Tournament Prep (cont'd, with some other current events)

Well, tomorrow's the day I'm holding my simul. The stress is piling on heavier than ever.
I'm currently reading Improve Your Chess in 7 Days by Gary Lane, Art of Attack in Chess by Vladimir Vukovic, Winning Chess Openings by Yasser Seirawan, and Winning Chess Strategies (again, by Yasser Seirawan) to get my mind in top form for the event to come.
My uncle dropped by last night to give me my late birthday present: a tournament board with pieces (including extra queens), a notation booklet, and a carrying bag for the lot. I'm thrilled with it. Me and my cousin Matthew, who was over at the time, broke it in immediately with a few blitz games. For those that don't know, by tournament standards a blitz game tops off at 15 minutes per player.
On a different note, I finally got my ping pong paddles in the mail that I ordered from amazon.com. I'm sorry, "table tennis rackets" is the professional term. I'll be trying one of them out today, again with Matthew (the other paddle/racket is a gift for someone).
Again on a different note, I'm finally getting some writing done on my original seven-book revenge story. I've decided that, this being the rough draft, I can structure it however I want, right? So I'm structuring it like a screenplay, simply reduced to lines of speech and stage directions. That way, when I go over it in revision, I just elaborate on the stage directions to fill in the gaps, and voila! I have my novel.
One more different note -- this will be the last time, I promise -- the title of favorite artist is now held by Jason Mraz for his songs "I'm Yours" and "If It Kills Me". Look them up at free.napster.com.
I'm out of current events for now. News on the simul results tomorrow!