AaronGleeman.com

• Reminder: Twins Daily is having a get-together Saturday afternoon to watch the Twins-Rays spring training game on television. I'll be there and you should too. Details here.

• They did pretty well casting the show, but seeing the other names on the original call sheet for "The Office" is very interesting. Adam Scott and Mary Lynn Rajskub as Jim and Pam would have been fun.

• Zach Lowe's article on Grantland about the next big thing in basketball analysis is fascinating.

• My pick for the best team in the American League probably won't surprise anyone.

• I saw John Mulaney at the Varsity Theater in Dinkytown last weekend and he was incredible. An hour of non-stop laughs, mostly from stories rather than one-liners, and the 500-person crowd couldn't possibly have been more charmed by him. He seamlessly mixed in some funny stuff about Minnesota, coaxed a ton of laughs out of talking to a random audience member halfway through the set, and was basically just perfect. And his opener, Carmen Lynch, was really good too.

• Lynch is coming to Acme Comedy Company this summer to headline her own show, where she'll do closer to an hour instead of the 15 minutes she did Saturday. I'm already looking forward to it. Oh, and here's a picture she took of the audience from backstage (I'm the good-looking one).

• On this week's "Gleeman and The Geek" episode we talked about Kyle Gibson's assignment to Triple-A and whether our bar-buying idea might be helped by Kickstarter.

• Speaking of using Kickstarter to fund a new bar opening, apparently it's already worked locally.

• Life is tough for Jon Hamm. Poor guy must be so whatever the opposite of embarrassed is.

• On a related note (sort of), "March Mad Men" is just a good use of the internet:

Every time I watch a video like that I can't stop thinking about how long it took someone to make.

• Old friend Pat Neshek talked about what life is like six months after losing his newborn son.

• Cory Cove, who goes mostly by "Sludge" on KFAN, won a poker tournament worth $50,000.

• Thanks to everyone who submitted mailbag questions via Twitter. Here are all the answers.

• Speaking of comedy shows I'm looking forward to attending, Erin Gibson and Bryan Safi are coming to Minnesota to do a live "Throwing Shade" podcast at Lee's Liquor Lounge on June 27. I wrote about "Throwing Shade" as part of my guide to podcasts last year. It's great, they're great, and I'll bet the live show here will be great.

• Hey guys, did you know "bloggers are where it's at"?

• Nick Offerman brought out the big guns to promote his new movie.

• Time-lapse NBA boxscores are pretty damn cool.

• What happens when a Diamondbacks minor leaguer interacts with comedian Rob Delaney on Twitter? Outing yourself as anti-gay marriage and the type of person who has to tell someone that you're unfollowing them on Twitter is quite a combo.

• I hope his one-scene cameo on "Girls" reminds everyone how great Colin Quinn is. I'd love to see a "Girls" spinoff starring Quinn and Alex Karpovsky. And maybe Amy Schumer too.

• I wrote a Royals season preview on HardballTalk and then got wonderful replies on Twitter.

• Oh man, the 80s were crazy.

• Thunderous dunks and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony are two of my favorite things, so I loved this:

Jason Terry misses his uncle Charles, basically.

• Miguel Sano was in the Twins' lineup against the Yankees last night and had two hits.

• I haven't listened yet, but I'm really hoping this new Beyonce song "Bow Down" is a Westside Connection cover.

• Alex Speier of WEEI.com wrote an interesting article about how Alex Meyer almost ended up with the Red Sox. Instead he's the Twins fifth-best prospect.

• Another look at catcher defense that doesn't show Ryan Doumit in a very good light.

• I really enjoyed Jeff Garlin's chat with Will Ferrell (and the Zach Galifianakis cameo).

• Lachlan Patterson was a great guest on this week's "Stop Podcasting Yourself" with Graham Clark and Dave Shumka, which has emerged as my favorite podcast.

• I finally saw "Zero Dark Thirty" and thought the first two hours were mostly mediocre and the last 30 minutes were excellent. My favorite part of the whole movie was Andy Dwyer playing horseshoes and my second favorite part was this face. Also, props to the casting director for going with Dwyer, Coach Taylor, Michael Dawson, Pete Eckhart, and Tony Soprano. That's some good taste in television if nothing else.

