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This is why I love my job. During the afternoon, we're killing time in the media center like the sports geeks we are, discussing favorite hot babes and Googling their images.
Four hours later, I'm interviewing one of the aforementioned babes.
Thank you, ESPN The Magazine, for squeezing me into your star-studded bash in Miami's design district.
And thank you, ex-Colt Antoine Bethea, for missing your date with William Perry in something called the Benihana Grill Off at ESPN The Magazine's NEXT Big Block Party, opening the door for Stacy Keibler to step in. Yes, Stacy Keibler. Say it like Homer Simpson says "donuts," and you'll begin to understand the deep impact this has had on my
life.
Ms. Keibler, for the woefully uninformed, is about 6 feet of blonde goddess who first found fame in wrestling, then found fame outside the trailer park on "Dancing With the Stars."
Unlike "Dancing," where she was robbed of her rightful crown a couple of seasons ago by the evil Drew Lachey voting block, Keibler mopped up the floor with the Fridge, who explained it away by saying, "She's a woman."
Stacy, wearing a Benihana smock that nearly covered her entire dress, responded with, "He's such a big eater, he should have been able to kill in there."
Earlier, she'd said, "I'm sweaty and hot, but aren't we all?" Yet I still kept taking notes, for you, my readers.
I know. Yes, it was difficult. But I'm a pro.
PAPARAZZBERRIES: Just because I'm in the media doesn't mean I have to like all of my brethren. To wit, one paparazzo essentially began foaming at the mouth - and not for the same reason I might have - when Keibler, doing the red carpet interview bit, doffed her cooking smock to reveal a sparkling minidress.
It seems Keibler and an earlier arrival, one with apparently more artificial assets, were wearing the same dress.
"See?" the shooter said, rolling through the images on his camera. "Stripper ... "
Roll, roll, roll.
" ... elf."
(Keibler, like the Keebler Cookie elves, get it?)
Not that the first subject was actually a stripper. Or had a name, as far as the shooter knew.
"Doesn't matter," he said. "Same dress, same event. The tabloids will buy it and run them side by side."
As impressive as that display was, it was topped moments later when Venus Williams, unlike most of the luminaries who ran the media gauntlet, passed by without posing. This inspired one photographer, whose mother must be so proud, to boo and shout out, "Venus, what happened to the (hair) weave?"
IF YOU CARE: Keibler picked the Colts, because she met Peyton Manning's family at the Kentucky Derby.
The Fridge went with, "Da Bears." Score? "By one or by 50, as long as they win."
Christian Slater, fresh off starring in - I don't know, has he made a picture since "Heathers"? - declared, "That last game the Colts played, they really earned their way in. I'm backing Manning - I'm thinking by seven points."
BRING IT ON: The Colts cheerleaders arrived en masse, but were shooed to make room for Venus too quickly for me to get the name of the one perky gal I asked about the Bears' lack of a pep squad.
"I think it looks better for us that they don't," she said. "It puts us at the center of attention."
