I Stared at a Chess Board for Half an Hour.

The next day, I found myself winning a lot of games.

Was it a particular position?  Was it one of those notoriously difficult composed studies?  How far did you calculate?  Did you read a position from Aagard's GM Calculation?  When I take it off the shelf I sometimes look at the board for a half an hour writing down the variations.  Careful though because sometimes a seemingly reasonable move will turn out to be a complete bummer due to a seemingly small detail! 

I hope he doesn't say it was an empty board.

So at this rate, if I stare at a chess board for a week, I'll be the World Champion in no time.  Better get cracking on it.

My mother told me that would make me go blind. Or was it something else?

I've done it too. I was stoned, but noticed visual patterns that help with blindfold chess; such as the quadrants, diagonals alternating in even or odd numbers depending on color, sister squares, and other random things.

I noticed that stuff sober

But hey, whatever it takes