AaronGleeman.com

• Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com Mila Kunis has a fool-proof plan to meet Barack Obama that should delight the president's body man, former Duke basketball player Reggie Love.

• He'll obviously land on his feet and maybe even get a more prominent overall gig elsewhere, but CBS letting Gus Johnson go after 16 years because of a monetary disagreement is terrible news for everyone who loved him calling NCAA tournament games. There's never been a more perfect match between announcer and event, so hopefully both sides reconsider.

• Randy Moss' daughter, Sydney Moss, is a 5-foot-11 high school basketball star in Kentucky and recently committed to the University of Florida after averaging 23 points and 11 rebounds per game as a junior.

• Lindsay Lohan's version of community service seems fun.

• Dick Kaegel of MLB.com describes how the Royals have all but ditched in-person "advanced scouting" in favor of video analysis. As manager Ned Yost put it: "You don't need an advance scout anymore. You've got everything at your fingertips. Everything I need or we need to see is on the video."

• Kris Humphries has his hands full with Kim Kardashian, literally and figuratively.

• Trey Kirby interviewing Amar'e Stoudemire's personal stylist is spectacular enough, but the photo of Stoudemire sitting next to Anna Wintour really takes things to the next level.

• Ozzie Guillen was suspended two games for tweeting, which merely adds to his legend.

• At around 2:00 am Wednesday night the few hundred fans left at Fenway Park for the Red Sox's marathon game with the Angels serenaded Kevin Youkilis with a personalized version of "Just A Friend" by Biz Markie:

My childhood smiled.

• Judging by his scores John Smoltz is closer to coming out of retirement to pitch again than he is to making the PGA tour.

• My favorite part about 26-year-old Scarlett Johansson continuing to date 50-year-old Sean Penn is this report that "she's at his house most nights and has been accepted by his teenage sons." Not mentioned is their confusion about winning the lottery without buying a ticket.

• Journalism tops The Daily Beast's list of the "most useless degrees." Even more useless than a journalism degree? Spending four years in college without getting a journalism degree.

• According to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations report the Minneapolis Star Tribune owns the 17th-largest daily newspaper circulation in the country at 296,605.

• I watched every episode of America's Next Great Restaurant on NBC, but a combination of diet and laziness precludes me from going to the Mall of America to give Soul Daddy a try. I'm fairly certain most people don't want their soul food healthy, so what are the odds it'll still be open by the time my diet inevitably fails?

• Sad story, but this never would have happened if she was actually 50 feet tall.

• My old cantor got arrested for a DWI going to my old high school when his wife "called police to report that he'd be showing up at the school and that he was driving under the influence" at 5:45 pm. I could write another 500 sentences about that one sentence, but I won't.

• On a related note, Derek Lowe's life is like The Fast And The Furious films, except sweatier, drunker, and with a higher ground-ball percentage.

• If you enjoyed 500 Days of Summer and watch Community you'll love 500 Days of Britta:

I'm definitely in favor of Zooey Deschanel and Gillian Jacobs teaming up for the sequel.

• One of the best side effects of NBC Universal combining with Comcast is the Versus channel's website and excellent MMA writer Ariel Helwani folding into NBCSports.com.

• From the shoplifting arrest and plea agreement to his side of the story, nothing about Mike Leake's situation makes sense to me.

• I'm not really sure what took me so long aside from being the world's oldest 28-year-old, but I finally tried Skype this week and was basically amazed by the entire thing. I lost my Skype virginity taping an episode of HBT Daily with Craig Calcaterra in which we discussed Francisco Liriano's no-hitter. He was gentle and wearing the headset made me feel sexy.

• My second Skype experience was even better, as I recorded a late-night podcast with Marc Normandin and Matt Kory from Red Sox Beacon in which we talked about the Twins-Red Sox series and re-wrote the script to the upcoming Moneyball movie. As someone who listens to no fewer than 25 podcasts per week it was a lot of fun to appear on a podcast that can actually be found on iTunes and we chatted for about 45 minutes, so please give it a listen.

• If you're more into radio than podcasts, you can listen to my appearance on Minnesota Public Radio talking Twins with Cathy Wurzer.

• Marrying a former Miss Michigan isn't as great as it sounds, as Charlie Bell has learned.

• Sammy Sosa likes to laugh at NBA playoff games.

• Congratulations to friend of AG.com Chris Jaffe, who won the Sporting News-SABR Baseball Research Award for his incredibly detailed book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers, from which the Tom Kelly section was excerpted here last year.

• Due to the strong response to my note about wanting to partner with AG.com readers who have interesting and worthwhile stuff to advertise I'm going to start a "Sponsor of the Week" program soon that will keep the site's overall advertising to a minimum while highlighting one advertiser per week for supporting the blog. I've begun reserving weeks, so to promote your thing to the thousands of people who visit this space every day drop me an e-mail for details.

• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is the original version of "Just A Friend":

I'm bummed out about Tsuyoshi Nishioka, but the links must go on ...

• I've been trying to make the switch from sportswriter to pimp for years.

• Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian are still going strong and the former Gopher obviously has "The Kardashian Effect" to thank for becoming one of the NBA's most improved players.

• Vin Scully is a big fan of the Honky Tonk Man. Greatness appreciates greatness, obviously.

• Charlie Sheen's live show went about as well as should have been expected.

• Speaking of Sheen: Take a number, pal.

• Do all these people moving back into their parents' basements realize they're now obligated to become bloggers? Oddly, my mom threatens to move into my basement on a weekly basis.

• Whenever the level of discourse in the comments section gets me down I remind myself that about one percent of AG.com readers comment regularly. Apparently that's true for most blogs.

• Mark Cuban was hanging out in the Hardball Talk comments section, which moves him ahead of Colby Rasmus' dad and Curt Flood's son as our most famous commenter.

• Today's technology would have ruined a bunch of Seinfeld episodes.

• Wearing swimsuits remains her specialty, but Brooklyn Decker looks decent in clothes too.

• Karl Pilkington is ratings gold.

• I wrote a lot of sentences this week, but this one was definitely my favorite: "Admittedly you can't invite Minka Kelly over to hang out in an earplug." Controversial, but true!

• I haven't danced since leaving the bar mitzvah circuit in 1996 and things have changed quite a bit since then based on Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Kate Upton's impromptu "Dougie" lesson at a basketball game:

My specialty back in the mid-90s was awkward slow dances set to Boyz II Men songs.

• I'm dumbfounded how baseball "analysis" this mind-bogglingly bad gets into any mainstream publication, let alone the New York Times. It would have been a better fit on April 1.

• How long did the New York Times have an Elizabeth Taylor obituary ready to go before she actually died last month? Well, at the bottom of the piece was this footnote: "Mel Gussow, the principal writer of this article, died in 2005."

• Red Sox sideline reporter Heidi Watney narrowly avoided death by chicken and waffles.

• Here's a handy recap of my Twitter exchange with Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak, who called me out (sort of) after hearing me talk Twins with Cathy Wurzer on Minnesota Public Radio.

• As my NBCSports.com colleague Craig Calcaterra notes, the Indians treat their bloggers far better than, say, the Twins.

• Friend of AG.com and local Associated Press reporter Jon Krawczynski is standing his ground in the face of a ridiculous lawsuit by NBA referee Bill Spooner.

• A former NBA referee tried to beat up Dominique Wilkins at a Hawks game in Atlanta. Based on the mugshot, he failed.

• Gus Hansen might be even better at dating than he is at poker.

• My initial reaction after reading this sad story? Even that guy had a girlfriend.

• Ken Rosenthal is the Brother Mouzone of baseball reporters.

• In addition to being the youngest champion in UFC history Jon Jones excels at apprehending thieves on the way to pre-fight waterfalls.

• I've never seen Brock Lesnar be more likable or interesting than in this interview with Ariel Helwani, who also switched gears for a hilarious MMA-driven chat with comedians Jim Norton and Robert Kelly.

• Jose Canseco's twin brother Ozzie Canseco tried to impersonate him in a "celebrity boxing" match worth $10,000, but the tattoos gave him away.

• Not surprisingly, the best comedy on television has a great blooper reel:

In related news, my crush on Aubrey Plaza has grown even stronger.

• I can't blame HBO for canceling In Treatment given the lowly viewership numbers, but as one of the few people to see every episode from all three seasons of the Gabriel Byrne-led drama I'll definitely miss what was a truly unique, marvelously acted show.

• In much better television news AMC and Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner have worked out a deal to ensure the show will run at least two and possibly three more seasons, although the bad news is that new episodes won't begin again until 2012.

• One positive is that should give Jon Hamm plenty of time to shave, put on some socks, find a nice suit, and ditch the Cardinals hat for a little pomade.

• This could revolutionize television and movies or it could be nothing, but Netflix is getting into the content-creation business and their first partnership is with David Fincher.

• Zach Galifianakis is creating a show starring one of the few comedians weirder than him.

• Not that this should surprise anyone who's seen her in Boardwalk Empire on HBO, but Paz de la Huerta seems like fun.

• Here's the fatal flaw of these never-ending Domino's commercials: Their new chicken is awful. I'm a fatso who ate chicken wings from Pizza Hut multiple times per week for months, yet even I'll never get it again. Also, what good is having a "rate our chicken" survey on the actual box? Are people supposed to fill it out and bring it back to the restaurant?

• I'm going to be honest about something embarrassing: As a kid I used to like the baked ziti.

• Friend of AG.com and Minneapolis Star Tribune writer Phil Miller got an "honorable mention" for best "game story" of 2010 from the Associated Press Sports Editors.

• Google discovery during the NCAA tournament: Marv Albert's real name is Marvin Aufrichtig and he'll be 70 years old in June.

• If the Timberwolves finally win the draft lottery, here's the guy they'll almost certainly pick.

• If you're into the NBA and interesting artwork, check out this site.

• Along with hosting my latest podcast obsession,Tom Scharpling had an interesting history as a basketball writer.

• My favorite podcast this week was Conan O'Brien's appearance on "WTF" with Marc Maron.

• Where do you stand on The Great Ketchup Debate of 2011?

• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is Steve Earle singing "I Feel Alright" live:

• The concept of gravitational pull in picture form, starring Kim Kardashian at an NBA game.

• Last week former Gophers football star Laurence Maroney was arrested for marijuana and gun possession in St. Louis after attending a Rick Ross show and his mugshot is spectacular.

• Google has the power to make or break billion-dollar businesses by adjusting some settings.

• As someone who's been blogging for nearly nine years without a single break of more than a few days and has no plans to stop any time soon, this article on "blog quitters" confuses me.

• When you try to imagine the men capable of moving from January Jones to Jennifer Aniston to Scarlett Johansson in the span of months, Jason Sudekis probably doesn't top the list.

• To be honest, I'm surprised the percentage is that high.

• On a related note (sort of), I can think of worse ways to go.

• I haven't linked to anything about Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com candidate Kate Beckinsale in a while, but thankfully she's still super good-looking. Phew.

• Must-Read Article of the Week: "Sabermetrician in Exile" by Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports.

• Well done, Kevin Love. And well done, Timberwolves.

• If you missed Ricky Gervais' incredible monologue at the Golden Globe awards, here it is:

Gervais no doubt angered enough big names that he'll never, ever be asked back as host, but hopefully they haven't ruled out Karl Pilkington.

• Gervais' brilliant hosting kept me tuned in for the entire show, but the highlight was Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com Mila Kunis holding hands and hopping with Emma Stone. Obviously.

• Or you could just, you know, pay someone to shovel your driveway. Either way.

• As someone who's arranged his life so that about 99.9 percent of all social interactions occur online, I really enjoyed Katie Baker's essay about her old internet persona. One day I'll reveal that I'm actually a 15-year-old girl, but until then keep thinking of me as a 28-year-old fat guy.

• Dan Levy of Press Coverage speculates that the newly formed NBC-Comcast combo is more or less going to take over the online sports world. No big deal.

• My fellow Modern Family and Parenthood viewers should read this story about Craig T. Nelson turning down one for the other because of money. Probably worked out for the best, because he's good on Parenthood and Ed O'Neill is great on Modern Family.

• Speaking of Modern Family, something about Sofia Vergara starting her own clothing line for Kmart and also serving as the products' model seems sad in an "attention Kmart shoppers, no amount of inexpensive, mass-produced clothing will make you look like one of the best-looking humans in the world" sort of way.

• Carla Gugino is still incredibly underrated, even if it took Esquire Mexico to remind me.

• Must-Listen Podcast of the Week: Jonah Keri and Alex Belth spent an hour chatting about everything from The Big Lebowski to baseball blogs, and it would have been a great listen even if they hadn't name-checked me about halfway in.

• B.J. Raji's post-touchdown shimmy in the NFL title game Sunday is my favorite fatboy dance since Chunk did the truffle shuffle in "The Goonies."

If you enjoyed it too, thank Dom Capers.

• I can remember my 16-year-old self reading the Sports Illustrated profile of Tamir Goodman, so the follow-up a dozen years later was very interesting.

• Thanks to everyone at the Beckett Media office in Dallas for being so friendly to me last week while we put the finishing touches on the annual Rotoworld baseball draft guide. It should be hitting newsstands in early February, with Albert Pujols on the cover and well over 100,000 words from me, Craig Calcaterra, Matthew Pouliot, Drew Silva, D.J. Short, Eno Sarris, Thor Nystrom, Nate Stephens, and Jesse Burkhart.

• Incidentally, the room Beckett had me work in featured a framed Mark Brunell jersey, walls plastered with old magazine covers, and Ricky Martin collectibles. I felt right at home.

• After watching "Winter's Bone" on the flight back from Dallas last week, I'm pretty convinced the movie would have been much different had Jennifer Lawrence worn this the whole time.

• I'm not even from Seattle, but this sounds fantastic: "Kemp scores a layup-and-one with this happy hour."

• I haven't tried this yet, but it sounds like an intriguing option for some AG.com poker games.

• I'm proud to be a very, very, very small part of this.

• Question of the Week (in the form of the AG.com-approved music video): Is Billy Joel's song "Only The Good Die Young" more anti-religion or pro-having sex with Catholic school girls?

• I'll be on 1500-ESPN tonight, talking Twins with Doogie Wolfson starting at around 7:15. You can listen online here.

• Who knew 19-year-old girls from Apple Valley were so tech-savvy?

• Fire(d) Joe Morgan.

• As someone who regularly eats $11 worth of food from Taco Bell, this amused me.

• I'm following A.J. Pierzynski's lead and not shaving for the entire month of "Movember."

• On a related note, I live in fear of this every day.

• Not a bad week for Ron Gardenhire, who won the Manager of the Year after five runner-up finishes and then signed a contract extension the next day.

• If you're good-looking and a female, Coco Crisp might pay you $40,000 to live with him.

• I'm not sure which is the more unlikely bit of Kris Humphries news, that he might be dating Kim Kardashian or that he's had two double-doubles in the past week.

• I already have an app for this. Her name is Judi.

• I can't think of a way to describe this properly, but I found it impossibly cool.

• It's slightly less funny after his big game Wednesday night, but this video made me laugh:

And if you're not already a fan of The Basketball Jones, you should be.

• At the end of the day, we're all Craig T. Nelson.

• In fairness, ESPN was only off by about $36.5 million.

• I'd be really worried about this, except luckily leaving the house, interacting with people, and dating are all required before fertility becomes an issue.

• My latest podcast discovery is "Never Not Funny" with Jimmy Pardo and Matt Belknap. They offer the first 20 minutes of each episode for free and after listening to a few of them I ponied up the $19.99 for a season's worth of the full-length versions. And then I liked those so much that I spent $19.99 on each of the previous six seasons. Seriously. I spent $140 on a podcast, that's how good it is.

• After years of annoying people about this topic, the world finally listened to me.

• Beyond the Boxscore crunched the numbers on how long pitchers take between pitches and the results are very interesting. I'd have pegged the Twins as one of the faster-working staffs, but it turns out they're basically average.

• Next time someone brings up Gold Glove awards as a viable measure of defensive ability feel free to tell them to shut up.

• On a related note, my writing finally made into the newspaper. Sort of.

• And to think, people have always accused the Spurs of being "boring" for a great team. Ha!

• Call me nuts, but if someone offers me $2.1 million, for just about anything, I'll take it.

• Linking to weirdos lip-synching isn't as fun now that celebrities are showing up in the videos:

Stick with it for a full minute or so, it's worth it.

• Awful news for anyone who likes calm, reasoned talk radio. Shouting dumb stuff wins, again.

• NBC will mercifully start showing Parks and Recreation again, and with a whole bunch of other comedy surrounding it too.

• My favorite aspect of Twitter--aside from the ego boost involved in having "followers"--is that you really never know who's going to see and reply to your tweets. Within the past week I've gotten random replies from Peter Gammons, Mike Mayock's daughter, and the official Twitter page of the NBC show Community. Still waiting for one from Diora Baird, though.

• My old friends at The Hardball Times are beginning to ship their annual book and, as always, you should buy it.

• Remember the French-Asian fusion restaurant I reviewed a few months ago? They finally got a website and my review highlights the "press" page. It's kinda cute. And the food is nice, too.

• Speaking of local places where I eat stuff, a new "donuts and coffee bar" called YoYo Donuts opened near me and I've quickly become one of their best (and fattest) customers.

• Here are some highlights from my NBCSports.com blogging this week:

- Does the free agent compensation system overrate relievers?
- Royals acquired Vin Mazzaro for the stuff, not the stats
- Ramon Hernandez is kicking himself (or his agent) after seeing John Buck's contract
- Diamondbacks "listening" to offers for Justin Upton, but "need to be blown away"
- Neftali Feliz beats Austin Jackson for AL Rookie of the Year
- Vladimir Guerrero’s undeserved Silver Slugger award
- By giving White Sox chance to match any offer is Paul Konerko limiting interest?
- Rickie Weeks is "open to listening" about contract extension

• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is Ben l'Oncle Soul doing an acoustic cover version of "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes:

• Many times the word "irony" gets misused. This is not one of those times.

• Fan Graphs crunched some numbers on Kenny Powers' career stats and calculated his Wins Above Replacement despite the fact that he "f***ing hates computers, all kinds."

• I hope she asks for the kidney back.

• If your sibling is significantly better looking than you, don't appear in front of cameras while wearing the exact same clothes.

• I'll be co-hosting "Twins Wrap" on 1500-ESPN again tonight with Joe Anderson, starting 40 minutes after the last out.

• If you're into schadenfreude, click here.

• On a related note, Ozzie Guillen will be back with the White Sox next season.

• It's tough to blame a guy too much for having crazy goals when he's already dating Rihanna.

• In a "worlds colliding" discovery, Jin from Lost diagnosed Kramer with gonorrhea on Seinfeld:

Also in the scene: Brian Posehn.

• One of my favorite stand-up comedians, Greg Giraldo, died Wednesday. September was an awful month for the comedy world, with the great Robert Schimmel also passing away.

• After a Fred Lynn-like rookie season doing FSN's weather updates during Twins games, Kate Bilo has taken a new job in Philadelphia. She'll be missed.

• Pittsburgh fired ex-Twins catcher Matt Walbeck after he won Double-A manager of the year.

• More than 40 percent of AOL's revenue still comes from people using their service through a dial-up connection, which is the most shocking thing I've heard since ... well, since I stopped using AOL's dial-up service like 10 years ago.

• Doc Rivers' son Austin Rivers is the top-ranked high school basketball player in the country and yesterday he committed to Duke. It surely had nothing to do with this.

• Phew, good to know that whole thing is finally settled. We're cool again, Germany.

• MLB.com has a mesmerizing video showing all 54 of Jose Bautista's homers in two minutes.

• Here's something to think about next time you read an article quoting "an unnamed scout."

• If you're unfamiliar with the brilliance of Karl Pilkington, this video is a good place to start:

And there's more where that came from.

• My main man Drew Silva wrote a lengthy article about the Cy Young award and everything that comes with it this season.

• On one hand, this is pretty cool. On the other hand, I have 20 of the real thing in my garage.

• YoYo Donuts and Coffee Bar opened recently and has really good donuts, which is bad news for fatso baseball bloggers who live a couple blocks away. I'm already into the place for $9.

• Friend of AG.com Ted Berg wrote a very touching, personal piece about life and baseball that you should probably read.

• If you're a student and a blogger, you can get a $10,000 scholarship.

• Here are some highlights from my NBCSports.com blogging this week:

- The Big Three could start 17 of 19 playoff games for the Phillies
- Pirates clinch MLB's worst record and next year's No. 1 pick
- Mariners "not thinking about changing the general manager at all"
- Pedro Feliciano becomes fifth pitcher in MLB history to make 90 appearances
- Matt Murton threatening to break Ichiro Suzuki's hit record in Japan
- "Setup man of the decade" Scot Shields pondering retirement
- Japanese outfielder Hitoshi Tamura "exploring" move to MLB
- Elvis Andrus is doing Vince Coleman-like things
- Rickey Henderson wants to be on the A's coaching staff

• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is Sara Bareilles performing a live version of "King of Anything" on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson: