No Marriage For You!

Benton County in my native Oregon has decided to suspend the granting of all marriage licenses. (Oregonian article here.) I'm not going to comment on the legality of this or the morality of it or any of that happy horse shit. Flog™ can do that when he comes back from vacation. All I'll offer up is this pithy analysis: hilarious!

Kudos to my good friend Vijay for predicting this after reading Article I, Section 20 of the Oregon Constitution:

Art. I Sec. 20. Equality of privileges and immunities of citizens. No law shall be passed granting to any citizen or class of citizens privileges, or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.

Teenage Sports Smackdown

The LeBron James phenomenon has created a troubling side effect. Every teenage star who has scored a point, hit a ball, tied some yarn together, etc. is suddenly proclaiming themselves at the top of their sports.

First case. Have you ever heard of a kid named Ivan Chiriaev? Neither have I. But, ostensibly, Mr. Chiriaev that thinks you should know who he is. In fact, he thinks the entire NBA should know who he is.

The NBA wants Ivan Chiriaev ... The NBA needs Ivan Chiriaev.

Wow. Now that's some confidence. So this kid must be putting up a quadruple double nightly, right? Well, if by a quadruple double you mean he's averaging 16 points a game. The NBA needs a kid who can average 16 points a game? Well, not so fast. He's 7-1 and he claims that he can play the point. That changes everything. Ivan will go up against the world at the World Summit. Says Chiriaev, "America and the world will get to see me play." Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize how privileged I was. Though, honestly, I think I'll skip out on watching the World Summit again this year. You might say I wouldn't miss missing it.

Case study two is a bit more hilarious because she's got all the ego of Chiriaev but mixes it up with some old fashioned trash talk. And hey, women's tennis could really use some more cat fights, if you ask me. With Martina Hingis gone, there's been nobody to really instigate things in there. Say what you will about Martina, but her feuds with the Williams's were legendary. She couldn't serve worth a damn. But she talked some nice trash. I don't know. Justine Henine-Hardenne just doesn't do it for me. Besides having a stupid additional name that isn't necessary, she doesn't talk the talk enough. Yeah, she's somewhat passive aggressive during matches. She'll call a timeout at the last possible moment. She'll skip out of key tournaments because she doesn't want to play Serena but she doesn't bring enough of a bitchy attitude to the court.

Well, I'm not sure if Sesil Karatancheva can play worth a damn, but her trash talking is on its way to becoming legendary. And she's only 14. (Okay, these long names are starting to bug me so for the rest of this I'm just going to use abbreviations.) So here are a few juicy bits of commentary that ol' SK has bestowed upon us before her match against Maria Sharpova (who I believe is only 15 herself) in the third round. Yes, she needs to get rid of the number one hated word in all the world (= like) but that's for another post.

SK on wearing a "California Knock-Out" T-shirt
You know what, I bought it because I liked the word "knock-out". You just go there, knock them out of the ring, okay? Just knock them out of the ring. That's why I bought it.

On her previous encounter with Sharapova
I was actually supposed to play in Bollettieri Tennis Academy. I was so prepared. I mean, it was unbelievable. I was just, "Come on the court, you'll see what happen." Then I was, you know, talking to people. You know, I was really into the match. I was like, "You know, I'm going to get there and play my best tennis, I'm going to do everything I can." The day when we were supposed to play, two hours before the match, my agent comes and he goes, "She called it off." I'm like, "Why did she call the match off?" "Because you said you going to kick her ass off." I'm like, you know what, it's my business who I'm telling I'm going to kick his ass off or not. If I said it, I meant it, and I'm not sorry about it. If she's too scared to come on the court, her problem - her problem. I was like, "Whatever. I'm going to get you. Even then I said, "I'm going to meet you soon." It comes right next to me, right here. She can't call it off this time, that's for sure (laughter).

On Sharapova's supposed fear
You know, I really do not know. But I don't think that a player from her rank can call a match off only because somebody said it's going to kick her ass off. If she had the guts, she's going to come kick my ass off and leave.

On whether or not she's going to kick Sharapova's ass
You know what, I say I'm going to play my best tennis. Normally when I do that, I beat people that are very good. You know, I believe in my game. I believe that my game is something I worked on a lot. I think that if I play it and if I concentrate a hundred percent on something, I can do something unbelievable tomorrow. I mean, that's the way I think. Yes, I do think I can kick her ass off. Yes, I do think that. I'm saying that, I can kick her ass off.

On the result of the tournament
I think I will bring home trophy.

On Bulgarians
Our culture is a very special one. People do not want you to succeed. People want to screw you over. People do not want — if a parent — if a parent has a player, for example, back home, a father like my father, for example, like there's a lot of parents that have daughters, sons, when they see somebody succeeding instead of theirs, they're not, "She's from Bulgaria, come on, let's go, she can make it." They're, "I hope she brokes her knee so she doesn't make it." For example, my Federation never did anything for me. They even destroyed a lot of my junior tournaments. I'll go in a tournament, I'll go all the way to Italy, play a tournament, then I won't be in it. My Federation wouldn't even like sign me in it. So, you know, it's nothing that I really expect. I like my country because I'm born in it. But, you know, I go there only because my family is there and because it's just still my country. But the people are not nice.

Sadly, SK got her ass beat by Sharapova but it didn't daunt her, nor should it. "I tried to come back, I really did," said Karatancheva. "I really tried to come back. I saved three match points. But you know, at the end I just got tired. She played better; she won the match. All I can say is 'congratulations to her'." That's our girl.

On a side note, the WTA has it all wrong. People don't want to see players advertising products or giving more interviews. They don't care about the players' "commitment to the game". No, it's all about the girl on girl cat fighting. So get out there and promote some rivalries WTA. Nobody cares about selling the sport. How do you sell a sport anyway? On Ebay? Now up for auction is the sport of tennis. We'll start at $0.99 with an unknown reserve and a Buy-It-Now Price of $5.6 million dollars. Buyer pays for all shipping charges. Hmm, this article seems to have strayed a bit off topic. I'll conclude by saying that the moral of the story is that I had an onion in my belt, which was the style at the time.