Shaq to the Suns

Today is a proud day for Phoenix Suns fans. The day we acquired Shaquille O'Neal: February 6, 2003. It's 2003, right? Tell me it's 2003, TELL ME IT'S 2003. IT HAS TO BE 2003.

Like everyone else, yes, I thought this rumor had to be bullshit the first instant I heard it. It made no sense at all, for the various salary, playing style, and age reasons that are immediately obvious to anyone who follows the league. Before it became a reality, in the blissful hours when I could tell myself that it must be one of the many ludicrous rumors that float to no effect on the turbulent waters of any professional sport, I contemplated giving up fandom forever if it should in fact come to pass. One can only take so much abuse from one's favorite team, and the Suns have dealt plenty out (though usually not in the form of rank front-office incompetence; rather, we're always just good enough to lose crushingly in the playoffs to the eventual champion).

But of course that's a ridiculous notion. I could no more abandon the Suns to the predations of the Lakers and the Spurs than I could abandon my son to wolverines. So I'm putting a brave face on, removing all scepticism from my ever-doubting brain, staring at a picture of Steve Kerr's manly, manly features, and constructing the best-case scenario for this move.

Shawn Marion is a whiny bitch. That has been established at this point. A dude who cannot be on happy on the single team best-suited to using his talents (maybe Goldent State could do so as well), even when he is the highest-paid player on that team despite being the third-best, is a whiny bitch. So I can definitely enjoy the fact that he has whined and bitched his way onto a much crappier team that is coached by the league's biggest disciplinarian and on which he is still not the number one option. Maybe he'll just be thrilled with being No. 2...until the Heat draft Michael Beasley over the summer and he has to move down a notch again.

Furthermore, Shawn Marion is almost 30, and while that isn't terribly old, dudes who are short for their position and have no especially refined basketball skills like shooting, dribbling, or passing do not tend to age well as their athleticism evaporates. His production is down only slightly this year overall, but it was extremely distressing to see him have a few seemingly low-effort games like this one recently. At any rate, it's better to move a player like that one year before he falls to pieces rather than one year after.

As for the Suns now, I see some logic in their current construction. No, Shaq will not be able to keep up with the fast break most of the time. But Kurt Thomas was old and slow, and he didn't hurt us in that respect either. Amare at the 4 is still faster than all of his competition, and all the other elite power forwards in the west (Gasol, Boozer, Nowitzki, West) suck on defense. So between him, Nash, Hill, and Barbosa, we should still be able run the break just fine.

In the half court, Amare rarely posts up down low anyway, so he and Shaq should stay out of each other's way. Shaq is still a force in the middle, and the Suns have the three-point shooters in Nash, Bell, and Barbosa (two on the floor at all times) to destroy any team that doubles, far more so than Miami has had at any point in Shaq's tenure there. Steve, of course, should be adept at offering entry passes. And Amare, on Shaq's plays, ought to be able to play off of him perfectly: diving through the lane for dunks (Shaq is great at finding cutters), spotting up at the foul line for his excellent midrange jumper (just think of all the free-throw line shots that Haslem has taken over the past few years in Miami), and crashing the offensive boards for more dunks. I can't think of a power forward better suited to working with Shaq on offense. That all makes for a great halfcourt offense, assuming that Shaq's turnovers, which are a WAY up this year, can be managed now that he's getting good entry passes and has superb finishers on the other end of his passes.

On defense, the Suns go from undersized to sized, or possibly oversized. Shaq and Amare are both large for their positions, as are Diaw, Hill, and Nash. True, Shaq has been getting burned on defense lately, but the Suns don't need him to provide strong help like Miami did; Amare can handle that. And anyway, you wouldn't guess it, but Shaq has blocked 4.7% of the shots lofted while he's on the court this year, which is...exactly his career average. Man-to-man, he's unpostable, still. Perhaps he can be driven around, but you still have to figure we match up better down low now than we did before. And on missed shots, he should be a great rebound and outlet man with his passing skills.

If all that were to work out, this trade would be great for the Suns. In reality, Shaq will probably miss lots of games and barely reach 30 minutes in the ones he does suit up for because of his ridiculous fouling of late. And then he'll whine about not getting enough touches and the team not playing a style that suits his skills. And then we'll pay him $20 million when he's 38. $20 million that could feed poor children in Africa...and I mean that literally: sending the urchins of Zimbabwe 20 million one-dollar bills to be stewed and eaten daily would probably be a better use of that money in 2010. Shit.

