd US edition was published, I believe, in 1948 (though there's some confusion to this year); this is the first book I bought and it has a hardbound black cover. I think a softcover for this edition was released in 1949. --Actually, I believe this would not be considered a "true" 3rd edition, but just a reprint of the 2nd edition since I don't believe there were any updates to the material included in it. The 2nd edition is a true 2nd edition though, because of the addition of the Capablanca cover letter. I ended up purchasing a copy of the hardbound red-cover 2nd edition off eBay.

Aside from this, I was able to find a 1st edition of the book in Spanish (that's the other copy I will have). It, however, was not published until 1954; I believe it is a 1st edition release in Spain, since that is where it's coming from. It was the ONLY Spanish 1st edition copy I could find anywhere; I have no idea what the earliest Spanish release date is though. I would have thought the book would've been originally published in Spanish, given that Capablanca was Cuban. But I haven't received this book yet. I bought it a little more than a week ago and it's supposed to take 8-30 days to arrive.

The 2nd edition should arrive pretty quickly. It's coming from within the US and the seller said he sent it off yesterday.

So anyways. I have no idea how many copies of this book I'll be giving to bf. If he wants them all (since he loves chess AND books) I'll give them to him. Otherwise, probably just the two 1st editions I bought.

Along with that, I found an original tobacco card insert of Capablanca on eBay. (Can you tell, my bf likes Capablanca? ) The card is from 1928, from a pack of German cigarettes produced by the Dresden Cigarette Factory. It's in really great condition. I got a German friend of mine to translate the back of the card for me. Part of the card says "Capablanca, Havanna, currently holds the title 'World Chess Champion'" which is so cool for something to say "currently." I think bf is really gonna love it.

[Sophist]

...I think I managed to bore everyone with my monologue on the various editions of Fundamentos del Ajedrez...

[Charlie]

...I think I managed to bore everyone with my monologue on the various editions of Fundamentos del Ajedrez...

Sorry, did you say something???

[beware_the_sluagh]

...I think I managed to bore everyone with my monologue on the various editions of Fundamentos del Ajedrez...

I actually read it - I am impressed with myself

[Sophist]

...I think I managed to bore everyone with my monologue on the various editions of Fundamentos del Ajedrez...

I actually read it - I am impressed with myself

So am I!

[Sophist]

El 1st edicion arrived from Spain yesterday. It is indeed a Spanish 1st edition, published in Buenos Aires. It's a delicate book (paperback) so I'm definitely going to need to purchase a protective cover for it.

I spoke to bf and he wants the presents a surprise (I wasn't sure, since my telling him all about the books could at least give me the opportunity to ask if he actually wanted ALL four copies). So I will just send the two 1st editions and the tobacco card, and once he's opened them and knows what they are, he can let me know whether he would also like the 2nd edition and the 1948 reprint as well. I'm guessing he'll be more than satisfied with the two 1st editions, so the other two copies will probably remain mine.

But I need to get some protective covers for the 1st editions (somewhere, I'm not sure where there's an antiques bookstore in town that might carry those) and also a protective plastic hard cover for the tobacco card, since it's old and fragile and only has a pliable plastic cover around it, so I need something that can't get bent. I'm just going to go to a collectors shop for that, although I hope I won't have to buy a huge package of sleeves just for a single sleeve, heh.

--And congratulations to anyone who continues reading my oh-so-fascinating monologue.

[Sophist]

A friend sent this to me. It was just too funny.

Revenge of the Deer

I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it. The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and transport it home.) I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope. The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back. They were not having any of it. After about 20 minutes, my deer showed up -- 3 of them. I picked out a likely looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me. I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation. I took a step towards it...it took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and then received an education. The first thing that I learned is that while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope. That deer EXPLODED. The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight down with a rope and with some dignity. A deer-- no chance. That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined. The only upside is that they do not have as much stamina as many other animals. A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head. At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope. I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slow and painfully somewhere. At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was mutual. Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer's momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in, so I didn't want the deer to have it suffer a slow death, so I managed to get it lined back up in between my truck and the feeder - a little trap I had set before hand...kind of like a squeeze chute. I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope back. Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite somebody, so I was very surprised when I reached up there to grab that rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist. Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head --almost like a pit bull. They bite HARD and it hurts. The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective. It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds. I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now) tricked it. While I kept it busy tearing the bejesus out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose. That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day. Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are surprisingly sharp. I learned a long time ago that, when an animal -- like a horse--strikes at you with their hooves and you can't get away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape. This was not a horse. This was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy. I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run. The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head. Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down. Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are laying there crying like a little girl and covering your head. I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away. So now I know why when people go deer hunting they bring a rifle with a scope, so that they can be somewhat equal to the prey.

[adhocisadirtyword]

LMAO!

[Charlie]

I wondered why I hadn't seen Sarah Palin in the news recently

[adhocisadirtyword]

I wondered why I hadn't seen Sarah Palin in the news recently

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

That actually made me laugh more than the original story.

[Sophist]

I wondered why I hadn't seen Sarah Palin in the news recently

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

That actually made me laugh more than the original story.

[Charlie]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7784908.stm

Has anyone else seen this? Apparently all those using a later version of IE to use the internet are vulnerable to hackers who can steal personal information. I'm on Firefox, so at least I am safe from this...

For those using IE 7 the patch is now available from microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en