Chess VS Bejeweled Blitz

It hasn't been completely smooth sailing for Mr.Popchess in recent times, and he has resorted to playing Bejeweled Blitz on facebook to distract himself. Oh gasp, talking about another game on a blog devoted to chess. It's a nice game, but it's not nearly as awesome as chess.

Bejeweled is a little bit of a one-dimensional game. Align the jewels, in rows of three, hopefully four, and joy!, rows of five. At one minute per game, it's easy to fool yourself that you're actually spending just a little bit of your life playing this simple game. Well. I probably just spent 4 hours on it in the past two days. (Therefore this Blogpost-of-Shame.) Playing Bejweled is hypnotic. It lulls you into a frame of mind that's probably more akin to a mouse than an ape; it also stops you from thinking. Cue cliché: "And when I say 'you', I really mean me."

After hours of mind numbing, I decided to pull myself out of my funk by indulging in some chess training. Naturally, I did miserably at first, but the feeling of stupidity (I was missing moves I usually spot in seconds) kicked my brain into a more active mode. So I tried harder, and I started to spot better moves in less time.

About 20 minutes into the chess thing, I started to realize that I really hadn't been thinking clearly about the challenges facing me. Thinking clearly about chess brought a semblance of clear thought back.

You think effectively and act effectively, good things happen.

You play bejeweled all day... Your mind starts to rot. (And when I say you, I really mean...)

In other news, photo of the moment: