Dear ESPN,

I, like many of your viewers, am a guy. A guy without a ton of time and the presence of an actual life which precludes me from spending all weekend every weekend watching the games. 

Listen up, because this is where you come in.

What used to be great about ESPN is that a person could watch it and actually get all the sports boiled down into an easily consumable hour (minus your complete and utter disregard for all non-ball sports, but I digress)(…)(…but just to regress for a moment: don't just cover cycling when somebody gets busted for doping, okay?). That was the deal we had. You showed all the important plays, sometimes even in slow-mo and from different angles, and I didn't have to sit through the tedium of actually watching what lately have been amounting to fairly shitty games all around.

Ah, but recently, recently you went and broke that contract. You sullied the bro code.

You went all 24-hour news cycle on us and started just using long shots of pretty talking heads blabbering about what they think and feel about some shit issue. I don't want to watch some pretty face talk about the ramifications of Plaxico Burress' decisions. Used to be, if somebody was going to droll on about an issue like that, you showed actual clips of the player in question playing, not Mr. or Ms. Pretty standing outside the stadium talking into the camera.

Because, honestly, that shit is bor-ing.

In summation: Less pretty; more sports. If I wanted pretty news, I'd watch all the hotties on CNBC tell me how my stock isn't worth a pair of socks from Walmart, 'kay?

I posted this article last week, but hadn't finished it and wanted to draw your attention to this passage:

Our new Chinese creditors have demanded their first payment. Several times in the last week, Chinese officials have stated in no uncertain terms that they would be VERY UNHAPPY if their Fannie and Freddie bonds weren't honored in full. Forget the Fed: US economic conditions are now dictated by the People's Bank of China.

This is not surprising, though I do find it terrifying. In my youth, I was an ardent supporter of isolationism. That has change as I have aged and gotten less black-and-white about the world.

However, I was unaware of how deeply our financial system was now tied owned by the Chinese. Of course, this was all written before the events this weekend and today.

Given the news today, I'm more than sold that we are in deep shit.*

How will we climb out of this hole? In my head, we end up getting bailed out by the rest of world…which just places us more in their debt. That can't be good. Is it too pessimistic to think this could actually be what undermines us as a world power?

* Unrelated a bit, but still amazing: McCain's economic plans (you know, the ones that rely on him selling that there is nothing wrong with the economy) are so bad that Greenspan hates them and McCain's economic adviser doesn't want him talking about deficit reductions. Oops.

John McCain today announced a running mate who he met only six months ago and who he spoke with just once on the phone about the position before offering it in person earlier this week.

from Politico.com

Is it just me or does that seem like not much? This can't be normal, right? Surely most peeps meet more than once, esp not just in passing.

I mean, you're interviewing for Veep, possibly the highest office where you truly have an interview and a "boss" and McCain vets based, essentially, on a phone screen?

Don't even try to tell me that this isn't about gender.

Woman riding a donkey fights off lion with machete

You don't really need more information, do you? That is 100 kinds of awesome.

I'm still sickly, but feel less miserable than yesterday. Today my throat is simply a sharp pain when I swallow and my head is halfway clear. Fever seems much more under control. Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have been at work yesterday. Here's hoping I didn't take down half the dev team.

I have a bunch of links for your amusement. Mainly because I had zillions of tabs open from playing catchup on Sunday after being in Seattle.

• mightygodking linked to this msnbc article about calories being displayed on nyc food menus. I knew this was coming, but it is awesome to read that SF and Santa Clara are next up. Actually, as I stated reading about it, I wonder why/how we had escaped. I've already gotten freakish about food and ingredients the last several years (due to living here and things like "Omnivore's Dilemma." Soon I can prove I'm a little less crazy. In this area.
• How much banks have traditionally borrowed from the Federal Reserve. Yes, you're seeing that correctly. Maybe 5 billion in 1985, which was the most. Until this year. By a factor of 25. So far. Click though and weep, my friends. This is intense shit, something most people still seem to be failing to grasp. I read this morning that an attack on Iran could send oil skyrocketing, further wrecking the economy. The prime mortgages appear to up next for failure. More banks are going to close. None of this is a joke. And it is being said that we are "in the second inning of a severe, protracted recession." This shit has another 18 months at least.
• in lighter news, here is 100 and some pictures of drunk girls making out. (don't tell me I don't know what you expect.) also, much like 2 girls, 1 cup (but less traumatic) is cakefarts.com and puddingfarts.com. Don't do it. (Also, Lisa sent me these last week and I tried really hard to never speak of them again. But I failed.)
• I'm going to follow that with the most terrifying thing I have heard in weeks: the guy on the bus in Canada who beheaded the guy he was sitting next to. Seriously, this is beyond fucked up.
• This is followed again by some lighter stuff — 10 reasons to date a unicorn and postcards from yo mamma. I know you and you will find at least one of these amusing. Maybe both.

That's enough for now. Merry Christmas!

Morning all! As usual, I have too many tabs open. Here's some stuff I've been poking around:

• Bi-sexuality in animals:
  

  What is more, homosexuality among some species, including penguins, appears to be far more common in captivity than in the wild. Captivity, scientists say, may bring out gay behaviors in part because of a scarcity of opposite-sex mates. In addition, an enclosed environment boosts an animal’s stress levels, leading to a greater urge to relieve the stress. Some of the same influences may encourage what some researchers call “situational homosexuality” in humans in same-sex settings such as prisons or sports teams.

• Obama voted for the wiretap bill last week. This one hurt me a lot — I haven't seen anything discussing what his defense is but it's certainly questionable since Clinton voted against it and McCain didn't vote.
• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may fail. This is insane. I haven't followed up over the weekend on this, unsure if things are looking better or worse this morning for them.
• Ok, crap. Money issues, politics and now fires have destroyed 1/3 of the avocado crops in CA? One more thing to my growing list of "shit we are running out of": oil, bees, bats, seafood, bananas, money, rice, corn and now avocados. It's a wonder I'm sleeping at night still.
• Good news though: Engineers at MIT have found a way to improve solar panels — at a 40x increase. Oh hell yes.
• And Aubrey — this is up your way — literary tattoos.
• And finally, an article on passenger trains in America. I ride a train every weekday now, have ridden from Washington DC to Montreal (back in 1994) and have the 'oh, if only the high-speed train between Sac-town and LA existed already' too often.

Hm. That's a depressing set of links. How about an awesome set of E.T. cartoons to help balance it out? Wo doesn't love E.T. and Soundwave sharing a slurpee?

There are a few tales of Texas to be told and re-told, but first I need to clear out some of these open tabs I have floating in Firefox, waiting to be thrown over to you.

• a "twist" on mario. (and I use "twist" in that old "jo buddy" kind of way.) a preface on this link: 1. i didn't see the original post, 2. this actually ties in with an ongoing conversation i have been having with kurt: that no one would post to craigslist/casual encounters with an offer of "the door will be unlocked, come have your way with me." 3. this is another of those things that you can't undo once you have read it. you've been warned.
• michael bay's rejected script for batman.
• school locked down after a ninja sighting.
• the best looking wags (wives and girlfriends) of soccer players. yeah, this one is a little too maxim for me, but i figure you might care anyway. (also, i love #41. who is 36. but then you see her and you realize why. im so predictable.)
• grant morrison's tv scripts for the unproduced 'invisibles' bbc show.
• i know you missed it the first time, so take another look at the fail blog. it it dynamite.
• a bit on the difficulty in covering fox news [via rex]
• 10 dollars or 10% off a jet blue flight (expires 7/10/08) — not usually the kind of thing id link to, but it might be helpful to someone out there.
• finally, for hima, the train station/depot at mountain view is going to become a wine/beer bar + good food. now ill never be able to drive home after work.