A few idiotic musician stories that I head over the weekend.

Axl Rose is finally going to release Chinese Democracy (and I'm sure it won't be half as good as local boy Steve Poltz' Chinese Vacation from a few years back).

So, Dr. Pepper had to pony up and buy everyone a bottle. You see, they made some statement that if the GnR record was released this year, they'd buy everyone a Dr. Pepper.

I heard that to get the 20 oz drink, you have to go to their website (after the CD is really released), and fill out info and wait for the coupon to be sent.

I'm going to say right here, anybody that does this has way too much time on their hands.

Dr. Pepper is my favorite drink, and I wouldn't do that for two 6-packs of the stuff.

And, I hate when a company does something like this and everyone in the media acts like they're so generous. C'mon. The amount of PR they are going to get out of this little stunt....

Now, what should happen, is Super Cuts should release a statement, saying "If Axl Rose still has that goofy hairstyle, with his hair in cornrows...looking like Bo Derek in 10, or rapper Xzibit, we will give him a free haircut, along with anyone in the U.S. that also has a crappy hairstyle. This includes mullets and mohawks."

The other singer I heard about was Beyonce Knowles. She apparently changed her name to.......(drum roll please)......

Ocho Cinco!!!

Oh wait, that's someone else.

She has chosen to go with "Sasha Fierce." She told a few reporters it was more "glamorous" and "who I really am."

Hey...doesn't Borat already have dibs on that name? Or something similar? What was wrong with the name she used in Goldmember (something like Foxy Cleopatra, or some play on Foxy Brown).

Now, Beyonce is kind of a lame name. But she was already known by that. Why muck around with success and name recognition?

I never cared for her. She spouted off to anyone that would listen, that she was a Christian. Yet, she was dating (and I'm assuming), sleeping with rapper Jay-Z (who is, perhaps, one of the ugliest guys in rap...especially when he tries to make that hard-core face).

I think she has a good voice, but her songs don't do much for me.

We'll see what kind of success she has with the name change.

Will she rise to the success that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had after shedding Lew Alcindor? Or the ring success Muhammid Ali got when he dropped Cassius Clay (now really, if you're a boxer, you gotta keep a name like that).

Or, will she slide downhill, like George Castanza, who wanted the name T-Bone.