• Netflix recommendation: "The Trip" starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon.

• Some of this week's weird and random search engine queries that brought people here:

- "Craig Calcaterra Minnesota"
- "Elliptical workouts for beer drinkers"
- "Jared Burton girlfriend"
- "J.J. Hardy dyes his hair"
- "Guys wearing black socks"
- "Emmy Rossum Mets game"
- "Coach Taylor got fat in Fargo"
- "Had sex with Jack White"
- "John Bonus"
- "How much does Louis C.K. weigh?"

• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is "Pistol" by Dustin Kensrue:

• I'll have a lot more on this next week in this space and on the podcast, but the Twins signed Rich Harden to a minor-league contract.

• David Brown of Yahoo Sports created internet gold by ranking MLB's sexiest general managers and Terry Ryan fares better than you might expect.

• Mark Willis designed soccer-style jerseys for the AL East teams and I'm really wishing he'd do the same for the AL Central so I could buy a Twins "kit."

• Jeff Dubay returned to local radio this week as a guest co-host on 1500-ESPN and also did a very honest, compelling interview about his long road back with Steve Marsh of MSPMag.com.

• Samantha Micelli was one of my original crushes, so it's hard to believe Alyssa Milano turned 40 years old this week.

• Last week I mentioned the new NBC Sports/Yahoo Sports partnership and my longtime boss gave an interview laying out some of the details and plans.

• As part of his 1500-ESPN radio show with Patrick Reusse changing time slots Phil Mackey will no longer be covering the Twins as a reporter, joining Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Ben Goessling of the St. Paul Pioneer Press in leaving the beat.

• This is, without question, the craziest story of the week.

• Wade Boggs has 3,010 hits and zero rhythm.

• This week's "Gleeman and the Geek" episode features lots of Kevin Correia talk and me breaking up with John Bonnes. Finally.

• Kevin Garnett and Kevin McHale shared an amazingly emotional moment at the end of a Celtics-Rockets game:

And here's the story of what was said.

• For all their talk about wanting more strikeout pitchers the Twins keep signing pitchers who don't get any strikeouts.

• Brian McTaggart of MLB.com wrote a nice profile of Kevin Goldstein, who recently went from Baseball Prospectus writer to Astros pro scouting coordinator.

• Chubby is always funnier than ripped, but Chris Pratt's transformation was pretty amazing.

• It turns out the only thing keeping me from becoming one of Hollywood's most successful leading men is that I'm way too tall.

• As a big "30 Rock" fan this makes me sad.

• There's a reason why Peter Gammons is a Hall of Famer.

• Chris Hardwick has turned his "Nerdist" podcast into a television show, so it's only a matter of time before we do the same with "Gleeman and The Geek."

• Where does Trevor Plouffe fit into the Twins' short- and long-term plans?

• Rob Trump of The Classical put together an amusing history of the now-defunct blog "Fire Joe Morgan" and the hilarious, surprisingly famous people behind it.

• My feelings about fans calling their favorite teams "we" and "us" can be more or less summed up by this brilliant video:

Twins fans generally seem less guilty of that than Vikings fans, for whatever that's worth.

• My family apparently knows me pretty well, because I got this as a Hanukkah present.

• Bill Baer of ESPN.com wrote a good article about Joe Mauer from a non-Minnesota point of view, although as always I'd advise against venturing into the comments section.

• Former No. 1 overall pick Matt Bush will be in prison until 2016.

• "Sleepwalk With Me" is now on Netflix instant and really enjoyable, especially if you're into stand-up comedy.

• On a related note, adding foreign movies to my Netflix queue is my version of a drunk dial.

• Speaking of which, I really enjoyed the Norwegian movie "Headhunters" on Netflix instant and apparently an American version is in the works.

