February 3, 2012
Link-O-Rama
• These would be the latest fashion trend for bloggers, except we don't wear pants.
• I was a guest on "Fan Graphs Audio" with Carson Cistulli and had a great time chatting about non-baseball stuff for around 45 of the 50 minutes. We discussed the Twins briefly at the end, but not before talking about Louis C.K.'s greatness, how getting rejected made me start blogging, the downside of having to wear pants at work, being propositioned for sex, the advantage of having a name that starts with back-to-back A's, and high-brow versus uni-brow. I think you'll like it a lot.
• Congrats might be the wrong word, but Darren Wolfson and Joe Schmit made Deadspin.
• Jon Heyman made Deadspin too and as Hardball Talk readers know it was a long time coming.
• Grown men getting angry at teenagers for changing their minds about which college to attend is one of the weirdest things about sports, especially when the decision-making is based on food.
• I'm worried that my soulmate might die before we even have a chance to share a meal.
• Bad news for Matt Garza, but it only seems fair given how the Rays stole him from the Twins.
• I'll bet even Jim Marshall is confused about how this happened.
• John Bonnes called in sick for this week's "Gleeman and The Geek" episode, so I poured myself a scotch and babbled for an hour.
• Blake Griffin's dunk on Kendrick Perkins earlier this week was one of the best you'll ever see:
"Oh me oh my!"
• This deserves a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.
• Royce White was the lead story/photo on ESPN.com, with an article about his on-court success and off-court difficulties written by former Minneapolis Star Tribune beat reporter Myron Medcalf.
• Twenty years from now I'm sure his therapist will say this was really healthy.
• In that case, I'll take World to cover the spread.
• If you like soul music as much as me, D'Angelo simply getting back on stage is good news.
• Jimmy Kimmel was an excellent guest on Marc Maron's podcast and I especially enjoyed their discussion about two of my favorite things, holding grudges and napping.
• Focusing on NBCSports.com stuff meant ending a five-year run as editor-in-chief of Rotoworld's fantasy baseball magazine, but I still wrote several articles and the online version is available now.
• Charley Walters of the St. Paul Pioneer Press wrote a nice article on Terry Kunze, with whom I've been fortunate enough to watch a bunch of basketball games over the years.
• Proving that I'd make an excellent television executive, Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com candidate Lizzy Caplan has been cast as the lead in a new Showtime series with "sex" in the title.
• Kevin Love celebrated his $62 million by taking a Luis Scola fastball to the ... well, you'll see:
Houston's announcer also coined a new phrase in describing the play: "The Love Stomach."
• Scott Aukerman and Harris Wittels doing a lot of drugs, recording their experience at a Phish concert, and then later commenting on the recordings made for a pretty great podcast.
• Netflix recommendation: Jens Pulver: Driven, a very gritty, compelling documentary about MMA fighter Jens Pulver, from his difficult upbringing and early UFC success to his comeback attempt.
• It's reassuring that one of my favorite comedians, Chelsea Peretti, was funny seven years ago.
• Evan Silva's "matchups" column has been a weekly must-read throughout the NFL season and his Super Bowl breakdown is no different even if I disagree with the ending.
• One of the best and longest-running baseball blogs went back to its roots after leaving ESPN.
• There might finally be a good reason to attend White Sox games at U.S. Cellular Field.
• Both my IBM Thinkpad and backup IBM Thinkpad died more or less of natural causes on Sunday, so I decided to take the plunge and get my first Macintosh computer. I got plenty of warnings that it takes some getting used to and even then the number of subtle differences are more frustrating than expected, but after five days with a Macbook Pro it's easy to see why the cult of Apple has so many members. And the Apple Store employees in Ridgedale Mall were incredibly nice and helpful.
• Person you should follow on Twitter: Than Tibbetts, who keeps AG.com running behind the scenes, answers my annoying tech questions, and consistently passes along good Link-O-Rama material.
• Finally, in honor of Etta James passing away recently this week's AG.com-approved music video is her 1968 classic "I'd Rather Go Blind":
