Friday, January 02, 2026

Friday, October 31, 2025

there will be a game 7

B9
Blue Jays challenged (force play), call on the field was upheld: Andrés Giménez lines into a double play (BP), left fielder Enrique Hernández to second baseman Miguel Rojas. Addison Barger out at 2nd.

Halloween 2025

Thursday, October 30, 2025

Seinitz's Elements



Permanent advantages

1. Material advantage
2. Bad king position 
3. Passed pawns in the middlegame 
4. Weak pawns for the opponent
5. Strong and weak squares 
6. Pawn islands 
7. Strong pawn centre 
8. Control of a diagonal 
9. Control of a file 
10. Bishop pair 
11. Control of a rank

Temporary advantages 

12. Bad piece position
13. Inharmoniously placed pieces 
14. Advantage in development
15. Concentration of pieces in
centre (centralization)
16. Space advantage

Monday, October 13, 2025

Book First Lines

 "On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera, about half way between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a large, proud, rose-colored hotel. Deferential palms cool its flushed façade, and before it stretches a short dazzling beach." Tender is The Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1933

"In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul."  Dune, Frank Herbert, 1965

“When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventyifirst birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.”  The Fellowship of The Ring, Tolkien, 1954

"THE SNOW in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation."  The Secret History, Donna Tartt, 1992

"THE EMPIRE GRILL was long and low-slung, with windows that ran its entire length, and since the building next door, a Rexall drugstore, had been condemned and razed, it was now possible to sit at the lunch counter and see straight down Empire Avenue all the way to the old textile mill and its adjacent shirt factory."  Empire Falls, Richard Russo, 2001

"The drought had lasted now for ten million years, and the reign of the terrible lizards had long since ended."  2001: A Space Odyssey Arthur C. Clark  1968

"Hapcomb's Texaco sat on number 93, just north of Arnette, a pissant four-street burg about 110 miles from Houston."  The Stand, Stephen King 1978

"A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment."  Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy 1878

"I am a very old man; how old I do not know."  Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs 1912

"A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories." Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, 1932

"Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy." The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C.S.Lewis, 1950

"In the hospital of the orphanage—the boys' division at St. Cloud's, Maine—two nurses were in charge of naming the new babies and checking that their little penises were healing from the obligitory circumcision." The Cider House Rules, John Irving, 1985


Wednesday, September 24, 2025

Sounds about right.

 "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." - Dickens 1859

Thursday, September 18, 2025

About Me

My photo
I am the author of 5 books: Android Down, Firewood for Cannibals, The Cubicles of Madness, Robot Stories, and most recently, Various Meats and Cheeses. I live and write in Michigan. My website is at danmanning.com