Balls and Tunnel

Everybody has a favorite sport, even pasty, skinny hipsters like me. For you that sport could be baseball or long-rules cricket or marathon masturbating, but for me, that sport is basketball. I grew up as a fan of the Portland Trailblazers. Despite their many flaws, such as having a logo that is utterly incongruous with the team name,

That symbol purportedly represents two five-man teams playing basketball.

or a crappy mascot,

"Blaze the Trail Cat"? Fuck you, dude.

or the fact that, at one point, the team was made up almost entirely of criminals, I have stood by them since my childhood. Part of this would undoubtedly be due to the fact that there is no other professional sports team in the entire state as well as the fact that the next closest city with pro teams was Seattle. First off, I would like to point out, fuck Seattle with a barnacle encrusted portafilter. Secondly, there was a point in my callow youth where I tried being a Mariners and Seahawks fan and all I got was a systematic dismantling of my faith in a higher power. So some thank yous are in order for that, I suppose.
But I no longer live in Portland. I live in Brooklyn, a city whose heart is still broken by the loss of their baseball team over a half century ago. No, being a sports fan doesn't make any sense. Despite the cross-continental relocation, I still make an effort to find the least annoying sports bars in the borough so I can simultaneously watch my home team and confuse the hell out of all the old guys at the bar who aren't entirely sold on the whole "there are other states west of New Jersey" thing. All is not lost, however. Many people, myself included, wait anxiously for the New Jersey Nets to make their long awaited move to BK. While NYC has a long history of dumping it's sports teams (amongst other deterius) in Jersey while maintaining the New York name, this team will be the first to sport the Brooklyn tag since the Dodgers skipped town. It has been a long, hard wait, fraught with asshole developers, bickering residents, delays in completion and communist invasion plots but make no mistake, for better or worse, Brooklyn will get it's team.

Whilst simultaneously shitting all over what used to be a nice nabe.

It appears that fading basketball star/failed rapper/failed actor/noted man of letters Shaquille O'Neill thinks this should not be so. What altruistic ideals have motivated this anthropomorphic side of beef to toss his opinion to the winds?

"I would have liked to see the new owner get with the guy who built the arena and keep the Nets [in Newark]. I don't want to see the team go to Brooklyn. Maybe the two heads can get together, they can do that and I can come down there and become general manager." -Kazaam

Ah. Selfish ideals.
Shaq, buddy, c'mere let's huddle. Um, OK so, you know how you have kinda failed at everything in life except putting a ball into a ring of metal that's all of three inches away from your outstretched arm? And also there's the whole thing about you having the communication skills of that robot from Lost in Space? And you're aware that people usually can't contractually walk away at a moment's notice from their involvement from $300 million development projects? Yeah? How about the fact that no one who has any better options on the table want's to be in Newark for even a day? Hmm? Oh, it's OK, buddy, no tears now. No tears! I'm sure some night club somewhere will be needing door staff when you retire. Or the circus might need a strongman! See? It's gonna be OK. Now run along and do a good job warming up that bench for all the other senior citizens that play for the Celtics.

Although we are stealing their basketball team from them, Jerseyans (Jerseyers? Jerseyites? Jersetarians?) are a benevolent people and their Governor, Chris Christie has seen fit to put a stop to the greatest threat Manhattan has ever known: a planned mass transit tunnel capable up to 44 million passenger trips a year from Jersey to Penn Station. This proposed breach of our carefully dug siege moat would have run a second rail line from Secaucus, NJ:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, The Garden State.

to Penn Station in midtown, thereby aiding and abetting the ungodly chorus of the damned that is Saturday night in Manhattan while simultaneously providing easy transportation alternatives to the Meadowlands that would allow New York "businessmen" an environmentally friendly option for their corpse disposal projects. In all seriousness though, we really dodged a bullet on that one.

What's that? "Hipsterpedia"? Well, shit. OK, watch this video and just imagine all the jokes I'll have come Monday.