• Some of this week's weird and random search engine queries that brought people here:

- "Ricky Rubio neck tattoo"
- "Yuengling Minneapolis"
- "Kevin Slowey engaged"
- "Influential podcast"
- "Jeff Kent family pictures"
- "Why did Plouffe cut his hair?"
- "Value of Brian Harper autograph"
- "How much does Rene Rivera make?"
- "I weigh 350 and I'm lazy"
- "Best elbow surgeon in Minnesota"
- "Vance Worley girlfriend"

• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is Mystikal's new song "Hit Me":

This week's blog content is sponsored by Paul Bennett, an Independent Certified Financial Planner Practitioner. Discover what he can do for you at PaulMBennett.com. And please support him for supporting AG.com.

• Kevin Goldstein left Baseball Prospectus to become the Astros' pro scouting coordinator, which is all kinds of great even if it means he'll no longer be a power tweeter.

• For anyone curious, my blog-mate Craig Calcaterra described the inner workings of Hardball Talk and how our virtual office operates.

• It took nearly six years, but it's good to see that Elisha Cuthbert has finally gotten over being stripped of her Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com title in late 2006.

• Ozzie Guillen returned to Twitter after saying "Twitter is stupid" and "everybody following me can [expletive] his pants" when he angrily quit in May. That's easily one of my favorite quotes ever and in thinking it over I'm not even certain which "expletive" he used.

• Apparently the Red Sox are counting on Bill James to help turn things around.

• Good times on KFAN with Paul Allen yesterday morning, as we talked Twins, football, dating, Stephen Strasburg, Bobby Valentine, and other random stuff. Click here to listen.

• As someone who deals with anxiety and various other weirdness, Grantland's documentary about Royce White gave me a totally different view of his personality and issues:

I'm now officially a Royce White fan.

• Sarah Hyland seems nice.

• Artie Lange, Dave Attell, Amy Schumer, and Jim Norton are coming together to Mystic Lake in November, which is basically a must-attend for any stand-up comedy fans.

• Shane Spencer is still taking advantage of that big September for the Yankees in 1998.

• Sad news about one of the original baseball bloggers. We lost a good one.

• I saw Lawless and it was about as good as a Shia LaBeouf movie can possibly be, which is to say C-plus. Also, it turns out Tom Hardy's actual voice when he's doing an American accent sounds not totally unlike his Bain voice. Oh, and Jessica Chastain seems nice.

• I also saw the classic movie Bullitt and liked it a lot, but don't quite get the fuss about Steve McQueen. On the other hand, Jacqueline Bisset circa 1968 ain't no joke. Mercy.

• It remains to be seen if Tony Levine can coach, but his saxophone skills aren't in doubt:

I'll be rooting for my old JCC basketball referee in his first full season at the University of Houston.

• Speaking of St. Paul and members of the tribe, oh the stories I could tell regarding this bit of news from my days growing up in Highland Park.

• Nicole Richie's appearance on The Champs with Neal Brennan and Moshe Kasher totally changed my opinion of her and made me realize she's not just another Paris Hilton.

• Obviously this is what happens when I do live radio there twice in the same week.

• Netflix instant recommendation: I don't eat sushi or speak Japanese, but Jiro Dreams of Sushi was a very compelling documentary about work ethic, greatness, and routine.

• For some reason this makes me sadder than most divorces.

• On a related note, I love Parks and Recreation blooper reels even more than the actual show:

As usual Chris Pratt steals every scene even when he's screwing everything up.

• Speaking of which, if this kid isn't funny then genetics are useless.

• I ate at the original, downtown location during the SABR convention this summer and liked it a lot, so I'm glad to hear Ike's Food & Cocktails is opening a second place near me.

• After five months on the radio Gleeman and The Geek returned to its podcast-only roots, which meant no more commercial breaks and way more beer. And also Jacqueline Bisset.

• Back by popular demand, this week's most amusing, weird, and random search engine queries that brought people here:

- "Delmon Young fat"
- "Jon Taffer salary"
- "Terry Francona new girlfriend"
- "Aaron Gleeman elliptical"
- "Why isn't Michael Cuddyer playing?"
- "Joe Frazier sings to Robin Quivers"
- "Low angle shot Kim Kardashian"
- "Anthony Slama stuff"
- "How old is Roy Smalley?"
- "How does Fat-O-Meter work?"

• Finally, in honor of his daughter changing my perception of her through the magic of podcasting this week's AG.com-approved music video is "All Night Long" by Lionel Richie: