The Cleveland Cavaliers have lost 26 games in a row. I feel badly for them.

: Yeah, I can see why Donnie sympathizes. It’s like the time he asked 26 girls out in a row, and got rejected by every single one.

While I don’t always keeping up with the latest chess news, some of you do. Thus I discovered through Lousy@Chess about Carlsen’s decision to withdraw from the current World Championship Cycle.

Sometime ago, I tried to give non-chess players a rough sense of what ratings mean. As of this writing, the post is still true. Carlsen and James are both the best in the world, but without a championship to their names. Anyway, here’s some more ways the two are linked:

Magnus: getting help from an actual champion, Garry Kasparov
LeBron: getting help from an actual champion, Dwyane Wade

Magnus: disappointed loyal fans with his decision
LeBron: disappointed loyal fans with The Decision

Magnus: lost respect by trying to make the path to the championship more to his liking, rather than winning purely through his skill
LeBron: lost respect by trying to win championships on a “super squad”, rather than elevating a team through his skill

Magnus: has 6 letters in his first name
LeBron: has 6 letters in his first name

As we know, NBA players talk trash to each other on the court. It’s natural; many of us did that on the playground as well.

Charlie Villanueva made some news this week when he accused Kevin Garnett of calling him a “cancer patient”. The media was up in arms, because it’s obvious you can’t say that since it has the word “cancer” in it.

Garnett defended himself with:

My comment to Charlie Villanueva was in fact ‘You are cancerous to your team and our league.’

If Garnett doesn’t deserve scorn for such a transparent lie, he should be mocked for how mind-bogglingly weaksauce that “insult” is. (As a point of comparison, my trash talk consists of “Your improper arm extension impacts the accuracy of your free throws.”)

If any of you want to adapt this for your chess games (say if you’re playing a kid who stubbornly continues a dead-drawn endgame), try the following taunt to throw your opponents off their game: “You are cancerous to our club and the USCF.” That’ll show ‘em. Of course, FIDE, FICS, etc. can be substituted for the USCF as needed.

Wow. I am remiss. Our favorite ex-NBA player, Shawn Bradley, ran for a seat in the Utah legislature.

Back in March, he just managed to file for running the Friday before the deadline, which was probably a good of an omen as any.

Naturally, he lost. Apparently it was a too tall of an order for him.

To be honest, I would have been disappointed if he won.

: Wait a minute. You didn’t talk about that chick, Kristi Noem.

: “That chick”? Could you be a little more respectful? And who’s she?

: You know, she won the South Dakota election and she’s going to be popular because she’s pretty hot.

: Look, that’s your domain, make your own post. I ain’t stopping you.

: And I found out why Christine O’Donnell lost.

: Yeah?

: I was looking through her Flickr feed. In every single one, she was wearing pants, never skirts or dresses. So people got scared off because they thought she was lesbian.

: Boy, I can’t wait until you get your gig on CNN, man.

Some months ago, Texans linebacker Brian Cushing was busted for testing positive for a banned drug and received a 4 game suspension.

He ended up saying he feared that he had a malignant tumor that was producing the banned substance. Now he’s trying to excuse the positive test on having trained too hard.

I’m still wondering how he was able to keep his Rookie of the Year award.

Major League Eating.

World Sport Stacking Association.

World RPS Society.

Major League Dreidel.

Yeesh.

A source says LeBron James will announce his retirement in his one hour special on ESPN tonight.

Frankly, he’s sick of this basketball garbage and all of y’all.

“Tired Gay succumbs to Dix in 200 meters”. It’s hard to believe this wasn’t on purpose. (source)

There are days when I look at Liquid Egg Product, and wonder whether there’s something a little extra in those mushrooms I love to eat. Thankfully, whoever designed the mascots for the 2012 Olympics seem to be even further disconnected from our current reality:

Apparently, they thought it was a great idea for the mascots to be a pair of Reach toothbrushes, except with a single eye in place of the bristles.

SOURCE: London 2012: Olympic mascots Wenlock and Mandeville unveiled

It’s not that the Orlando Magic swept the Hawks. It’s that the average margin of victory was 25 points.