Baseball is a game of inches

Former Astros third baseman Morgan Ensberg has a blog where he talks about baseball. He has a really revealing post about how small the margin of error is sometimes-- specifically, a play where he was positioned a couple of feet too far in one direction (due to "an optical illusion" that the manager didn't know about) which resulted in the Cardinals beating his team for the pennant.



Interesting stuff, since sportswriters and broadcasters don't usually talk about things like defensive positioning, even though it can have a huge impact on the game. Instead, the story is that Brad Lidge is a choker and Pujols is the hero, even though it could have easily turned out exactly the opposite, if the third baseman had been standing a couple feet over to the side.

Goalie fight!

Hockey is awesome, and goalies are the best part.

Andre the Giant: Dead Wrestler of the Week

Deadspin.com has a nice article about the wrestling (and acting) (and drinking) legend Andre the Giant.



He was listed at 7'4", but who knows how tall he really was. Here is towering over Gorilla Monsoon, who was a huge man. (for some reason they box each other in this video, rather than wrestle)


I remember watching him wrestle in Montreal's Grand Prix Wrestling, under the name The Giant Jean Ferre, feuding with Don Leo Jonathan, when I was a little kid. He was massive and awesome and larger than life in every way. I didn't know then what a drinker he was, which only makes him seem even larger.



119 beers in six hours?? He might just be the greatest drinker of all time.

The Giant was one of a kind, and should never be forgotten, by his posse or by the rest of us. And even now he can still teach us about the controversial health care debate.

Set the DVR controls for TCM: Kurosawa, then the Marxes

Tuesday March 23rd, Turner Classic Movies will be showing the films of Akira Kurosawa, one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of all time. Definitely worth DVR-ing, as some of these are hard to find on video.



The complete schedule for the 23rd. Includes some of his most famous, such as "Rashomon, "Seven Samurai" and "Yojimbo."

Then a week later, they're showing three more by Kurosawa.




Monday March 29th, TCM is having a Marx Brothers Marathon, featuring six of their funniest films: Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, and At the Circus.

Talk Like William Shatner Day

Since Talk Like Pirate Day became so big that no one cares anymore, Talk Like William Shatner Day has jumped into the momentarily funny but soon to be annoying void.



Today is Talk Like William Shatner Day, so overemote, pause, and gesticulate broadly today. By next March 22nd, so many people will be doing it, it'll be annoying.

Check out how the experts do it:

Can't trust Heineken.

In a publicity stunt, Heineken beer tricked a thousand Italian soccer fans into missing the big AC Milan-Real Madrid match last year:




At least they showed them the game on the big screen in the end. Still, this proves that you can't trust Heineken. There are many better beers to drink that won't prank you!

The Daily Batman

The Daily Batman is a simple site: every day you can find one image of Batman there, whether it's a panel from an old comic...



A photo of a Batman parade float:



Or an insanely great painting of Batman using a light saber in a fierce underwater fight against a shark:



A Batman a day keeps the Riddler away.

Gus Johnson Gets Buckets!

CBS TV basketball announcer Gus Johnson has won a legion of admirers for his enthusiasm. If you're watching the NCAA tournament this month, you'll recognize him and his many catchphrases. Gus Johnson Gets Buckets has collected most of them and put them on one page, so that you can click on any one you want for an instant Gus Johnson soundbite. These soundbites should come in very handy in almost any situation.



Here comes the pain! Got it! Rise and Fire! Heartbreak city!

Give it to 'em, Gus!

Google, you complete me

Ever notice how when you're typing a google search, sometimes you have the option of letting google automatically finish what you're typing? Sometimes, Google says the darnedest things. Apparently, if something has been googled often enough, it will become an autofill option. No matter how insane it might be.



The site Autocomplete Me collects the weirdest and funniest of these autocompletes, so we don't have to.

Der peeps, der peeps, oh boy oh boy oh boy...

Happy St. Paddy's!

The Great One, smoking, drinking, and apologizing

TV is not like this anymore.


