Because of the considerable updates from Slay Media to this blog during the US Championship I took a little vacation and just enjoyed the coverage for a change. It was nice while it lasted but now we know that GM Hikaru Nakamura is the new US Champion and we can move on to international news (right after a big wave and a shout out to Hikaru ... who is active on facebook if you were curious).

In the headlines not covered here there is ...

Rybka winning the Computer World Championship - Big surprise I'm sure.

The Sofia Super-GM Tournament is going on - Ivanchuk is showing us that possible drug use probably isn't good for chess (just kidding ... I was rooting for you).

I'm excited about this chess season more than the last one ... perhaps because I see a glimmer of good play from Topalov, Carlsen, Nakamura, and a host of others that has been absent in the recent past. The fighting spirit of chess didn't die with Morphy. Yippee! Hurray!

If you're a blogger/writer and you're looking for a creative outlet why not write a few articles for this blog? Given my current circumstances (dead computer) I thought it might be a good time to add some authors to the blog to take some of the stress off of me. If you see this article and you're interested just comment to this thread and leave your contact info (e-mail, twitter, facebook ... all fine).

Please, serious enquiries only ... details provided upon enquiry.

As you may have guessed my computer has given up the ghost and must be replaced. Until I find a replacement it will be hard sailing but I'll try my best to keep up the pace of posts. My e-mail inbox is filling up too so if it's not important don't send it to me.

I'm starting a computer fund if anyone is interested in donating (check the sidebar). tongue-out-of-cheek ... I'm keeping the posts coming but sacrificiing some other online activity to keep the pace. I love chessvine and I'll sacrifice to keep it alive and growing. We break records in traffic every month and there's no end in sight!