Chess

I am a brainiac. According to IQ tests I've taken (and these were "official" tests administered by psychologists, not on-line pop-psychology junk), I rank in the top one- or two-tenths of one percent of all people in brainiacness. This means two things. 1. There are probably no more than 14 million people in the world as smart as me. (And maybe as few as 7 million. Boy, does that make me feel special.) and 2. I should be good at chess.

I got off to a good start with chess, too. I used to be the best player in my class at school. Of course, I was the only player in my class at the time, because I learned to play when I was in kindergarten. I used to open cans of intellectual whoop-ass on those other kids, let me tell you. The knight was my favorite piece, because it always freaked out the other five-year-olds. "Wait! How come your horsie can move crooked like that? And it jumped right over my prawn! Mommy! Kuri's cheating!" "Ha-ha-ha! Checkmate, you poopie head!" Those were the days.

But it wasn't long before the other kids learned how to move their horsies, and it's been all downhill ever since. I suck at chess. And I figured out why. Being smart isn't enough. To be good at chess, you have to work at it. You have to study chess books, you have to play thousands of games, you have to lose and learn from losing. Well, the hell with that. I like games that I'm good at without trying.

That's why I like boxing. See, I've figured out the secret to being a good boxer. A lot of people involved with boxing talk about "weight classes." I'm about 6 feet 6 inches (197 cm) tall and weigh about 265 pounds (120 kg), so according to these weight classes, I'm a "heavyweight." That means I'm supposed to fight people who look like this:

Um, how can I put this? No. Just no. Guys my own size are too darn scary. Yikes. So I made up my own rule: I only box against guys who weigh less than 140 pounds. The hell with weight classes. I mean, who would you rather get hit by, this guy:



or this guy:



I rest my case. And so far it's working pretty well for me. I'm undefeated against boxers who weigh less than 140 pounds. I think I'm likely to stay that way too.