February 22, 2013

Link-O-Rama

• This is just a fantastic picture of Ron Gardenhire.

Ricky Rubio and Kenneth Faried are the cutest.

The Onion, being perfect on the subject of television show binging.

• My fellow "Pulp Fiction"-obsessed Quentin Tarantino fans will absolutely love this lengthy Vanity Fair article by Mark Seal.

Joe Posnanski made his NBCSports.com debut today, with lots more to come, and I'm pretty damn excited to call him a co-worker.

Vance Worley started dating his fiancee when she asked him out via Twitter.

Baseball America's annual top 100 prospects list includes six Twins: Miguel Sano (9), Byron Buxton (10), Oswaldo Arcia (41), Alex Meyer (59), Kyle Gibson (68), Aaron Hicks (72).

• This innovation is so up my alley that I pulled some strings to make sure Anthony Jeselnik actually sees mad scientist Carson Cistulli's creation.

• Not only will the Tigers probably win the AL Central again, Detroit finished first in this too.

• Friend of AG.com and Fan Graphs writer David Temple hosts an NPR-style baseball podcast called "Stealing Home" and I was a guest this week, along with Jonah Keri of Grantland.

• My mom e-mailed me this link and wrote "Link-O-Rama idea!"

• I'm starting to feel a real kinship with Delmon Young.

• My iTunes has been playing non-stop Frank Ocean all week, so this is good news.

• One way to tell that we drank beer during this week's "Gleeman and The Geek" episode is that I discussed Ocean writing "Swim Good" about Liam Hendriks.

• I'm fairly convinced that the woman in this video is my soul mate:

And the outtakes are even better. Addy, seriously, I'll move to Seattle.

• Vikings punter Chris Kluwe was a guest on "The Nerdist" podcast with Chris Hardwick.

• Vikings owner Zygi Wilf invaded my Netflix.

• This is great news about Justin Timberlake, because Craig Calcaterra is covering spring training in Arizona and we could use the extra help on HardballTalk that week.

• I had an amusing interaction this week with a FedEx delivery guy after I answered the door:

Him: "You must work from home."

Me: "Yep."

Him: "Doing what?"

Me: "Writer."

Him: "Thought maybe meth or something cool."

Not quite, although I've always considered myself the Jesse Pinkman of baseball bloggers.

• Nationals second baseman Danny Espinosa shaves his beard exactly like I do, which is to say infrequently, lazily, and with something meant to give haircuts.

• I'm currently going through "House of Cards" withdrawal, but this is basically what my inner-monologue looks like at all times.

• I'm sort of hoping that "leading Kate Mara enthusiast Aaron Gleeman" sticks as my nickname.

• Just in case you weren't already convinced of Rickey Henderson's awesomeness.

• You'll never believe this, but no one wanted to watch Pete Rose's horrible reality show.

• Revenge, frog-style.

I was on #TeamFrog from the beginning.

• My favorite NBA writer interviewed one of my favorite NBA players and it was great.

• Two of the greats, AG.com favorite Chelsea Peretti and "Parks and Recreation" actor Adam Scott, teamed up for podcasting gold.

• Thanks to the recent return of my insomnia I had time to catch up on well-regarded movies that I should have seen in the theater. I liked "Argo" a lot and maybe this is just the result of raised expectations, but it fell well short of great. Definitely worth watching just to see Ben Affleck pull off the beard look that I'm always striving for and a supporting cast that includes Walter White, Coach Taylor, Floyd Gondolli, The Smoke Monster, and Lucas from "Empire Records."

• I'm not much of a James Bond fan in general and haven't seen Daniel Craig's first two cracks at the role, but I enjoyed "Skyfall" well enough. Craig plays slick-but-weathered very well and I'm always a huge Javier Bardem fan, but the car chases and shootouts just do nothing for me. I'd watch a movie that was just close-ups of Craig and Zooey Deschanel staring at each other for 96 minutes, though.

"The Perks of Being a Wallflower" was underwhelming, especially considering how many people I tend to trust about such things loved it. Mae Whitman is always great and Emma Watson might be the heir to Halle Berry's "looks spectacular with short hair" throne, but I thought it was a little too cute for its own good overall.

• Between the hotel room scene and the airplane scene "Flight" started amazing well, but after that not even Denzel Washington could carry it beyond mediocre when Kelly Reilly or John Goodman weren't involved.

• Actually, the best (or at least most compelling) movies I watched this week were documentaries. "Like Water" about Anderson Silva is a must-watch for any mixed martial arts fans despite his questionable taste in restaurants. "The Bitter Buddha" about Eddie Pepitone was hilarious and touching with lots of fun cameos from stand-up comedians. Oscar winner "Undefeated" is so good that it had me pretty close to tearing up over a football team.

Paul F. Tompkins joining Graham Clark and Dave Shumka on this week's "Stop Podcasting Yourself" episode is a perfect example of why it's probably my favorite podcast.

• New blog to check out: The Kid's Take.

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

- "Pictures of 153-pound kids"
- "Marney Gellner age"
- "Does Delmon Young look like Jay-Z?"
- "What to buy with 150 pounds"
- "Anna Kendrick baseball"
- "Gary Gaetti religion"
- "Why did my scale go up after eating turkey?"
- "Troy Aikman hands"
- "Hunan chicken bad for stomach"
- "Danny Valencia naked"
- "Pornstar looks like Zooey Deschanel"
- "Nick Punto speaks Italian"

• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved song is the aforementioned "Swim Good" by Frank Ocean:


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