In my world, Ludacris is a dazzling supernova of a star whose every public move demands intense scrutiny, whereas Matt Lauer is someone whose name I think I heard one time who is maybe on TV or something. Memorial Day is good for learning how out of step with the actual world I am. On yesterday's Ellen show (great for hangovers!), Matt Lauer got about 4 times the screen time that Luda did (and walked out to "Whatta Man" before Luda walked out to "Yeah!" - not even his part of it, WTF). Luda was very businesslike-charming, and Ellen got to uncomfortably gush about what a big fan she was. The whole thing reminded me of seeing circa-Anaconda Ice Cube on the David Letterman show in high school, when Cube said he liked South America but he'd rather be in South Central and Dave said: "Heh heh [long pause], yeah." I wonder about white people sometimes.

Shawn Marion is playing like someone payed him to not play. In an impossibly tough series against a team that plays like evil superintelligent basketball robots, every Phoenix Sun is stepping his game up except Marion. Even Jim Jackson is reliably hitting threes. But all Marion can manage to contribute is anguished facial expressions that ABC sports montage editors just love. Every time they passed the ball to Marion last night, I wanted to scream at my TV. Dear Shawn Marion: Please stop sucking. Love, Tom.

Yesterday, we locked the keys in the car on a particularly desolate block of Baltimore's downtown business district. Sometime during the second half of the two-hour wait for the lock guy, a visibly drunk homeless guy came up to us and told us that he used to steal cars all the time before he found Jesus and he could absolutely help us. He left and came back twenty minutes later with a coathanger, and three random strangers crowded around to offer him tips during his ultimately failed attempts at opening the door. They don't call it Charm City for no reason.