Links of the Week: Inception, Michael Jordan, and an Ode to Those Who Plan Things

Since January, I’ve been planning a wedding. Well, I should say, my fiancée has been planning a wedding. There is a lot that goes into planning a wedding, more than I ever thought before. You see, originally I thought it was fairly simple: book a church, a reception hall, get a honeymoon together, and bam—you’re done.

Oh how wrong I was.

As I came home to see six hands working feverishly by gluing pearls onto pieces of paper and ribbons, I think the whole wedding planning discrepancy closed. I instantly became overwhelmed not only with what needed to be done in the six weeks ahead, but what has been accomplished in the few months prior.

Unfortunately, on top of the wedding, we’re also planning a funeral.

We moved up the wedding a full year because my fiancée’s grandma was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. Originally, we thought moving up the date from September 2011 to September 2010 would allot enough time for her to attend the wedding. On Monday, we found out that wasn’t the case. I don’t mean for this to be a sad intro to the Links of the Week—I’m helping my fiancée write her eulogy later tomorrow. I mean this more as an ode to Those Who Plan Things.

I consider myself fairly smart, but I’m an idiot when it comes to planning things. Invitations, monograms, aisle runners, confirmation cards, expense spreadsheets, hotel rooms for guests, transportation--- these are all things I either A) didn’t know existed or B) wouldn’t have thought of on my own to be included in any of the proceedings.

So to you, Those Who Plan Things, I salute you. You have a thankless job, and for you, I dedicate these Links of the Week:

I saw Inception, the latest Christopher Nolan movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, on opening night last week. I loved it. What an incredible movie! There has been a bit of backlash and over-analysis though, which has been a little annoying to me. It was a really, really good movie. Did I say that already? My favorite review comes from Richard Roeper at the Chicago Sun Times, which breaks down the movie and the backlash against it.

A kitten riding a turtle? A kitten riding a turtle.

The new NBA2k11 game that comes out this fall will feature Michael Jordan on the cover. But that's not the real story here. The game will feature ten different versions of Jordan, like Flu Game Jordan, Final Shot Jordan, Sixty-Three Point in the Playoff Game Jordan, with varying strengths and weaknesses. I think I found my new favorite 5-on-5 video game.

The internet's most useless (and thus, most awesome) blog: The Sports Hernia Blog. Scroll down a page or two and tell me you don't laugh at least 5 times.

GQ Magazine's recently released Comedy Edition is on fire. There is an awesome interview with Bill Murray where he talks about his past, his weirdness, and what he really thinks about Ghostbusters 3. There's also a nice piece about a writer who has worked for Leno, Letterman, and Conan and was present when the whole Leno-replaces-Conan debacle happened. There's a bunch of others, so check out that magazine. Good work by GQ.

You had me at "DJ Rony Seikaly"...

Because we love lists, here are the 50 Most Fortunate Athletes of 2010.

Okay, so maybe a couple of weeks ago when I said that soccer may actually catch on slowly in the US after Landon Donavon's World Cup game-winner... well, it may have been a reach. International superstar Thierry Henry recently came to the US to play in the MLS, so naturally he had to go through the media junket doing interviews. Needless to say, it didn't go well.

And for your video of the week, Billy Preston's "That's The Way God Planned It" because that's the way he wants it to be: