Random Friday Thoughts: King James and Divorce

King of Spain - The Tallest Man On Earth (mp3)

The Day LeBron Jumped the Shark

ESPN has announced it's next hour-long celebrity athlete special, which they are going to make into a reality series. Each week, one athlete will make a "crucial life decision" after an hour of bad Spinal Tap-esque docudrama and generated hype.

Next week, it's Peyton Manning. He will take an hour to decide whether he will continue to touch himself with his throwing hand or retrain his masturbatory tendencies using his much safer -- but less familiar -- left hand. Others in the planned series include:

• Terrell Owens -- an hour to decide whether anyone gives a crap about him anymore (sponsored by Mello Yello!);
• Michael Vick -- an hour to decide whether to pet or kick a dog (sponsored by Purina!);
• Phil Mickelson -- an hour to decide whether to lose weight (sponsored by NutriSystem!);

It's my understanding -- and my Facebook stream will back this up -- that a large number of people actually wasted an hour of their lives waiting to find out what LeBron James planned to do next year in the NBA. As best I can tell, when I found this out via Facebook last night at 11:45, I was no farther behind these people on any level of intelligence or knowledge. The only difference is, while they wasted an hour watching this ESPN special, I watched... the startling conclusion of Shark Boy and LavaGirl with my daughters.

My point is only this. Anyone capable of sitting through 15 minutes of commercials for the pleasure of knowing what LeBron James will do several months from now -- anyone capable of watching multiple hours of NBA or NFL draft programs, for that matter -- really shouldn't insult Americans who watch the World Cup. The "soccer is boring" argument doesn't work very well after three hours of seeing who the Seattle Seahawks picked in the 3rd Round, or after you've waited breathlessly to find out how Peyton hopes to pleasure himself in the future.

The Big D... And We Ain't Talking DEFENSE

While I'm very happy that The Atlantic has paved the way for austere and in-depth magazines to churn out a profit without selling too much of their souls, I can't deny a place in my heart for The Daily Beast, which manages to mix the best and worst parts of actual newspapers and tabloids into a single saucy site.

Lately, the site has come out with several intriguing articles about divorce and behaviors or events that help to predict the likelihood that a ball and chain will soon tear asunder.

Here's the latest, by Anneli Rufus. It explores "15 Signs You'll Get Divorced," including the fact that having two daughters instead of two sons increases the likelihood of divorce from 36 to 43 percent, and that anyone who ever lived with someone with whom they're not married is more than twice as likely to divorce as someone who never cohabited pre-nuptials.

Ms. Rufus came out with a similar interesting write-up a while back, offering correlations and stats along the same lines. This one includes stats like: If you live in a red state, your marriage is 27-percent more likely to fail than a marriage in a blue state. And: Two married smokers are much more likely to stay married than a non-smoker to a smoker... and you might be surprised just how much the chances increase! Lesson: Don't quit unless you can quit together.

Finally, they had an article about how VISA allegedly (VISA denies it) tracks purchasing and charging habits in order to better predict a couple's likelihood of divorce, as those going through divorces are much more likely to go into debt and fail to make payments.

These articles are not, like, Cosmo articles or erectile dysfunction drugs that promise you a better sex life. They're not proclaiming that they can predict the security of your own marriage. It's just numbers. Twisted, sick fun numbers that offer a glimpse at some things that, at the very least, can raise the stress factors in a marriage. If we're all going to engage in the private (or gossipy) act of predicting the survival rates of other marriages -- and c'mon, you know you do this, too -- you might as well be equipped with the best information possible.

"King of Spain" is from the Pitchfork Music Sampler, a sampler collection of songs that cool people who belong to eMusic can download for free!