Is your daily consumption of 12-pack upon 12-pack of Coca-Cola holding you back from your fitness goals? For you, Coke is introducing eight-packs of new 7.5 ounce "mini cans." Only 90 empty calories each! As doctors and fitness professionals always say, "Consuming your corn syrup-laden swill in more frequent, smaller servings throughout the day as you sit motionless in a chair gazing at a computer screen and allowing your ever-deteriorating posture to further crumble is preferable to guzzling it all in one serving directly from a two-liter bottle, except by economic standards, or nutritional ones."

But Coca-Cola alone won't make you a champion. You also need a certain kind of perfume. And don't bother to cool down after your workout. That would require you to work out.

American soda abdominal dominance!
[Pic via]

Of course not (racist). You can trace Barack Obama's basketball style directly back to one man and one man only:

Sure, we always suspected that Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen were psycho gunslingers, but this seems a bit extreme. Gisele reportedly had an exclusive photo deal with some Brazilian magazine; when the couple's bodyguards caught the two photographers trying to take photos from a neighbor's land, they brought them back to the house, where they were "screamed" at by Brady's friends and bodyguards. When they finally left and drove away, they say, this happened:

As the lensman drove away, Aviles said he spotted one of Brady's men pull a pistol.

Seconds later, a bullet shattered the back of Cortez's SUV, struck a front windshield wiper and then bounced back into the cabin, landing in between the terrified shutterbugs.

"I thought this was going to be my last job," Aviles said.

The fotogs said they found a .38-caliber slug in their SUV's front cabin.

NOT COOL. Yuri Cortez is reportedly a stringer for AFP, and that's really, you know, not generally acceptable. Shooting at news photographers. The bigger issue here: is the magazine world this competitive now, that photo exclusives must be protected with handguns? Shall we expect OK! magazine to hire Blackwater in the near future? Or have they already?

Given that Tom Brady plays for Boston, this was probably inevitable. [NYP, INF Daily. Pic, by Yuri Cortez of the AFP, via Getty]

That's right, it means that Debbie Phelps gave ($$$$OLD???) the exclusive first excerpt of her book to the same outlet that broke the story of her son's bong-hitting ways! There's an excerpt of her book on Harper Collins' website, but it doesn't contain these juicy bits that the gossip rag got about the BONG SCANDAL:

Debbie was "not happy" about his "disappointing, uncharacteristic behavior," she writes.

Wowza. And what about that DUI Michael got?

"He actually had tried to get someone else to drive after he had a few drinks," Debbie reveals. "Apparently someone in the crowd made a crack about not giving the keys to his brand-new Range Rover to someone else."

It's like when we made a crack to Debbie about giving her book excerpt to Star! You have to watch what you say. [Star]

*In South Carolina. Click to watch Cheech McWeedy spill.

"Blah blah China China China (repeat 87 times) support love regret blah blah," says Phelps. His revenge: he is totally blazed out of his gourd in this video.

This marijuana scandal is the biggest story to hit South Carolina since Reconstruction, so naturally the state's largest paper is on the case—bringing you inside the college frat party where Phelps met his fate:

The game that Monday night in November was high-stakes "beer pong," a drinking game in which players lob Ping-Pong balls into plastic cups.

Michael Phelps was betting big - and losing.

"I saw Phelps pull out a roll, a bank-wrapped $2,000," said Michael Whitworth, who had been invited to a house near Five Points after his band played a show at 5 Points Pub (now Sudworks Taphouse).

"He said, ‘I'll match the $2,000,'" Whitworth continued, referring to Phelps. "Good ol' Phelpsie lost it, too."

Haha. Dude. Really. You lost $2k playing beer pong? Also, did this kid really say, quote, "Good ol' Phelpsie?" So many things in South Carolina are hard to believe. The paper, after much investigating, does not succeed in ID'ing the photographer of the famous photo. But it does succeed in proving that despite being an internationally famous millionaire Olympic champion, Michael Phelps still only feels confident in his ability to pull drunk college girls:

Tyson Sellers, a USC student who was at the Blossom Street house later in the week, wanted to take a photo of Phelps.

The Olympian declined, saying he couldn't be photographed while drinking. But Phelps did agree to speak to Sellers' mother - a big fan of his - on the phone.

When Sellers was at the house, he said, he didn't see any marijuana smoking, but said Phelps had "a lot of girls around him."

Although the alternative is, he goes Hollywood and fucks Paris Hilton and does lots of coke and hangs out with Ashton Kutcher. So we hesitate to tell him to get "cooler" friends. [TheState.com; Pic via Star]

The sandwich chain is yanking Phelps off its website. He's no longer "buzzworthy," ironically. Current and cached screen grabs:

The company hasn't made any announcements yet, but according to Buzznewsroom:

However, in de-linking all references to Michael Phelps, this is Subway corporate as they prepare for dropping their sponsorship. Our insider told us Subway execs are pissed off, talking to legal, want their endorsement money returned - and to "get rid of this embarrassment."

Also ironic: Phelps signed on with Subway last November, partly to shake off the bad PR he got for signing up with McDonald's and Kellogg, which people said weren't healthy. (All those people were probably smoking weed). The deal was supposed to extend through 2012. But now it looks like that Jared-Phelps coalition will never come together.

Fools. Taco Bell is open later, anyhow.

Let us demonstrate just what Subway's missing out on (courtesy Gawker video artiste Richard Blakeley):

Update: Perhaps Subway has taken our advice. While Phelps still isn't listed as one of their "Buzzworthy" celebs (leaving whoever Ryan Howard is as their top spokesthlete) they issued this statement: "Like most Americans, and like Michael Phelps himself, we were disappointed in his behavior. Also like most Americans, we accept his apology. Moving forward, he remains in our plans." Feel free to use our redesigned page when you reinstate Phelps, Subway.

Phelps apologized for his actions, just like he did after being arrested for driving drunk following the 2004 Athens games, right down to the part where he said "it will not happen again." It seems to be working, so far at least. Here's a rundown of Phelps' sponsors, and their positions on the incident:

• Speedo - Sticking with him ("we know that Michael truly regrets his actions")
• Omega - sticking with him ("involves Michael Phelps's private life and is, as far as Omega is concerned, a nonissue" — the Swiss are awesome)
• Subway - "monitoring the situation," like it's some kind of ballistic missile attack, sources told the Wall Street Journal
• Visa - no word
• Kellogg - no word
• Nike - no word

A sports communications expert told AP that Phelps can't be seen with demon reefer ever again:

"My prediction would be that this will pass," he said with caution. "If it does happen again, it'll be twice the story and it will hurt him."

That's right, Michael: No marijuana, ever again.

Unless you win a bunch of Olympic medals a THIRD time, and then you're doing yet another bender, who are we kidding.

In the meantime, go ahead and dabble responsibly in sin, just stay away from the cameras.

First of all, let's dispense with the idea that Phelps has like totally blown his reputation and his future and all his role model endorsement monies. You know who thinks that? People like Andrea Peyser, the New York Post's own daily beast, who rounds up some branding experts to say Phelps has destroyed himself with this wanton bong-hitting. But how many Speedos is Andrea Peyser buying? Not many!

In fact, we interpret this as Phelps' attempt to break out of the Nerdy Endorsement Trap that we warned him about. He's been off hanging with Jared from Subway, which does nothing for his coolness quotient. So he's trying to establish his rock star-ness. Grabbing strippers! Trashing hotel rooms! And now, partaking of the ganja, straight from the grave of Solomon.

Of course he's not successfully breaking away from his nerdery, because he is, deep down, a nerd. But he's giving it the old college try. And if he can at least somewhat separate himself from this dreary, totally undeserved "All American Boy" reputation, he would get in far less trouble for smoking weed, which every last American, including athletes, has done anyhow, except for a few dead-enders who you would not want to model yourself after.

Finally: this guy is a swimmer. Nobody pays attention to swimmers except for when the Olympics are on, and a brief period of hype directly before and after the Olympics. So, way to keep yourself in the news, Mike. Do whatever you want until six months before the next summer Olympics, then act moderately well-behaved. You'll be fine. Try not to be a dick.

Curry is married; the woman in question, Nova Henry, is not his wife, but the mother of his 3 year-old son. She and her young daughter were found dead in her Chicago apartment. Curry's 3 year-old son was in the apartment alive, and was apparently a witness.

Police are searching for a "known acquaintance" of the woman in connection with the murder. Curry, who now plays for the New York Knicks, was in Philadelphia Saturday for a game. He was back in New York later that evening, distraught and contemplating a trip to Chicago, the source said.

Henry's mother found her daughter and granddaughter in the apartment, officials said.

After joining the NBA, Eddy Curry was found to have a potentially fatal heart problem. In 2007, masked gunmen broke into his home, tied up Curry and his family, and robbed them. This month his ex-driver sued him for millions, with shaky allegations of gay sexual harassment—and coverage of that story, by the way, almost got Newsday's editors fired, according to reports.

