AaronGleeman.com

• Changes at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, as Joe Christensen and Phil Miller are swapping roles in 2013, with Christensen covering Gophers football and Miller covering the Twins. I'm sad to see Christensen leave the Twins beat he did so well while increasingly blending stats into his work and being nice/understanding to bloggers. With that said, Miller is an excellent writer, an even better guy, and was stellar on the Twins beat in his St. Paul Pioneer Press days.

• "Saturday Night Live" really ought to just have Louis C.K. host every week.

• I'm thinking about getting a similar tattoo that reads "You've Made A Terrible Mistake."

• I saw Artie Lange, Dave Attell, Jim Norton, and Amy Schumer perform a great stand-up comedy show Saturday night at Mystic Lake Casino. One of the running jokes of the night was how no one--comedians or audience members--could drink, but apparently that's all changing.

• Now the real insanity test will be if I keep watching "Survivor" after Jeff Kent's crazy exit.

• If we pretend for a moment that the Twins might actually sign a top-of-the-rotation starter, who are their options?

• This week's "Gleeman and The Geek" episode was recorded Sunday at Stella's Fish Cafe and featured me getting so annoyed with John Bonnes that I threatened to punch him in the face. After the podcast mercifully ended we headed upstairs to hang out with a few dozen people who got together in the name of charity to watch the Vikings game, at which point Bonnes thought it would be a great idea to shoot this four-minute (four-minute!) video of me:

My co-stars are Dana Wessel of 1500-ESPN, Chris Long of KSTP, and Heather Balgaard of being completely ashamed to appear in the above video.

• And speaking of Bonnes' anti-semitism discussed in the video, congrats to Delmon Young!

• Charles Barkley leaving "Inside The NBA" would make me incredibly sad, but in the meantime at least this was funny.

• Sideline reporter Robby Incmikoski is leaving FOX Sports North to take a job in Pittsburgh, where hopefully the bloggers aren't such big jerks and he can live in peace.

• Say what you will about Tim Tebow, but the man has good taste.

• Remember all those "best shape of his life" stories from spring training? How did those players actually fare this season?

• Once upon a time Brien Taylor was a No. 1 overall pick and baseball's best pitching prospect. Now he's going to prison for selling crack.

• Melky Cabrera is a finalist for the "Heart and Hustle" award despite his suspension.

• This is definitely my favorite form of child abuse.

• I have no doubt this show would be terrible and no doubt I would watch it.

• One of the most amusing knockouts you'll ever see.

• Baseball Think Factory is where all the good international scouting directors got their start.

• If you liked the Pepsi commercial in which Kyrie Irving was made up to look like an old man and played basketball you'll really love the new version with Irving and Kevin Love:

Love does a pretty convincing job stumbling around the court initially, although the whole being 6-foot-10 thing is tough to hide.

• Andrei Kirilenko and Nikola Pekovic made Alexey Shved cut his hair.

• Gregg Popovich's contempt for in-game television interviews is already in midseason form.

• Any fellow Maximum Fun podcast fans want to go with me to this convention next year? I'm mostly serious, I think.

• Speaking of which, for anyone into podcasts I wrote a lengthy article reviewing my favorites.

• In at least one key area Bryant McKinnie hasn't lost a step since leaving the Vikings.

• Old friend Mike Redmond has replaced Ozzie Guillen as Marlins manager and weather-wise Miami is a pretty good locale for naked batting practice.

• Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis is good story and his wife is a great story.

• Popeyes is trying to move into KFC's turf in Minnesota.

• Carson Cistulli's chat with Matt Klaassen was very enjoyable if you're interested in two baseball writers talking about anything but baseball.

• AG.com reader Mike Fuchs compared Target Field to six other ballparks he visited recently.

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

- "Dana Wessel hair"
- "Gleeman and Christopher Walken"
- "Jose Mijares girlfriend"
- "Jacqueline Bisset podcast"
- "Snoop Dogg bobblehead"
- "Statistical analysis for hire"
- "Nude party notes"
- "Marijuana and Chinese food"
- "How many donuts would equal 40 pounds"

• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is "Don't Sweat The Technique" by Eric B. and Rakim:

• Glen Perkins took Joe Posnanski pitch-by-pitch through a recent save against the Yankees and it was a great read for a whole bunch of different reasons.

• My favorite headline of the week/weak: "Wisconsin man busted for curbside sex with couch."

• Mental Floss did an incredible amount of research to basically show my childhood was a lie.

• At this point Mila Kunis is putting her Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com title at serious risk.

• Based on a Wall Street Journal study MLB's most biased announcer ... well, you may want to sit down for this shocking revelation.

• Louis C.K. hates wearing a suit, but it was probably worth it just for this one picture.

• An alternate headline for this news story could have been: "Why people still watched the NFL even though the replacement referees were a complete joke." Gambling is a helluva drug.

• Congratulations to my blog-mate Craig Calcaterra for his well-deserved spot on this prestigious list. My tweet game remains flawless, of course.

• And then Calcaterra went and got himself on Deadspin again for an even better reason.

• Torii Hunter Jr., a top-ranked high school wide receiver from Texas, has committed to play football (and baseball) at Notre Dame.

• How did the Twins' pitching become such a mess? I'm glad you asked.

• It takes a very special talent to make a legal deposition worth watching and Lil Wayne is that very special talent:

"He can't save you" is a phrase I'm going to work into my everyday usage.

• All things considered the "Full House" cast holds up pretty well 25 years later and I'm happy that Lori Loughlin remains the show's best-looking (non-John Stamos) person at age 48.

• David Simon revealed that HBO once turned down a spinoff of "The Wire" that would been all about Tommy Carcetti's political career. Dang.

• For some reason this kind of reminds me of Paul Allen and "Girls Gone Gleeman."

• My mom's review of this week's "Gleeman and The Geek" episode: "I liked it because it sounded like you guys drank a lot."

• Also, for anyone who already listened to this week's podcast: Kate Agnew, whom we mention as being, among other things, diabolical, blogs at Kate's A Cliche.

• An update for anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of "Gleeman and The Geek": Our last eight episodes have averaged 9,600 downloads, including at least 7,500 per show. That's way above and beyond our wildest expectations and it's great to know the audience hasn't ditched us since shifting back to podcast-only mode after six months on the radio. Thanks to everyone who listens and please keep recommending it to new people throughout the offseason.

• Two things are for sure: One, this definitely isn't too little too late. Two, that was sarcasm.

• My instincts that told me not to bother seeing "Trouble With The Curve" seem to be correct.

• Never forget the night Manute Bol started launching three-pointers, because I won't.

• Kevin Love is the new Jon Rauch.

• Perhaps the last strong candidate for "catch of the season" came from an unlikely candidate.

• SABR announced the dates for next year's convention in Philadelphia, so you know where I'll be from July 31 to August 4 even if being on a vacation during the trade deadline is tricky.

• "Stop Podcasting Yourself" has become my favorite podcast and this week's show with stand-up comedian Kyle Kinane as their guest was especially good.

• Zach Galifianakis' appearance on "Who Charted" was podcasting at its finest, including his appraisal of "Lights" by Ellie Goulding: "That song seems like it was sung by a woman who talks about tree houses a lot."

• Netflix instant recommendation: "Neds," which is a Scottish film about unstable families, gangs, bullies, and how things can unravel in a hurry for a kid thrown into the fire. Really good.

• I found the best IMDB page, in case you were wondering.

• Ben Collin is one of the most creative Twins bloggers around, but he's also a meteorologist and weather-related software developer looking for work.

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

- "Rob Dibble ex-wife"
- "Ate fried rice and lost weight"
- "Bernardo Brito"
- "Glen Perkins hazing"
- "How to lose pounds on a scale"
- "Women wearing baseball caps"
- "Nick Punto false hustle"
- "How much does Louis C.K. weigh?"
- "Sergeant Slaughter porn"
- "Knife-throwing injuries"

• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is "Mr. Carter" by my favorite deponent, Lil Wayne, and featuring Jay-Z:

Interested in sponsoring a week of AG.com? Click here for details.

• I'm pretty convinced that it will rank somewhere between incredibly embarrassing and utterly humiliating, but at Paul Allen's urging and in the name of good radio "Girls Gone Gleeman" is a dating game-style show that's going to happen on KFAN live from the state fair next month. I'll pass along full details later, but in the meantime you can listen to us brainstorming on the air yesterday (mixed in with a bunch of Twins talk during an hour-long segment).

• Based on this St. Paul Pioneer Press headline for Ben Goessling's article, the Twins now have the same problem that's plagued bloggers.

• Join the club, Demi.

• Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David more or less shooting the shit for a day is basically perfect.

• Delmon Young has a gorgeous new mustache, which more than makes up for his .700 OPS.

• Zubaz, white limousines, pitching machines, and Minnesota fashion icons of the 1980s.

• I've given up trying to explain Jason Marquis since the Twins released him.

• Behold, the most Carlos Gomez thing in the history of Carlos Gomez things.

And of course the at-bat ends the only way the at-bat could possibly end.

• I give Michael Phelps credit for not being afraid to further his stoner reputation.

• Kevin Love apparently stays awake on flights to document his Olympic teammates sleeping.

• I'm thinking about trying to put $100,000 together just to hang out with Hakeem Olajuwon.

• Gordon Ramsay making $38 million per year may seem like a lot, but that breaks down to less than 50 dollars per television show.

• On a related note, as a loyal Twitter follower seeing Chelsea Peretti make a brief cameo as an unhappy diner on Hell's Kitchen cracked me up.

• Cal Ripken Jr.'s mother was abducted at gunpoint and Orioles manager Buck Showalter shared a similarly scary story about his mother.

• Warning: Don't use the bathroom around Michael Morse.

• Pirates prospect Starling Marte debuted last night and homered on the first pitch he saw.

• I like to watch Ted Berg make sandwiches.

• As a kid I often wrote stuff on my mom's old typewriter for absolutely no reason other than it seemed fun, but as an adult I'm not quite pretentious enough to install this on my laptop.

• Here's a Google Chat transcript of what happened when my mom asked me why Twitter wasn't working yesterday afternoon:

I waited another half-hour to fess up, and only because Twitter finally started working again.

• Interesting news in the online sportswriting world, as former Fanhouse founding editor and Yahoo! director of blogs Jamie Mottram has a new job with USA Today Sports Media Group.

• An original baseball blogger, Jon Weisman, celebrated 10 years of Dodger Thoughts.

• Now that Alex Rodriguez is old and injured, what are his chances of breaking Barry Bonds' all-time homer record? I'm glad you asked.

• It turns out the mask makes everyone as scary as Bane.

• The Trade Deadline Rises.

• Movie recommendation: The Prestige, which is the film Christopher Nolan directed in between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. It somehow flew under my radar until now, but has a few of the usual Nolan favorites in an interesting story and is well worth a $1.99 rental on Amazon.

• Speaking of the usual Nolan favorites, this made me laugh.

• Thanks to Barnabas Piper for naming Gleeman and The Geek as one of his favorite podcasts.

• According to this completely scientific poll, AG.com is the second-best "sports blog" and I'm the ninth-best "sports talk radio personality."

• Every day hundreds of people arrive at AG.com via search engine queries and most of them are Googling stuff like "Gleeman" or "Twins blog." I'm also amused by the weird and seemingly random searches that lead people here, so here are some of my favorites from this week:

- "Chuck Knoblauch fat"
- "Dick Bremer hates Kevin Slowey"
- "B.J. Hermsen salary"
- "Rene Tosoni salary"
- "Dana Wessel hair"
- "Kate Bilo age"
- "Evan Longoria dating Kate Upton"
- "Why does Matt Capps suck so badly"
- "Is eating a pound of carrots really zero points"
- "How many children does Brett Myers have"
- "Sasha Gray blog"
- "Patrick Reusse diet"
- "Jay-Z is not left-handed"
- "Kathy Kepler ballet"
- "Is a .199 batting average good"
- "Jenna Fischer covered post-it notes"

And then there were like 500 variations of "how to lose 150 pounds."

• Finally, in honor of Paul Allen describing me to potential dating game applicants as having "a George Michael beard" this week's AG.com-approved music video is "Faith":

This week's blog content is sponsored by Ballplayer: Pelotero, a controversial new documentary about baseball prospects in the Dominican Republic starring Miguel Sano as a 16-year-old.

• Reminder: Gleeman and The Geek will be live on KFAN again Sunday at 4:00, shortly after the Twins-Rays game. If you missed last week's show, which was our radio debut, give it a listen.

• One of my favorites writes about one of my ... well, not-so-favorites. And credit to the Minneapolis Star Tribune for printing an equally damning follow-up.

• Internet list perfection: The 21 Absolute Worst Things In The World.

• No doubt worried about her Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com status, Mila Kunis was quick to deny this very troubling report.

• Kelly Shoppach's first career stolen base was spectacular.

• While sitting out the end of the Timberwolves' season Kevin Love has really stepped up his mustache-growing game.

• Delmon Young hilariously doing a 360-degree spin in pursuit of a fly ball and then dropping it was inexplicably ruled a "triple" by the official scorer in Chicago, but MLB has since stepped in to overrule the decision.

• This is very close to being online dating sabermetrics and is also very creepy.

• Sorry everyone, this is what happens when I make an effort to leave the house more.

• Ram Jam plus Mad Men equals amazing:

Helluva advertisement for Bugles, too.

• Ben Lindbergh of Baseball Prospectus wrote a great article about what happens when you get a press pass and have to actually use it, which is ... well, more on that a later date.

• And speaking of press passes and access, what Bill James wrote about the value of being a baseball outsider remains fantastic 30 years later.

• Yangtze in St. Louis Park is my favorite restaurant even though I've never had their dim sum, which was just named the Twin Cities' best by City Pages. I'm partial to the hunan chicken, but everything there is good.

• This sketch is way funnier than it probably should be.

• Alison Brie is great on Mad Men and great on Community and looks like this.

• I can't imagine standing while I work, so instead I emulate Mark Twain's approach.

• Based solely on the fact that my mom drives with one foot on the gas and one foot on the break this study makes a lot of sense.

• Tuesday night 49-year-old Jamie Moyer became the oldest pitcher in baseball history to record a win and amazingly did so without cracking 80 miles per hour on any his 84 pitches, which got me wondering what percentage of adult males can throw that hard.

• And then the whole Moyer/velocity question turned into a movie idea.

• I'm a sucker for blooper reels and this one from Parks and Recreation is great:

"What kind of boys?"

• Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com candidate Kelly Brook is really good at Tumblr.

• If his t-shirts are any indication Amare Stoudemire is pretty serious about this whole member of the tribe thing.

• Doug Miller of MLB.com wrote a lengthy story about Fan Graphs analyst Dave Cameron and his battle with leukemia.

• Trevor Mbakwe using a medical redshirt for a second senior year has inspired me to go back to college, so I'm sending my updated resume to the Minnesota Daily. Fingers crossed!

• Not surprisingly, Showtime's new season of The Franchise starring Ozzie Guillen and the Marlins looks pretty good aside from way too much Jeffrey Loria.

• Considering the crush I had on Anna Chlumsky after seeing My Girl in the early 1990s not immediately recognizing her in the previews for Veep on HBO brings me great shame.

• If you like funny people talking about not-so-funny topics and/or have struggled with depression, Morgan Murphy's appearance on The Mental Illness Happy Hour with Paul Gilmartin is a must-listen. And she's also great to follow on Twitter.

• For anyone with Netflix who enjoys documentaries, I highly recommend Knuckle, Into The Abyss, and Cocaine Cowboys.

• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is Vintage Trouble with a very acoustic version of "Nobody Told Me":

This week's blog content is sponsored by PickPointz, where you can make predictions, pick games, and win prizes for free. Please support them for supporting AG.com.

• Before getting to the good stuff, I want to thank everyone who read my post about losing 150 pounds in one year. Not only is it already the most-read post in this blog's decade-long history, the number of e-mails and tweets and links and comments that I received were overwhelming. Losing the weight felt amazing, writing about the experience made it feel even better, and the response might be the most rewarding part of the whole thing. Thank you.

• I'll have a full write-up Monday, but the Twins gave Glen Perkins a three-year, $10.3 million extension that buys out his first two and possibly first three seasons of free agency.

• Behold, the greatest restaurant review in newspaper history. Grand Forks must be amazing.

• Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com Mila Kunis is on the cover of Harper's Bazaar this month, with an interview and accompanying photo shoot.

• Kris Humphries' sister, Kaela Humphries, recently signed a contract with Ford Models' plus-size division.

• Speaking of athletes' sisters, Holley Mangold is a 5-foot-8, 374-pound weight-lifter who made the Olympic team.

• Bunk Moreland is "just a humble motherf***er with a big-ass d***" and a grocery store.

• My blog-mate Craig Calcaterra is covering spring training and wrote an interesting piece about the downside of writers gaining access to the people they write about.

• Ricky Rubio and Kevin Love on the cover of Slam magazine hits a little too close to home for someone who used to have the old version taped to his bedroom wall.

• My lifelong dream of working with Beyonce is finally a reality.

• Lenny Dykstra, who's three months younger than the still-pitching Jamie Moyer, was sentenced to three years in prison.

• Imagine paying someone to write this. And then imagine him being your doctor.

• Honestly, this lasted much longer than I expected.

• This week's "Gleeman and The Geek" episode was recorded in front of an audience and includes John Bonnes singing (or at least "singing") and Nick Nelson reciting poetry.

• At this point Louis C.K. is everyone's favorite comedian and Todd Barry is also one of my favorite comedians, and for some reason this video cracked me up:

"You're not good at it."

• Congratulations to friend of AG.com and "Gleeman and The Geek" guest Lindsay Guentzel for beating out 22,000 other applicants for a spot in the MLB Fan Cave.

• Scientific evidence that we should all be afraid of gingers.

• This is interesting, but don't go getting any bright ideas.

• Jon Hamm didn't play baseball with Roger Clemens at the University of Texas, but he did used to post comments on Deadspin.

• Speaking of Deadspin, they grabbed the "Best Shape Of His Life" baton from HardballTalk and ran with it.

• Next thing you know Ice Cube will try to tell us that Santa Claus doesn't exist.

• The only thing minor-league baseball players love more than eating Chipotle is tweeting about eating Chipotle.

• More importantly: Did he set the record or not?

• CC Sabathia must eat a ton of food at home, because otherwise if this is true he'd be shedding weight like crazy.

• Somehow this new sport still seems slightly less dangerous than football.

• Elisabeth Moss on ex-husband Fred Armison: "He's so great doing impersonations, but the greatest impersonation he does is that of a normal person." Ouch.

• And to think, I was genuinely excited that my new car had a CD player.

• Jose Canseco can't even do a proper Kenny Powers impression.

• SABR's website posted a bunch of information about the annual convention coming to Minnesota this summer, including the logo.

• Someone paid $8,100 for a Chicken McNugget that doesn't look like George Washington.

• Don Mincher, who played a big part in Twins history, died at age 73.

• Dan Duquette is not buying what Jon Heyman is selling.

UPDATE: Sometime between yesterday and this morning Heyman blocked me on Twitter.

• My favorite part of Grantland is NBA analyst Sebastian Pruiti breaking down plays.

• My latest podcast discovery, "You Had To Be There" with Nikki Glaser and Sara Schaefer, got a nice write-up in New York Times Magazine.

• Netflix streaming recommendation: Elevate, which is a documentary about teenage basketball players in Senegal trying to secure college scholarships in the United States.

• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is Jay-Z sampling Bobby Bland's classic "Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City" for his own "Heart of the City (Ain't No Love)":