Chess for Oldtimers --- Good Idea !

How are you "old timers" doing with opening jars nowadays?  I now try briefly, then look around for a young person and hand it to him, while trying to look pitiful and helpless, which isn't hard to do, because it's pretty much how I'm actually feeling at the time ... plus, really annoyed at the evil company whose jars are cleverly designed to make me wrench my thumbs ................ perhaps I'm making too big a deal out of this ........ no, I don't think so.

Not " can "   jar, jar, jar..you see I can open jars. I just can't remember what they are called.

• the block a couple of times. Hoaverage level allways keeping in mind that I'm also getting lots of mental exercise while involved in a fun activity that I enjoy. There is one minor ( but quite aggravating ) problem tho I will be in the middle of a game and suddenly my mind wanders off and next thing I know I've made a boneheaded move and messed up the game. I mainly play Live Chess try to keep the game moving ( set at 15 and 10 ). I had a nice litte game going earlier today and for no logical reason gave away a rook, with no return of material, maddening. Perhaps this type of problem is one reason that we see very few older players able to keep up in high level tournament play ? Well I'm off to get another game, maybe this time I can get my mind to concentrate all the way to the end of the game  lol.    
• Wrong.. Saij.. The silly gifts are due to multitasking. I rarely play and don't do simething else at the same time.

Mil, just click here, or here to see what Jacynth is talking about.  Considering I have a weaker grip due to my Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, which can be debilitating but not crippling, and have since the age of about 12, "jar grippers" really work for me.

While poking around I found something on sale that may be even more effective than these rubber pads; it's simply called a jar opener (click here).

Good luck,
Bob 

Thanks for all of these new posts, some good info there.

The other day I saw a serious item about David Cassidy ( now aged 66 ). It seems like just a couple of years back he was a young lad riding around on the big bus with the " Partridge Family ", now it appears that he is battling dementia difficulties, quite sad. 

I think some of the shrink wrapped items are really difficult to open. That and packages where you are supposed to tear the plastic away, but it's really difficult to grab onto it; much too slippery.

I agree, Mr. Kasmer.  I very carefully use a utility knife, but it requires a steady hand.

It is sad, I wouldn't wish dementia on anyone.  Thankfully, neither of my parents, one passing at 84 and the other at 89, suffered from dementia or Alzheimers.

Does anyone remember Jack Cassidy, David's father?  He was a decent actor (e.g. The Andersonville Trial), if more than a little egotistical.  Apparently he had problems with his mental health and was an alcoholic.  If you read this account, you wonder if he had a touch of dementia.  

i heard this on the radio, and, of course, didn't look it up, since it is a celebrity. david's family had a history of dementia, and he did drugs and drank thinking it would get him, so, have fun now. now he wants to live to his fullest. 

not sure what that means, but, if i knew i had a debilitating disease that would take me, i might party like there's no tomorrow. 

Thanks for the new posts.

Regarding Jack Cassidy I've seen a short clip of an interview where Shirley Jones says she suspects that he was bi-polar. Having said that I must say that he was quite a good actor and had a wide variety of roles. He did a great job while doing a guest spot in a Columbo episode ( entitled " The Great Santini " ).

I found a cute item from Groucho Marx that answers an old question about the value of television: " I find television very educating. Every time someone turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. "

I love that. I am not as dedicated; when my wife watches soapy family or historical dramas, I tend to play PC games. 

Thanks for the post, badenwurtca.  Leave it to Groucho to hit the mark.  Just one look at TV now and his quip is in spades.  Two hundred and fifty satellite channels and hardly anything to watch.  In the early 1980s, when I began subscribing to cable TV, there was an arts channel (A&E), a foreign film channel (Bravo) and a channel showing classic American films (AMC), all without commercials.  Today, one of the few stations left without commercial interruptions is Turner Classic Movies (TCM); the rest I listed are not only loaded with commercials but the content has been severely dumbed down.  Makes you want to blurt out, "And I'm paying for this?"

The promise of Cable TV in the 1980s was true narrowcasting, but it never came to be.  I was foolish to expect a jazz channel showcasing various venues from around the US, a classical music channel visiting various concert halls throughout the world, a theatre channel with productions like what PBS broadcast in the 1970s and early 1980s, and even a genuine science channel with more than just pretty pictures and ohhh-ahhh nonsense like some Omni magazine presentation.  There were less special effects and more serious science history in Jacob Bronowski's 1973 production of The Ascent of Man than you'll ever see today.  That's because the appeal is to a post-literate society of over-age adolescents.

Frankly, you know you're in trouble when a supposedly serious channel priding itself on history shows the highly propagandistic and pathetically simplistic film, Dances with Wolves, as a history lesson on Indian culture.  You do learn one thing from this channel ... to stay the hell away from PC TV and read a scholarly work such as The Ghost Dance Religion and Sioux Outbreak of 1890.
Newton Minow, former Chair of the FCC, once called television "a vast wasteland," and that was in the days when TV could be counted on to be entertaining and even educational at times.  Now it's a noisy, clanking, clamorous garbage scow.

I think that's a sufficient rant for a late night post.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm9gSrOy0-4

Thanks for the new posts and for the info.

Fightingbob: Just reread your post on the state of television. I have a couple of TVs here that are hooked up to video players but I don't have cable. Part of the reason for that is once I went on pension I thought that I would either have cable or have the internet ( one needs to keep an eye on the budget   lol ). The main thing that I miss with not having cable is that I can't watch MLB baseball. I do like comedies and when I visit people then sometimes I get a chance to see " The Big Bang Theory ", quite a funny show. Yes it seems that the TV channels are not interested in presenting Quality shows. Possibly that is why a lot of people get some of their entertainment from the internet.