Friday LinkFrogging – 7/23/10

Screw you JMS!

 

Well kids, if its late July the geeks are convening in sunny Southern California.

That’s right, its Comic-Con weekend in San Diego.  And while we at the ‘Geek were able to secure press credentials for the mecca of all geekdom, due to timing issues we were unable to get there.

That doesn’t mean we haven’t enjoyed reading the press releases and marvelling at the missed opportunities (an interview with Pauly Shore?  Christopher Daniels?  Elvira?).

Discussions have been had.  Plans have been tentativised.  Next year kids.  Next year, we at the ‘Geek will bring it to you first hand.

Until then we’ll just have to do our part with this week’s cheesecake.

Say hello to Lynda Carter, better known to a certain generation of American males as Wonder Woman.

Spinning her way into our homes and our collective consciousness in 1975, Ms. Carter came to epitomize the DC Comics Amazonian princess for decades.  Why, I still remember a summer vacation at my grandmother’s house during which I read the local paper and it mentioned that Ms. Carter and Farrah Fawcett would appear on a new show called Battle of the Network Stars and they would both be wearing swimsuits.  I asked my dad if we could watch it that night.  He didn’t hesitate to say yes.

Gread guy my dad.

Remind me to tell you the Risky Business story sometime.

But I digress.

Despite a recent costume change in the comics, Ms. Carter’s iconic portrayal of Wonder Woman makes her our choice for cheesecake this week as we sit at our desks lamenting what might have been.

Next year.

Next year.

On to the links.

Obama v. McCain: The Truth is Out There

“We are in the bottom of the ninth.

“Much like the 1969 ‘Miracle Mets,’ Barack Obama stands on the precipice of history. Barring an error of Bill Buckneresque proportions, Senator Obama will very likely be the winner of the seemingly perpetual 2008 presidential election. The Senator from Illinois- home of the Cubs, the White Sox and ‘Da Bears- could not have run a more efficient campaign had Tony LaRussa been at the helm.

“That being said, it may have been Senator McCain’s Boog Powellian selection of Sarah Palin that put the runners in scoring position. And like Ron Swoboda in the year of Woodstock and Broadway Joe, Senator Obama used that error, one in a long line long of errors by the McCain campaign, to drive the message home.

“Finally, to paraphrase a line from Paul Dickson’s 1991 book “Baseball’s Greatest Quotations,” ‘If the Mets can win the World Series, the US can get out of Iraq’.

“Good night and good luck.”

-MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann during a recent ‘Campaign Comment.’

When teased by an MSNBC intern that the Mets were, in fact, not in this year’s World Series, Mr. Olbermann shattered a New York Yankees souvenir bat over the head of the intern and stormed out of the MSNBC studios muttering about Tom Seaver and Willie Randolph.

Mr. Olberman, all intern clubbing aside, is not far off the mark. While lacking his ‘objectivity’, many a pundit has echoed the sentiment that Barack Obama has run an exceptional campaign and, should the polls hold true, will be the next President of the United States.

However, as Yogi Berra says, “It ain’t not over til it’s over.”

Until the fat lady sings next Tuesday, there is technically a lot of campaign left. Undecideds and soft supporters still make up a sizeable 20+% of those likely to vote on November 4th. To put it another way, this campaign is still one October Surprise from making the pundits look bad.

For the past month, GonzoGeek reporters have dug deep into the campaigns of Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, examining what the two candidates stand for and what they propose to do if elected.

We present their work to you, as non-Olbermannly as possible.

And don’t worry, we left the bats at home.

A Great Week for Playa’ Haters

Growing up in Michigan and having lived most of my life since in Houston, I learned a few things early that have stuck with me. College football in California sucks. So does college football in Florida. This is a Michigan-Texas common ground. Sometimes it hasn’t actually bourne true. But it’s still some good common ground.

Professionally, the old lessons have held closer to form. Sports teams from Chicago blow (usually true). Sports teams from Dallas are big wusses. (True often enough).

And so, the week that was:

Oregon St. 27, USC 21
Fresno St. 36, UCLA 31

Sure, UCLA is having a (nother) generally bad year. But this was a first-time loss to Fresno at home. The USC loss speaks for itself: overinflated, press-believing fools get soft, fall hard.
It’s also nice watching a bunch of NFL rejects, wannabes, or never-weres (Carroll, Neuheisel, Chow) prowling the sidelines helplessly.

Ole Miss 31, Florida 30

….in Gainesville. Classic! Urban Meyer’s a whiny puss and his team is starting to play like it knows this. Tim Tebow? Another Rex Grossman at best at the next level. Probably more like Andre Ware (though I had a blast watching him with 7 other people doing the run-and-shoot in the ’dome all those years ago) or Charlie Ward (who had enough sense to play basketball..well).  

We’ll let FSU off the hook this week because they’re weak, Bobby Bowden’s old, and they lost to Wake at home the week before (not because they beat Colorado. Who cares?).

And then comes Sunday.
Redskins 26, Cowboys 24

….at Texas Stadium. With Jerry Jones gripping on the sidelines. It were purty. Their run defense: shredded. Their pass defense: shredded. Their running game: invisible. T.O.: reverting back to cry-baby form. Keep trying ‘boys. You’ll get over one year or another.

It was fun watching Jim Zorn succeed. I’m also still sorry the Texans didn’t draft Felix Jones. I think he will be a top-shelf NFL running back at some point. Other than that: Go REDSKINS!

Alas, perfection could not be, and the deservedly hated Chicago White Sox failed to lose.

Oh well. Let’s just make sure we avoid a Cubs-Sox series.

Hate the White Sox

‘My name is Stephe, and I’m a Kansas City Royals fan.’

‘Hello, Stephe.’

‘Um, yeah, it’s been like forever since we’ve played meaningful games in, gosh, I don’t know, July, so it’s been pretty tough on us.’

‘Uh-huh.’ ‘Yup.’ ‘We’ve been there brother.’

And so it goes when you’re a small-market fan. Year in and year out you’re served a big bowl of prospect pudding, hoping something comes together to give you hope…for next season. When a player blows up, he’s gone, traded for a whole heap of upside and players to be named later.

Reimagining Major League Baseball – Take 2

A while back I wrote a lengthy post about my idea to realign Major League Baseball along geographical lines.  My idea was to group teams in a way that made sense based solely on their physical location (ie both New York teams in the same division).

Shortly after that, Stephe and I started talking about how it might also be interesting (and probably funnier) to realign along fiscal lines.  Think about it.  What drives the game these days?  Is it fan loyalty?  No.  Its dollars.  Salaries continue to escalate in a handful of markets while others suffer as they try to remain competitive.

 
Free agency essentially killed the idea of “the team.”  Its gotten much easier to go out and overspend to fill a need than to grow a team using the farm system (again I’m looking at both New York teams).

To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, at some point we’re just cheering for the uniforms.