CHESSNOID

It seems like I haven’t blogged forever even though it has been only a week. I have been watching the Beijing Olympics which is on multiple NBC channels where I am at. The biggest surprise for me was that Roger Federer, Venus, and Serena Williams were all knocked out when they are the most dominant tennis players in the world. I wonder if the pressure of representing your country threw their mental game off. I also caught a lot of other events. I have seen some boxing but the level of fighting wasn’t too impressive for me. I have also caught some women’s gymnastics and saw the Chinese team win Gold and the US girls win the individual gold and silver.
Of course, I watched the men’s swimming event with Michael Phelps win a 100 gold medals. Just kidding. He is amazing with those big size 14 feet. On top of his high caliber skill level, I was impressed with the number of calories he consumed in a day. He says he consumes 8,000 to 10,000 calories a day. I guess for his level of competition this is normal.
During the recap shows, they show some stuff that the Chinese culture eat. I was surprised to see they had scorpions on a stick and sea horses on a stick. Yikes! The guy I saw eat some said they tasted like pork rinds. I don’t think I could stomach it personally. After seeing China, I think it would actually be a cool place to visit. The only thing that scares me is security. Some Americans were attacked and stabbed to death which seems crazy with all the security this country has.
Other than watching the Olympics, reading blogs, and working, I have been playing a ton of online chess. Mostly 1 and 2 minute quick matches. Sometimes I play 3,5, and 10 minute blitzes but I am not too crazy about those. I did play a couple of 15 minute matches with my cousin who is a great player. We grew up playing chess and video games. I told him about this site Chess.com and he is addicted to it like me.