Scarlet Pimpernel

I initially read that really fast and thought it said HOT PANCAKES!! (mmmmm!)

So now that you put that ear-worm in, here ya go!!!

So you basically did a mental DGEX there.

...And then sit there watching the 6PM and 11PM local news and weather (annoying your parents in the process), looking at the crawler of school closures, hoping yours would be listed!!

For some reason, this made me think of the Monty Python "Holy Grail" scene where the peasant is shouting "Help, I'm being repressed!!"

C'mon...you know those Europeans! 4 hours of work and then time to hit the pub!! Wait...that sounds perfectly acceptable to me actually!!

Quite a marked change from 00Z, I believe?

"Mind the Gap!!" (ETA: Anyone familiar with the London Underground will get that!)

Sounds like you were channeling @ravensrule!!

Wow, I remember the Challenger explosion and just being transfixed by the news. I wasn't paying much attention to the weather out this way, as at the time I was in college at Purdue when this happened. My freshman year.

Yeah that was a very intense scene. I read that when Anthony Hopkins delivered that line and then made the "ts-ts-ts-ts" sound with his tongue (sort of on the spot, not planned), that Jodi Foster gave a sort of frightened/stunned start!

Fava beans...and a nice chianti!! LOL at the "Silence of the Lambs" reference...great movie (if chilling)!

Still the best example of this in my experience is Feb. 2003 PD-II. That came in like a wall of snow. The other big ones since have been similar, starting up quickly, but PD-II was the most dramatic.

Careful...this is a family-friendly discussion board! But seriously, that is a nice signature and a nice amount of QPF for the mean. The thermals seem a bit tough for DC east/south at least for a time (as always??), but the progression of the 06Z EPS sure looks great.

Looks like it includes the MoCo @Bob Chill and HoCo @WxUSAF jackpot zones in there, too (higher probabilities)!

Yeah, I'm kind of in this camp of thinking right now. Can't fret too much. But it is stubbornly consistent which is concerning (annoying?)...and don't much like seeing the light rain/drizzle from about Sunday afternoon through Monday morning, essentially. We'll see how things evolve.

Ahh, yes! That's another great term!!! And a way to gain a greater advantage. ETA: And true about zugzwang, it can also mean a move that would immediately lead to the player making that move losing.

Haven't gotten on there but yeah, I might be up for a game when I have a chance! Definitely consider that!! BTW, if you're into reading about chess, I'd recommend "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" by David Bronstein. Chess books and analysis are normally dry and dull, but this one has a lot of colorful description and wit. And it is semi-autobiographical about Bronstein himself, he had a rather remarkable career and life in many ways, despite being under the old Soviet regime and not exactly their "favorite".

Yeah, it's kind of an obscure term perhaps, though it's a situation that does occur and sometimes people will use the term in that case. The situation I show in the avatar, of course, is the extreme!! Though I think there are actual games where both players might be in zugzwang! The joke in the name is that sometimes when playing chess...or even just life in general...one feels like they're always in a state of zugzwang!! LOL!! I haven't played as much lately but used to play a lot more and liked sitting down going over some of the older well-known games from some books. Still like doing that, but don't get around to it as much as I had (but maybe I should again!). I'm pretty decent, especially if I "get back into" playing and actually study a little. Played a ton in high school, too, with a few other fellow chess geeks!

Even @Ji would be happy with that... . . . ...nah, who are we kidding!!!

Gotta love those German terms...I think that comes from the early 20th century or maybe shortly before, when there were a number of famous and excellent German chess masters of the time.

Ahhh, good question! That's the nature of "zugzwang" (German word that essentially means "obligation to move"). Normally in chess, if it's your move you have the advantage because you then control things to varying degrees. However, there are situations where having to move will put you in a *worse* board position that would be more advantageous to your opponent! In the setup I have shown in the avatar...it's mutual zugzwang! If black is to move, they cannot stop white from queening the pawn (a huge advantage!), and eventually lose. If white is to move, they must move their king away from protecting the pawn such that black can take it, resulting in a draw...or, move their king directly behind the pawn which results in a stalemate (and thus, in either case, lose the significant advantage of potentially queening the pawn). I contrast that with a quote I really like from the great player David Bronstein (very colorful personality in how he analyzed and described games!)..."The most powerful weapon in chess is to have the next move!"

This might suffice...

So...he's thinking big dog and not a chihuahua then!!