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Happy Saturday! So how are you enjoying January, the third time around this year? Mine even came complete with a little bit of midwinter sickness, which is always entertaining. I've spent the past three days exploring to see what kind of fun new interactions I might be able to find between various over-the-counter cold medications. So far I haven't found much, but I'll let you know if I come up with anything good.
*We start this week with - what else - obscure sports! Australian Rules Football started this week, to much acclaim from genius Spencer Hall, who calls it the greatest sport on the planet. I checked out some of a game on ESPN3.com, and I have to admit - the Aussies are serious about their violence. There's a lot of shoving and punching outside the confines of the game. Everybody acts like this is normal. At one point, the cameras caught one player mule-kicking an opposing player in the crotch. Understandably angry, the kickee retaliated with a full-force kidney punch. This didn't turn into a brawl and the announcers didn't even mention it. Anyway, I can give Aussie Rules my niche sports endorsement, because it looks like a game you and your buddies would invent when you were ten years old and bored in the backyard.
*The guys behind the baseball webcomic "The Dugs" are giving it up, which is too bad because the site was genuinely funny. As proof: this. It's philosophy and baseball wrapped into one!
*Parker Hageman has studied the video, and has figured out what might be going wrong with Kevin Slowey. Wednesday night when the Twins were on TV, I watched the game differently, thanks to Parker's work. I can't think of a much better compliment than that.
*When the Big Ten announced it was going to start a hockey conference, I immediately went to the Western College Hockey Blog to find out what to think. Key quote, regarding the conference tournament: "Apparently the feeling is that Michigan fans won't travel to Minneapolis/St. Paul for a conference tournament, and Minnesota fans won't travel to Detroit for a conference tournament, so the top idea as of now seems to be to hold the Big Ten conference tournament in Chicago, where fans of neither team will travel. That seems smart."
*And finally, two things I always like: when Michael Russo goes off on someone (it's Mikko Koivu this time), and when Steve Rushin reminds me of my childhood.
