End of the year list time: Movies

It looks like it's time for end of the year lists, with a list of the year's best movies. It seems a bit early, but that might be because the end of the decade lists are coming up (yes, the decade is over already).

I have to admit, I have only seen one of the movies on the top ten list (Funny People) and about five movies total -- One of which was the most recent Fast and Furious movie and another of which was Terminator: Salvation. Neither will make anyone's top ten list -- not even mine and I didn't even see ten movies.

So what were your top movies of the year?

An unusual path to the NFL

I remember a running back for the Denver Broncos a few years back had a similarly strange path to being in the National Football League, but I can't remember his name.

But I'd say that is one of the only, if not the only, people with a similar story as Ahmard Hall, the fullback for the Tennessee Titans:

A fourth-year NFL veteran, Hall, 30, served four years in the Marines, with tours of duty as a sergeant in Kosovo and Afghanistan, before resuming his football career as a walk-on at Texas in 2004. He secured a spot on the Longhorns' roster by writing a letter to Mack Brown, and the Texas head coach was so impressed by the impassioned missive that he waived a school rule stipulating that walk-on candidates had to have played organized football within the past 24 months. Hall signed with the Titans as a free agent after no team selected him in the 2006 supplemental draft.

Afghanistan war veteran, turned Texas Longhorn, turned undrafted player, turned NFL regular. Not exactly the same career path as Peyton Manning.

The story of Todd Walker

I think that I have read at least fifty stories just like this one, and they never get old. Someone stepping up and doing something to selflessly help others through sports.

This time, it is 47-year old Todd Walker from Oakland, California. From ESPN:

He told Jaee Logan's family he was going to make a difference. He was going to use football as a teaching tool to save these kids. He started the Junior Bears program along with head coach Herbert Miller, and they set out to teach football and life.

And so, for the past several years, with the permission of the parents, Walker has taken his players on a field trip to the funeral home. He teaches the reality and finality of death to kids who are desensitized by television and video games and the streets outside their homes.

The Onion is awesome

Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be:

"Our very way of life is under siege," said Mortensen, whose understanding of the Constitution derives not from a close reading of the document but from talk-show pundits, books by television personalities, and the limitless expanse of his own colorful imagination. "It's time for true Americans to stand up and protect the values that make us who we are."

Oh, and it only gets better.

Manny Pacquiao's strange entourage

Manny Pacquiao is arguably the best boxer in the world, perhaps on his way to becoming one of the greatest of all time. If he wins in a welterweight title bout tonight against Miguel Cotto, he will be the first boxer to win championships in seven different weight classes.

Yet, the most interesting thing that I have read about him so far is this piece from the New York Times. It describes Pacquiao and his entourage. They have some... strange arrangements.

“They’re all competing to be golden boy for the day,” said Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer. “Clean his pool. Take his shoes off. They will do anything for Manny Pacquiao.”

Roach paused, unable to suppress his laughter.

“I’m telling you,” he continued, “the funniest thing is, whoever is on the best terms with Manny at that moment sleeps closest to him, at the foot of his bed.”

Tony Kornheiser, on Pardon the Interruption yesterday, said that Pacquiao's entourage makes Vinny Chase's entourage on the HBO show... um, Entourage, look like nothing.

People still think like this?

Ugh.

From The Guardian:

Dressed in full uniform, the explorer scouts, who were taking part in Remembrance Sunday service in Romford, Essex were heard to repeatedly shout "Let's kill the Jews" at Jewish second world war veterans.

It is hard to believe that not only are there still people out there who would do something like this but that they would do it in public.

"The dad comes to a devastating realization: If they remain together, they’ll drown together."

Wow, a powerful read from Men's Journal. I recommend reading it, solely based on the teaser paragraph:

Swept out to sea by a riptide, a father and his 12-year-old son struggle to stay alive miles from shore. As night falls, with no rescue imminent, the dad comes to a devastating realization: If they remain together, they’ll drown together.

"Where there's smoke, there's moonshine"

Just an awesome headline. From McClatchy:

Parker said he made undercover purchases of the illegal hooch in 2006 and 2007 but couldn't find the still. Parker, of Scotland Neck, has been with ALE four years.

Pretty interesting story actually.

Jemele Hill ignores that everyone hated Isiah Thomas

Jemele Hill, writing about Magic Johnson and Larry Bird's book, mentions that Johnson led the charge to keep Isiah Thomas off the 1992 Olympic basketball team (everyone knows them as the Dream Team). Yet, she ignores one salient fact in this: No one like Thomas.

Thomas played on one of the most unlikeable teams ever (the "Bad Boys") and almost no player on any other team liked him.

On the Amazon-Wal Mart price war

From The New Yorker:

The best way to win a price war, then, is not to play in the first place. Instead, you can compete in other areas: customer service or quality. Or you can collude with your putative competitors: that’s why cartels like OPEC exist. Or—since overt collusion is usually illegal—you can employ subtler tactics (which economists call “signalling”), like making public statements about the importance of “stable pricing.” The idea is to let your competitors know that you’re not eager to slash prices—but that, if a price war does start, you’ll fight to the bitter end. One way to establish that peace-preserving threat of mutual assured destruction is to commit yourself beforehand, which helps explain why so many retailers promise to match any competitor’s advertised price. Consumers view these guarantees as conducive to lower prices. But in fact offering a price-matching guarantee should make it less likely that competitors will slash prices, since they know that any cuts they make will immediately be matched. It’s the retail version of the doomsday machine.

Definitely a cool read (and don't worry, it's short).

CNBC writer: American who won NYC marathon not American enough

Umm... what the hell.

From CNBC:

It's a stunning headline: American Wins Men's NYC Marathon For First Time Since '82.

Unfortunately, it's not as good as it sounds.

Meb Keflezighi, who won yesterday in New York, is technically American by virtue of him becoming a citizen in 1998, but the fact that he's not American-born takes away from the magnitude of the achievement the headline implies.

Yeah, he's only "technically" an American because he's only "technically" been a citizen since 1998.

Kefleighi was born in Eritrea.

As with CBS late night talk show host, Craig Fergusion, he is American on Purpose.

Stephon Marbury is weird #NBA

According to ESPN, Marbury was kicked out of his courtside seats at a New York Knicks game when they found out that he didn't have tickets for the seats he was sitting in.

But Marbury had even more bizarre behavior at Madison Square Garden:

Adding to the bizarre scene, Marbury pulled out a video camera shortly after arriving and began shooting the live action, at one point standing up -- thereby blocking the view of the fans behind him -- while play was ongoing.

Marbury is... just weird.

Defriending bruising to your 'digital ego'?

From CNN:

Experts say rejection on social networks can hurt worse than an in-person snub because people are usually more polite face-to-face than they are online.

Umm... no. The only way that it bugs me if someone defriends me on Facebook is if it's someone who I actually know or knew in person.

Some random person defriending me not only does not bruise my 'digital ego' -- but I usually have no idea that they have done so.

Basically just linkbait from CNN.

Why the NY Times doesn't cover boxing

An interesting exchange of e-mails between HBO's Larry Merchant and Tom Jolly, the sports editor for the New York Times, on why the New York Times rarely, if ever, covers boxing.

I have to say, though, some of the excuses are good:

Most bouts are on Saturday night and our final edition for the national edition goes to press at 11 p.m. The final local edition closes at 12:30. The most noteworthy of the fights were included in briefs for those last papers, and all of the results appeared in our wire feed on nytimes.com/sports.

And some are bad:

We’re willing to [report on a Saturday match on Monday] if it’s a bout that transcends the core fan base, but there haven’t been many such fights since Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield passed their prime.

Manny Pacquiao anyone?

An interesting read nevertheless.

French newspapers take a page out of drug dealers' book

French newspapers are trying to get young people hooked on newspapers by offering a year's subscription for free to young consumers.

The government Tuesday detailed plans of a project called “My Free Newspaper,” under which 18- to 24-year-olds will be offered a free, yearlong subscription to a newspaper of their choice.

“Winning back young readers is essential for the financial survival of the press, and for its civic dimension,” the culture minister, Frédéric Mitterrand, said.

As @c_chisolm said, "It's how all dealers operate."

So Mark Sanchez ate a hot dog #NFL

Jets QB Mark Sanchez ate a hot dog on the end of the bench during a 38-0 blowout over the Raiders on Sunday. And, somehow, this exploded into a mini controversy, with the folks on Pardon the Interruption, Around the Horn and various talk radio stations lambasting Sanchez for the sin.

Now, ESPN is reporting, Sanchez donated 500 hot dogs and 500 hamburgers to a local homeless shelter. Which is never a bad idea.

But, seriously? People care about this?

*sigh*

Schwazenegger's "message"

Apparently Arnold Schwarzenegger had a not-so-subtle message for Democratic assemblyman Tom Ammiano. The first letters of the first seven lines were "F-U-C-K-Y-O-U."

A coincidence?

Gary Langer writes the odds are one in ten billion of this happening by coincidence, as Schwazenegger's spokesperson (understandably) said.

Here’s how not to figure it precisely, rather a quick and unsophisticated back-of-the-envelope calculation: If the odds of picking a particular letter at random are one in 26, doing it over seven selections (the number of letters in question) is (1/26)^7, or .0000000001245. Just about one in 10 billion.

Now, the odds are not even to picking each letter. It depends on the amount of words that start with those seven letters -- plus, not as many words start with an "x" or "z" (I think none of of the words in this post do, for example) -- though more will, admittedly, start with a "t" than a "k."

I'd love for someone who actually has knowledge of this sort of thing to tell us the odds of this happening by pure coincidence.

That said, even if it's not coincidence (I am almost 100 percent certain that it did not), I still find it funny that Schwarzenegger 1) did this and 2) thought he could get away with it. Should a sitting governor do these sort of juvenile pranks?

Nope. But it's still funny.

All those CIA conspiracy theorists just got tons more ammo

From the New York Times, speaking of Afghani president Hamid Karzai's brother:

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.

Good times. It's been going on for eight years, apparently.

Paper suing TX Gov Perry to get clemency report of possibly innocent man who was executed

The Houston Chronicle and Hearts Newspapers are suing Texas Governor Rick Perry, R-Texas, for the clemency report on Cameron Todd Willingham -- a man who was executed but may have, in fact, been innocent.

I first read about it nearly two months ago, and you can too with this 16,000 word article from the New Yorker. Worth reading every word.

The report is a summary and status of the case against Willingham that was given to Perry at 11:30 a.m. on the day of Willingham's 2004 execution in the fire deaths of his three daughters. Anti-death penalty advocates say modern fire forensics show the blaze cannot be proven as arson.

Perry's office has refused to release the report, claiming it is a privileged document. The clemency document was used by Perry in the process of deciding whether to give Willingham a 30-day stay of execution.

“When it comes to human life, there is no place the governor should be more transparent in his decision-making,” said Jonathan Donnellan, an attorney for Hearst and the Chronicle.

The war on vaccinations is a war on science

A great article from Wired magazine about how the anti-vaxxers out there are completely wrong -- and are actually making things much worse.

In May, The New England Journal of Medicine laid the blame for clusters of disease outbreaks throughout the US squarely at the feet of declining vaccination rates, while nonprofit health care provider Kaiser Permanente reported that unvaccinated children were 23 times more likely to get pertussis, a highly contagious bacterial disease that causes violent coughing and is potentially lethal to infants. In the June issue of the journal Pediatrics, Jason Glanz, an epidemiologist at Kaiser’s Institute for Health Research, revealed that the number of reported pertussis cases jumped from 1,000 in 1976 to 26,000 in 2004. A disease that vaccines made rare, in other words, is making a comeback. “This study helps dispel one of the commonly held beliefs among vaccine-refusing parents: that their children are not at risk for vaccine-preventable diseases,” Glanz says.

I still don't know what kind of person would ignore all the scientific evidence and not vaccinate their children because some celebrity like Jenny McCarthy said so.

"Punch the monkey" ads relegated to the hinterlands of the internet

So says the Los Angeles Times:

But the monkey -- indeed, a whole class of flashy, shaky, maddening advertising collectively known as "punch the monkey" ads -- is going away, or at least slinking off to some forgotten cavern of the Internet where few will ever see it. Like MySpace.

Like, if there were ads on this site, this site.

Tennis great Agassi used meth

Andre Agassi, considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time, also used meth according to an upcoming autobiography.

"Those excerpts contain revelations about Andre's use of crystal meth when he was a tennis player," said Paul Bogaards, director of media relations at Knopf, a division of Random House.

As an aside, the use of meth has been linked to hair loss.

Tip o' the hat to @dcm.

Global cooling disproven (again)

Statisticians show that people (*cough*Matt Drudge*cough*) who try to claim there is a "global cooling" trend are being disingenuous.

From the Associated Press:

Statisticians who analyzed the data found a distinct decades-long upward trend in the numbers, but could not find a significant drop in the past 10 years in either data set. The ups and downs during the last decade repeat random variability in data as far back as 1880.

Saying there's a downward trend since 1998 is not scientifically legitimate, said David Peterson, a retired Duke University statistics professor and one of those analyzing the numbers.

Identifying a downward trend is a case of "people coming at the data with preconceived notions," said Peterson, author of the book "Why Did They Do That? An Introduction to Forensic Decision Analysis."

Ball's in your court, climate change deniers.

Gallup polling: We're better than news outlets

There was an interesting blog post in Gallup's The Queue blog basically saying they're better than newspapers (whose circulation is down) and TV news (with CNN dropping to dead last among cable news networks).

These new realities reaffirm why we do what we do here at Gallup.com. Quite simply, we do what no one else can do -- which is to provide empirical, rather than anecdotal, insights on the news of the moment. Put more simply, we let our data drive our news. Data that no one else has. That's why at Gallup.com, every lead has a data point, and every story has a graph.

We don't want you to visit Gallup.com instead of visiting other news sources. We want you to visit Gallup.com in addition to your favorite news sources. It's perfectly fine with us if you turn somewhere else for context and background, and then come to us for the data or empirical evidence to complete the picture.

What do you think?

Why do people care about Brett Favre?

The New Yorker tries to dig into this maddening phenomenon.

My two cents?

It's like a bad habit. You know that it's bad for you. You know that nothing good is coming from it, but you just can't help yourself.

Case in point: More people watched his Monday Night Football game between his new team (the Minnesota Vikings) and the team that he was on seemingly forever (the Green Bay Packers) than any other cable program -- ever.

It was the highest rated show of the week, despite being on a cable network (albeit a cable network that is on every single basic cable package in the country).

Why? Two words: Brett Favre.

Why do we care so much about Favre? Maybe we'll never know -- but for as long as he puts on that helmet (for whichever team it is), we'll still be watching.

Bloomberg breaks record for most self-funding in political race

All I can say is: Wow.

Michael R. Bloomberg, the Wall Street mogul whose fortune catapulted him into New York’s City Hall, has set another staggering financial record: He has now spent more of his own money than any other individual in United States history in the pursuit of public office.

He's spent $85 million of his own money so far. And he could spend up to $140 million by the time all is said and done.

The man who covers Texas executions

An interesting, if somewhat macabre, story about Michael Graczyk, the Associated Press reporter based in Houston, TX who has covered "nearly every execution the state has carried out."

From the New York Times:

No reporter, warden, chaplain or guard has seen nearly as many executions as Mr. Graczyk, 59, Texas prison officials say. In fact, he has probably witnessed more than any other American. It could be emotionally and politically freighted work, but he takes it with a low-key, matter-of-fact lack of sentiment, refusing to hint at his own view of capital punishment.

Held by the Taliban: 7 Months, 10 Days in Captivity

New York Times reporter David Rohde was held by the Taliban for seven months and ten days before escaping. In a five part series, he recounted his tale.

Moments later, I felt a hand push me back toward the car, and I was forced to lie down on the back seat. Two gunmen got in and slammed the doors shut. The car lurched forward. Tahir and Asad were gone and, I thought, probably dead.

Take an hour or so and go read the first four parts (the fifth isn't up yet).

Strip hockey

From ESPN:

In an effort to inspire more team unity, Lightning players competed in a post-practice game of strip shootout, according to the St. Petersburg Times.

Players faced off in a series of shootouts, forced to lose a piece of equipment every time their attempt was thwarted.

Those wacky Canadians (I just assume a good percentage of the team is Canadian).

Scientists find "ribbon" surrounding solar system

A very interesting story about the outer edges of our solar system.

In a discovery that took astronomers by surprise, the first full-sky map of the solar system's edge—more than 9 billion miles (15 billion kilometers) away—has revealed a bright "ribbon" of atoms called ENAs.

The solar system is surrounded by a protective "bubble" called the heliosphere.

Scientists have no idea why this is there -- it took them completely by surprise.

I have to say, astronomy is a very interesting science. If I was a lot smarter, maybe I would have went into it.

Inside the wacky world of the kickball world championships

From ESPN's Jemele Hill:

To say this ain't fifth-grade kickball is like saying Malcolm Gladwell is just a little bit smart. At your average rec league tournament, you do not see a team from New Mexico playing in green wigs as if they're straight out of a Dr. Seuss book or doing a team dance that's a cross between the Macarena and the stanky leg. You do not see men big enough to have played college football wearing bumblebee costumes (complete with antennae and wings) and feather boas. You do not hear the national anthem sung by a man who makes William Hung sound like Luther Vandross. You don't have a couple getting married in their kickball uniforms after their team -- which has a name that can't be mentioned here -- was eliminated from the tournament.

I played in a kickball tournament in New Mexico a few years back -- we made it out of our group, but lost in the first elimination game. In that game, we had a player ejected and a near-fight -- not joking. Kickball is serious business.

Some ignorant KC Chiefs fans on Facebook

Further down the line, a voice of reason:

Wow. There are some ignorant rednecks subscribed to this feed. Look, face the fact that our country has an increasing Spanish speaking population. If it bothers you unsubscribe and stop making Kansas and Missouri look as intolerant and backwoods as the rest of the country already views us.

On Rush Limbaugh and why he can't buy the Rams

Rush Limbaugh is out of a bid to be a minority (irony!) owner in of the St. Louis Rams.

And over at The Corner at the National Review, Kathryn Lopez unveils this gem:

Rush Limbaugh is not an acceptable sports investor because of his politics. How else to interpret the state of a sports world where Keith Olbermann can be on Sunday Night Football and Rush Limbaugh's hard-earned money can't be spent as a partial owner of a team in a sport he loves?

First of all, it isn't his politics. The Center for Responsive Politics looked into where the political money from the National Football League (NFL) went to.

And many of the owners that made political donations were, well, conservative. Dean Spanos, the owner of the San Diego Chargers (I'm typing this from the San Diego airport, actually) was a bundler for John McCain.

Daniel Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins, has given $199,000 to Republicans and $1,500 to Democrats.

Robert McNair, the owner of the Houston Texans, has given lots of money to Republicans, including Mitch McConnell, James Inhofe and Rudy Giuliani.

In other words, you can be conservative and be an owner; in fact, if you look at the percentages of money given to Republicans versus Democrats for most teams (the Rams, ironically, are one of the exceptions to this rule), Republicans got more money from NFL people than Democrats did.

As for the Keith Olbermann comment (he's the new bogeyman of the Right), did Lopez forget that he already had his chance to be an NFL commenter?

Limbaugh had to resign after this gem on ESPN's NFL Countdown pre-game show:

"I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well," Limbaugh said. "There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team."

McNabb, according to the Philadelphia Eagles website, "is the Eagles all time leader in pass attempts, completions, yards and TDs."

The previous three seasons, the Eagles had been to the playoffs three times and the conference finals twice in a row. In 2003, the year where Limbaugh made his idiotic statements, McNabb again led the Eagles to the conference finals. The next year, they made the Super Bowl.

In other words, not only was Limbaugh's "analysis" of McNabb wrong, it was just plain race-baiting for no reason.

So why can't Limbaugh be "partial owner of a team in a sport he loves" as Lopez asked?

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell put it best:

"I have said many times before that we are all held to a higher standard here," the commissioner continued. "I think divisive comments are not what the NFL is all about. I would not want to see those kind of comments from people who are in a responsible position within the NFL. No. Absolutely not."

In other words, Rush Limbaugh is not the sort of person the NFL wants to associate itself with. It's as simple as that.

Highlights from the USA - Honduras game

The United States of America vs Honduras game happened Saturday night, but odds are that you didn't see it. Why? It was on closed circuit TV only in the United States. Yeah, dumb.

But here are the highlights from the best game you never saw, unless you watched it on an internet stream.

Golf, Rugby new Olympic sports for 2016

So reports ESPN:

After more than a century on the sidelines, golf will return to the Olympics at the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro. Rugby, last played in 1924, is coming back as well.

Both were reinstated for the 2016 and 2020 Games after a vote Friday by the International Olympic Committee. They are the first sports added since triathlon and taekwondo joined the program for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Yet baseball is no longer an Olympic sport.

Confessions of a MLB ball hawker

Crazy.

Hample is a pro. He carries a cap for the home team and the visitors (more on that shortly). He has a streak to maintain (at least one ball per game attended since 1993), a reputation to uphold (he's written a book about ball-snagging, which essentially makes him the Dan Brown of books about ball-snagging) and an ongoing competition to win (he's currently in first place in an online ball-snagging league, and yes, there actually is an online ball-snagging league).

I've been to a number of minor league baseball games and two major league baseball games in my life, and I've never really been close to snagging a ball. The closest I've come is when I was at batting practice before a San Diego Padres game in 1998.

It was a game where Mark McGwire hit a home run (I remember two home runs, but apparently he never hit two home runs in a game while in San Diego in his 70 home run season, so my memory must be mistaken) -- but it was in batting practice where McGwire hit a blast to left field that was directly at me -- but five rows too far beyond me.

That wasn't his gut

From ESPN's recap of the Los Angeles Dodgers' 3-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Divisional Series:

A sinking line drive sailed through the chilly evening air toward Matt Holliday. All he needed to do was make the catch and St. Louis would have a series-tying victory.

Instead, the ball smacked him in the gut and dropped to the grass -- and the Cardinals never recovered.

I was watching the game, and I can assure you that the ball didn't hit him in the gut, but a little bit more... sensitive area.

There's video at that link above.

Newly found Babe Ruth footage excites baseball afficianados

A cool story from the New York Times:

Babe Ruth has struck out looking. Displeased, he leans on his bat, right hand on his hip, and looks back at the umpire. He utters something that can only be imagined. Lou Gehrig, on deck, leans on his bat, too, as if he has seen this act before. Ruth finally shuffles away, head turned to the umpire, dragging his bat through the dirt.

The scene, along with eight seconds of footage never publicly seen of Ruth playing the outfield, was part of an 8-millimeter film found by a New Hampshire man in his grandfather’s home movie collection. It provides a rare look at Ruth, a showman even in defeat.

Cool stuff. Head over to that link to see the video.

Marring an otherwise good article on Letterman

The New Yorker has an otherwise good blog post on David Letterman, but this mistake shows that the person who wrote the article obviously hasn't watched The Late Show with David Letterman in a while, let alone watch it on a regular basis:

But from the beginning things were a little off. Letterman made a show of running across the back of the stage before walking out to greet the audience, and then he went off to the side to talk to someone for a second or two. It’s hard to say what that was all about—nerves, blowing off steam, a pretend escape from the theatre?

The Late Show does this gag every day.

Get pumped for 30 for 30

ESPN is doing something crazy for it's 30 year anniversary -- doing 30 sports documentaries about 30 sports stories in the past 30 years.

And if this doesn't get you pumped for it... then there's something wrong with you. The first one airs on Tuesday October 6,so set your DVRs.

NBA lays down the Twitter law

No using PDAs, cell phones or other electronic devices by players, says the NBA's Twitter rules.

The league has defined "during games" as the period of time beginning 45 minutes before the start of a game and ending "after the postgame locker room is open to the media and coaches and players have first fulfilled their obligation to be available to media attending the game."

"During games" also includes halftime, according to the memo.

Then Milwaukee Bucks player Charlie Villanueva famously tweeted during halftime of an NBA game last year.

What can make toddlers fighting with giant foam fingers even funnier?

Having ESPN boxing analyst Teddy Atlas call the action.

James Mercer (of The Shins) and Danger Mouse forming a band

This is cool news:

To be clear, this is not just a "produced by Danger Mouse" one-off thing. Mercer and the Mouse are apparently in it for the long haul and already have plans extending past their first album. The pair recently collaborated on the Danger Mouse/Sparklehorse album Dark Night of the Soul. Our review hailed the Mercer track, "Insane Lullaby", as "one of the finest moments on the album."

ANd if you want to hear Insane Lullaby, you can listen to it here (just right click and save for the mp3).

Casinos are everywhere

Nate Silver wrote a very interesting piece in Esquire about the explosion of casinos and how states maybe shouldn't count on gaming to help their state budgets. And it got me thinking...

First, there was one thing jumped out at me:

We have now reached the point at which residents of seventeen of the twenty largest metro areas are within a three-hour drive of a blackjack table. And Washington, D. C., will make it eighteen once Delaware permits blackjack, leaving only Dallas and Atlanta. Just about everyone who wants to gamble in the United States is already a morning's drive away from being able to do so; with the possible exception of isolated Texas, states that open new casinos will mostly be stealing customers from one another.

Between those 18 metropolitan areas (once Delaware approves their gambling), there will be 102,470,600 people -- just in the largest metro areas -- within a three hour drive of gambling.

From where I am sitting right now (in the 59th-largest metro area), I can be at one of four casinos that have blackjack within an hour -- Santa Ana Star Casino, San Felipe Casino Hollywood, Sandia Casino and Route 66 Casino. Put it at three hours, there are probably fifteen casinos that I can hit -- maybe more.

According to the American Gaming Association, there are five racinos (race tracks with slot machines) in the state, one of which is within an hour drive (The Downs Race Track and Casino).

The American Gaming Association says there are 21 tribal casinos in New Mexico. This is the seventh most in the country, behind Oklahoma (96), California (66), Minnesota (31) Washington (31), Wisconsin (29) and Arizona (24).

Three other states have more commercial gambling casinos: Nevada (266), Colorado (40), South Dakota (35, in addition to 11 tribal casinos), and Mississippi (29).

Of those states, only South Dakota has a smaller population than New Mexico. According to the 2008 census estimate, New Mexico had 1.98 million people, while South Dakota had 804,000 people. Nevada, in case you were wondering, had 2.6 million people.

So Nevada has one casino for every 9,774 people.

So what does it all mean? Well, mainly that I have too much time on my hands. And that if I had any money, I could gamble pretty easily.

38-Year Old catcher staying in the major leagues -- for health insurance

A sad, sad tale from Sports Illustrated:

Two years ago, just when Fasano was thinking of finally retiring, his wife, Kerri, gave birth to the couple's third child, a boy named Santo. He was born with hypoplastic heart syndrome, a condition in which the left side of the heart is underdeveloped. "It was devastating, of course," Sal says. "Your son is helpless, and there's not that much you can do."

There was one thing Sal could do -- find a way to remain in the major leagues. Although baseball diehards who salivate over the perks of the game tend to speak of cathedral-like stadiums and million-dollar paychecks, of fancy travel and high-profile endorsements and red carpet fame, an element they tend to overlook is the major league health plan. If you are a ballplayer, and you spend so much as a second on a major league roster, you are entitled to a year of coverage that, says one major league executive, "takes care of pretty much everything you can think of."

He didn't make it to the major leagues this year, and with just a handful of games left, it doesn't look like the Colorado Rockies are going to call him up.

Usain Bolt visits ESPN HQ

Usain Bolt goes to Bristol, Connecticut and races ESPN employees. Hint: the world record holder in the 100 meter and 200 meter dash won.

Arena football coming back

From the Associated Press:

Officials from what will be known as Arena Football 1 say they will have 16 teams, including three in markets where the former Arena Football League had clubs: Chicago, Phoenix and Orlando, Fla.

The league will also have teams from the AFL spinoff, arenafootball2, as well as at least one team from another indoor league.

Last year, the Arena Football League folded after a number of issues came together at once to doom the niche league.

Stephen Jackson doesn't regret the Malice in the Palace

Remember the huge fight between the Indiana Pacers and the fans of the Detroit Pistons? Well, Stephen Jackson, one of the main characters in that particular drama, says he has no regrets about going into the stands in that fight.

On Monday, he even went as far as to say he regrets nothing in his career, speaking specifically about going into the stands with then-Indiana teammate Ron Artest during an ugly brawl with the Detroit Pistons in 2004.

In case you need a refresher, here's the video of the fight:

Man convicted of stealing locomotive ordered to stay away from trains

From the Miami Herald:

"He knew the workings of the locks, the switches for different tracks,'' Polo told prosecutors. "He knew the train. To my knowledge he knew the train backward and forward. He knew everything . . . And he loved trains."

Ryan Gustin, a special agent for CSX's security force with a knowledge of trains, was also on hand. When Gustin would describe to the officer how trains operate, documents show, Dowdy would finish his sentences.

The man, Brandon Dowdy, reportedly stole the train to go see a house band (Big Dick and the Extenders, in perhaps the only time that phrase will appear in the Miami Herald) play.

His lawyer says he committed the crime because he was off his medicine for bipolar disorder.

Well thats ONE way to fix a crumbling building...

Cool stuff from Dispatch Work. Though I'm sure it is less about actual construction than art.

High school football team filled with exchange students

This is very interesting; I have tried to explain the rules of football to people who don't understand it. But trying to explain the rules to someone who might not understand you? Wow.

But after that, the Burnt River lineup turns into a trip around the globe — Kan Bakai Uchkun Uulu, left guard from Kyrgyzstan; Szu-Yao Su, quarterback from Taiwan; Jovan Radakovic, left end from Serbia. Not to mention Ju Hyoung Park, right end from South Korea; Cem Erdogdo, right guard from Germany; and Ban Du, center from China.

Six foreign exchange students have turned the Burnt River Bulls into a virtual United Nations in helmets and pads.

The eight-man football team has just eight players (actually nine) and only two who had ever played football before.

Most humane way of execution -- by gun?

From the New Yorker's Henrik Hertzberg:

It’s quick, it’s inexpensive, and it’s not as messy as you might assume. No one knows for sure how it feels, obviously, but I expect that because the bullet instantly destroys the brain stem, the pain, if there is any, is minimal. You’d feel the blow, I imagine, like getting slapped on the back really hard or tackled unexpectedly from behind, but it’d but just wham, lights out. No digging around for veins, no lingering agony.

When telling a friend about this, he suggested just loading people up on morphine until they die.

How the board game Monopoly helped WWII prisoners escape

This is a really cool story:

During World War II, as the number of British airmen held hostage behind enemy lines escalated, the country's secret service enlisted an unlikely partner in the ongoing war effort: The board game Monopoly.

It was the perfect accomplice.

Included in the items the German army allowed humanitarian groups to distribute in care packages to imprisoned soldiers, the game was too innocent to raise suspicion. But it was the ideal size for a top-secret escape kit that could help spring British POWs from German war camps.

University Minnesota cracking down on drunken, rowdy football fans

If you get kicked out of a Minnesota Golden Gophers football game after being drunk and rowdy then you have to pass a breathalyzer test to get into the next game.

But that's not the part I want to concentrate on this story, but rather the... odd phrasing the Associated Press uses.

It is aimed primarily at fans who get blitzed at tailgate parties before entering the Golden Gophers' brand-new TCF Bank Stadium. The sale and possession of alcohol are banned at the 50,000-seat stadium, unlike the team's former home, the Metrodome, which is off campus and not owned by the school.

The slang, "fans who get blitzed" isn't something that you expect to see in an Associated Press story. It seems something more suited for Deadspin than the Associated Press.

Oh, and this quote from a Minnesota fan is hilarious:

Patrick Day, a junior who skipped tailgating at the home opener last Saturday to get in line for a good seat in the unreserved student section, said: "I think if you're terrible and puking, then are you really enjoying the game? I've been puked on before. You know, that's just not necessary."

Terrible? OK. Puking? OK. But terrible AND puking? Not OK.

Also, I've been a a few sporting events and I have never been thrown up on.