Eddy Curry is having much worse luck than karma would seem to call for. [Chicago Tribune]

Eddy Curry, the Knicks' 6'11 (injured) center, totally tried to put the moves on his limo driver, according to that driver, David Kuchinsky, who may or may not be just a greedy lying ex-con bastard trying to extort money from the immobile multimillionaire:

Stunning court papers charge that Curry, a married father of several kids, repeatedly approached chauffeur David Kuchinsky "in the nude," saying, "Look at me, Dave, look" and, "Come and touch it, Dave."

New York Post FTW! This is no family paper, ladies and gentlemen! May I have another, sir?

Curry, 26, also made Kuchinsky perform "humiliating tasks outside the scope of his employment, such as cleaning up and removing dirty towels [into which Curry had ejaculated] so that his wife would not see them," the Manhattan federal court suit says.

Kuchinsky, 36, who is straight and Jewish, also alleges racism, saying Curry hurled slurs at him, including "f- - - ing Jew," "cracker," "white slave," "white devil" and "grandmaster of the KKK."

Contrast this with the Daily News' positively restrained version of the story; the Post has pulled out to a wide lead on this one. As you would expect, landing as it does in the Post's newsgathering sweet spot of racist wanton athlete penis allegations. Low 'Post' For Ho Jokes? Raper Paper Loving Knick Dick Caper!

Curry says it's all false. [NYP]

"Frequently, sources said, [Dykstra] got staff to use their own credit cards to pay for expenses related to the magazine, and took months to reimburse the employees.

Although the magazine is less than a year old, it has already had four different printers and three different editors. Several vendors have also stopped doing business with the magazine."

Just like real media outlets! Also the editor who just quit says he's owed money, and Dykstra comically turned the tables by saying, no, that guy owes me money, for some reason. Still smooth as a can of Skoal. [NYP; pic via]

Avery, the prettiest thug since Fabolous, was living large with his new four-year, $15.5 million contract with Dallas. But now the team has dumped his ass, because he couldn't be a team player. When it comes to dating actresses:

Hockey cad Sean Avery was dumped by the Dallas Stars yesterday after teammates said they didn't want to skate with the trash-talking goon.

The former Ranger had been scheduled to return to action last night after serving a six-game suspension for his remarks about players "falling in love with my sloppy seconds" - a dig at Flames defenseman Dion Phaneuf, who is dating "24" actress and Avery ex Elisha Cuthbert.

He'll inevitably end up at the hockey equivalent of the Oakland Raiders, whatever that is. [NYP; pic via]

Before he earned his eight gold medals and became a global celebrity at the Beijing Olympics, Mr. Phelps and three teammates agreed to endorse PureSport, a protein mix made by a tiny Austin, Texas, company that didn't exist three years ago...

The foursome, introduced to the company while training in Austin last year, took a 5% stake in exchange for their endorsements

So now, in exchange for 1.7% of nothing and all the sugar-and-whey mix he can guzzle, Michael Phelps is obliged to plaster his face all over this product's packaging, and be dragged around the country to various promo events seven days a year, where hopefully he at least gets mad chicks. [WSJ]

"Fidgeting in the area of the waistline" is the new "Protecting your family." [The Smoking Gun. Get well soon, Plaxico.]

"The difference is that Michael Jordan only played in one brand of shoes, while Michael [Phelps] has consistently been forthcoming about his love for a variety of different foods and a variety of different quick-service restaurants," [Phelps' agent] said. "There was tremendous interest in that category well beyond McDonald's and Subway."

You hear that, McD's? Michael Phelps will endorse as many fucking fast food companies as he wants! The strong upside for Phelps is that he can now firmly claim to be endorsing a healthy product. The downside: this will make his nerd problem even worse:

Mr. Pace said he could forsee a commercial with pitchman Jared Fogle and Mr. Phelps together, one with a healthful foot-long and the other with several foot-long sandwiches. "And Michael might say, 'I need to eat more than you do, Jared,' and Jared could say, 'But at least I've got you eating right.'"

God, such a nerd. Michael, your next call should be to the Trojan corporation. [Ad Age; pic via MSNBC]

“It’s not like I’m Tom Cruise or Usher walking down the street or anything like that, but it’s gotten to the point where you have to look your best when you go out,” [Pro gamer Tom] Taylor said. “I carry a Sharpie around, like Peyton Manning.”

And now, also like Peyton Manning, he's a ubiquitous face urging us to purchase more consumer products! There is in fact a "Major League Gaming" league for pro video game players. Weird.

“What’s really going on here is for tens of millions of young men, the aspiration to be a pro gamer is the new dream of sports stardom,” he said.

[Outraged reference to how such a thing did not exist when I was playing Nintendo]. The stunning implication here: in the near future, athletes could become nerds. Computer geeks: prepare for payback. [NYT; pic via]