Shaq carrying Bill Gates like a baby
How have I never seen this photo before?
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. ❤️
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
kottke.org posts about Shaquille O’Neal
The Shaq baby boom
When Shaquille O’Neal entered the NBA in 1992 after starring at LSU, people had already begun naming their children after him. 20-something years later, some of those kids are starting to play college basketball themselves. Ken Pomeroy is tracking the Shaq babies as they show up in their schools’ line-ups and offers a look at the future of children named after NBA stars.
We can never know those reasons for sure, but we can say that since 1997, Kobe has been the name of choice for parents opting to name their children after basketball players. (Lebron has yet to crack the top 1000.) From this we can be confident we’ll see the first-ever college basketball player named Kobe sometime in the 2016 to 2018 seasons. And while the supply of Shaqs will peter out right quick, Kobe’s name will be appearing on college basketball rosters well into the 2030’s. Kobe Bryant may have skipped college, but Kobe will be playing college basketball for many, many, many years to come.
Bad celebrity tippers
Parsing a handful of different bad celebrity tipper lists, the folks at Short Order create a top 10 list of celebs who must have never worked in the service industry. Madonna, celebrating her 53rd birthday today, is #2. From what I could tell, here are the lists they used (Caution: Here be slide shows):Glamorati, The Frisky, Stained Apron, Zimbio, and Love to Know.
All this reminded me of the story of Shaq leaving $160 for a $20 tab, then ordering a Sprite on his way out and paying $40 for it. This is also the story where Shaq was talking about the people from Twitteronia.
Shaq retires!
Whoa, I think Shaquille O’Neal just announced his retirement on Twitter:
im retiring Video: http://bit.ly/kvLtE3 #ShaqRetires
A look back at the Magic (and Lakers and Celtics and Cavs and Heat and Suns and Fighting Tigers):
Shaq: the big art curator
Shaquille O’Neal curated an art exhibition that opened this weekend at Flag Art Foundation in Chelsea.
Do you ever get time to visit museums?
I used to go a lot with my kids. Donald Trump is a great friend, and he has four or five Picassos on his plane. And that’s where I would look at them. One time, I was at a museum and tried touching a Picasso. You break it, you buy it, they said. I was told it would cost $2 million.
Stay Connected