Cross-posted at Sactown Royalty...

Five games into the season should be enough for anyone to do some instant analysis, right? I mean, seriously... with teams having played 6 to 7 percent of the entire 82-game schedule, we can already see what's directly in front of us: that the world powers of the NBA, the LA Clippers and Atlanta Hawks, are going to run away with their respective conference championships, and we might as well polish up the league scoring trophy for Allen Iverson.

With this level of dramatic, thoughtful insight, we get a snarky column from ESPN.com's John Hollinger, who eagerly tells us about ten players who early in the season are a blight on their respective franchises. Among his ten nominees? None other than Ron Artest, Peja Stojakovic, and Chris Webber.

Without abusing copyright rules, here's a snippet of his brilliance:

Re: Artest

Ron Artest, Kings: The Kings are off to a very solid start, so it's really unfortunate that Artest is going to kill it with his selfish play.

This, of course, with Kevin Martin averaging 23.4 points per game, 15th best in the league (and an overachiever, according to Hollinger). Hollinger also piles on by calling Ron-Ron "crazy". Nice investigative reporting there, John. Way to put the brother down.

To misquote "crazy" Ron-Ron:

John Hollinger, up on ESPN. You look like a girl, put down that pen.

Listening to ''Glaze'', by Arctic Quest (Play Count: 1)

This evening, my wife came home from Safeway after a quick stop, and upon unpacking the groceries, she was surprised to find a carton of chocolate-covered mint Oreo cookies. But she didn't remember paying for them, and our guess is that they probably were purchased by the shopper who had been ahead of her in line, but somehow put in her bag by one of the store clerks. Looking at the receipt confirms she wasn't charged.

So - the question is, should we return the box to the store? Do the cookies belong to us? Did she inadvertently shoplift without knowing? Should I feel guilty that I already ate one?

Yummy!

Listening to ''The Darkest Star'', by Depeche Mode (Play Count: 13)

Last night, I made a comment on GigaOM's report covering Microsoft Zune, where I said my experience that contrary to some media's findings, my iPod was filled with legally purchased songs, not instead from illegal peer to peer downloads. This led to a strong jump in traffic to the site today, from visitors perusing the online copy of my iTunes library, to see the 1,200 or so songs I claimed to have purchased from Apple's iTunes Music Store in the three-plus years since it arrived on the scene.

Now, that count is up a full hundred, to 1,348 items, thanks to a discovery of two 50-track trance sets on iTunes that sell for the standard price of $9.99 an album. Having sampled a few of the tracks, and finding them to my liking, I purchased both albums, and having been parted of less than $20, I now have 14 hours of new trance music to go through - at one-fifth of Apple's usual price per song (99 cents).

Typically, compilation albums from artists I've never heard of don't turn out so well, but if purchased at a record store, I'd likely be parting with $19.99 for maybe 15-20 tracks, not a full 100, and I'd still have to have the CD and album cover lying around, even if I didn't like the songs. With iTunes, I can just delete a song that cost me all of 20 cents if I don't like it - and that's a good thing.

To check out the latest tunes I'll be diving into over the next few weeks, try the following links to the iTunes Music Store:

50 Trance Tunes, Vol. 1 | 50 Trance Tunes, Vol. 2

The state of northern California sports teams is in serious flux right now.

Tuesday night, two controversial ballot measures that would have paved the way for the Sacramento Kings to stay in Sacramento, while moving out of Arco Arena, went down to defeat in flames, by approximately 80 percent against compared to 20 percent for. A few weeks ago, when I had joked the Kings had no better than a 25% chance of staying in Sacramento long-term, the editor of Sactown Royalty guessed that I was not in fact too pessimistic, but instead, too optimistic. He felt the Kings ownership was more intent to move the team out of the area to any number of suitors - from Las Vegas, to Anaheim, or even nearby San Jose.

As previously mentioned, with the South Bay's population and influence growing, that region is becoming a big target for potential franchises to set up shop. After many rumors, the Oakland A's are almost certainly preparing to move to Fremont, as close as they can get to San Jose without finding a horse's head in their collective bed, courtesy of the San Francisco Giants. News today states that A's owner Lewis Wolff met with the Fremont City Council and introduced to them the plan to build a $400 million ballpark, tentatively to be named Cisco Field, after the Silicon Valley networking giant.

Just as that news settles, we learn that the San Francisco 49ers are themselves looking to move south, with the team having named Santa Clara as a potential destination. According to the Associated Press, "Owner John York notified Mayor Gavin Newsom of the team's decision earlier (today of plans to leave San Francisco)."

Living in Sunnyvale, we aren't putting up much of a fuss if all these teams are planning to play in our backyard. We aren't the stark traditionalists that some are, and it will significantly cut down on our commuting time, especially to see the A's, if they were to take roost nearby. It should be interesting to see how each of these individual stories unfolds.

Listening to ''Intensify'', by Pete Tong (Play Count: 6)