February 28, 2014
Link-O-Rama
• Johan Santana's comeback from multiple shoulder surgeries at age 35 isn't going so well.
• Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com is no longer really a thing, so longtime title-holder Mila Kunis gave up and decided to just marry some loser.
• Those of us who're naturally blessed resent the fact that people can now fake having our gift.
• I did something very similar for about 10 years, except with Chinese food.
• As a college dropout I'm thankful that this is an increasingly prevalent thing, if only so someone can support me in my old age.
• I wrote a White Sox season preview for HardballTalk and for the second straight season they might be even worse than the Twins.
• Lydia Loveless put out a new album last week and I've already listened to it several dozen times. Good music with emotional lyrics, an interesting perspective, and a pretty solid Lucinda Williams vibe. She's coming to Minnesota in April to play First Avenue and I'll be there.
• Really good long read: Benjamin Wallace-Wells of New York Magazine on prison gang culture and the craziness of a large-scale hunger strike in solitary confinement.
• On this week's "Gleeman and The Geek" episode I gave John Bonnes a tour of my new place in Uptown and told a lengthy pooping-related story.
• On a related note, the podcast is making tremendous strides in the female listener demographic.
• I stupidly didn't go see Hannibal Buress at Varsity Theater after loving him at Acme Comedy Company last year, but at least his five-minute set on "The Tonight Show" was really good:
Here's hoping that Jimmy Fallon keeps giving good, young stand-up comedians a big stage.
• Big news in the fast food world, as Taco Bell is set to launch a breakfast menu and McDonald's is thinking about serving breakfast all day.
• It never stops: "If you don't know what type of phone this guy has (if it's a BlackBerry, dump him) you should prepare to bring a charger."
• Having just realized that Uber is available on BlackBerry, this Mickey Rapkin article for GQ about a week-in-the-life of an Uber driver was really eye-opening to me.
• Mike Minor and his urethra had a rough offseason.
• Jason Schwartz of Grantland wrote a really interesting article about the Houston Rockets using their Developmental League team to essentially experiment with extreme strategies ... and win.
• "Humanitarians of Tinder" is just perfection.
• It turns out that I could never play for the Vikings.
• Yet another writer/analyst left Baseball Prospectus for a job with an MLB team.
• Sarah Silverman and Michael Sheen are a couple now, which seems both random and fun.
• Ron Gardenhire looks fit, well-rested, and ready for the challenge of leading the Twins back into contention!
• Old friend Carl Pavano is retiring after 14 seasons, the last three-and-a-half with the Twins.
• Marc Maron's chat with Tom Arnold was manic and weird and fascinating.
• You should go vote for Meredith Westin as the Twin Cities' best music photographer.
• "Bad Self Portraits" by Lake Street Dive was the AG.com-approved music video in Link-O-Rama a few weeks ago and now it's the free song of the week on iTunes.
• Some of this week's weird and random search engine queries that brought people here:
- "How much is a Ron Coomer signed baseball worth?"
- "Brian Duensing trade contract"
- "David Ortiz dating"
- "Robin Thicke socks"
- "Is LaVelle Neal married?"
- "When is Aaron Gleeman's wedding?"
- "Aaron Gleeman top tweeters"
- "Paul Lambert on KFAN"
- "Ryan Doumit home run"
• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is Loveless singing "Back On The Bottle":
