Friday Night and It's Allright, Darlings Miscellany!

A miscellany of news/articles and assorted what-not, for your reading pleasure. Chessboardart - interesting angle. Will they make money or will they go bankrupt in six months? GM Koneru Humpy is holding her own at the Kaupthing Open (Differdange, Luxembourg) with 5.0/6, sharing the lead with Czech GM Peter Velicka and Hungarian IM Viktor Erdos. Three more rounds to go. Humpy is on the march toward that 2600 marker and wants to surpass it. I suspect her goal during the next 12 months is to break into the top 100 players in the world, and then start the long hard climb from there into the elite ranks of players. Can she do it? I think she can - if she stays single. Well hell, the oh so hot Bollywood/Hollywood star Ash Rai stayed single until she was 32, and if Humpy can stay single that long she'll have a good chance to make it into the "elite" - no distractions to the constant grind of work and unrelenting study and training that a player must undertake these days to make it into and then stay in the top. Interim news reports on Humpy at the Hindu here and here. Of course, Harry Potter is all the news these days, with the release of the fifth big screen film epic "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," breaking box office records. Hooray! I came late to fandom of Harry Potter's magical world but am now firmly ensconced. I do hope that the vague hint J.K. Rowling gave in a recent interview about the possibility of future "Potter" books comes true - how about some more back-story (like Steven Spielberg did in the "Star Wars" series) - and some future story. For instance, I can foresee a whole new series of books about Harry's daughter Penelope going toe to toe with an heretofore unknown actual physical offspring of "He Who Must Not Be Named".... I can see it all now...Penelope (her friends call her "Lope" because she's six feet tall and walks like an antelope, has green eyes and red hair and freckles AND wears glasses) begins First Year at Hogwart's and absolutely does NOT fit in (literally - her feet hang over the end of her assigned bed). For the next four years she endures the slings and arrows of juvenile and toilet humor of boys who are six inches or more shorter than she and smug junior witches who all have waist-long Barbie style hair, obviously fake Maybelline eyelashes and 18 inch waists. Sigh. And then in Year Five the wannabe warlocks realize that this is one hot babe - and she's rich, too (or will be, once Harry and/or his wife shuffle off this mortal coil or the magical equivalent thereof). This is, of course, assuming that Harry survives at least long enough in Book 7, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" to father a child - or survives the ending of the book entirely and goes on to father a child from there. I'm wondering if Ginny will survive? She'd be an unsuspected candidate by most fans to be knocked off by J.K. Rowling and yet she is a "major" character at this point in the story's development. We know from what J.K. Rowling has said in prior interviews and at her website that two major characters will be killed in "Deathly Hallows." What a blow to Harry's heart and to the hearts of all the Weasley clan, as well to those in the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore's Army, should the fearless, devil-may-care and I'm just as good a fighter as you Ginny be slain. This is just the sort of unexpected move and yet after it's done we all go "oh yes, now I see" move that J.K. Rowling excels in - that sort of "stake through your heart, now eat me, baby" move. I wonder - does she play chess??? I've got "Deathly Hallows" on pre-order from Amazon and with Don, Isis and Michelle due to visit for the Eighth Goddesschess Anniversary get-together a scant eight days from now, I expect we'll be visiting one of the local cinemas to see the latest film on LARGE SCREEN - it better be screening in the area after July 22nd or those movie moguls will be hearing from me, let me tell you! More on Harry Potter - I've seen in the news the past week or so at least two different "Harry Potter" chess sets - and both of them look beautiful. I don't collect chess sets, but if I did, I'd probably buy one or the other set just for the heck of it, although I already own three very special chess sets plus a little cheapy travelling magnetic set (my favorite) that I received for joining the USCF back in 1999. LOL! That little plastic magnetic set has gone with me all over the world, and even to my mother's house!