BREAKING NEWS: (Another) Arena Press Conference this morning

Invester/Savior Chris Hansen meets Seattle's last three Sonics fans. (Photo: Joshua Trujillo/seattlepi.com)

Only in Seattle could there be this much excitement about a "memorandum of understanding". (And only in Seattle could there BE something called a "memorandum of understanding"--way to commit, guys!)


From the Seattle Times:

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, County Executive Dow Constantine and hedge-fund manager Chris Hansen are scheduled this morning to announce details on two agreements between Seattle, King County and ArenaCo on financing a new, $490 million sports arena in Sodo.

City and county officials met late Tuesday in McGinn's City Hall office to finalize what Sung Yang, Constantine's chief of staff, characterized as a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that would be sent to the councils.

Hansen and city and county leaders initially proposed a memorandum of understanding to detail how the city and county would issue the construction bonds and how the investment group, led by Hansen, would repay them. A MOU would be less binding than an ordinance and potentially less of a guarantee of taxpayer financial commitment.

 According to KING 5 the press conference will be at 10:30 this morning.

The Enemy of my Enemy is . . . my Enemy?

I hate the Lakers.

Always have, always will. Whenever I see Dyan Cannon and all the other phony-baloney "fans" at the Forum, I get an overwhelming urge to stab them in the sunglasses. And don't get me started on the wanna-be Lakers fans who would show up at Sonics games wearing Kobe jerseys. What kind of sick bastard would do that?!

 But here I am, a man without a team, long divorced from the ups and downs of the NBA, slowly getting pulled back into the heat of PLAYOFF FEVER by, of all things, the Lakers.

You see, those filthy, rotten Lakers are playing the only team in all of sports that are even more filthy and rotten than they are: The Team That Shall Not Be Named. The Oklahoma . . . ghuhhhhhhh. I can't even write it. Let's just call them . . . Those Guys.

It was bad enough to steal our team (and recently, our history). Now these villainous cretins are forcing me to root for a team that I've hated since I was a child.

 There are probably some old-time Sonics fans that think we should cheer for the You Know Who. After all, we drafted a few of them, and, well, they're playing the LAKERS for God's sake! Well, these people are idiots.

Anyone who would ever root for . . . THEM . . . is not a Sonics fan. A true Sonics fan would root for a team of Hitlers over Those Guys.

Which is exactly what I'm doing. I'm rooting for a bully. I'm cheering for Satan. I'm . . . (shudder) . . . a Lakers fan.

 I want the Lakers to win every game by 2000 points. I want . . . that other team . . . to sob openly on the court and then hurl themselves en masse off the nearest bridge which, hopefully, happens to be over a lake of fire. I want them permanently erased from the NBA record books. Then I want the record books to be burned, just to be safe.

I want all of this to happen. And then I want the Lakers to get swept in the next round.

Just When You Thought You Couldn't Hate Howie Any More

Unbelievable article up right now detailing the final despairing days of a Sonic employee. The money quote:

I didn't see how we'd get an arena deal led by men who couldn't conceive of it as anything but a rich man's boondoggle, perpetrated on behalf of other rich people. Average people would shoulder the costs of making sure that the Puget Sound's affluent—suits at Boeing, executives at Microsoft—could be coddled at a sporting event that average people would no longer be able to afford to attend. 

 See the rest at Deadspin. No, really, see the rest at Deadpin, like, right now. Story by Jeremy Repanich.