The Duel for the Jewel

If the season seems to have flown by, that's because each new season represents an increasingly smaller percentage of the total lifespan (so far) of each individual league follower. On the bright side, each succeeding year flies just a bit less more quickly than the previous one did compared to the one before that. As for the match, a picture is worth a thousand words:

On the other hand, what's a thousand words? My pick is St. Louis (the biggest boom town chess has seen since Chess City, Kalmykia), as I think their advantage on the top boards outweighs their disadvantage on the bottom, and in the event of 2-2, they're an even clearer favorite in the elimination blitz. Btw, you might want to remove that coffee stain from your screen. Be careful not to wet the innards.

Semifinal round

I'm curious about something: Are these drawings saved here in some format other than what you see when you click on "page source"? If Michelangelo were alive today, could he just type a random-looking string of characters on the Sistine Chapel ceiling and be venerated ever after?

By the way, the two this week were drawn on white paper. If I have to guess, it probably came from Staples, so thanks to them. Too bad about the Lakers this year.

St. Louis vs. Miami

I know this blog is titled "USCL predictions" but since I'm drawing these things, to put into words something like "I think St. Louis is the favorite" seems rather heavy-handed and frankly, inelegant. So I'll let the jumble speak.

Dallas vs. New York

Again, what with my official TD duties, to pick a winner in this match would not put hooves on me.

And now, after six or seven years, an innovation, suggested by long-time subscriber Elizabeth Spiegel of Brooklyn, New York: last week's answers! I tried to find a way to include a "spoiler" box but I have failed to find one so far that works in IE, so this time I will hide the answers in the "comments" section of this post.

Quarterfinal round

I chose a new canvas this week, the paper tablecloth at this place I'm at. I was unable to find out whom to credit, but the bartender thinks maybe Marcal.

I think I agree with Greg about this being the most exciting week of the season (barring a final that ends in a blitz playoff), just like the NFL conference semi-final week.

Dallas vs. San Francisco:

This jumble includes seven-letter words in the preliminary for, I believe, the first time ever. But after all these years (how many?), I felt it was time to raise the intellectual level.

Rio Grande vs. New York:

I mentioned I've been the official TD at the New York team's matches this year. This can really unbalance one's perspective, because I was unaware of all the other matches each week and I'm not even sure I've heard of the Rio Grande team. How can "Rio Grande" be a team, for that matter? Isn't it a river? I guess it's some sort of unifying, universalist-type idea, as in "Americans and Mexicans may have their differences from time to time, but let us all proud of this wonderful river we share".

I am not going to pick a winner, because maybe I'll have to rule on something. Touch-move, or whatever they argue about today. I don't think I'll pick the other matches, either, beyond what the jumble itself may seem to imply. But maybe you're reading it wrong. Be grateful you were able to read it at all. I will try to upgrade my canvas yet again next week.

St. Louis vs. New Jersey:

Miami vs. Manhattan:

I might still add more and delete this end note and just generally make this post better but I do want to get this post up in case access at home is unavailable, as they are about to close here. It empties out fast on open-mic nights once the microphone is unplugged. I may expand and/or expound more on that phenomenon as well. Later.

(Later)I'm editing now. Mostly to go back and paragraph, having just rediscovered that lost art. Also, I'd like to explain that the preliminary words in each jumble are the only valid ones according to the anagram engine at wordsmith.org . There are always more inclusive dictionaries out there, but if you wish to verify an answer, that is the place.

Btw, I have discovered a supply of plain white, unlined paper at home, so that is what I'll use next week.

FAQ: "Am I going crazy, or is something subtly different from before?" Yes.

Wildcard round

Hello all (or "both" or "you", as the case may be), this is my first uscl blog post since last season. I seeded myself directly into the postseason last year, and that seemed to work out, so I am doing it again. If further excuse is needed, I have been (sic)working(/sic) at the NY Knights matches this year (providing warm body service), and I didn't want to create a possible conflict of interest.

A word from our sponsors: pen for these jumbles provided by Papermate, napkins by Chalet.

I am writing this on Tuesday night and hope to have it up in time for Wednesday's matches. If not, don't say you heard it here first. I have in fact complete the jumbles and just need to upload them somewhere.

Seattle vs. New Jersey:

San Francisco vs. Connecticut:

This has nothing to do with chess or the league, but just to motivate myself, I want to say here that I pledge to have a rough draft of my twelve-minute playlet, tentatively titled "The Last Horseshoe Repairman on the Lower East Side", ready by the time I go to bed on Wednesday. I have in the past disdained this form of self-motivation, feeling that if one wishes to do something, one should and can simply do it without any such silliness. But at some point in one's life, one must face reality and realize that one is incapable of being self-motivated and must therefore use artificial means or just continue to get old and die and fail to enrich the world as one might have.

Wednesday update: It looks improbable that I will be able to upload these jumbles today, so I guess I'll just put down my picks while hoping a method eventually presents itself--New Jersey and San Francisco. I also hope the napkins stay more or less intact meantime.

Later Wednesday update: I got one up but not the other, either because I stuck it into a different bag yesterday or because I forgot it wasn't just a used napkin like any other. Anyway, I will have it or a replacement up eventually, probably next week.

