February 15, 2013
Link-O-Rama
• One of my favorite reality television shows, "Bar Rescue" on Spike, is back for another season and the episodes are available for free online. I'm joining forces with fellow Jon Taffer devotees Parker Hageman and Dana Wessel in an effort to get the show to do an episode in Minnesota. So far this is the extent of our campaign, so obviously we're open to ideas. Let's make it happen.
• If this ever happens to me at a bar I'm going on a rampage and hopefully we'll be recording the podcast at the time so everyone can hear me murdering people.
• Now that he's replaced Joe Christensen on the Twins beat Phil Miller launched his new blog on the Minneapolis Star Tribune's website.
• Mike Berardino, who was formerly a longtime South Florida Sun Sentinel columnist, has been hired by the St. Paul Pioneer Press as their new Twins beat reporter.
• Sometimes it's tough to tell the difference between spring training reports from beat writers and erotic fan fiction intros.
• If you've ever doubted the genius of Michael Schur/Ken Tremendous, he just cast the always amazing Andre Braugher and AG.com favorite Chelsea Peretti for his next FOX show.
• Francis J. Underwood, sabermetrician.
• In elementary school my class sold Kirby Puckett candy bars for some sort of fundraiser and my mom just bought a bunch of them from me and then let me eat them all, which explains a lot about my life and is also relevant to this shocking Deadspin investigation.
• I'll have more on this next week, but the Twins signed Rafael Perez to a minor-league deal.
• There is no age at which men are immune to the charms of Connie Britton. And if you're not going to read this whole thing then why even bother having the internet or a computer or eyes?
• Francisco Liriano broke his arm at home, but it wasn't from falling in the bathroom. No, it was actually even weirder than that.
• On this week's "Gleeman and The Geek" episode "horseplay" and "natural stank" were discussed at length while a woman named April occasionally chimed in.
• On a related note, I'll marry any woman who wears this on our first date.
• In his new book Mike Piazza talks about taking karate lessons to prepare for revenge against Roger Clemens. This is how I imagine those lessons:
Mediocre movie, but that scene gets me every time.
• This is crazy and all, but to lose "only" $13 million on $1 billion worth of bets isn't too bad.
• My blog-mate Craig Calcaterra explained what going to the doctor for an annual checkup has to do with sabermetrics.
• On a related note, here's an example of the type of fan mail we receive at HardballTalk.
• Nearly a decade after beginning her memorable two-year run as Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com Elisha Cuthbert is Maxim magazine's pick for "television's most beautiful woman."
• I'm proud to have convinced Scott Olstad to put together a collection of his 10 favorite Otis Redding cover songs for The Current's website.
• If you're interested in the history of great music and the impact of technology on art the Dave Grohl-directed documentary "Sound City" is a must-watch. Can't recommend it enough.
• "Searching for Sugar Man" is another documentary that's definitely worth watching. I won't give away much, but it's a fascinating story that got me thinking about how context is everything.
• Trevor Bauer is the next Shaquille O'Neal.
• By far the worst e-mail I've ever gotten.
• Alex Pappademas of Grantland went on tour with "Community" creator Dan Harmon and wrote an amazing article about it.
• I started watching ABC's cooking show "The Taste" because of Anthony Bourdain, but have kept watching it because of Nigella Lawson.
• Lenny Dykstra's son and Tony Soprano's daughter are having a baby.
• This week "Gleeman and The Geek" passed 500,000 total downloads, so thanks to everyone for listening and for spreading the word about the podcast.
• Giants teammates Tim Lincecum and Hunter Pence are the cutest:
I miss the long hair, though.
• Carl Pavano talked about rupturing his spleen while shoveling his driveway and it was gross and scary and crazy.
• Hard to believe, but unless he's a liar this guy turned 52 years old this week.
• The good news is that I bought a red hat, changed my name to Max, and moved to New York.
• Rays reliever Joel Peralta suffered a sandwich-related injury.
• Bloggers seem contractually obligated to hate "Girls" and Lena Dunham, but I watched the first five episodes of Season 2 in one sitting this week and still liked it. I'm constantly confused by who the internet decides to collectively hate or love, but she seems pretty great to me.
• I already liked Nuggets forward Kenneth Faried a lot, but now he's one of my favorite athletes.
• David Brauer's return to college hilariously involves having to take freshman comp.
• Sh*tty "New Yorker" Cartoon Captions.
• If you saw Mavis Staples on the Grammys, please note that Bob Dylan wanted to marry her.
• My childhood, represented by 29 pictures from one evening that I remember watching.
• Jon Marthaler, Brandon Broxey, Clarence Swamptown, and Randall's Stu have started a new podcast about Minnesota sports called "The Sportive" that everyone should check out.
• Some of this week's weird and random search engine queries that brought people here:
- "Chinese food weight gain 2012"
- "Aaron Gleeman fat"
- "Chelsea Peretti naked"
- "Tosoni toes"
- "Todd Glass baseball"
- "Nineties sex symbols"
- "Zoe Barnes wardrobe"
- "Zoe Barnes hair part"
- "Sid Hartman girlfriends"
- "Ricky Rubio's neck tattoo"
• Finally, in honor of Valentine's Day this week's AG.com-approved music video is "Wicked Games" by The Weeknd:
