I've been interning for a chess stream for about 2 weeks now, and I haven't had this much fun in so long.

Over the weekend we had 4 time US chess champion Yasser Seirawn staying over, and he got on stream multiple times. The easiest way to describe him is that he is the Bob Ross of chess in commentary and personality. Is easily one of the most jovial people I've ever met- there's also a 4 page article about him from the Los Angeles Times that begins with "He is hale, hip and handsome."

On Saturday, with did a fundraiser stream for one his chess mentors growing up. There was tons of support from the wider chess community, and we broke through our donation goal in an afternoon.

On Sunday night, he said out of the blue that if we reached 1000 subscribers (get 440 new paid subscriptions) before he left on a flight the next day, he would commit to streaming for the channel for a year. It was impromptu decided that we would do a 24 hour livestream to try to reach the goal. We worked through in shifts, I stayed awake for 20 hours of it to do background technical work / moral support- but was it really necessary? We ended up reaching the subscriber goal within 4 hours. We also hit the front page of Twitch and hit a record 4200 concurrent viewers at once- absolutely nuts for a stream that averages 500 viewers on good days. What a weekend, and what a great guy. Holy shit.

Here's a clip of sleepless me hanging my queen and causing Yasser a lot of pain.

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I met up with elizabeth last Wednesday for a Land of Talk concert! It was a great night. I've never been to a speakeasy before, but I met up with her at one with a couple of her friends (Note- I've never met a vlogger before, but it turns out that two vloggers in the same room is a perpetual energy machine). I loved the secret club vibe to it, and they served some of the best drinks I've ever tasted. I'm inspired to get into cocktails.

I didn't actually take any photos with Elizabeth, but I did get this great picture of the band I've been obsessed with all year: