October 19, 2012

Link-O-Rama

• I had a pretty good worlds colliding moment this week, as my Chelsea Peretti crush and my baseball writing job crossed paths. And her reaction was about right.

Anthony Bourdain found out that Marlo Stanfield is still tracking Omar Little, and the whole thing should delight fellow "The Wire" fans.

• Just in case you forgot that Bill Murray is the best.

• MLB.com reporter Bill Ladson did the baseball equivalent of "Dewey Defeats Truman."

Alex Rodriguez has the Twins to thank for his playoff reputation not being even worse.

Jim Harbaugh shifted $75 million in bets by turning down a penalty last night.

• I'm not sure why, exactly, but John Bonnes thought it would be a good idea to record a video after we were done recording the latest "Gleeman and The Geek" episode. So here's me drinking beer and talking nonsense while he shines an incredibly bright light in my face in the middle of an otherwise dark bar:

Special guest appearance by our waitress! (And blame Bonnes for shooting in portrait view.)

• The above video was recorded Saturday night at The Lyndale Tap House, but afterward we felt further alcohol was needed and went to a new bar/restaurant called Nightingale that fellow Twins blogger Nick Nelson's brother and sister-in-law just opened last week. I recommend checking it out, because the place looks great, the employees and patrons were nice, and they have a good beer selection in addition to a big food menu.

• Thanks to everyone who submitted Twitter questions for my mailbag post earlier this week. I'll try to make it a semi-regular thing during the offseason.

• Within that mailbag post I recommended five podcasts, one of which was "Fan Graphs Audio" with Carson Cistulli and Dayn Perry. Their chat this week was a a fine representation of the show's overall brilliance.

• Like I've always said, working out is for chumps.

Ozzie Smith, who earned $32 million during his 19-year career, is selling all his stuff.

• Nobody puts Jeff Kent in a corner.

• Former Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com Elisha Cuthbert makes a pretty good Annie Hall.

• I'd order less Chinese takeout if dining in restaurants mirrored this story more often.

• I'm pretty sure this is what people from other countries imagine goes on in America always.

• My mixed feelings about Germans in general contributed to my enjoyment of this video:

I have no idea what he was saying, but the way he said it made everything much funnier.

• Good, because I really didn't want to think of Dane Cook as a co-worker.

• I've avoided anything even remotely related to politics for a decade here, but my "Friday Night Lights" fandom is too strong to ignore this story.

• Good to see that Zach Lowe didn't miss a beat moving from SI.com to Grantland. If you like basketball and smart analysis, he's a must-read.

• Whoever cast Alison Brie and Lizzy Caplan as sisters is a genius.

• Not surprisingly the smart folks at Baseball America are on Team Trout.

This is an example of why almost all of my ESPN-watching involves live sporting events.

• Some more recommendations from my ongoing Netflix instant binge: "Klown," "A Matter of Taste: Serving Up Paul Liebrandt," "Indie Game: The Movie," "Backstage," "Jim Norton: Please Be Offended," "Bill Burr: You People Are All The Same."

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

- "I've had nine beers and I'm 150 pounds"
- "Joe Mande and Glen Rice"
- "Does Shana Hiatt have a baby?"
- "How many carbs in hunan chicken?"
- "Chris Ison Pulitzer"
- "Ashley Greene baseball"
- "How fat is Chuck Knoblauch?"
- "Delmon Young doppelganger"
- "Rachel Bilson favorite baseball team"
- "Jacqueline Bisset salaries"
- "Finding Minnesota pornographers"
- "Notes to put on a nerd's back"

• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is Brandi Carlile doing a live version of "That Wasn't Me" for 89.3 The Current:

This week's blog content is sponsored by Audible, which is offering a free audiobook download for AG.com readers and "Gleeman and The Geek" listeners at AudiblePodcast.com/Gleeman.