Phoenix 106, Sonics 99

While last night's game was a lot closer and more tense than it needed to be, I came away feeling pretty good about it overall. Amare contributed more than it seemed like he did, Shawn played an efficient game, Steve was excellent in everything but his way-too-high turnover total, Barbosa and Diaw were solid, and we got more out of Marcus Banks in 14 minutes than we did all of last season (and at a critical point, too!). Obviously, Marcus won't be shooting 4/5 on threes in every game, but he doesn't need to in order to be useful.

The best sign was actually this: no one played more than 34 minutes in the game, even though it was close until the very end. My theory is that the reason the Spurs perform so much better in the second half of every season and the playoffs is that they limit all of their players to the low thirties in minutes per game. Thus, by the end of the season, they're much fresher than the competition each night, and in the playoffs they start to play everyone 35-40 minutes and become much better than their regular season performance would lead you to believe. Mike D'Antoni is a smart guy, so I wouldn't be surprised if he's noticed this tactic and is going to adopt it himself. The only problem, of course, is that we aren't all that deep, but I still think that it's worth the potential sacrifice of a few regular season wins.

As for the bad, well, Raja didn't play very well on offense, but I doubt that he's lost his shot completely. We missed more free throws and committed more turnovers than normal, but I expect those things to fix themselves as well. More worrisome was giving up so such a good game to Chris Wilcox in the post. I'm much more bothered by getting abused down low than by Kevin Durant, who was awesome but not that awesome; he didn't get many free throws with all those unblockable jumpers, and he committed 6 TOs. Still, he looks like a fantastic player.

By far the biggest worry, though, is Grant Hill going 1-7 on threes. They were wide open, too, with the Sonics clearly conceding that shot and not even running out to challenge most of the attempts. He still played a decent game because he made almost all of his twos, but that's not gonna happen every night. He needs to get up to at least 35% on threes to become maximally effective for the Suns, and that could be tough given his career 25.1% rate. On the other hand, he probably wasn't shooting wide open three pointers during the other parts of his career like Suns perimeter players get, so maybe there's hope, at least if he concentrates on the corners like Bruce Bowen.

If Hill can hit the threes and D'Antoni can keep the minutes down, I think we can be right back up at the top. Then there's my other dream: the Sonics buy out Kurt Thomas around mideseason because, really, they have no use for him whatsoever...and he comes back to play for the Suns on the cheap. He's not gonna get the chance to shoot as many wide open 15-footers anywhere else, and he'd be sure to get some playing time as our only other credible center. It's probably not going to happen at all, but hey, I can hope.

Arkansas roots finally showing?

I didn't watch the debates last night, so I don't know how representative this photo is, but man:

That's a fine mullet. Where's her Camaro?

Ah, My Libertarian Blood Doth Boil...

I'm writing an article on egg donation for my company, and in my research I came across this USA Today article on the subject. To me, the whole thing seems pretty slanted towards the "ZOMG TEH EGGZ IZ BEEING SOLED!!!!!!" angle, but this line really got me:

Reynolds says that as bounties for eggs rise, more students and other financially strapped women will be tempted by a procedure they'd otherwise reject.

I hate to point this out -- no wait, I love to point this out -- but everyone who has ever held a job does things that she would otherwise reject but for the love of lucre (or, to put it more sympathetically, food and shelter). Would I get up at 7am and drive halfway across the city to sit at a desk and edit other people's writing if I weren't getting paid? Hell no. Would I be more inclined to do it if someone were willing to pay me even more? Hell yes. If this Reynolds is consistent, then I guess he must feel morally troubled about the fact that he receives paychecks for hours worked on days when he'd really rather have stayed home and played with the kids (or shagged the wife, for that matter). After all, only the compulsion to earn a living made him do it.

A-Rod's Contract

For the record: I think the announcement last night (essentially made by Boras via trusting media mouthpieces) that A-Rod will opt out is a negotiating tactic rather than a guarantee. Note that he has not actually done so yet. I think that Boras realized that, with the Yankees publicly announcing that they would not re-sign A-Rod if he terminated his contract, he was on poor negotiating ground. As perhaps the only team willing and able to break the bank for his client, the Yankees were forcing Boras to negotiate with them alone, potentially saving themselves a fair bit of money (remember how the Red Sox last season forced Daisuke and Boras to accept their offer by taking advantage of their sole negotiating rights). This announcement sounds like a classic Boras scare tactic designed to make the Yankees increase their offer in order to avoid losing A-Rod altogether. Given that the man is a master of public stunts and clever feints, I wouldn't be surprised at all to hear a new announcement in a few days saying, "Well, the Yankees recognized that they couldn't afford to lose such a great asset, so they made a great offer, and Alex decided that that was enough." This announcement will come even if A-Rod receives a deal no larger than the one already rumored to have been offered, as Boras is Bush-like in spinning every defeat as a victory.

