Because It’s Finals And People Are Telling Me I’m Not Blogging Enough:
Astute readers will remember my old cell phone, which would not stop buzzing; BoingBoing recently discovered that the general idea has been commercialized in the form of a vibrator disguised as a cell phone (see picture—it even looks like my broken phone). What will they think of next?- Blogspot was down for a while yesterday, wiping out a healthy portion of the blogosphere; in an email, Jose Manuel Tesero of Global Voices called the temporary disaster “Blognarok”.
- The cable TV guide says about tomorrow night’s Victoria’s Secret TV special: “Women model lingerie at the annual event in New York.” Who writes this stuff?
- According to Daring Fireball, now that Adobe’s purchase of Macromedia is complete, they’re apparently thinking about a horrific mutant combination Flash player/PDF plug-in. Mere Words Cannot Express The Horror.
- Fantastic food blog. Too bad there’s not RSS feed.
- This article about the football coach at Texas Tech, written by the same guy who wrote Moneyball, is fascinating. The basic question is how does Texas Tech—a second tier college program—manage to lead the nation in scoring year in and year out? Their offense is a freaky, video-game-esque scoring machine. Last year, playing a heavily favored TCU, Texas Tech was losing 21-0 midway through the second quarter. The final score of that game was Texas Tech 70, TCU 35. The writer ignores some historical antecedents—Tech’s system of running only a few plays out of multiple formations is reminiscent of Joe Gibbs’ Redskins teams of the 80s, which only had four running plays in the playbook but ran those four plays out of a dizzying array of formations—but nonetheless, it’s a great read for anyone interested in football.
- Clotilde Dusoulier—the genius behind Chocolate and Zucchini—takes us on a culinary tour of Paris.
- Going back to pro football for a second, it does look like it’s going to be The Year of the Horse. Having said that, their next three games are tough sledding—on the road at Jacksonville, the Chargers at home, and the Seahawks—the best team in the NFC—in Seattle. Plus it’s quite likely that they’ll have to go through two teams from the AFC West on the way to the Super Bowl—two out of the Chargers, Broncos, or Chiefs—and all three of those teams are built around solid defense and a punishing running game, the kind of team should give the Colts a real run for their money.
- A curious Fickr set from the Korean DMZ. Check out how the guards are standing.
- And finally, after many false starts, winter has finally sputtered into New York City. It snowed on Sunday, and it’s snowing again right now. All I have to to is find my gloves. They’re in my apartment somewhere…