In one of the better “Boys will be boys” stories of this early sports year, New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony reportedly took offense to something that Boston Celtics forward Kevin Garnett said to him during Boston’s 102-96 victory on Monday night. According to various websites, Garnett supposedly told Anthony that his wife and decision-maker, La La Vasquez-Anthony, “tasted like Honey Nut Cheerios”. Honestly, I don’t really know how that’s an insult, because it mostly just reminds me of Patrice O’Neal’s birthday cake joke (watch “Elephant in the Room” if you’re unfamiliar).

Now, if I had to guess, Garnett has never had sex with Anthony’s wife. Maybe he has, and therefore is qualified to make such a statement, but this is probably just an example of what the kids call “trash talk”. However, some people believe that this sort of trash talk crosses a line, including Anthony, who waited for Garnett by the Celtics team bus so they could settle this like men. After all, you can take the millionaire professional athlete out of Brooklyn, but you can’t take the Brooklyn out of the corporate product spokesperson.

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Forbes magazine today released their annual The World’s Most Powerful Celebrities, a top 100 list that ranks stars based on press coverage, social media buzz and whose agents paid Forbes the most money to put them on a list. At the top of this year’s 100: Jennifer Lopez, who was settling nicely into obscurity as that lady on Eric Cartman’s hand in an old episode of ‘South Park’ before ‘American Idol’ rocketed her back to prominence. Former American Idol winner Taylor Hicks also made the list, coming in at number 4,544,022 between Burnsy and the golden voiced homeless guy.

Tiger Woods managed to hang on as this year’s highest ranking sports celebrity, coming it at number 12. The only other sports guy in the top 25 was LeBron James at number 15, despite Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal coming it at numbers 2 and 3 in “Press Rank” behind Lady Gaga. I don’t know how much of this list is based on math and how much of it is based on people at Forbes trying to name 100 celebrities, so bear with me.

Here’s a full list of the sports personalities who ranked this year:

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Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic and Argentine footballer Lionel Messi are among the sports stars named on Time magazine’s “The 100 Most Influential People In The World” for 2012, listed alongside such world-shapers as Burmese President U Thein Sein, public health statistician Hans Rosling and the red-haired lady who isn’t Emma Stone from The Help.

Of course, no list of ANYTHING written in 2012 can be compiled without including New York Jets quarterback/Easter Bunny Tim Tebow, and because the list was probably put together in February it also includes Jeremy Lin. Remember when Jeremy Lin was a thing?

Lin had his entry written by Arne Duncan, the U.S. Secretary of Education (it’s just “Jeremy Lin likes to WIN”, you don’t need to read it). Tebow, oddly enough, had his entry written by Jeremy Lin.

Here’s Lin’s work, with an introductory paragraph that establishes themes and makes you wish he’d chosen to be an English major.

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Get some, Pele.

Last we checked in on international pop superstar Shakira, she was dumping her no-good soccer star boyfriend, Gerard Piqué, because he allegedly couldn’t stop putting his balls in other girls’ nets. But it turns out that Shakira’s not only ridiculously talented and attractive, but she’s quite forgiving, too. At least that’s what I’m taking away from the fact that she attended last night’s FIFA Soccer Awards at the Kongresshaus in Zurich with Piqué. Oh, and she also hosted the ceremony, so that may explain why she was there, too.

Regardless, Shakira was on hand to present Argentina’s Lionel Messi with his third Ballon d’Or football award, and Japan’s Homare Sawa with the Player of the Year award, as her team shocked the world by winning the Women’s World Cup. I would have given the award to Alex Morgan, in case she’s reading this and wants me to brush her hair later tonight.

Other soccer players like Wayne Rooney also won awards, but I’m just going to pretend that the entire event looked like this…

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Charlie Sheen made a few headlines when he picked up over a million followers in his first day on Twitter. Hollywood’s curious curator of tiger blood now sits just shy of 3.8 million followers. But Lionel Messi, in his own special way, has blown Sheen out of the water. In just 9 hours on Facebook, the wily Argentine (and arguably the greatest soccer player on planet Earth) has picked up over 6.7 million fans. So who’s winning more?

Granted, the “Likes” on facebook are probably easier to come by than Twitter followers; Facebook has about 600 million member profiles compared to about 200 million profiles on Twitter. And Messi’s following is worldwide, and I wonder if “Two And A Half Men” has any sort of following in Spain (it does air in syndication there, apparently, as “Dos hombres y medio”).

It helps that Messi adds entries to his page in both Spanish and English, and that his worldwide following would almost certainly eclipse that of Sheen’s. But regardless of the platform, gaining nearly a million followers an hour is pretty cool. But you know what’s really cool? A billion followers an hour, but you could only do that for…like, seven hours.

Thanks, Quickish, for the heads-up.

Leo Messi, for those of you who don't know, is a young soccer player who is basically the second coming of Christ in Argentina.  Or the second coming of Diego Maradona, which is the same thing as "Christ in Argentina," but with a coke habit that would put the '86 Mets to shame.

And now women are hurling themselves out of the stands for a chance to hug him.  Chicks powerless to his sex appeal, compelled by irresistible hormones to endanger themselves for a chance to touch a walking, tick-tocking sex bomb.  Welcome to my world, Leo.  I moved to Brooklyn just because there were too many tall buildings in Manhattan.  I care about the ladies' safety.

(Muchas gracias: The Offside)