Astounding Prescience

You have to admit that, on occasion, I can be astonishingly prescient.  I feel one of those instances coming on...

Today, at long last, we will hear the closing arguments in the Casey Anthony trial.  I predict it will go thusly:

PROSECUTION:  She did it!
DEFENSE:  No, she didn't!  You did!

I'm not stopping there.  The scuffed, worn, slippery grass of Wimbledon calls, you know.  ("Wimpleton," as the locals designate this annual Holy Tourney.)

Nadal will win. 

I won't even hedge by saying that were Djokovic to win -- in fine fashion, that is -- I'd also be thrilled.  It's gonna be a great match.

I'd say it's been an awesome weekend for my sporting interests, except that Tito Ortiz managed to knock out Bader in the first round.  On the upside -- Chris Leben has TOTALLY rehabilitated himself in my eyes, and Wanderlei Silva needs to do some thinking.  (I contend that he is the animated, ripped version of Homer Simpson.)  Congratulations, Chris. 

Leben was transferred to my good side when he took on Yoshihiro Akiyama with short notice and good humor, then submitted him with 30 seconds left on the clock.

I failed to note yesterday's instance of prescience in this blog, having been distracted by scream-inducing spastic legs and yet another puncture of said legs by one Buddy the Kitten. 

But you can trust me.

I called Sharapova's loss way-y-y ahead of time, based on my extreme disappointment in her semi-final match, a match that might as well have been played in the first round of some country club tourney.  In Antarctica (South Sandwich territories...).

None of that, though, impugns the accomplishments of Petra Kvitova: Kde je vlakové nádraží?!

Lastly, a bit of non-prescience for you:  Last year, or the year before, I cannot differentiate -- I wrote a post that included a discussion of women's tennis underwear.  The number of hits that post receives at this time of year is astounding.  Top searches include "tennis undies," "venus williams ass" and "serena williams cat suit." Also, somewhat inexplicably, given her [second] retirement in January:  "justine henin's boobs."

Okay, so now you know exactly what I know.

Uh-oh.

chris leben murder

Deconstructing the possibilities of how and why someone googles their way to this facetiously fecund fiction that is elle est belle la seine la seine elle est belle is sometimes alarming, sometimes a sad commentary.

Two people arrived yesterday after searching for "chris leben murder."

I have to confess to swallowing that possibilty hook, line, sinker.

It was completely within the realm of possibility that Chris Leben might have murdered someone -- and outside the octagon, too.

Action, reaction, over-reaction: There I was, googling away on Chris Leben and homicide.

This is what I found.

First of all, I have added an expression to my repertoire! Apparently, in MMA commentary, winning "by murder" is not a bad way to win, and usually does not involve leaving anything in the hands of the judges. In fact, the image that sticks in my visual cortex is a rude ground and pound, with lots of "short elbows" and "hammer fists" (I will never be able to get rid of the sound of Matt Serra when he was cornering fighters on TUF -- elbows/hammerfists, "you can do it all day long..." and "we're breathing, we're breathing...")

Outside of winning an MMA match by means of murder, the only recent allusions to the imposition of death comes from the sad news that Justin Levens has apparently murdered his wife and then killed himself.

(Levens -- Leben -- imagine hearing it on the radio or bleeping from a television... imagine kind of expecting to hear something along these lines... about LEBEN. You might end up on a weird blog trying to find a reliable police report midst a bunch of virtual kitsch.)

So... it is a matter of Levens. It is a matter of his wife, Sarah McLean-Levens, presumably killed by her husband's hands.

Allegedly, presumably, probably. And the immediate impulse is to hypothesize 'roid rage. He was known to have a problem with prescription pain killers, which were apparently found in large quantities at the scene and at their home. That would certainly resonate with crazed behavior -- but the search for anabolic steroids is on.

I am glad it wasn't Chris Leben and sorry that it had to be anyone. The fact, though, that anonymous people, unknown to one another, had no trouble imagining it to be Chris Leben? Well, he may want to consider why that is, and what he can do to squash any further unfortunate Google search terms.

Chris Leben

Shoot. I had hoped that Leben finally had his act together. Now I understand how he managed to look so chiseled in his fight against Bisping.

He's been suspended for nine months after testing positive for the steroid Stanozolol.