More Chess News

Emperor now has another name. It's "A Gust of Wind." Yep. Some of the boys in the chess league were calling him that when they were discussing him... and it sorta fits. He does talk a great deal, and it does sound rather like his real name. (You DID know that "Emperor" is not his real name, right??)

After the chess league a couple weeks ago, I talked with Emperor about the nickname and why we realllly need not to be some raptor-thing squawking about during chess league, and we need to stop yapping during the games (occasional talking is fine, monologue not) and so on and so on. I don't want to tell him this, but the Hello Kitty shirts, red pants and plaid shirts already sorta make him stand out. Yes, he does wear them all at the same time. His father draws the line at allowing him out in the Hello Kitty jammie pants anymore, though.

But Emperor LIKES his nickname. That no one ever called him to his face. That Mom simply relayed to him so that he could... you know... behave a bit better. He wants to find out who nicknamed him, but no one will admit to it, or even admit that they have ever called him any such thing.

Oh, well. He's signed up as A-Gust-of-Wind on chesskid.com. Sometime if your children are on the site, you may find them playing against him. Elf is "Elf-of-the-Century." Well, he had to nickname himself. The boys are spending hours on chess, chess and more chess. They move about without really thinking too much about it and wonder why they get beaten. But Elf claims that he is going to make his living by playing chess. Note how the dreams of being a pastor are totally shot, which is probably just as well. I can't imagine the kid managing interpersonal conflicts and the drama that would come with running a church.

Not to mention, he's kinda naive and takes what people say at face value. Yesterday I told him that there really was a such thing as a parallel universe, and that you see inside them when you stand in front of a mirror and hold a mirror. Further, the quantum physicists of the migalpinsphere recently discovered that you can see JESUS, who is the center of all parallel universes, inside the very last mirror, waving and saying, "You found Me!" He ran off yelling, excited to go try it. And then he claimed he could ALMOST see Jesus at the very end. HE NEEDS A BIGGER MIRROR!

He's dangerous, left on his own, really. It didn't help that Patrick snuck up behind him and yelled, "You found me!" Dork. Worse still, he told the poor kid that Jesus doesn't really want to be his friend unless he gets a bribe. God likes blue beads the best.

"But he already has a bribe!" Elf said. "It's the Church!" Siigh. The Church. The Bribe of Christ.

Oh, good gracious, they're cute, but they're going to be teens before you know it! And despite my best training, they haven't purchased any clues about the world and how to live in it without getting taken advantage of and/or thought of as being very silly just yet.