I don’t have any tattoos. And while I may get one someday, I almost think it’s better to vicariously enjoy other peoples’ body art, because I can get the enjoyment without putting in the commitment. This certainly applies to this gentleman’s Barry Bonds’ tattoo.

This guy’s artwork is remarkably high-concept. It’s the back of Bonds’ jersey, but wait! There’s Bonds himself! He’s on his own jersey! What’s the logical construct here? Is Bonds pointing toward an oversized jersey, or is it just a nonspecific conceptualization of Barry Bonds sentiment? More importantly, I notice that Bonds is off to the left. Is the space to the right saved for something he’s planning on inking in the future? I vote for a weeping Jeff Kent.

So, Stephon Marbury hasn’t been seeing much playing time at all with the Knicks this season. And by “hasn’t been seeing much playing time at all” I mean “none.”

It’s a sign Mike D’Antoni sees no use for him in his offense; it’s a sign his attitude, or bravado, or whatever labels people have hurled on the guy for a few years might have some sound backing. Even still, dressing him in street clothes and tossing him on the bench is sort of messed up. (Especially when he’s got a sizeable contract on the table.)

So in order to resurrect Marbury this year, a most excellent idea has been proposed by Poasting & Toasting: vote him into the All-Star Game.

I’d like to formally announce my advocacy for Stephon Marbury as an All-Star.

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Marbury’s Knick days are likely behind him, so let’s pay respects for his tenure in orange and blue- his heroics, his antics, and his idiosyncrasies. Stephon’s been the most prolific font of entertainment and discourse the Knicks have seen in years. Let’s give him one more opportunity to thrill us. Vote early, vote often, and vote Stephon Marbury to the 2009 NBA All-Star team. If you’re down with the cause, tell your friends, mention it on your blog, fill in a ballot for your pet iguana…every vote counts. Yes we can!

Yes, yes and yes. Get at some Steph voting right here. It’s just like voting for president, except you don’t have to wait in a long line and it means so much more less.

(Gracias, Can’t Stop The Bleeding.)

The human conversation has lasted for untold thousands of years. At this point, we’ve expressed hyperbillions upon hyperbillions of opinions and ideas. Amazingly, though, there are still opinions and ideas that, until yesterday, had never been uttered by a human being.

This is where Shaquille O’Neal comes in. As reported and confirmed by Alana, Shaq is now authoring a Twitter account. It is my hope that every odd phrase that has not yet been said, will be said. Let’s take a look. And let’s not judge the grammatical errors, because the poor little guy is punching in his thoughts via text messages.

Good morning everyone. Let me give you all a hint on how to relate to me, Shaquille O’neal I have a sense of humor I am very quotatious I am super intelligent ( but i hide it, dont want anyone to kno i’m a geek) lol And finally, i say things to make you earthlings think. For example, How many legs would a sheep have if you called its tail a leg? A smarty arty would say 5 < but the super intelligent specimen, such as my self would say …

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There’s being truthful, and then there’s being crazy, over-the-top honest, to the point where even your priest (or rabbi!) might tell you to chill out a bit. I see no qualms with those falling into the latter category; the world needs more truth, it needs more pure hearts. (It also needs more loaded nachos.)

This brings us to one Mr. J.P. Hayes. You see, Hayes was playing in a PGA Tour qualifying tournament last week and he accidentally used a different model ball for two shots on one hole, and when he realized the error, he turned himself in. He procured a two-shot penalty for such an infraction. Even with that, he was in good position to finish high enough to make the final qualifying stage in December. But what he did next WILL BLOW YOUR MIND.

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Lew Wolff is the sound I make when someone punches me in the gut. Lew Wolff is also the owner of the Oakland Athletics. Lew Wolff thinks it would be great if baseball’s League Divisional Series were a one-game playoff rather than a five-game playoff.

“I’d make it one-game-and-you’re-out for the first series,” the Oakland Athletics owner said Wednesday. “It would be exciting. It would be great.”

…Wolff said he hasn’t brought up his concept with [commissioner Bud] Selig.

“No, I’m afraid to do that,” he said.

Lew Wolff is perfectly fine with raising the issue with the media, but is “afraid” of bringing it to Selig directly, which I don’t understand. I perceive Selig as a really amiable and noncommittal guy. You can pitch him any idea you want, no matter how dumb, and he would just smile and shrug. I ought to send him blueprints of my idea for a harmonica that looks like a Nintendo cartridge.

I can’t blame Wolff for floating this idea. It’s transparently self-serving, but he had to give it a shot.  If my rotation was made up of Justin Duscherer and four mediocre guys, I’d be all for a format that didn’t involve any of the mediocre guys. It’s safe to say that this proposal will be swiftly shot down. I’m guessing that Wolff’s next idea will be a one-game A’s-off, in which the winner is decided by whichever team is the Oakland Athletics.

Lost Time Is Not Found Again is what the MPS blog crew has been reading today.

+ Blogger Dewey Hammond gets choked unconscious by Frank Shamrock. Do not try this at home. {Hard for the Yard.}

+ Greg Oden goes for 22 and 10 last night. That’s more like it. {TrueHoop.}

+ Tyler Hansbrough and the Amazing Pinstriped Suit. {The Dagger.}

+ Adidas vs. Nike basketball battle. {It’s Just Sports.}

+ Non-sports: Reality shows ratings dip. {Gawker.} Trailer for “2012.” {Kottke.}

Quotable:

“I think people are making too big a deal and are being too hard on Donovan, because you’d be surprised - I bet at least 50 percent of the league didn’t know that at the time.

You’d be real surprised. I think people just assume that the quarterback should know it all and that everyone should know that stuff, and it’s not necessarily true, because who ever thinks about that stuff? …

How often does it come up? The rules change so often that you never know what happens. People are being way, way too hard on Donovan and making way too big a deal of this.” – Ben Roethlisberger sticking up for Donovan McNabb

For a while now, I’ve been trying to find an excuse to do a completely self-indulgent blog post about a close family friend. “How,” I thought to myself, “can I work this in on MPS blog, without it looking completely unprofessional?” As if I value professionalism. Ha. Right.

Well guess what? The Des Moines Register, the most disproportionately powerful political newspaper in all the land, has officially given me my excuse:

Who would you chose as Iowa State’s most valuable player for this season? A nomination: punter Mike Brandtner. This isn’t written as sarcasm, but is a serious vote of support for the Cyclones’ most reliable performer during a 2-9 run that will culminate with Saturday’s game at Kansas State. The junior from Bettendorf has averaged 41.6 yards on 49 kicks, ranking him third in the Big 12 Conference. More important, Brandtner has had 19 of his punts (38.8 percent) downed inside the opponent’s 20-yard line.

“I really try to place them all in the 20,” he said. “It’s not always about crushing the ball.”

Not only is Mike a very solid punter on an Iowa State team that, with all due respect, needs a punter far more than any football team should, he’s a close friend of yours truly. More specifically, his family is like a second family to me. His older brother is one of my best friends, who, despite never, ever beating me, still comes over to play FIFA 09 all the time. His mother is like a surrogate mother, or some sort of incredibly sweet aunt. They’re awesome people. Mike, obviously, is no different. He just got all the family’s athletic talent.

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I have a confession to make: I’ve never seen “Hoop Dreams.” I have seen “Through the Fire.” From what I know about Through the Fire and what I’ve heard about “Hoop Dreams,” these two facts are incompatible and need to be rectified immediately. I know, I know. I need to watch “Hoop Dreams.”

But even having not seen it, I have a pretty good idea of it in general. It’s the story of William Gates and Arthur Agee, two black teenage males from Chicago, who, in the late 1980’s, in the midst of the worst years of that decade’s legendary inner-city struggles, each see their immense basketball talent as the only way out. Again, I haven’t seen the movie, so I don’t have all the facts. But I know how the story ends — at least so far — thanks to the Chicago Tribune:

Gates, the reserved one, has become an authoritative force who leads a church in the Cabrini area. He is married with four kids. Agee, a spirited charmer, doesn’t have a regular job but is launching a line of “Hoop Dreams” apparel. He has five kids by five different women. They predict their connection will last all their lives. Agee was one of the first people Gates called when his brother Curtis was murdered in 2001; Agee called Gates immediately after his father, “Bo” Agee, a West Side minister, was slain. “At the end of the day, he’s my guy,” Gates said. “And I know he feels the same way.” Agee credits Gates for being honest with him, even when it’s about something he doesn’t want to hear.

Two different lives; two different paths; both incredibly interesting. Anyway, enough of this. I’m going to go watch now.

(As with the movie itself, I’m a few days behind on this post.)

At first glace, it seemed pretty cut and dry Mark Cuban is guilty of insider trading. After all, the PIPE was announced privately to the Mavs owner and the company, he knew about it and he sold his shares. The next day, Mamma.com’s stock prices plummeted. Textbook insider trading there. (This is the best I understand it, anyhow. Which is to say I understand it very little.)

Most analysts thought he would just have to pay a pretty sizable fee and go on his merry way — a small price for a billionaire. But Cuban will not go down easily. Yesterday, he posted his case for innocence on his blog. Valleywag has a succinct explanation of that response:

– The SEC doesn’t have a statement from anyone saying that Cuban knowingly ordered an insider trade.
– Regulators dropped an investigation of Mamma.com over allegations of securities-law violations days before starting their investigation of Cuban. Cuban’s unspoken implication: Someone must have made a deal.
– Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, as seen on Dancing with the Stars, makes a better target for ambitious SEC staffers than the forgotten Mamma.com team.

Well, well, well: the old “you guys are coming after me because I’m famous” bit. Add to that the SEC apparently doesn’t have anyone on record as saying Cuban knowingly inside traded and well, we got a battle on our hands here.

Really, I’m still trying to find out why anyone would invest in Mamma.com to begin with.

Ryan Dempster signed a fat contract with the Cubs yesterday. (Perhaps too fat for a guy with only one stellar year under his belt in a career of many seasons.)  But hey, the Cubs apparently felt strongly he could preform at this high clip again. Or maybe they knew a trade for Jake Peavy wasn’t going to work. Who knows.

Dempster, obviously, was in front of the media yesterday and someone undoubtedly asked him the question: “How come you guys choked in the playoffs?”

His response:

“Maybe we underestimated how prepared you have to be, how ready you have to be, especially in a five-game series,” Dempster said. “It’s like a short heavyweight bout. Ding, the bell is ringing, you’ve got to go.”

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“I think sometimes we almost expected it, go out there and play hard and we’re good enough and just expect it to happen, and we’ll win this series and then the next one and all the excitement will happen once we get to the World Series,” he said. “Maybe L.A. was just a little more prepared for us than we were for them.”

At this point, after hearing this and Lou Piniella’s 100-year explanation, I’ve come to this conclusion: there really is no grand excuse, no perfect explanation, no great response in figuring out what happened. The Cubs got beat in embarrassing fashion. They got outplayed. That’s pretty much all there is to it.

It’s about as simple as that.