"Blow to World Peace"

So I'm walking and I'm not feeling that great (everyone's at least a little sick around now). I spit down into a storm drain. This makes me thinking about things falling down there that you don't want to lose. For example, a super-ball (small bouncy ball). This gets me thinking about hurling a super-ball at the ground to make it go as high as possible. This gets me thinking about how any throw I make will inevitably be at too much of an angle, limiting its max height. And THIS gets me thinking about some ball launching device that aims the ball straight at the ground then opens up enough for the ball to bounce back up and through to the air. I follow the imaginary trajectory (sp?) of the ball up, and stop at a bright heavenly body in the sky. For a second I convinced myself that there was my ball hanging up before me.

Just an odd coincidence.

Okay, so you have to hear about this! So there's this basketball player that legally changed his name to "Metta World Peace" (Metta is apparently a Buddhist term for "love and kindness to all") to sort of combat his reputation as the new Dennis Rodman. Apparently he's been doing a pretty good job, until he slashed his elbow at a guy. He says he was celebrating a basket and it was an accident, but even World Peace acknowledges that it looks really bad on camera.

His first name was Ron Artest. I say first, even though the temptation is to say "real name". But he legally changed his name, this isn't some secret identity, or stage persona, right? But the thing is, this paper in front of me still tells me the guys first name, so really, CAN one change ones name? Esepecially for a public figure, your story follows you wherever you go.

I think this is interesting.

Plus, I mean, come on: World Peace gets in trouble for violence. World Peace gets an 86-game suspension for instigating a brawl in 2004. That last one is also real, though it may have happened before the guy changed his name.