I’ve just read in Blogoscope that Monty Python has their own YouTube channel! See http://www.youtube.com/MontyPython

“For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube. Now the tables are turned. It’s time for us to take matters into our own hands…”

Two of my favourite scenes:

Always Look On The Bright Side of Life

Killer rabbit

After four and a half years I am finally a SDK! (Single Digit Kyu, see http://www.emptytriangle.com/archive/39). I know I have a long way to go in order to be shodan, but I can’t avoid feeling so proud for hitting the 10k barrier!

I got stuck at 12k for a long time, without playing all the games in tournaments and feeling very stressed, but this year it has been very different:

• February: didn’t play Barcelona’s tournament, but got interested in the game again
• March: played 4 out of 6 rounds in Paris’ tournament; lost all of them and went back to 12k
• April: played Madrid’s tournament; 3 wins and 2 losses, getting back on track…
• July: European Go Congress (EGC) in Sweden; outstanding result! 5 wins! went up to 10k
• September: Korean Ambassador Cup in Alicante; 3 wins out of 5, but enough to break the barrier and reach 9k!
• October: 1st World Mind Sports Games (WMSG); +123 points! 8k!

Thank you to all the people who supported me! I am back on my feet and wanting to test my strength against all of you! Let’s play Go!

And yes, it’s real

Today the women’s team tournament begins!

We have played the first round so far, against DPR Korea and lost all 3 games We are in a tough group, A2, and we’ll do our best!

Let’s hope we’ll have better luck for the following games. Gambarimasu!

We spent some time today at the WMSG, watching the games (only the first 20 mins allowed ) and cheering on the Spanish team. Go Spain!!

I’ve just uploaded some of the pictures. Enjoy!
http://flickr.com/photos/sheska/sets/72157607789321354/

I will spend the next two weeks in Beijing: the first one sightseeing and the second one competing at the 1st World Mind Sport Games!

So far, the flight was ok and I arrived safetly at Beijing. However, arriving to the hotel proved to be much more difficult. Language is a real issue, specially when people don’t even understand the maps! If the map doesn’t have the names written with Chinese characters, the chance of a taxi driver understanding it is almost 0

Anyway, after eating ramen in a Japanese restaurant I feel much happier and ready for the adventure

Wish me luck!

After a couple of very intense weeks, I’m back in London! A quick summary of what I’ve been up to:

First week: attended EGC2008

• Played in the main tournament: won 5 out of 5 games (yay!)
• Played the pair go tournament: we had fun
• Played agains pros in simulataneous games: won against 9p with 9 handicap
• Played a lot of friendly games, including rengo!

“Its raining cats and dogs” is one of my favourites English idioms. I haven’t heard it so many times, but non-English speakers are prone to remember it quite well :D.  Native speakers use “It’s pouring down” or just “It’s pouring!” most of the time, but it’s just not as funny, right?

Nobody I’ve asked knows where it comes from and I still haven’t found an answer (see phrases.org.uk).

By the way, it means raining a lot and it seems it’s raining more today than the whole month of June!

And they call this summer….

http://www.siestaawareness.org/

Such a long time… it’s easy to just, well, keep not posting, but I want to do it. So here I am

One of the latest things I’m doing at home is learning origami, encouraged by my friend Gregorio. This is my first creation, a duck!

And here is the video that teaches how to do it: