AaronGleeman.com

• Sunday starting at 3:00 p.m. John Bonnes and I will be doing a two-hour version of Gleeman and The Geek live from the KFAN booth at the Minnesota state fair. I learned yesterday morning how much fun it is to do live radio in front of an actual audience and I'd love to see a bunch of AG.com readers and Gleeman and The Geek listeners there. We'll take questions from the crowd and you can watch us argue in person, so come hang out and say hello.

• On a related note, yesterday's "Girls Gone Gleeman" bit at the state fair went a lot better than I expected, which is to say it wasn't a total disaster. There was a big crowd at the KFAN booth, Paul Allen was a great ringleader, Joe Nelson worked his magic behind the scenes, and the women were way too nice, way too normal, and way too pretty to be involved in something so silly. And based on the reaction I've gotten, it made for some interesting radio.

This was my view from the KFAN booth (that's me in the middle):

You can listen to my initial hour-long appearance and the whole dating game part of the show by clicking here. And then later, after going on a hour-plus quasi-date (and eating fried pickles) with one of the women, we returned to the KFAN booth and recapped everything with PA and Marney Gellner from FSN, which you can listen to by clicking here. And yes, underneath the hoodie I was wearing my tuxedo t-shirt.

• Miguel Sano is trying to steal my tuxedo t-shirt look.

• Just when I was getting sick of constantly hearing my own Bane impression, this exists.

• Everyone always says this, but I really mean it: They're perfect for each other.

• Thomas Golianopoulos at Grantland put together an oral history of one of my favorite movies, White Men Can't Jump. Among the many interesting tidbits revealed: Sidney Deane and Billy Hoyle were almost played by Denzel Washington and Keanu Reeves.

• It takes an incredible amount of effort to ruin a picture of Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com Mila Kunis at a baseball game in a Dodgers jersey.

• Jeff Kent is going to be on the new season of Survivor, presumably with his mustache and without Barry Bonds.

• If you're a stand-up comedy fan and don't already know the greatness of Joan Rivers, listen to her be an amazing guest on Nerdist with Chris Hardwick. At age 79!

• Melky Cabrera was a big investor in Jukt Micronics.

• This starts off with a story about throwing up in public and then pretty much goes downhill from there.

• As someone who liked the book and mostly disliked the movie, Screen Junkies' "honest trailer" for The Hunger Games hit the spot:

And it made $700 million, so what the hell do I know.

• Nick Blackburn, worst pitcher in baseball.

• I couldn't even bring myself to mention this on last week's show. So much shame.

• Never underestimate the power of Seinfeld, even decades later.

• On a related note, YouTube has a full version of Jerry Seinfeld's documentary Comedian and it's just as good as I remember from watching it the first time in 2002.

• After nine seasons The Office is coming to an end. It was never as good as the British version and declined in recent years, but the show was pretty damn funny for a long time. And served as the launching pad for Jenna Fischer's ongoing Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com candidacy.

• Most of these responses were dumb and/or ignorant, but Death Cab For Cutie frontman (and Zooey Deschanel ex-husband) Ben Gibbard made stat-heads proud.

• Showtime canceled the Marlins despite their new ballpark, offseason spending, and Ozzie Guillen's best efforts to make a last-place team interesting.

• This comment is so amazing that I'm half-convinced it's parody. AG.com commenters aren't so bad after all!

• Two great tastes that taste great together: Julie Klausner podcasts it up with Marc Maron.

• How adorable: My blog-mates Craig Calcaterra and D.J. Short met in person for the first time and wore matching outfits.

• Not exactly the lightest read in terms of subject matter or style, but The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison by Pete Earley is one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read.

• Jay Boller at the Minneapolis Star Tribune's sister website Vita.mn wrote a nice little article about this blog's 10th anniversary, although because I didn't have time for a new photo shoot they used an on-file picture of me from 100 pounds, six years, and three laptops ago.