P.S. - I am just shocked, SHOCKED that Boras would leak this news during the deciding game of the World Series, when it would receive maximum media exposure. Even more hilarious is the suggestion that poor A-Rod just can't stand to commit himself to the uncertain future of the Yankees because of his concern for his dear teammates, who probably can't stand him.

Holy Crap!

I'm sure that everyone's seen this a million times, but it's worth watching yet one time more. Almost as great as the play itself (over a minute long!) is the play-by-play guy. After the touchdown, he yells a lot and does well enough with the moment for half a minute, and then he slows down for a second, and then the awesomeness of the play hits him again and he realizes that his call is going to get played a billion times on SportsCenter, so he starts yelling things again, over and over, hoping that something classic will accidentally fall from his lips, and soon he sounds like a robot stuck on Shout Mode. In a way, the call resembles the play itself: ugly, preposterously long, and amazing to experience nonetheless.

Unsportsmanlike Conduct

That must be one of the world's great misnomers. Since pretty much no one else on earth, other than perhaps videogamers, performs the actions so labelled (screaming and gesticulating wildly after accomplishing a routine work task), it really ought to be called "sportsmanlike conduct." In fact, if I were to stand up, shout, and perform a choreographed dance the next time that I, say, wrote a webpage at work, I'm quite sure that someone would say, "He's acting like he just scored a touchdown or something."

Ryan Spilborghs

Ryan Spilborghs is a fantastic name. One day, I would like to meet a Spilborghs.

Oh BustedTees...

...you used to be funny. Now...

...not so much. It is possible, I've heard, to make a joke that is neither 1) a half-baked pun apropos of nothing nor 2) a pop culture reference from five minutes ago that will have exhausted its relevance five minutes hence.

Saddest Thing of the Year 2007

Go ahead and close the voting, because it just happened, and I don't foresee anything topping it.

World Series Game One

Obviously, I'm pleased with the result, but I couldn't really take that much joy from watching the Rockies get beaten senseless. In the fifth, with the three straight run-scoring walks, it just got painful, like watching an animal get tortured. I actually started rooting for someone, anyone on the Rockies to induce an out. The Rockies and their fans are good people who deserve better. At least when we swept the Cardinals three years ago, the Sox definitely had more good karma built up and had the satisfaction of shoving it in the face of that slimy prick Tony La Russa.

On Being a Baseball Fan

I was listening to Bill Simmons' recent podcast with Seth Meyers recently, and I realized that his entire analysis of baseball players boils down to "I am [terrified/supremely confident] when this guy is [hitting/pitching]." While I think that this is a fairly terrible way to evaluate actual player performance, I can understand the temptation to think this way. A baseball game that you care about is essentially a sequence of encounters in which you feel varying levels of comfort and trepidation, and the interaction of these sensations defines the dramatic arc of the game. There are also bursts of euphoria and horror that accompany the outcomes of these events, but these are short-lived, and they quickly give way to the feelings that arise from events to come rather than events that were.

Of course, all sports (or at least the sports events that you are emotionally invested in) manipulate the viewer in this same fashion, but I think that this dynamic supercedes all else in baseball to a greater extent than in other sports for a number of reasons. First of all, there are relatively few events in a baseball game as compared to other sports, and the periods of time between these events are much longer. Thus, you have more dead space to fill with foreboding or expectation, and there is little else to distract you (other than the inane musings of Tim McCarver or, especially when watching an HD broadcast, the number of pimples on Jonathan Papelbon's neck).

Second, the element of spectacle is relatively unimportant in a baseball game. There are some things -- like a really good slider that a batter misses by about two feet -- that awe you, but not nearly as many as in football or in basketball, where ferocious hits and incredible feats of athleticism occur frequently. In baseball, it's mostly a little white ball getting thrown back and forth over the same 70 feet of grass.

Third and perhaps most important, the things that cause events to unfold as they do in a game are generally either random or arcane. As a result, rational analysis of these events is much more difficult. If you know something about the sport, you know approximately how good the pitchers and batters are in general, but you don't really know fundamentally why each specific encounter ends the way it does. After all, bad pitchers get good hitters out very often (indeed, most of the time), even after long at-bats in which the batter looks to be very much in control. The reason is usually something like "hit very hard, but right at fielder" or "swung half an inch too low, popped up" or "pitcher gripped ball slightly harder," all of which are difficult to observe and liable to occur at any time. A home-run swing and a deep-fly-to-right-fielder-swing look pretty much the same; things happen as they happen for reasons unknown. In football and basketball, it's much easier to see what occured and analyze what went wrong or right (wicked crossover, blown coverage, etc.), largely because the differences between the players' actions on successful and disastrous plays are much greater, and the game-long trends are also much stronger and more obvious (superior blocking, post-ups leading to open threes, etc.). The result of this impenetrability is that the viewer is left with little more than emotional responses to the events taking place.

This ability to create tension but render other reactions moot is probably why baseball lends itself so well to literary writing but so poorly to traditional sports commentary. High-minded writers have much drama and narrative to suss out, but day-to-day analysts are left to blather about things like team heart and ability to handle pressure that have little to do with things on a plate-appearance-to-plate-appearance level. This aspect of the game is also probably why fans like Simmons would rather have a dominating closer than a very good starter, even though the very good starter is almost always more useful in getting a team wins; in a sport full of uncertainties, it feels nice to have a relatively sure thing happen every now and then (assuming that it's in your favor). On the other hand, the unpredictability can be comforting when your team is in dire straits, like the Sox are tonight. Why did the Indians beat us for three straight games after we looked so good in the previous four? Luck, mostly. And that can turn at any time.

Also Disallowed: The Wave

How could the NCAA possibly fine Kentucky because the school's fans stormed the field after the victory over LSU? If your school beats the #1 team in the nation for the first time in 40 years, and if that team is a conference rival to boot, I say that the fans are obligated to rush the field and rip the goalposts down. Anything less would be inhuman. You may as well fine wildebeests for running from lions.

This story reminds me of another thing that, if not inhuman, is certainly unAmerican: collapsible goalposts. Who doesn't enjoy the spectacle of unfettered mass glee turned to mildly destructive ends? If anything is weakening our national manhood, collapsible goalposts are it.

Bonus:
While researching collapsible goalposts, I came across an evangelical minister who disagrees with me entirely on the topic of post-victory celebration. Needless to say, this phenomenon, like all others in modern America, can be attributed to the sinister influence of Dr. Benjamin Spock.

Other pearls of wisdom from Pastor Mike, whom I find endlessly entertaining: it is "axiomatically true" that porn turns people into child molesters. That's right: we don't need evidence to prove this connection, because the definitions of "porn" and "child molester" imply that it must exist by virtue of unassailable logic! The best part about this article is that Pastor Mike whines that porn has not been made illegal despite it's corrupting tendencies and that, sure enough, the child molester in question had child porn on his computer. Pastor Mike: child porn already is illegal! You've won! Have a celebratory beer! Actually, you probably don't do that.

Also, women driving while men ride shotgun is a sign of the coming apocalypse (and something that "the under class" especially enjoys). Here, Pastor Mike cogently argues that this practice is a sign that either a) lazy men are oppressing their women and making them do all the work, or b) feminist women are oppressing their men, pushing them into the "pass(ive)enger seat" and usurping rightful masculine roles. Note how the very straight Pastor Mike here and elsewhere decries the influence of homosexuals and then writes highly woman-loving things like this:

But every tournament [Tiger Woods] enters—by his mere presence—becomes many, many times more exciting. He is a phenomenon—he is masculine; he is passionate; he is driven.

Keep on keeping it real, Pastor Mike.

But has the Pope canonized him yet?

If you really think about this story, you'll soon realize that it's one of the very stupidest things that we as a society could be worrying about (and apparently quite a lot of people are worried about it). I'll get worked up over the issue as soon as MLB becomes acknowledged as the final arbiter of human worth.

