Oh, that's cute. You refer to this so called 'silent audience' who are supposedly leaving because I made a geritol joke.
Yes, I'm certain you are correct; the Chess.com forums will soon empty out becuase of me and my geritol joke.
Sorry Chess.com for chasing all of your users away. The newbie has busted me.
Fair enough.
well... if nothing else, I got two game invites out of this 
Sorry for stiring the pot. ... and honestly, I don't even know what geritol is for.
-Mark R.
and honestly, I don't even know what geritol is for.
Give it a few years.
Man I thought the Rocky Mountains were rockier than this.
Tell me about it. Every year I seem to have a new ailment.
And I ain't got too many more body parts that can ail.
Meet_Your_Sensei: "love that pic!"
Yes :) it's an old Ingmar Bergman movie, "The Seventh Seal" - alas, in the movie the reaper wins the game...
...yes but the two actors and their baby are saved (...by the Knight)
Nothing wrong with being an old chess player. Give em hell Mark!
By the way, what was it like playing Paul Morphy?
That was just cold!
- its comin' my way all too fast!
I know what you mean... good luck with your chess and stay with it. It is a hell of a lot of fun for us "less immature" guys! Just don't draw your sword against the "children of the net" (if you get the reference.) It's a waste of your valuable time.
Darn it! Why does Mark get all the good insults? I'm older than he is...
OOPS: I guess I'm enabling off topic trolling again, aren't I ? 
Darn, you guys are tough... 
I don't feel old... yet.... but I did look up Geritol on wikipedia, took a page from kleelof's book and went out, purchased a case, and stocked my shelves. I see I'm going to need it soon with this crowd.
-Mark R.
Oh.. and it wasn't Morphy, it was Harry Pillsbury who grew up in my neck of the woods.
Tell me about it. Every year I seem to have a new ailment.
And I ain't got too many more body parts that can ail.
Hey kleelof...You do make me laugh. :)
Lay off the guy.
Welcome back mroyer. If you fancy a game sometime let me know.
Only at post 26.
But really, if you have my hero, the immortal Bill Hicks as your avatar, you should know better.
R.I.P.
I had a similarly long hiatus from chess: I stopped playing in the mid-80s and didn't start again until about 3 years ago when my oldest son wanted to play in a USCF tournament. I was surprised to learn that so much had changed, incluidng digital clocks that allowed for delays and increments.
What is now labelled as bullet or blitz was called "speed chess" back in the day. As I recall, any time control under 10 minutes was referred to as speed chess, but the most popular time controls were 5 minutes, 3 minutes and 1 minute. A few of my friends referred to 1 minute chess as "lightning chess" or blitz. However, the more common term was speed chess. I had never heard of bullet until I started playing again 3 years ago.
thread reaches a new low.
To be honest, when I read the first post I immediately thought.
AHA, a troll!
Algebraic notation you can get used to in a couple of days, whatever your age.
And.
"What is the significance of the "+ 10 sec"?"
I can't believe anyone could not come up with the reason for that.
p.s. I'm serious here, not mocking you.
So, I'm going to go at this one more time... kind of annoyed with myself for doing it, but I think it's important.
> Maybe with developing your chess skills, you can develop your sense of humor.
I've participated in "forums" of one type or another since the early 1990s. Over time I've discovered they tend to fall into one of two basic categories, the ones where the forum-members understand the difference between humor and mockery, and ones where they don't. Humor is where you laugh along with someone; mockery is where you laugh at them; mockers tend to couch their behavior with "you have to be able to laugh at yourself". The difference between humor and mockery is fundamental, and it takes a long time to figure it out - some people never do.
In forums where humor wins the day, there tends to be lively, inviting interactions where forum members discuss and joke about their hobbies and passions; people look forward to checking out the forum activity every day. In forums where mockery is prevalent, there tends to be a lot of negativity, flame-wars and a constant undertone of bickering; these forums have a generally uninviting atmosphere and many people just silently stay away.
Personally, I don't mind the geriatric commentary or the grim reaper references at all. It's not about that. It's disappointing that so suddenly, on my very first post, I am hit with mockery - that tells me which category the Chess.com forums probably falls into.
It's unfortunate because Chess.com is such a great resource. In the end, however, only the behaviour of the community-members can make Chess.com, or any community, a place that people look forward to participating in. I've chosen to express this, but I am certain there are hundreds, probably thousands, of others who have just chosen to stay away instead; and we all lose a little something for that.
I will continue to play chess here, but I probably won't be hanging around the forums much because I've learned that I'm not likely to get a good exchange of ideas and conversations, but more likely to get a cutting, negative brand of "humor" followed by bickering and flaming - and who needs that, life is too much fun.
Sisu: "try the increment in blitz games"
thanks for that - I will give it a go.
Meet_Your_Sensei: "love that pic!"
Yes :) it's an old Ingmar Bergman movie, "The Seventh Seal" - alas, in the movie the reaper wins the game...
-Mark R.
Thank you for taking the time to write this -- you nailed it! It's reassuring to know that there are still a few insightful, patient, and eloquent contributors in these forums.
To be honest, when I read the first post I immediately thought.
AHA, a troll!
Algebraic notation you can get used to in a couple of days, whatever your age.
And.
"What is the significance of the "+ 10 sec"?"
I can't believe anyone could not come up with the reason for that.
p.s. I'm serious here, not mocking you.
Yeah, I don't have any trouble with algebraic notation, I just find it clunkier to use - always have to remember the grid origin and the column,row coordinates; it's unintuitive to me. The descriptive notation seems much easier to use, for me at least. Perhaps that's just a matter of what I grew up with.
Regarding the +10 sec, I didn't have trouble coming up with a reason, I just didn't know what it meant. I was thinking "why would anyone want to add ten seconds to the end of a game."
-Mark R.
Ok, I understand.
And about the trolls around. It's simple. Start you're own thread, be the OP, and block anyone that misbehaves. That's the way I do it.
I managed to keep my thread clean of those for almost 2000 posts.
Have a look, especially at post 1
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/off-topic/its-tough-being-a-girl-on-this-website-poll?page=1
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/off-topic/kaynight-gone
NR.
"It's not my fault the OP is thin skinned."
And there it is - I've been waitin' for it: the "you have to be able to laugh at yourself" attitude.
You're not getting it Keelof, it ain't about me or my thin-skin. It's about all the people who silently leave due to that sort of negative-"humor".
-Mark R.
hang on a minute -if you're not bothered by it, (and you seem not to be) what business is it of yours to worry about the slilent leavers given that you've been here for about 5 minutes and know nothing about the site?
btw, enjoy the chess. i had about a 25 year break, it's hard to come back but be patient and don't play too quick