Good week for:
Level playing fields, after the NBA banned a sneaker made by Athletic Propulsion Labs because its “spring-loaded propulsion system” supposedly adds 3.5 inches to a player’s vertical leap.
Seekers, Beaters, Chasers, and Keepers, after Purdue University announced it is hosting a Quidditch tournament—the sport invented by author J.K. Rowling for the Harry Potter series. Rather than fly around on brooms, players from nine colleges will run around on a field with brooms tucked between their legs.
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Michael Jackson, who was named the world’s top-earning dead celebrity this year by Forbes magazine, with $275 million in music and movie revenues—more than Lady Gaga, Madonna, and Jay-Z combined earned last year while alive.
Bad week for:
Charlie Sheen, after police said the actor went on a cocaine- and alcohol-fueled binge and trashed his New York City hotel room, while a female “escort” hid in the bathroom. “Charlie had an allergic reaction to some medication,” said Sheen’s agent.
Reducing the size of government, now that Denver will vote on an initiative to establish a seven-member “Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission” to handle “potential encounters or interactions with extraterrestrial intelligent beings or their vehicles.”
Everyone who bought one of those 2012 books, after new research found an error in the conversion of Mayan to modern calendars, and that the “end of days” predicted by the Mayan calendar is not Dec. 21, 2012, but may be 50 to 100 years later.
