Wireless Go

I'm off to pick up my brother who's in town for the weekend. I'm leaving early so that I can hang out at a Panera and play go over their free wireless access. So, if you see me on IGS and I suddenly vanish, perhaps my battery died or I lost a signal. :) And if you see me doing crazy, stupid things, then someone probably sniffed my password. :)

- update -

I did manage to play one game while drinking a decidedly poor coffee at Panera. It was a blast, even though I ended up losing to a 22k? player by 4.5 points. I should have won but komi was set to 0.5 for some reason. I'm guessing it was because I was 22k+ at the time versus his 22k? provisional rating. Either way, that's not the point. I really enjoy the close games as every small point matters in the end. This evening I won a game against a 22k by over 50 points and, despite the fact that it pushed me back up into the 21k range, it did not have quite the same tension and suspense.

On the Cho Chikun Judan Cup front, I had a miserable week and did not play more than 3 games in any one day. Partly I was busy, but partly I had a bit of trouble finding people to play matches with. I don't generally play BC players because most that I see are simply much better unranked players (but I am reconsidering this decision since I should probably WANT to play better players). The 21-22k players just didn't seem to want to play when I was looking. Oh, well. I'll have to come on strong next week if I wish to place top 50.

On a related note, I think the switch from NR to BC is a bit of a mistake on IGS. The idea of having a Beginner's Class is a great one, however there are clearly some very good players who simply do not wish to have a rank. Right now there is no good place for them, since they're lumped in as BC. It makes it much more difficult for a player like me to give the true beginners a game or to perform a seek and find an even game, since a BC still falls under an even game for me at the 22k and (I think) 21k ranks. Perhaps we need to keep BC and simply bring back NR for those who don't wish to take on a rank.

On a completely unrelated note, I ordered an official Ricky Williams 2003 All Pro football game jersey and it arrived by UPS today. It's awesome. :)