You may be wondering why we didn’t talk about the Olympics. I asked Donnie and Mr. E not to until I can tell the story of my (sabotaged) path to multiple gold medals.

It started a few months before the Olympics, when I looked at the events and saw how easy they were. Running on a track for 200m? Are you kidding me? Anyway, Mr. E offered to help me train. Here’s a picture of me doing push-ups on the beach, with Mr. E yelling one of his motivational sayings:

Look at how buff Mr. E is, even more than me. One day, I hope to be as strong as him!

We even practiced some of that synchronized diving, and ended up being a great team. I tried to talk Mr. E into entering the event, but he said “I’ve had enough glory for multiple lifetimes. I don’t need anymore.” I was disappointed, but later I realized another problem: the men compete in this event wearing only skimpy Speedos. If Mr. E and I tried compete in public like that, all the women would stampede trying to get to us and cause a lot of injury or death.

I also practiced for track and field, and even tried out in front of the American Olympic organization. Those dudes were impressed with my times and considered putting me on the team. But in their rejection letter, they said “We don’t trust you to run as fast as those black guys.”

Later on, I was confronted by some thugs from the international Olympic company, the Chinese Olympic authorities, and the US Olympic committee in the locker room. (See the picture below. Notice they went after me when Mr. E wasn’t around, the cowards.) I tried to explain to them it was that Michael Phelps guy who planted that jar of steroids in my locker. Because he was afraid of me beating him in Beijing.

Then they interrogated me some more. They accused me of “switching stories” when I tried to explain it was just a jar of peanut butter. “Steroids” is the name of a new brand of peanut butter on the market in case you didn’t know.

So that’s why you didn’t see me breaking recording in this year’s Olympics. And I’m banned from participating in 2010. So I’m kind of bitter.

Unfortunately, the people who made this brand of fortune cookies seem to know English, so the fortunes are more insipid than entertaining. I’ll try to do better next week.

: That fortune happened to me! I was driving around when I saw this business in a pink and purple building named “Planet Pleasure”. Curious, I went in to see what they sold, and boy was it special!

Lepers update: Polly defeated Blunderprone, so the next match is Polly vs Chessaholic to determine the winner of their division. As far as the Wahrheit-Wang match, seems Wang is missing in action, so Wahrheit wins by default. This means Ivan wins his division.

So…the final match will be winner of Polly – Chessaholic vs Ivan!

In response to concerns recently expressed by various parties:

• The Monday Fighter! feature will be returning this Monday.
• Mr. E will be appearing more frequently.

Time constraints currently prevent significant blogging and blog visiting.

There’s zero exception handling in this program I have to debug. Because, of course, it is guaranteed to run perfectly.

Not so much time. Here’s Sir Robin:

Also, the Mascot, Mr. E, and I got together and picked out the posts we’re actually proud of. Presenting: the best of Liquid Egg Product

Yes, yes, the Wilson Gambit. Er.

A handful of weekends ago, I made my return to Houston and for the first time, went to the Houston Chess Meetup advertised by Tacticus every so often. It was at a Chinese buffet this time around, which generously offered the use of a room. We could pay for one meal and sit on our tushies as long as we desired.

Arriving fashionably late, I discovered people played not only chess, but a variety of board games. In fact, most people played other games while Glenn waited for someone, anyone else who was there for the chess.

That person…was me (a few others did show up later). After eating, we got down to business. Glenn has one of those 5-min clocks and we played a ton of blitz that afternoon. The first few games I thought way too much in the opening, always getting in time trouble. Even after getting “in the groove”, I didn’t have much success, as might be expected when an Expert plays a Class C. It was something like +2 -7 =2 (includes one sympathy win where I was dominant but only had a few seconds left vs 2 minutes. Glenn still resigned.)

Before leaving, we got in one last game. Instead of my usual Pirc, went Center Counter…and, oh man, that match is seared within my memory forever. In fact, I can probably recreate the exact moves to the final game. With little variation it can be replayed here.

To let it be known, I’m not ashamed of losing. I am ashamed of losing like that.

First of all, I’d like to thank Garry Kasparov and Captain Morgan in advance for using their imagery without permission. (Click to view full-size.) Inspired by Blunderprone’s recent post on Joseph Blackburne.

For those of you who don’t play chess…the guy on the left is Garry Kasparov, one of the best players ever. The Mascot wackily played a horrible opening move because he has a little captain in him. This sends Kasparov into a deep, perplexed think even though in real life he wouldn’t. Get it? Ha,ha,ha,ha,groan…..

: Er. On the internet, they have a term for this: “epic fail”.

: True. But the next attempt at chess humor is worse. By the way, when are you going to take care of those interviews with Mr. E and Alex Chiu?

: Eventually.

Still need the results for Wahrheit – Wang and Blunderprone – Polly (colors may be switched there, I forget them). Would like to bring this to a close soon (yes, recognized on this end that Polly’s been away in Q-bec and Dallas Open.)

Which one of these stories was “Breaking News” today on many American media outlets?

• Russia and Georgia are essentially at war
• Oil is now down to $114/barrel
• John Edwards admitted having an affair

If someone ordered the dish “The elephant of Canada pulls out the clam stabs the body”, what foods would actually be visible on the table when the order is brought out?

Anyway, if I were at the Beijing Olympics today, that’s what I would be ordering.

For more foods, check the link The Sichuan’s hair blood is prosperous (please note some of the food items have “f***” in the translation. Just in case seeing that word really, really bothers you)