Steve Nash Vitamin Water informercial (starring 50 cent and the Slumdog Millionaire guy)

If you haven't seen the other Steve Nash YouTube videos, I recommend looking them up. And if you're wondering why 50 Cent is in this video, read this; 50 Cent made $400 million off selling Vitamin Water to Coca Cola.

And I have to say, while many in the media think that Shaquille O'Neal is the funniest basketball player out there, Nash seems to make the funniest commercials. And, yes, Shaq is an overrated athlete when it comes to comedy.

Kevin VanDam won the BassMasters Angler of the Year!

Who knew this even existed?

Technically, VanDam won the title by virtue of a two-day stringer of 10 bass that totaled 30 pounds, 6 ounces. In the convoluted formula that decided who was the best fisherman of the year in the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year (AOY) race, however, much depended on what other anglers did to help the Kalamazoo, Mich., angler beat down a strong bid by Skeet Reese.

I have to say, I have no idea how they determine who is the Angler of the Year even after reading the story.

And I tentatively label this as "sports" because I have no idea what other category to put it in.

Tug of War in the Olympics?

Jim Caple imagines while contrasting it to one of the potential new Olympic sports (golf):

Tug of war was an Olympic sport from 1900 to 1920 -- the U.S. swept all three medals in 1904 -- before being dropped for no apparent reason, and certainly no good reason. I mean, really. What would you rather see? Retief Goosen waiting for absolute silence as he leans over his putter? Or eight of our country's finest going against the eight toughest dudes from Iran (or whatever country we decide to hate in 2016), with each side straining every muscle and battling through unimaginable pain as their bodies scream "Stop! Stop! Oh, God, please stop!!!" but refusing to give an inch to those miserable foreign SOBs in order to prove whose country is the baddest-ass in the world?

Vegas clubs getting too wild -- even for Vegas

From the Los Angeles Times:

n July, gaming regulators slapped the Planet Hollywood casino with a $500,000 fine for its Prive nightclub's bad behavior, including "topless and lewd activity" and dumping club-goers in the casino "in various states of consciousness."

The same month, the Rio closed its Sapphire topless pool, managed by a local gentleman's club, after authorities arrested 10 people on suspicion of prostitution and drug crimes. Over Labor Day weekend, eight more arrests on similar charges were made at the Hard Rock Hotel's pool club, Rehab.

It's all part of a crackdown by authorities on what they see as clubs gone wild.

Man throws thousands of golf balls in Joshua Tree National Park

From the LA Times:

"Sometime around 2007, our rangers began discovering large quantities of golf balls in some turnout areas of the park," said park spokesman Joe Zarki. "We were wondering what was going on here. There were also some tennis balls involved."

Rangers also found cans of fruit and vegetables left in the desert along with park literature tossed about.

All in all, between 2,000 and 3,000 golf balls. Plus the other trash.

Apparently, for once, I agree with Jay Mariotti

Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame induction speech has been widely maligned. But, when I was watching it, I felt like Jay Mariotti. And, oh, man, that hurts to admit.

Man catches foul ball; gives to daughter; daughter throws back

Damn.



There goes her share of the inheritance.

Mexican-American astronaut calls for immigration amnesty; NASA freaks out

From the LA Times:

After the shuttle returned to this planet last week, Hernandez told Mexican television that he thought the United States should legalize the millions of undocumented immigrants living there so that they can work openly in the U.S. because they are important to the economy.

Officials at NASA flipped. They hastened to announce that Hernandez was speaking for himself and only for himself.

"It all became a big scandal," Hernandez told television viewers Tuesday. "Even the lawyers were speaking to me."

Paul Shirley: Oasis is better than the Beatles

I'm not sure if this is the crappy journeyman basketball player Paul Shirley being a contrarian, being sarcastic or just being plain dumb.

But he decided to write a column about how today's music is better than the Beatles -- which I guess some tone deaf people would agree with. But then he blasts this nugget:

I'd much rather listen to Oasis than The Beatles. Oasis, or any band that came after The Beatles, learned from The Beatles, improving on their work by listening to, building on and perfecting the styles pioneered by The Beatles. The result: The arrangements used by Oasis are more complex, the sound is denser, the production is better.

Seriously?

Shirley, stick to sitting on the bench and not playing basketball instead of trying to analyze music, OK?

Oh yeah, he also says Dean Koontz is a better author than Bram Stoker.

I'm surprised he didn't say that Kobe Bryant is better than Michael Jordan.

People are suddenly rude! Also, get off my lawn.

Umm... OK. The L.A. Times trying to explain recent outbursts of rudeness (Joe Wilson, Kanye West, Serena Williams, etc.):

Some say it reflects a general collapse of manners, rooted in the anti-authoritarian strains of the late 1960s. Some offer a psychological explanation: that such outbursts reveal the person beneath the mask of a public persona. Some see an element of racial animus at work.

To which I say, Kanye has done this before, how many times did we see John McEnroe go crazy on tennis umpires/judges. And, as for politicians from South Carolina, the New Yorker reminds us:

In May, 1856, Charles Sumner, a Democratic abolitionist senator from Massachusetts, gave a speech in the Senate, denouncing the “crime against Kansas.” The Kansas territory had been created and opened to settlement in 1854, but the question of whether or not slavery would be allowed in the territory had been left up to the inhabitants of the state. “The South,” Donald writes “determined to create a new slave state in Kansas, had banded together ‘murderous robbers from Missouri,’ ‘hirelings, picked from the drunken spew and vomit of an uneasy civilization,’ ” (in Sumner’s words). Sumner’s impassioned rhetoric against this pro-slavery faction enraged Preston Brooks, a Democratic representative from South Carolina. On May 22nd, he stormed into the Senate and beat Sumner with a gold-handled cane, striking half a dozen blows to Sumner’s head, blinding him with blood.

It takes 2,200 words to say that Jay Leno is an unfunny hack

Vanity Fair, trying to make sense of why Jay Leno is so popular, spends 2,200 words writing about the phenomenon when it could be said better in three words:

Lowest common denominator.

Does anyone out there think that Two and a Half Men is the funniest comedy on TV? Hell no, but it gets high ratings. Because it's familiar and unsurprising -- you always have a pretty good sense what is coming next.

Compare it to The Office or 30 Rock, and it's downright boring.

Jay Leno is the Two and a Half Men of late night TV.

Oh and this part is just 100 percent, completely wrong:

Although Leno is called a conformist and a hack and a survivor and all that kind of thing, he certainly positions himself against his network bosses more aggressively than the more rebellious-seeming Letterman or Stewart. Even with his face plastered on every billboard and bus stop in America over the past few months, he has, in press interviews, taken shots at NBC, questioning the network's wisdom for having unceremoniously nudged him, the No. 1 late-night performer, off the Tonight Show stage. Not exactly playing the good soldier, Leno has also said, with a laugh, concerning Conan's less-than-stellar ratings, “Not my problem.”

Yeah, because David Letterman and Jon Stewart never take shots at CBS or Comedy Central.

Get over yourself, Vanity Fair writer.

Even if you hate the Raiders, or the NFL, you gotta like Nnamdi Asomugha

Because of this article from ESPN on the extremely talented, hardworking, humble and just-plain-smart Raiders cornerback:

Of course he's a little peculiar. He's got rapper Ice Cube waiting for an autograph, the Beatles locked into his iPod and Al Davis on the brain. He doesn't even know how to treat himself. Nnamdi Asomugha signs a $45.3 million contract, one that makes him the highest-paid defensive back in NFL history, and as far as anyone can tell, doesn't spend a dime on bling. He still drives an old, pristinely kept 1997 Nissan Maxima. Ain't broke, Asomugha says, don't fix it. Write that down. It might be the only time the Cal-Berkeley grad, who earned his business management degree in four years, uses poor grammar.

Two things:
1) I do hate the Raiders (as a Chiefs fan, it just comes with the territory)
2) No, I can't spell Nnamdi Asomugha's name without Googling it.

Death of a Marine: An AP photographer's journal

No commentary here, just look at the pictures and listen to Julie Jacobson talk about a firefight in Afghanistan that cost the life of one Marine, Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard.

RIP, Lance Cpl. Bernard.

NYT Mag explores Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are"

I have a feeling that this is going to be a great movie that is a tremendous flop at the box office.

But this sounds intriguing:

“It’s in the visual language of, like, some sort of fantasy film, and it is a fantasy film to some degree,” [Spike Jonze] acknowledged, “but the tone of it is its own tone. We wanted it all to feel true to a 9-year-old and not have some big movie speech where a 9-year-old is suddenly reciting the wisdom of the sage.” He hadn’t set out to make a children’s movie, he said, so much as to accurately depict childhood. “Everything we did, all the decisions that we made, were to try to capture the feeling of what it is to be 9.”

And just for the hell of it, here's Jonze's video for the song Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, with some bonus footage at the beginning and end:

Somebody call Ron Burgundy! Video of US' first baby panda

Lacrosse brawl!

Lacrosse did something bigger than college football -- a bigger brawl. While the Oregon-Boise State "fight" was only one punch and a player being restrained from pulling a Ron Artest and going into the crowd.

But this lacrosse brawl, which Deadspin says "lasted ten minutes, resulted in 173 penalty minutes, and led to ten players (including both back-up goalies) getting tossed" definitely topped that.

What caught me is that, like hockey, there is a ritualized, traditional way of doing this. Two guys challenge each other, shed pads, gloves and then proceed to grab onto each other's jersey and attempt to punch the other guy in the face as hard as possible.

All while a ref stands there and watches it go down, only intervening when the fight goes to the ground or one player is too badly hurt. It's bizarre -- imagine if you saw this go down in, say, college basketball.

Bicyclists welcome at one Portland fast food chain's drive thru

From the Boston Globe:

A few weeks ago, Sarah Gilbert, a Portland native who is proudly “car-free,’’ pedaled her bicycle to the drive-through at Burgerville, a local fast-food chain. She ordered four cheeseburgers, one each for her husband and three young sons, who were waiting hungrily at home.

But when Gilbert tried to pay for the food, she was denied. This Burgerville drive-through, an employee told her, did not serve bicyclists.

As you can tell from the headline, this one had a happy ending.

The best story you'll read all year

An investigative piece in the New York Times Magazine about Memorial Medical Center and what happened there during Hurricane Katrina. It's 13,000 words long, took over two years to complete and is definitely the best journalistic piece you'll meet all year.

Katrina was the reason that I started doing political blogging (and somehow that turned into blogging about New Mexico politics), so this story is doubly interesting to me.

Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day trailer

Check it out:

Chad Ochocinco quits Twitter

NFL wide receiver Chad Ochocinco (who changed his name from Chad Johnson) says that he is quitting Twitter.

Due to the many rules the NFL has made I've found it difficult to enjoy Twitter and I'll be deleting my account :(

The rules are pretty harsh.

Of course, I don't think he's actually quitting Twitter, I expect to see Ochocinco back on Twitter sooner rather than later.

Steve Nash (@the_real_nash) plays pickup games in China

This is a cool story. From ESPN's Ric Bucher:

Local park custom is that you buy a $3 entry ticket and wait for your number to be called to play, which Nash dutifully did. But the crush to play with and against him was so overwhelming that, through the help of a bilingual Chinese native, Nash organized a knockout 3-on-3 tournament, going undefeated while alternating teammates.

He was dressed in costume for the start of the pick up session, with "a bandanna around his head, wearing a pair of clear goggles, brown cutoffs and knee-high soccer socks." They recognized him anyway.

And there's video (thanks to Google Translate, I figured out how to embed it):

How Darrell Hammond is making money post-SNL

Darrell Hammond is no longer on Saturday Night Live after being the longest tenured SNL cast member ever. So how is he making money now?

Apparently like this:

Oregon football player punches Boise State

Here's the video from ESPN:



And here is the response from the player who threw the blow (then, after hearing something from a Boise State fan, had to be restrained from entering the stands):



Clearly, the Boise State player said something to piss off LeGarette Boule (the Oregon player). But the retaliation for whatever the Boise State player said was far worse -- and now Boule, after the first game of his senior season, will miss a significant portion of his final college season due to suspension.

Kevin Eulls should be your hero today

I just heard about this on SportsCenter.

High school football player Kevin Eulls potentially saved the lives of numerous people on a school bus with his actions when a girl pulled a gun:

Surveillance camera footage on the Yazoo County school bus on Tuesday captured 18-year-old Kaleb Eulls tackling the 14-year-old girl while the children evacuated the bus.

He managed to wrestle the .380 caliber semi-automatic handgun from her, Yazoo County Sheriff Thomas Vaughan told CNN.

So why did I hear about it on SportsCenter? Well, Eulls is "a 6-foot-4, 255-pound high school senior and star quarterback who has verbally committed to play for Mississippi State University after he graduates."

According to SportsCenter, Eulls said he was willing to risk his life to save the lives of any of the other students on the bus -- including his three sisters.

And then, amazingly, they all continued on to school.

Watch it:

What we know about saving the bees

From the New York Times' Room For Debate blog.

Thanks to the terrific gene sleuthing of May Berenbaum and others, it looks like the pieces of the colony collapse disorder puzzle are starting to fit together. And we can stop arguing about who was right: The virus camp, the fungus camp, the pesticide camp, the varroa mite camp, or the nutrition camp. It turns out everybody was right. (Well, everybody except the cell-phone and microwave-tower camps.)

Go read what experts have to say about the mysterious collapse of honeybee colonies.

The craziest sports story of the year gets crazier

This story makes the Rick Pitino story look like nothing.

First, some background.

NBA player Dirk Nowitzki was engaged to a woman, Cristal Taylor, who turned out to have a bit of a rap sheet.

The team sources said Nowitzki's own suspicion led him to question Cristal Taylor's past while allowing her to stay in his house. Her arrest on two warrants, stemming from a probation violation and a theft charge, occurred as the Mavericks flew back from Denver.

It turns out this isn't the first professional athlete that Taylor was involved with. She had also "targeted" former NFL quarterback Tony Banks.

When their brief relationship fizzled, Banks said, Taylor began making harassing phone calls to him, his agent and even his St. Louis Rams head coach, Dick Vermeil.

Alarmed that Taylor was "trying to run my name through the mud," Banks notified team security, which learned Taylor had a criminal history and had used multiple identities.

Then Taylor said that she was pregnant with Nowitzki's baby.

And today's news?

Turns out that Taylor isn't pregnant according to medical records from the prison where Taylor is currently being held.

Crazy story.

Declaring sports fan free agency

I heard about this from another crappy (as usual) column from Rick Reilly.

Bloomberg sports columnist Scott Soshnick declared his sports free agency two years ago. What does that mean?

Here's the how-to guide:

Send the same memo to every team in the four major U.S. sports leagues: The NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball and NHL. In it, declare your free agency as a fan. Tell them you're theirs for the taking. Offer a lifetime of allegiance. Offer your heart. Your soul.

I did just that.

Only nine teams responded. Read the Soshnick column to see which team went above-and-beyond to win his undying sports loyalty.

The way they did it was pretty damned cool.

Redskins don't know how to treat their fans

Via @jeremyjojola:

The Washington Post shows that the Redskins aren't exactly the masters of public relations.

Last year, Hill's real estate sales were hit hard by the housing market crash, and she told the team that she could no longer afford her $5,300-a-year contract for two loge seats behind the end zone. Hill said she asked the Redskins to waive her contract for a year or two.

The sales office declined.

On Oct. 8, the Redskins sued Hill in Prince George's County Circuit Court for backing out of a 10-year ticket-renewal agreement after the first year. The team sought payment for every season through 2017, plus interest, attorneys' fees and court costs.

Hill couldn't afford a lawyer. She did not fight the lawsuit or even respond to it because, she said, she believes that the Bible says that it is morally wrong not to pay your debts. The team won a default judgment of $66,364.

Bankruptcy by Redskins.

Making Roger Federer look even more robotic

From the New York Times, a video of his footwork and how it helps him be so damned good at tennis.

It features some CGI versions of Federer.

Things I've learned today

1) Everyone uses GMail and when GMail goes down, they go to Twitter to complain.

2) Muhammad Ali had Irish ancestors.

About Cameron Todd Willingham, convicted of killing his children

The New Yorker always has excellent articles. And this article about Cameron Todd Willingham is no exception. The nearly 16,000 word article lays out the facts of the case.

I can't excerpt a certain piece and make it representative of the article, but it is definitely worth reading.

Nate Silver on Fox's morning show

Nate Silver, of fivethirtyeight.com fame, went on Fox News' morning show, and he had an... interesting experience discussing Barack Obama's falling poll numbers.

He concluded his post, "I've never met people more terrified of what might happen if they actually tried to engage in a rational discussion."

NFL lays down harsh guidelines on Twitter use

Wow.

From the Associated Press:

The NFL said Monday it will allow players to use social media networks this season, but not during games. Players, coaches and football operations personnel can use Twitter, Facebook and other social media up to 90 minutes before kickoff, and after the game following traditional media interviews.

During games, no updates will be permitted by the individual himself or anyone representing him on his personal Twitter, Facebook or any other social media account, the league said.

The use of social media by NFL game officials and officiating department personnel will be prohibited at all times. The league, which has always barred play-by-play descriptions of games in progress, also extended that ban to social media platforms.

The NFL's player who gets the most publicity for using Twitter, Chad Ochocinco, tweeted:

@ProFootballTalk what's the new policy that I am hearing about, need the ins and outs so I can get my tweet team together?

Charlie Villanueva, an NBA player then with the Milwaukee Bucks but who signed with the Detroit Pistons earlier this summer, sent a tweet at halftime of a game against the Boston Celtics this March.

Villanueva wrote:

In da locker room, snuck to post my twitt. We're playing the Celtics, tie ball game at da half. Coach wants more toughness. I gotta step up.

The NFL rules seem to be overkill.

Some teams themselves, the AP report notes, have laid down their own Twitter restrictions. And setting the restrictions on Twitter to an hour and a half before the game seems like something that the teams themselves would want to do. But not necessarily the NFL.

And as for the officials, if they want to join a social media network... too bad. It is completely prohibited.

AdAge looks into the future of ESPN -- including holograms

A pretty cool look into what we can expect from the sports media behemoth in the near future from Ad Age. And that includes holograms:

New hologram technology coming to ESPN in the spring, based on Electronic Arts' "Virtual Playbook," will enable anchors to be digitally inserted into shots from remote locations. The idea thrilled Chris Berman and Bob Ley, the two anchors with the longest tenure at the company.

"This is just an example of the cutting-edge technology that will save us so much money on airfare for the World Cup," said Mr. Ley, referencing ESPN's forthcoming coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which will be broadcast from South Africa. Mr. Ley first appeared via green screen from a separate conference room down the hall, only to appear seamlessly on the screen seated between Mr. Berman and Chuck Pagano, ESPN's exec VP-technology.

Mr. Ley looked remarkably more realistic than Will.i.am did during his appearance on CNN last fall, which was precisely the goal. "We looked at that and we said, 'How can we do it better?'" Mr. Pagano said. "How can we extend our internal studio to the outside world?" Although the convenience seems inherent, you can expect many jokes like the one Mr. Berman made in response to Mr. Ley: "You look like Kazoo on 'The Flintstones,' sitting on my shoulder."

The whole piece is interesting, so go take a look.

IKEA changes font, font-obsessed fans fume

I have to say... I don't care that much.

But when IKEA changed from a font that they've always used to Verdana, Time writes, some people were pissed off.

"Ikea, stop the Verdana madness!" pleaded Tokyo's Oliver Reichenstein on Twitter. "Words can't describe my disgust," spat Ben Cristensen of Melbourne. "Horrific," lamented Christian Hughes in Dublin. The online forum Typophile closed its first post on the subject with the words, "It's a sad day." On Aug. 26, Romanian design consultant Marius Ursache started an online petition to get Ikea to change its mind. That night, Verdana was already a trending topic on Twitter, drawing more tweets than even Ted Kennedy.

Cliff Lee isn't superstitious

Most baseball players, especially pitchers, are very superstitious. If they have a no-hitter going, no one acknowledges it. In fact, the pitcher will sit alone in the dugout because no one wants to talk to him and say something to jinx the no-hitter.

But new Philadelphia Phillie Cliff Lee, who was traded from the Cleveland Indians? Well, he doesn't care about that kind of stuff. His manager, Charlie Manuel, told Baseball Prospectus (subscription required) of Lee, "A lot of guys might have put pressure on themselves coming over here, but it doesn't faze him at all. His first game with us, he had a no-hitter going through five innings at San Francisco. Well, you know the superstition about not talking about a no-hitter, but he comes in the dugout after that fifth inning and says, 'Hey, I've got a no-hitter going.'"

Pretty cool.

A Jerry Lee Lewis song without piano?

Jerry Lee Lewis is as inextricably tied to the piano as Elton John or Billy Joel. But in his latest single, the 73-year old rock icon has a song that is completely devoid of piano.

There's just something wrong about that.

The New Yorker writes:

In a post on YourItList.com, [Cal] Morgan points out that “Lewis has rarely sung without the piano beneath his fingers; it is hard to imagine him without it, any more than we can imagine B.B. King’s voice without Lucille’s tart counterpoint.” But the new song’s lyrics challenge the listener to think twice about who Lewis really is—“If you think I’m a voodoo doll, that’s what I am”—and, as Morgan points out, the rocker’s motives are anyone’s guess.

It just seems weird.

He also sounds a lot like a poor man's Johnny Cash, perhaps because the song is written by Kris Kristofferson.

The Onion AV Club's least favorite movie cliches

I have to say, I agree with... well, just about all of these, especially this one:

Jason Heller

There are two clichés in particular that really irk me—probably because they’re both staples of one of my favorite genres, science fiction. First is the monolithic, evil corporation that always seems to come complete with a malevolent CEO, a cadre of sadistic scientists, and an army of faceless storm troopers. The most recent example I can think of is the fictional entity Multi-National United from District 9; granted, there is plenty of evil perpetrated by military-industrial contractors, but the world is just way more complex than that. But even worse, cartoonishly evil corporations make for lousy drama: It’s pretty much the same as the mustache-twirling villain, no ambiguity or complexity. Another sci-fi cliché that gets on my nerves is the plastic, antiseptic vision of the future in the vein of Gattaca or A.I.—which, besides being played-out and hard to swallow, seems to stem from some antiquated, Boomer-era paranoia about suburban conformity rather than any plausible prognostication of tomorrow. Human systems and societies are fluid and messy, not the homogenous lumps that writers and directors often sculpt—and even when their creations’ dark underbellies are inevitably revealed, the overall shape is usually far too simple.

The New York Mets as a slasher film

The New York Mets have had an incredible number of people hurt on their team this year. Of the 25 Mets on the opening day roster, just 11 are still playing.

So Baseball Prospectus wonders (subscription required) takes a short look back at the season full of injuries as if it is a slasher-film.

And they wonder who is next

Inconveniently, none of these 11 men are named 'Tina,' so we don't have any easy picks as far as who's going to be next to fall. We know that for the final survivor, it won't be any of the ones who have been drinking a lot, or those having fun, loveless pre-marital sex, or those having fun, lusty extra-marital sex, or those having sex of any stripe with their wives, because let's face it, sex is death in such matters. But here again, we can also probably take it for granted, given the immutable laws of slasher movies, that the real good-time charlies are already toast. I know, that probably means the guys left aren't exactly the original fun bunch, but I don't think anyone's figuring the remaining Mets to be a bundle of joy. Let's face, it, we're almost seven months in since the start of spring training, and anyone left on this fun ride must be feeling like the guys left in the final third of Dan Simmons' interminable Terror, wondering whether they get to eat one another before the polar monster TBNL chomps them to bits.

The anti-Twitter

Woofer, which looks like Twitter but is incredibly different, has a unique premise. Instead of requiring users to stay below 140 characters, it forces users to use at least 1,400 characters.

CNET looked at the website:

When you look at the site's three principles of woofing, you begin to believe that Woofer truly will be the salvation of the language: "1. Be eloquent. 2. Use adverbs. 3. DEA (don't ever abbreviate)," the site says.

Floyd Mayweather doesn't lack confidence

He did an ESPN chat yesterday, and here is one exchange:

russell (snellville,ga)

does it bother you that a lot of people seem to think you are no longer the best, even though you have not lost a fight?


Floyd Mayweather (5:09 PM)

Nobody who is a true boxing fan doens't believe that I'm the best. How can I not be the best when I've never lost? When there are so many people on the mythical best list have lost? If I was the No. 1 on the list when I left and the guy who is lost, how can I not be the best when I come back? That doesn't even make sense. My record speaks for itself.

He fights against Mexican boxing legend Juan Manuel Márquez on September 19 of this year.

Fan made trailer for Ferris Bueller's Day Off

This is pretty cool, even if the first song ("Shimmy Shimmy Ya" by Ol' Dirty Bastard) is incredibly misplaced in one of the quintessential 80s movies of the time.

Is it possible for Rick Pitino to look worse than he did?

I mean, seriously, what the hell was he thinking, calling this press conference and... looking crazy.



Why hasn't Rick Pitino, the head men's basketball coach at Louisville, resigned yet?

If you don't know the details of the Pitino case, then read this Sports Illustrated piece on the whole affair.

The last phone booths in Manhattan

Not just pay phones, but actual phone booths.

Something interesting from Huffington Post:

There are only four outdoor phone booths left in Manhattan - and they're all on West End Avenue. That's it: four

I wonder how many are left in Albuquerque -- are there any?

When I worked at the Victoria's Secret Call Center (yes, I worked there), they had two phone booths inside, which seemed... quaint.

And people would step in to talk on their cell phones in private which seemed... ironic.

Facebook quizzes reveal more than you think

Facebook quizzes are not only annoying, they can potentially reveal private information to the quiz developers.

The Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has put together a campaign to raise awareness of privacy issues surrounding Facebook applications, in particular quizzes. According to this group, the millions of Facebook users taking quizzes are revealing far more personal information to application developers than they are aware of. This is mostly due to the fact that Facebook's default privacy settings allow access to all your profile information whether or not your profile is set to "private." Even worse, the ACLU reports that even if you shun quizzes yourself, your profile info is revealed when one of your friends takes a quiz. Want to see how bad the problem is? Just take the ACLU's Facebook Quiz and prepared to be shocked.

Wow. So if you find out what Harry Potter character you are, then the quiz developer can know just about everything that is on Facebook. No matter your settings.

(Tip o' the hat to Trip for the catch... on Facebook no less)

Friday Night Lights, NPR edition

NPR is exploring high school football.

Starting with training camp and all through the 2009 season, NPR will bring you some of the stories, struggles and victories of high school football and the communities who support it, while also exploring the costs and the issues the sport raises.

In big cities and small towns across the country, high school football is the ritual that defines the fall. And for many young men, it is the ritual that defines who they are.

I never played football (I'm not exactly built for the sport), but I will be interested in seeing how this series plays out.

Perseid meteor shower video

Cool stuff. Via Bad Astronomy:

"Violent battles" and one man stabbed outside soccer game

Wow.

A man has been stabbed and violent battles have broken out between rival football fans in "large-scale" crowd trouble, police said on Tuesday night.

Hundreds of fans are involved in the disorder which police said was caused by people without tickets to the West Ham versus Millwall game who had planned to start trouble.

Basketbrawl

Uruguay vs Mexico in what was essentially a scrimmage:

Top ten plays of the weekend

Just about all baseball. Since it is, you know, the offseason for everything else, but here are SportsCenter's top 10 plays for the weekend that just ended.

Unassisted triple play ends Phillies game

Philadelphia Phillies 2nd baseman Eric Bruntlett ended the Phillies' 9-7 victory over the New York Mets in style -- with an unassisted triple play. You can see the video at MLB.com.

With the Mets threatening against Phils closer Brad Lidge, Eric Bruntlett turned the first game-ending triple play in National League history and only the second in Major League history. With Luis Castillo on second base and Daniel Murphy on first and both running on the pitch, Jeff Francoeur hit a line drive that Brunlett caught before he stepped on second base to retire Castillo. Bruntlett then tagged out Murphy to end the game.

It was just the 15th unassisted triple play in Major League history, and the second one to end a game.

Bruntlett also had three hits. Not a bad game.

The Shins - Turn on Me (Video

A pretty damned good video. Check it out.

Usain Bolt slideshow

Over at Talking Points Memo.

Bolt (seriously, a sprinter named Bolt!?) might be my favorite athlete right now who doesn't play on one of my favorite teams.

I can't decide which is my favorite photo. Maybe this one that shows he beat the rest of the field by a good ten meters.

But, yeah, Bolt is crazy fast.

Looking back to the future in baseball

A very interesting Uni Watch (a column about uniforms) from ESPN's Page 2 on "Turn Ahead the Clock," a promotion that gave teams 'futuristic' uniforms just in time for the turn-of-the-millenium.

I thought a couple of the jerseys (the Colorado Rockies and, against the judgement of the Uni Watch guy, the San Diego Padres) looked pretty cool. But the San Francisco Giants (left on the last link) and the Pittsburgh Pirates jerseys... umm... let's just pretend that never happened.

TV reporter files report -- via iPhone

Here in Albuquerque, KOB-TV reporter Jeremy Jojola (or @jeremyjojola on Twitter), did something pretty cool -- he filed his report via the iPhone.

Check it out:



I'm not an iPhone user and I still find this pretty cool.

Chad Ochocinco is multitalented

Chad Ochocinco (formerly Chad Johnson) kicked an extra point which proved to be the difference in the Cincinnati Bengals' preseason victory over the New England Patriots. Ochocinco, being the self-promoting showman that he is, wasn't exactly humble afterwards.

From the Associated Press:

" 'Esteban' Ochocinco is back, the most interesting footballer in the world," Ochocinco said. "Everyone has to remember, I've always said that soccer is my No. 1 sport. I think Ronaldinho would be proud of me right now."

It isn't the first time the American football player has expressed his love for the European style of football. Though, at the time, he was still named Chad Johnson.

ESPNsoccernet: Rumor has it that you drove Coach Lewis crazy juggling a soccer ball during practice?

CJ: [Laughs] Yeah that's the way I warm up, before games, during the season, in practice, in between drills, in between practice I use the ball, just juggling the ball all day.

Usain Bolt is crazy fast

Ho hum, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt smashed another record, this time in the 200 meter sprint.

The remarkable Jamaican took gold in 19.19 seconds, shaving just over a tenth of a second off the mark he set in winning the 200m at last year's Beijing Olympics.

Bolt smashed his own 100m world record with a 9.58 seconds clocking in claiming gold in the shorter sprint on the second day of the championshiops.

And his antics afterward, according to Pardon The Interruption's Twitter account, were almost as entertaining:

Usain Bolt just ran 19.19. Then fake-raced a mascot. Then got hand kissed by cameraman. We'll discuss at 5:30pm ET.

Crazy fast and he just has fun out there.

Why I love the New Yorker

This article on Ricky Jay, who not only is not only one of the most gifted sleight of hand magicians of his time but also a great historian of magic, is nearly 15,000 words long. And every word is worth reading.

The article is from 1993, and I wish someone else would write such an article about him in 2009. It would be equally interesting to see what he has done in the last 16 years.

@TheOnion: "Newly Discovered Recordings Reveal Beatles Actually Terrible Group"

From The Onion:

This unfortunate find has forced music historians to completely reassess the talents of John, Paul, George, and Ringo," said Beatles scholar Mark Lewisohn, who has dated the tapes to early 1968.

I wish I could write as well as David Sedaris

His latest from the New Yorker is here:

The thing had been struck but not run over. It hadn’t decomposed, or been disfigured, and I was surprised by the shoddiness of its coat. It was as if you’d bred a rabbit with a mule. Then there was the tail, which reminded me of a lance.

“Hugh,” I called. “Come here and look at the wallaby.”

It’s his belief that in marvelling at a dead animal on the roadside you may as well have killed it yourself—not accidentally but on purpose, cackling, most likely, as you ran it down. Therefore, he stayed in the car.

“It’s your loss,” I called, and a great cloud of steam issued from my mouth.

As always with Sedaris (and the New Yorker), there is much, much more.