what else do you do besides playing chess?

I guess I'm a bit of a fan.  I don't think I'd get tired of swooning at Shakespeare clever wordplay unless I had to explain it to unappreciative twits.  I guess I can't think of a writer who deserves a higher place than him...or that has contributed as much to the language and culture.  I also like that most of his writing is not complicated and his analogies are always sharp and easily visualized.  I bet you find new meanings to many phrases every time you reread it.

maybe, depends on how closely you read it the first time or second or third.

Can I now assume that Moroccan and American diplomats have now been readmitted to their relevant embassies?

Reading, especially scifi/fantasy and espionage novels. Movies, long walks around the neighborhood, facebook, an occassional play or concert, hanging out at the pub, learning photography, re-learnng clarinet.

Now don't get me wrong, I do think Hamlet is one of the most perfect stories ever written, and is maybe the first "modern" story, but R & J seems a little overwrought to me -- as a product of my times at least -- and I have a hard time identifying with any of the characters. 

Edit:  To be fair, I understand why he's still taught.  Bill just isn't for me.

Prawn...I'm an American and a Moroccan...so the nations already have a happy marriage in just me.  Flags belongs to Macbeth.  And we don't have an embassy there.

Besides, we've already established that we like the same people...Richie and Oprah, you Prawn, and Shakespeare...ooh, lofty company. But we don't like one another. 

Real Zippos? I can't find any online. The music ones are a bit lame too, there's like 6 bands and Elvis, Elvis and some more Elvis.  You would think Zippo could branch out a bit.

DMX21x1, I also work part time in a cigar shop, and I've never seen any chess zippos. 

i like you--i just think you say a lot of stupid stuff.  belongs to Macbeth?  i suppose i get that joke but i'm not 100% sure what you're talking about.  you hate people from the south and you hate scots?

In the sense that it introduces the hero who just talks and doesn't act, yes (opposed to the epic hero whose life was entirely defined by exteriority, Hamlet is really the first who reveals himself to the posited audience through interiority).  But, if we're talking about usage of multiple languages (referring not to the national, but to the technical) within one given text, Rabelais has him beat by a good few years.

theoreticalboy, I would argue that all texts have multiple languages, as does Bahktin when he uses Rabelais as an example.  That said, I hadn't considered Rabelais as being an example of what might be the first "modern" story, but you might be right.  Well said.

Juggling, usually just for fun to challenge myself physically, but sometimes in front of audiences, especially at Renaissance Faires.

I don't hate the South and I don't hate Scots.  I don't even hate you.  I merely dislike when I see your name on the screen.  You jump at the opportunity to hump a silly statement just because it plays into whatever you want to say.  And I also disagree with your assessment of things I've said but you're entitled to that opinion wrong as it may be.  So that's about it.  All's well that ends well.

True, well, except for the epic poem.  Bakhtin does hate them epic poems!

Anyway, it's pretty much impossible to decide on an answer, and we shouldn't forget that Bakhtin does trace the history of the novel to all sorts of pre-novelistic discourses (reminding me I must grab some Menippean satire), and that the bawdy satire in Rabelais was hardly a new development.  Is Hamlet a more decisive break with past literature, would probably be a more fruitful question.

thanks for clearing that all up for me.

Aye it's weird. Let me know if you ever come across one.  Theres a lot of scope for design on a Chess Zippo, and there's got to be a lot of Chess playing smokers out there.  It's a classic game for a classic lighter. Zippo should give me a job.

yeah, pretty much all the chess players I know tend to toss a few back while smoking a pipe, cigar, or cigs, so the market should definitely be there. 

I play Bridge and drink, mostly.

Afaf, 'all's well that ends well' as the king said to Diana - me said same thing on another thread that hadn't gone all Shakespearean, but me guesses there ain't too many literary scholars on this site - seem to be a few teachers though

Ping-pong, mostly.