For any sports gambling aficionados (or stock market junkies) out there who happen to venture by the site, a very good friend of mine from college has just started MLBcharts.com (although he also covers the NBA, NHL, NCAA, and soccer therein.) Basically, he’s been applying stock market valuation principles to sports gambling, with positive results (for him, anyway — a few March Madness games notwithstanding, I’ve been watching his success from afar.) At any rate, go check it out!
Month: July 2006
Uneven Stevens.
“I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.” Via my sis-in-law Lotta, GOP Senator Ted “Bridge to Nowhere” Stevens (R-AK) seems more than slightly confused about the functioning of the Internets, to use Dubya’s parlance.
Renaissance Men (of Steel.)
In today’s trailer bin, Brazil alums Jonathan Pryce and Ian Holm reunite (as voice talent, with Daniel Craig and Catherine McCormack) in the Sin City-ish new trailer for Christian Volckman’s Renaissance, and Adrien Brody delves into the death of Superman (a.k.a. George Reeves a.k.a. Ben Affleck), with Diane Lane and Bob Hoskins on hand, in the new trailer for Allen Coulter’s Hollywoodland. Update: And one more: Edward Norton conjures up trouble for the powers-that-be (with Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel, and Rufus Sewell) in the new trailer for The Illusionist (not to be confused with Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige, due out later in the year.)
American Idyll.
By way of Ed Rants, and along with several quality links about early American popular music, Folded Space posts twenty mp3s (in the public domain) of Progressive Era musical hits, including “Come Josephine in my Flying Machine,” “That Haunting Melody,” “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny,” and “Over There.”
Origin Story.
“Blue Origin proposes to launch its reusable launch vehicles (RLVs) on suborbital, ballistic trajectories to altitudes in excess of 325,000 feet (99,060 meters) from a privately-owned space launch site in Culberson County, Texas.” Some details emerge about the New Shepard Reusable Launch System, currently being developed by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, where — full disclosure — one of my best and smartest friends from college is currently employed. “Also on the group’s to do list at the site is putting in place a vehicle processing facility, a launch complex and vehicle landing and recovery area, as well as an astronaut training facility, and other minor support amenities.”
Failure to Launch.
“George Bush’s luck hasn’t run out just yet. North Korea’s Fourth of July missile fizzle is the biggest diplomatic break that the president has caught all term — and the biggest setback (‘catastrophe’ wouldn’t be too strong a word) that his most-loathed nemesis, Kim Jong-il, has suffered in years.” Slate‘s Fred Kaplan sees good news for the US in yesterday’s North Korean rocket launch, as, in effect, “Kim Jong-il shook the dice and rolled craps.” Still, “[w]hat happens next is worthy of nail-biting.”
Lay to Rest.
In a surprising coda to the Enron trial, company founder, presidential confidant, and recently convicted felon Ken Lay died this morning of a heart attack. His dubious legacy: “Enron’s bankruptcy filing cost thousands of workers their jobs, spooked investors into doubting the integrity of the stock market and spurred lawmakers to enact the most significant changes to corporate practices in more than 70 years.“
I Think I’ll Call it America.
“From his first day on his own, he was not someone who could be reduced to a type, a symbol, or made to stand for a cause. Against all odds he had in fact achieved what the country promised him: ‘life,’ on his own terms; ‘liberty,’ seized, acted out, taken from him; ‘the pursuit of happiness’ — which, at the end of his life, meant firing a revolver in the air.” In an Independence Day-themed commencement speech reprinted in Salon, rock critic Greil Marcus riffs on the American Dream, using The Sopranos‘ Vito Spatafore and Theodore Rosengarten’s The Life of Nate Shaw as examples. The latter is a favorite book of Columbia’s Eric Foner (although he didn’t list it here), and it seems likely that he (or possibly Marcus’ fellow Dylanologist, Sean Wilentz) was the guy who recommended it.
Muggle Memories.
As part of the sixth anniversary festivities for The Leaky Cauldron, the Harry Potter blog-turned-comprehensive-fansite I set up way back when, Melissa Anelli, Sue Upton, and John Noe — current heads of the site team (now numbering 150 strong) — interviewed me this week on their weekly Pottercast. Great job over there, y’all, and thanks for the chance to reminisce. 🙂
Sylvia Path.
“Fonteyn could not jump the way ABT’s Gillian Murphy did on Monday night…” My sister Gill (recently interviewed here) gets a pair of nice reviews today for her recent turn in ABT’s Sylvia. ‘Gillian Murphy, who danced the title role on Monday, was born to play Sylvia…even early in her career she had a gift for ornamenting bold, bravura dancing with filigree musical phrasing, and that gift serves her well.”