By now, I am sure you've seen the Kayne West - Taylor Swift debacle at the VMAs. If you haven't, Kanye basically interrupted Swift's acceptance speech in order to tell everyone in the world (or at least the people that watch MTV) that Beyonce's video was better (which it was). This aired on Sunday night, during which I was watching the Bears game. I had checked my email and TweetDeck at halftime, and there were a lot of "Did you see what Kanye did?!?!?" comments. I passed on trying to find out, because I honestly didn't care all that much.
By the next morning, I was watching the news as I was getting ready for another day here at ValpoLife. The first thing I heard was, "I'm sure you've already seen it, but look what Kanye West does at the VMAs last night!". So I watched it. By the time I got to work, the story had already been on every news outlet on my iGoogle. CNN? Check. Deadspin? Check. Yahoo? Check. I could go on.
It got me thinking: in this Twitter-world we are living in, is the 24-hour news cycle, as short as it is, already a thing of the past? Are we on a 12 hour news cycle? 4 hours? Is this a good thing? So, on the idea that yes, the "big stories" now can get played out before a full day has passes, I give to you The Links of the Week.
This week, Patrick Swayze passed away. In reading this memorium article on Dark Horizons, I clicked on his IMDB page. I realized something: I've never seen a Patrick Swayze movie. I somehow avoided ever seeing The Outsiders, Ghost, or any other movie of his. I don't know what to say about that, I see a lot of movies, especially from the 80's and 90's. Yet, here is one of the biggest stars of that era, and I missed them all. Let's hope this doesn't lead to my girlfriend reading this and immediately demanding that I watch Dirty Dancing. For some reason I don't think I'll like that one. Any Swayze suggestions?
Hey! Look! It's a bear playing soccer! And the trumpet!
Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated breaks down the best baseball players and teams of the aughts ('00s). His conclusions is fairly obvious: Albert Pujols. Nonetheless, its still a good quick read, and lists like these always make for good debate fodder.
On Wednesday, the guys from the FIRE JOE MORGAN blog guest-edited Deadspin for the day. These guys ran the best sports blog on the web until last year, when they left to write the NBC show, Parks & Recreation. They basically just rip apart poorly written columns and stories from the sports world. The day's best: Should Derek Jeter win the MVP this year?
A 92 year old British woman outsold The Beatles' new stereo CD release. Wow.
This link, right here, is one of the biggest reasons why the structure of Major League Baseball is just terrible. The Pittsburgh Pirates, the team that hasn't had a winning season since 1993(!), traded away half of their payroll this season, down to about $20M. This would be okay, you know, since they are a small market team and they haven't had the success to warrant having fans pay for tickets. The only problem: they will make $40M from the baseball revenue sharing program. They are essentially getting paid to lose every year. Ugh.
The fact that MIchael Jordan still has it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Google has unleashed their newest product, Fast Flip web searching. It's basically like any other search, but for those who like to judge books by their covers.
In one of the more under-reported sports stories of the year, the NBA's referees may be going on strike. My first thought was, "Who cares? They are terrible anyway." But then I read this article on Forbes.com that explained that the NBA actually wants to get rid of many of these refs, since the image of the NBA product is so low right now.
There was a lot to learn about how the 2009-10 NFL season would unfold by watching Week 1. We found which teams were way better than I assumed (Seattle, Baltimore), which teams were way worse (St. Louis, Houston), and which teams we still don't have a grip on (Chicago, New England). It is hard to pick against the spread in Week 1, and even harder to guess the Over/Under lines of these games.You know what else I learned? The Bears recievers are bad. Sure, you may not be able to blame guys like Johnny Knox and Earl Bennett since they have never played an NFL down before, and suddenly they are thrust in to the Game of the Week on Sunday Night football, but I mean, geez. Come on. Jay Cutler threw four interceptions, but at least 2 of them can easily be blamed on the fault of the receivers.
And of course this week's betting lines:
Picks in bold:
| Favorite | Line | Underdog | Over/Under |
| @ KC | -3 | OAK | 38.5 Under |
| @ TEN | -6.5 | HOU | 40.5 Under |
| NE | -3.5 | @ NYJ | 45.5 Over |
| @ GB | -9 | CIN | 42 Under |
| MIN | -10 | @ DET | 46.5 Over |
| @ PHI | PK | NO | 46.5 Over |
| @ ATL | -6 | CAR | 43 Under |
| @ WAS | -9.5 | STL | 37 Under |
| @ JAX | -3 | ARZ | 42.5 Over |
| @ SF | -1.5 | SEA | 39.5 Over |
| @ BUF | -5 | TB | 42 Under |
| @ DEN | -3 | CLE | 37.5 Under |
| @ SD | -3 | BAL | 40.5 Over |
| PIT | -3 | @ CHI | 38 Over |
| @ DAL | -3 | NYG | 44.5 Over |
| IND | -3 | @MIA | 42 Under |
Season Record:
Vs. the Spread: 5-9
Vs. the Over/Under: 4-10