Tim McCarver Makes the Obvious His Bitch

Everyone knows that Tim McCarver is a dumbass, but the shit he said last night still blew my mind. Right after Youkilis hit his solo homer to lead off the 6th innning, McCarver pipes up with this enlightening nugget (paraphrased): "We did the research, and it turns out that there are more multirun innings begun with leadoff homers than with leadoff walks. You would think that leadoff walks would start more multirun innings." No, Tim, I would not think that. Nor would I need any research whatsoever to figure out the answer to this stupid, stupid question. You know why, Tim? Because before you can score a second run, you have to score one run. Odds of scoring one run after a leadoff walk: something like 40%. Odds of scoring one run after a leadoff homer: 100%. How does everyone involved with the Fox broadcast allow the idiot McCarver to propose this research, conduct this research, and then spout his wondrous findings on national TV without saying, at least once, "Um...duh?" Maybe next time, Tim, you could do some research to find out whether you're more likely to die a) if you sit down in a chair with a loaded gun sitting on the table next to your or b) after you aim the gun at your head and pull the trigger.





So yeah, I'm bitter about this fucking baseball series. Sorry, Tim.

My Twelve Most Hated San Antonio Spurs: Nos. 9 and 8

Ninth Most Hated Spur: Michael Finley

"Well I am just SO put out."

This one hurts, because Mike used to be my boy. When you're a fan of a sports team, you develop serious man crushes very easily on any young prospects who show early promise for your club, especially when those guys exceed expectations. In his first year after being drafted 21st by the Suns, Michael Finley was awesome. Finally, the Suns had an athletic wing player, which hadn't really been the case since I'd become a fan of basketball. He could dunk like crazy (he was the first guy whom I saw successfully dunk on Dikembe Mutombo - back when Mutombo was still an otherworldly shotblocking god who stuffed it right back in Shawn Kemp's face every time Kemp tried to dunk on him). Finley even hit a game-winning jumper in a crazy early-season game against the Lakers; the Suns were down 10 with a minute left, but they hit three quick 3s, forced a jump ball at midcourt with about three seconds left, tipped it to Finley, and let him run down the floor and hit a pull-up from elbow with no time left in like the eighth game of his career. I was fucking psyched (even though the Suns plummeted from the elite in the West that year).

The next year, we traded him to Dallas in the Jason Kidd deal, which hurt, but it still seemed worth it. He went on to be a minor star and the third wheel of Dallas's big three in the early Oughts. He signed a huge contract, got cut via the amnesty rule after the last collective bargaining agreement, and had a real chance to do something meaningful with his life. But instead of following his boy Steve and coming home to Phoenix, he did the unthinkable: signing for cheap with the one team that both of his former clubs detested above all. I realize that you gotta do what you gotta do, Mike, but so do I. And I gotta hate you, you son of a bitch.

Finley has developed into one more in a long, long succession of perimeter guys who nail open 3s to torment the Suns, including John Paxson, Mario Elie, Sam Cassell, Kenny Smith, Vernon Maxwell, Brent Barry, Manu Ginobili, Bruce Bowen, and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (until later in this list). Strangely, a number of these guys later played for the Suns, but never at length or effectively. At any rate, I hate all of them, because there's really nothing worse in basketball than watching your team dash around and scrap like mad to get a key stop, only for one of these dicks to hit a three that just strangles your chances.

Eighth Most Hated Spur: Brent Barry

Nowadays, Brent Barry and Michael Finley are pretty much the same player, except that Brent Barry is white and ugly (see above). I also used to kind of like Barry when he played for the Sonics, but that all changed when he joined the Spurs. Now, his every 3 pains me like an eyefull of bees and his awkward gangliness turns my stomach like a mouthful of poop. Add to that his impenitent scruffiness, which is less Brett-Favre manly and more child-molester shady, and the fact that his insufferable brother always seems to be announcing his games and blathering about how funny it is that they have the same parents, and the man becomes equivalent to a massive federal subsidy for hatred.

Oh, he was also the first and only affirmative action dunk contest winner. "Oh, hey, you're white and you kind of did that dunk that Michael Jordan already did in this contest ten years ago. Take a charity trophy for your earthbound race." Watch this clip and tell me: Is it any wonder that the terrorists thought they could defeat us after we crowned a dunk champion this goofy looking? How are we to strike fear in the hearts of our enemies when we once concluded that this man, out of all our many peoples, could perfect something as awesome as the dunk? Blood is on your hands, Brent Barry.

Embarrassment!

Seriously...I mean, we all know the guy's incompetent and irresponsible, but seeing those qualities in action can still be jarring.

Insightful Athlete Quotation: Kevin Smith

No, not that Kevin Smith; the one who plays running back for UCF. This one isn't insightful so much as it is refreshing. I think we're all sick of athletes playing the no-respect card, as it's not only cliche but also relentlessly tiresome to hear highly successful people earning millions a year whine about how people don't love them enough. Here, a man who has not yet been allowed to earn money for his abilities (thanks to government-sanctioned collusion) offers this obvious but still gratifying observation concerning all the schools that didn't recruit him (despite the fact that he's now leading the nation in rushing yards):

"I don't think I run with a chip," Smith said. "I don't hold anything against those colleges. This is a business. Everybody recruits who they want. I run to represent my school."

Insightful Athlete Quotation: Brad Hawpe

Once again, it's just refreshing when someone connected to sports says something intelligent, even if obvious, that most writers and commentators steadfastly refuse to acknowledge, because I guess life just isn't as interesting that way. From Jayson Stark's article that makes a big deal about the Rockies' Brad Hawpe going 11 for 17 lifetime against Brandon Webb:

"Aw, he's tough," Hawpe deadpanned. "And it's just a small handful of at-bats. It's not like it's 500 ABs or something."

Maybe I'll post quotes like these when I find them as some small counterweight to the vast amounts of (deserved) snark aimed at idiotic sports commentary out there.

My Twelve Most Hated San Antonio Spurs: Nos. 11 and 10

Elventh Most Hated Spur: Beno Udrih

"Hey there, cowboy."

This motherfucker wants me to pronounce the "h" in his name like a "k." Fuck no. I'll pronounce a "c" like a "ch" or a "j" like a "y," maybe even a "w" like a "v," but the h-to-k thing is just too preposterous. Retransliterate your bizarre language in some even slightly sensible fashion, asshole.

In addition to his curious disregard for the sonic values of letters, Beno suffers from being one of the league's more boring players. He's short and white, he used to have a really dumb bowl haircut, and he has moles on his face. His game consists almost entirely of shooting left-handed 18-foot jumpers, and that would probably be really annoying except that he stopped making them last year, thankfully. If he had continued to be as good as he was in his first two years, I'd probably hate him a lot more.

Since I don't really have much else to say about Beno, I'd like to shame the entire city of San Antonio with this:

Anyone remember that? That was the Spurs logo in the 90s, and I must say that time has not diminished the potent repulsiveness of its design one bit. As I recall, they had this lovely mixture of colors, particularly the manly pairing of pink and teal, all over their home floor at the time. I bet David Robinson would've grabbed at least two more rebounds per game over his career if he hadn't been exposed to such eye-rending graphic design so frequently. In researching this color scheme, I discovered that these colors are rich in disease-awareness symbolism: pink for breast cancer, teal for polycystic ovarian syndrome, and orange for leukemia, three diseases that, strangely enough, I've often wished that the Spurs would contract. May this logo turn out to be a portent of things to come!

Tenth Most Hated Spur: Eva Longoria

Already the most irritating of the housewives desperate, the-former-and-probably-soon-to-be-again Miss Longoria made a strong case for first-ballot induction into the Could You Possibly Hate Me Any More? Hall of Fame by dating and then marrying the NBA's girliest (at least, since Rick Fox retired) and nearly most annoying player. Shockingly, she appeared in the stands for virtually every singly nationally televised Spurs game, and ESPN/ABC made the even more shocking decision to aim at least seven cameras at her at all times.

Mr. and Mrs. Longoria really took things to another level of irritation with their wedding. Like countless other idiots, they got married on 7/7/07, apparently because primitive peoples once attributed divine powers of luckiness to the number 7 or something. I am forced to assume that, should they birth a child on a 2/3 some year, they will ritually sacrifice the poor wretch to the great demon N'Kothra -- Scourge of the Living, Progenitor of Self-infatuated Celebrities -- upon on altar constructed from the bones of kittens, lest the numerological horror of the event should bring ruin on their house. (Bonus prediction: couples married on July 7th, 2007 will actually prove to be more likely to get divorced, owing to the exceeding shallowness that their choice of wedding date reflects).

Of course, we should've known that Eva and Tony would do something like that and make sure that every celeb mag knew about it the instant they announced their engagment by calling in to Ryan Seacrest's show. I can't believe that David Stern didn't fine Tony for making the league look like a bunch of tools like that. You can bet that Roger Goodell would have.

Just in case you aren't sure whether you, too, should hate Eva Longoria, I submit to you this quote: "I've lost a lot of jobs because I was too pretty. And everybody's like, 'Oh, poor you.' But seriously, you don't get the good roles when you're beautiful." That makes so much sense, because big-time actresses like Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, and Reese Witherspoon are so ugly, and because this is what you look like without makeup:

Oh, poor you.