Link-O-Rama
If YouTube can sell for $1.65 billion and the New York Post speculates that CraigsList and Gawker Media are worth $650 million between them, AaronGleeman.com has to be worth at least a few million bucks, right? Right?!
Speaking of YouTube, nothing brings up painful memories for Vikings fans like a clip of Dennis Green freaking out in front of the media after his team blows a winnable game.
It's amazing that with all the talk about Fox controversially firing Steve Lyons last week, the most startling detail has been largely overlooked: According to the Los Angeles Times, Lyons was making $500,000 per year to do a horrible job broadcasting baseball games. What a country!
My nominee for Most Accurate Headline of 2006: "Jenna Fischer Isn't Just Cute, She's Funny Too." In case you thought I'd given up stalking Fischer, allow me to point out that I chatted via e-mail with her brother-in-law last night. Seriously. If you listen very closely, you can almost hear the restraining order being typed up.
The few television series I watch regularly are almost exclusively on cable, so I was excited to check out Showtime's new show, Dexter. Starring Six Feet Under's Michael C. Hall and having an overall HBO feel, the show comes close to being great, but falls short. A series with a serial-killing police forensics worker as the lead character has all sorts of potential and the first three episodes were occasionally riveting, but they were ultimately done in by sub par acting and clumsy dialogue.
Perhaps the best way to describe Dexter is to say that it has many of the same qualities that great HBO shows have, from the intriguing, provocative plot to the quality lead character, but ends up letting a little too much of the Showtime influence sneak in. It's 95 percent of a must-watch, HBO-like series, but the missing five percent makes all the difference. Grade: C-plus.
Rather than waste all kinds of time and effort feverishly searching for my first house, maybe I should just buy Batgirl's place. Let's be honest, what are the chances of two houses in the same market being "totally infused with sass"?
I'm not sure if this is ironic or just sort of amusing, but I'll share it anyway. Remember in last week's Link-O-Rama, when I linked to a Minnesota Daily article about Sid Hartman treating a student reporter poorly? Along with the link, I made a throw-away comment saying it was hard for me to "pick sides" for that battle, because Hartman isn't exactly the most endearing man in the world and the Daily snubbed me about a dozen times while I was in school.
It turns out that my linking to the article resulted in this blog sending more traffic to the Daily's website than any other referrer last week (you can see for yourself by viewing the Daily's unintentionally public site statistics). Basically, I'm not good enough to have written for the Daily, but am able to supply them with a huge percentage of their traffic whenever I feel like it. And no, I don't really have a point in all this (other than to confirm that I remain incredibly bitter about the whole thing).
Speaking of my days at the University of Minnesota, a former journalism school classmate of mine with a famous last name has reportedly "taken a position with Fox Sports Net North." Nepotism, baby!
It's been quite a month for friend of AG.com and Deadspin creator Will Leitch. First he survived the mistake of letting me write the Twins playoff preview for his hugely popular site, then he penned an op-ed piece in the New York Times, and last night his beloved Cardinals defeated the Mets to improbably advance to the World Series. As if that's not enough, in a few weeks Leitch can tell people he's got an article in The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2007. Next you'll tell me he's been banned by ESPN.
I realize only a diehard baseball fan would even bring this up, but how is it that a Pro Bowl football player (and a second, lesser player) can get suspended for violating the NFL's steroid policy and barely grab headlines for one day? Barry Bonds picked the wrong sport, apparently.
I've seen a lot of absurd things come about because of this blog over the past five years--remember when they stuck my ugly mug in the pages of Sports Illustrated?--but few can top someone presenting a slideshow about me at the Minnesota Educational Media Organization Conference.
If you've ever wanted to read an extraordinarily awful article written by a well-known mainstream sports columnist, here's your chance.
I can't vouch for this product other than to say that the man behind it was one of my best friends for about a decade, but those of you living in Madison should check it out.
Not only did NBCSports.com feature my recap of the Cardinals' heart-breaking Monday night loss to the Bears on its front page Tuesday, the site launched its NBA coverage this week. NBCSports.com's "gradual rollout" is now nearly complete, with the NBA, NFL, NHL, NASCAR, and college football being covered. The only thing left to roll out is baseball and ... well, I should have some interesting news to share on that front relatively soon.