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

- "Is Glen Perkins a viable setup man?"
- "Tsuyoshi Nishioka KFAN porn"
- "Gordon Ramsay baseball"
- "Elisha Cuthbert baseball"
- "Jimmy Pardo fantasy baseball"
- "Why did Francisco Liriano get traded?"
- "Delmon Young ugly mustache"
- "Who is Lew Ford's girlfriend?"
- "Eric Chavez handsome"
- "Why can't you use big gloves for infield?"
- "A.J. Pierzynski boxers or briefs?
- "Minnesota Twins why they stink"

• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is "Happy Song" by Otis Redding:

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

As a hermit I like to get my money's worth when I actually leave the house, so I've got a busy Thursday planned and want to invite AG.com readers and Gleeman and The Geek listeners to be part of it. Thursday morning I'll be doing radio live from the Minnesota State Fair and then Thursday evening I'll be co-hosting a little Twins viewing party/get-together at a bar. I'm officially inviting you all to both things, so here are some details:

Thursday morning:

Thursday morning starting at 9:00 a.m. I'll be on Paul Allen's show live from the KFAN booth at the Minnesota State Fair. I'm sure we'll be talking Twins, but the main focus will be on a dating game-style show called "Girls Gone Gleeman" that's intended to either find me a nice woman to date or embarrass me to death trying. You can come see me find love and/or be humiliated, all in front of an audience and live on the radio. Click here for more details.

Thursday night:

Thursday night starting at 7:00 p.m. I'll be at Park Tavern in St. Louis Park, eating and drinking and watching the Twins-Rangers game with John Bonnes, Parker Hageman, Nick Nelson, Lindsay Guentzel, and some other familiar names from the local blogging and social media world. We're basically just going to hang out for a few hours, so the more the merrier and all you need to do is show up, say hello, and grab a chair. Click here for directions.

Topics for this week's episode of Gleeman and The Geek included Brian Dozier's demotion to Triple-A, Nick Blackburn's ongoing awfulness, whether the Twins are collapsing down the stretch again, the latest "day-to-day" injury proving anything but, where and when Chris Parmelee will play, puking in public, comparing Sam Deduno to a UFO, State Fair details, and preparing for the return to full-time podcasting.

Note: Next week's Gleeman on The Geek show will be a special two-hour edition, live from the KFAN booth at the Minnesota state fair from 3-5 p.m. on Sunday, August 26.

Gleeman and The Geek: Episode 55

In addition to the direct download link above you can also subscribe to the podcast via iTunes.

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

• I mentioned this briefly last week, but now that there's an actual page devoted to it on KFAN's website it's officially too late to back out:

I'm not sure why they used a picture of me from 100 pounds ago, but maybe that's just KFAN's way of keeping expectations incredibly low and/or bringing in the chubby chaser demographic. Whatever the case, Thursday at the Minnesota State Fair there will be a dating game-style show on KFAN featuring me as the bachelor and Paul Allen as the host. I'm expecting to either find a wife or die of embarrassment on air, with nothing in between. Good radio either way.

If you're single woman between the ages of, say, 20 and 40, go to the "Girls Gone Gleeman" page on KFAN's website for details and fill out an application.

• Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce meets The Bluth Company for an all-time great worlds colliding.

• While at the fair I'll probably not be eating any of this stuff unless I decide to start looking like that old picture again.

• Tom Barnard is doing what's commonly known as "a reverse Gleeman and The Geek."

• 1500-ESPN is no longer the radio home of the Twins, who announced their move from AM to FM and the Pohlad family-owned KTWN-96.3. David Brauer of MinnPost analyzed what the move means for 1500-ESPN and looked at how the Twins fit on a music-only station.

• Happy birthday to Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com Mila Kunis, who turned 29 this week. To celebrate, I watched this GIF and applied to have that silly restraining order dropped.

• "Mila, what's your reaction to that weird baseball blogger always talking about you?"

• I'm hoping everyone checked out the AG.com sponsor of the week, Emily Meier, a fiction author with a very compelling story. Here's part of a Minneapolis Star Tribune profile of her:

For years, there had been nibbles from publishers in New York, but no bites. Now, with breast cancer metastasizing through her bones, she decided she didn't have time to wait; she would publish them herself. But because she was Emily Meier--driven, focused, hardworking--she didn't do this halfway. Instead, she started her own publishing company.

Sky Spinner Press of St. Paul, incorporated as a for-profit business and co-owned by Meier's son and daughter, has published all six of her books in record time. ... The books are done, but Meier continues to write daily---her website (www.emilymeier.com) is an orderly maze of drop-down menus and essays and suggestions for book clubs and links to reviews and interviews. There's even a page of quotes from rejection letters she received over the years.

As someone whose entire writing career has been shaped and fueled by rejection I view Meier as a kindred spirit and it would make me incredibly happy if everyone who visited AG.com this week would take some time to visit her website as well. Poke around Meier's site, look at the rejection letters, get familiar with her collection of writing, and help fulfill someone's dream.

• If you won't listen to me about the stupidity of thinking no-hitters can be "jinxed" then at least listen to the greatest baseball announcer of all time.

• MLB.com has a video showing all 27 of Felix Hernandez's perfect game outs in six minutes:

And there are some impressive perks for making baseball history.

• Why did the Twins send Brian Dozier to Triple-A? I'm glad you asked.

• And when will the Twins recall Chris Parmelee from Triple-A? I'm glad you asked that too.

• Johan Santana is making me sad.

• I've never understood why Ashley Greene isn't way more famous than Kristen Stewart.

• Well, there goes my plan to take over the Minnesota Daily someday.

• Pretty good, especially Jerry Hairston: MLB players audition for The Expendables 3.

• I spent all week pouring over Rotoworld's online fantasy football draft guide to prepare for my keeper league draft and can't recommend it enough. Great content, constantly updated.

• Speaking of which, the Orioles had a unique idea to determine their league's draft order.

• Let's all pool our money together and buy this.

• I can't even imagine how long this masterpiece took to piece together, but "Baby Got Back" sung entirely from movie clips is definitely worth it:

Sir Mix-A-Lot would be proud.

• I'm thrilled to see Pulitzer winner, journalism professor, and all-around great guy Chris Ison looking good three months after a life-threatening propane accident.

• Nick Nelson and his famous "mustard face" made an appearance on FSN.

• For anyone into documentaries, find out where Queen of Versailles is playing near you and go see it. Equal parts interesting, sad, funny, and infuriating, and showing at the Landmark Edina theater in Minnesota.

• Podcast recommendation: I've been going through the archives of Stop Podcasting Yourself with Graham Clark and Dave Shumka all week, listening to multiple episodes per day.

• In retrospect, I guess "warlock" would have been the proper choice.

• My beloved Hardball Dynasty league on WhatIfSports.com starts a new season next week. If you're interested in joining, click here for more details.

• I wrote an article for the Society for American Baseball Research convention program that was a condensed version of my still-unfinished-on-the-blog "Top 40 Minnesota Twins" series. My article, along with articles from familiar names like John Bonnes, is now available online.

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

- "Tsuyoshi Nishioka smoking"
- "Turkey hen weight after one year"
- "James Deen Hebrew school"
- "Michael Beasley publicist"
- "Dick Bremer salary"
- "Nick Blackburn awful"
- "Troy Aikman running"
- "Dana Wessel Chaska Redhawks"
- "Moira Kelly weight loss"
- "Delbert Young"
- "Will fried rice make you lose weight?"
- " Hawk Harrelson mental illness"

• Finally, in honor of "Girls Gone Gleeman" this week's AG.com-approved music video is The Black Keys' cover version of "Have Love, Will Travel":

This week's blog content is sponsored by Sky Spinner Press and EmilyMeier.com. Please support them for supporting AG.com.

Topics for this week's episode of Gleeman and The Geek included the Twins' odds of contending or rebuilding in 2013, where Chris Parmelee eventually fits into the lineup, exactly how bad Tsuyoshi Nishioka looked, whether Nick Blackburn should stick around with a 7.50 ERA, Liam Hendriks' and Brian Dozier's long-term outlook, which of us would make a worse Olympian, Bert Blyleven vs. Patrick Reusse, and why I won't go to Las Vegas with John Bonnes.

Gleeman and The Geek: Episode 54

In addition to the direct download link above you can also subscribe to the podcast via iTunes.

This week's blog content is sponsored by Sky Spinner Press and EmilyMeier.com. Please support them for supporting AG.com.