Jackie Gleason : "You're in the Picture"
Uploaded by werquin. - Discover more animation and arts videos.

Jackie Gleason's new show was terrible and unpopular. But instead of just canceling it and forgetting it, he came back the next week and basically just rambled to the camera in a charming, smoke-filled apology. There are dozens of contemporary stars who should be forced to do this, but no one would bother watching them, because they don't have the charisma to pull it off.

Your Own Personal Cartoon Euro beatboxers

Incredibox is a website that allows you to instantly create your own group of scruffy European cartoon beatboxers:



THIS is what we've all been waiting for!

You go to the site, and drag one of the icons onto the scruffy cartoon French guy. It starts making noise, and another scruffy cartoon French guy appears. Drag another icon onto that guy, and another sound is added to your mix.

Treme, by David Simon

David Simon, writer/producer of perhaps the best TV show of all time, The Wire, has a new show set in New Orleans coming out on HBO in a few weeks, called Treme. Here's a preview:




And another:



Looks great. I don't have HBO anymore, but I'll be subscribing to watch this.

Edit: The NY Times Sunday Magazine had a long article about Treme, definitely worth checking out.

Drink yor way to health care reform this St. Patrick's Day

If we all work together, we can do this!

They'll Snark It Every Time.

I had forgotten about the old comic strip "They'll Do It Every Time," which used to run in the sunday papers when I was a kid, until the Comics Curmudgeon blog posted some really old strips from the 1940s:



I like the drawing in this old-timey strip, and the way it pokes gentle fun at how silly human nature makes us all act sometimes.

Of course, the Comics Curmudgeon is a great blog, every day bringing well-deserved ridicule to newspaper comic strips, and making them way funnier and more interesting than they could ever be on their own.

Iraq? Is that thing still around?

Does WMD stand for W's Mancrush on Damon?

Canadian pee breaks

Neatorama has a great chart that shows how hockey-crazed Canada is. It seems that no one in the country went to the bathroom during the Olympic hockey final, until the intermissions between periods, when everyone went.

Go, Canada, your home and native land; tween-period time, is your relieving plan; When going hard, we see them rise, the true north goes to wee! From far and wide, Go Canada, in unison you pee!

Tomorrow is nothing but ice cream on wheels

Dinosaur comics is good thing.


It is very spring-like out today! We are going to ride the heck out of our bikes shortly.

So many Oscar night bingo cards

Oscar time, already?


One way to make the Hollywood self-congratulation festival more enjoyable, beyond the obligatory drinking and snarky comments, is to make a game out of the whole celebrity award show thing.

The traditional Oscars game is to make predictions on the winners and keep score, but since apparently some guy in one of this year's 74 Best Picture-nominated films said "That's a Bingo," several websites are offering Oscar Night Bingo cards, where you can score points for events like speech-makers with bad accents, or close-ups of uncomfortable-looking award-losers in the crowd.

The official Oscars site offers 9 different bingo cards, though without much snark or cattiness.

The How About Orange blog offers a pdf of 12 different bingo cards, if you're really going to be watching with 11 other people.

The Reelzchannel presents four different Oscar night bingo cards.

Chris White Answers Profound Questions About the Presidents

These two guys got their drink on, am I right?



The literarayish humor website McSweeneys has a useful semi-regular feature called Chris White Answers Profound Questions About the Presidents.

As the title promises, comedian and former history major Chris White offers insightful answers to questions such as "Which President would win in a fight?" (Andrew Jackson) "Which President would you want to have a beer with?" (Warren G. Harding) and "Could we use a man like Herbert Hoover again?" (sort of, but not as president.)


Here is a video of Chris White doing stand-up comedy:

Get a brain, morans: The movie

A Swedish ad agency has created a site where you can make yourself (or anyone you have a photo of) the hero of a short film. It's intended to thank Swedes for paying their national broadcasting fee, but it can be used to make anyone seem like a hero, even the "Get A Brain, Morans!" guy:



http://en.tackfilm.se/?id=1267566878598RA76