The following Tuesday night update: I found the other napkin (it was in my bag after all, but hidden between pages of a notebook. Not the notebook I lost; the other one. Also, not a notebook computer). Also, I didn't have that rough draft ready after all, but I did figure out the dramatic climax, which is better than my average daily progress.

The war for more

The finals match the second-best team in the second-best division of the East with the best team in the best division of the West. And I'll tread no deeper into that water, because although I did count the total match points scored by each conference, I got the confusing sum of 40 vs. 39.5, and I don't know how that happens unless somebody was penalized for cheating, or something. On the other hand, I would find such a thing preferable to what they do in the National Hockey League, where there are, on average, more than two points (note to anyone who has never followed the NHL: traditionally, a win has been worth two points in the standings, and a tie one point, possibly because in pre-computer days not every newspaper could print "1/2" without difficulty or ugliness. In fact, I seem to face the problem even today on this very blog) awarded per game, because, as of a few seasons ago, or maybe a lot of seasons by now (time flies, and it's been flying for a long time, and I've pretty much lost all track of it), teams that lose in overtime still get a point in the standings, while the other side gets two points. Does this encourage, say, two teams locked in a tie late in the game, to try to postpone the decision till overtime? Well, it might, if hockey players are anything like sumo wrestlers. I was just reading "Freakonomics" (a non-fiction bestseller from 2005 by Dubner [a writer] and Levitt [an economist. Or maybe vice-versa]), and it reports that in the Japanese sumo league, wrestlers who finish the season at less than 50% are relegated to a lower division, and not only will they make far less money then than in the top league, but they also have to help bathe the top wrestlers, especially in washing their difficult-to-reach parts (by the way [hereafter "btw"], no homosexual demimonde double meaning is implied by my use of the word "top" in the preceding, any more than a higher-than-average incidence of homosexuality among sumo wrestlers is), and that, in season-ending matches between 7-7 records and 8-6 records, the 7-7's, on the cusp of relegation, score an amazingly high percentage of victories (which ought to make even clearer the fact that homosexuality among sumo wrestlers is no higher than the norm, and may in fact be lower. Btw, I don't believe that references to a particular famous Seinfeld episode are now so stale that they're fresh, so I'm not going to make one).

Contrary to my prediction of a couple of weeks, ago, "selfie" beat out "twerk" for Word of the Year. At least, according to the Oxford dictionary, it did. I don't know if they are the Rose Bowl* of WotY deciders, or if they're just first, in which case, they're the Blockbuster Bowl, or something. One article reports that "the most likely theory about the origin of (twerk) is that it is an alteration of work". If that is the general perception, then I am less surprised by Oxford's choice than I'd be if the more pungent portmanteau theory were the favorite one.

On to the match. I'll let the jumble speak. As usual, clicking on it makes it bigger.

* asterisked because I think I've overdone parentheticals today. Anyway, in the days before there was only one game that mattered at all, the Rose Bowl was hyped each year as the "granddaddy of them all".

Semi Stuff

So, all those bets as to whether chess or the rubber duckie would be sooner named to the toy hall of fame go down as a push. Still, the news did make for a bit of excitement this week that ought to mollify those who have complained that the current world championship match has been too dull and not apt to create the boom for chess many felt was promised by the matchup between an Indian and a Norwegian, or a twenty-something and a forty-something, or a guy who wears glasses and one who doesn't. Also the US Chess League made the NY Times, though that was not a first. But this particular column announced the season's MVP winner, which rather implies that the fact that the league itself is a big deal is a given.

By the way, I was perhaps a bit snide in titling last week's blog entry "the real regular season". Really, the league is to be congratulated for its down-to-earth terminology for the several rounds of the postseason (i.e., quarterfinals, semifinals, finals), rather than the hyperbolic (but tempting) alternative "division finals, conference finals, league finals".

Miami vs. San Francisco:

Maybe I should be kind, as I was last week, and list the jumbled entries again outside the cartoons. But that denotes failure as an artist. Anyway, if you click the area, they seem legible enough on blowing up. I do admit this one limps a little bit, but if someone has been playing in the USCL since these jumbles began and has not been a subject yet, that indicates a certain difficulty. There can be the too easy problem as well, but this is not that. Returning to my prognosticatory roots, San Francisco by one.

New England vs. New York:

New York, also by 2.5-1.5.

In both, all the jumbled words have one and only one valid anagram as recognized by the anagram server at wordsmith.org. That is a guarantee, or I will give your time back.

A lesson in perspective

I lost a quarter the other day, falling out of my trouser leg. I had a vague sense that an unusually high number of coins tended to fall out of these pants pockets, but though I had looked, I had not noticed an actual hole in either front pocket, so I figured it was just bad luck. I have since discovered the design flaw: a hole at the top of the inner pocket, seemingly meant to be there, perhaps to enable one to straighten out one's underwear discreetly, but also forcing one to pocket ones coins a bit more deliberately. In any case, a group of tennish kids happened to be walking up the other way at that moment, and one girl among them told another "Jenny (or something), you dropped a coin". Jenny bent and picked it up, met my glance, and gave sort of a shrug that said "I know it's your quarter, but what can I do, my friend told me I dropped it". So what was I supposed to do, fight with a ten-year-old over a quarter? Anyway, the dime I found on the opposite sidewalk across that street bought more then than a quarter buys today.