ALERT: Wrigley Field is quickly and awkwardly becoming a hockey shrine.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/is-this-where-the-700-billion-is-going

I knew the $700 billion was going to something special.  Good to see the pricing error was corrected. How was this thing in stock?

I gotta stop watching cable television “news” before 7 am.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Brzezinski

The Doc may be boring as hell, but, he makes Joe Scarborough look like a biatch on his own show when he refers to Joe as “stunningly superficial.”  Check out the video and try to stay awake as the verbal exchange gets good about halfway through this clip…

Vodpod videos no longer available.

P.S.  If there’s no clip displayed above, give it 30-60 seconds to load.

Answer: My dick.

This was deemed an unacceptable answer. I didn’t know eHarmony screened candidates so thoroughly. I guess this guy thought honesty was a virtue.  What a pig – ha!

Jason, thank you.

From October 3, 2008…

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5058760/valleywag-cuts-60-percent-of-staff

The above link is directly from Gawker.  It’s the full email Nick Denton sent to the editorial team.

Below is what was printed in Inc. Magazine in their December 2008 issue but I can’t find it anywhere on Inc.com.  I haven’t searched that hard.

Weird that Nick Denton’s layoff email didn’t post (or break) anywhere quicker online outside of Gawker.com, eh?

“I have some bad news. Here’s the heart of it: we are cutting 19 of our 133 editorial positions and suspending bonus payments at the start of next year… I could come up with some bullshit line about how much worse it would have been to wait until we were forced to control costs…I could give you my optimistic spin about the glorious future that awaits us on the far side of this downturn. But there is no escaping the fact that we’re losing some excellent colleagues and the environment next year will be bleak. The one consolation is that there will be plenty of news for us to break — starting with this email, which you are free to leak.”

Seems like a pretty unnecessarily bleak outlook.   Maybe online advertisers should reach out to someone and figure out how to make money.  You can only make money by showing ROI.  Emails are pretty simple to send.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/sports/ncaafootball/26recruit.html?_r=4&pagewanted=all

Should my son somehow be talented enough to play for a major college program – ha! – I am so sending him to the University of Texas.  Seems like a class act football program:

But the best summation of his experience might have come from a paper he wrote for his English class comparing Oklahoma and Texas. The paper, “Red River Rivals Recruit,” includes a description of a wild party hosted by Longhorns fans at an upscale hotel in Dallas after the Oklahoma-Texas game on Oct. 11.

“I will never forget the excitement amongst all participants,” McFarland wrote. “Alcohol was all you can drink, money was not an option. Girls were acting wild by taking off their tops, and pulling down their pants. Girls were also romancing each other. Some guys loved every minute of the freakiness some girls demonstrated. I have never attended a party of this magnitude.”

He continued: “The attitude of the people at the party was that everyone should drink or not come to the party. Drugs were prevalent with no price attached.”

He compared that with a house party hosted by a sorority at Oklahoma.

“Drinks were plentiful, but not to the extent they were” at the Dallas party, he wrote. “Some people were tipsy, but in control of themselves.”

Circa 1980’s. Elitist?!? Good article I found after visiting the location…

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/where-obama-lived-in-1980s-new-york/

iPhone photo from December 26, 2008…

…to all the atheists out there that love opening presents.

Rebuilding year. Ahahahaha.

I don’t remember a key play at u of m during the 2008 season but I could be wrong. I think this guy (and a few of the other fans) were simply excited to show keys to the photographer.

Packing sure is boring.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/12/former_illinois_gov_george_rya.html

As originally seen on BccList.com here, dubya loves pardoning those with drug related convictions like John Forte.

Such as the following from earlier today, December 23rd…

William Thomas Alvis III – Flushing, Ohio

Offense: Possession of an unregistered firearm, 26 U.S.C. § 5861; distribution of cocaine, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a) (1).

Sentence: May 21, 1990; Northern District of West Virginia; 13 months in prison, five years of supervised release following the prison term.

Steve Doyle Cavender – The Villages, Florida

Offense: Conspiring to import, possess, distribute and dispense marijuana; importing and causing to be imported marijuana; possessing marijuana with intent to distribute; 18 U.S.C. § 371, 21 U.S.C. §841(a)(1), 952(a).

Sentence: Aug. 6, 1973; Northern District of Alabama; six months in prison in a jail-type institution, five years of probation, two years of special parole.

Marie Elena Eppens a/k/a Marie Elana Eppens – Lynden, Washington

Offense: Conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute marijuana; 21 U.S.C. § 846.

Sentence: June 9, 1992; District of Nebraska; four years of probation conditioned on 60 days of confinement in a jail-type institution on work release, four months of home detention and performance of 200 hours of community service.

Here’s a drug related conviction that received a commutation from dubya today…

Reed Raymond Prior – Des Moines, Iowa

Offense: Possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute; 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1).

Sentence: April 11, 1996; Southern District of Iowa; life in prison, 10 years of supervised release.

Terms of commutation: Prison sentence to expire on Feb. 23, 2009, leaving intact and in effect the 10-year term of supervised release with all its conditions.

Lastly, this one is a pretty interesting pardon from today though not drug related…

Charles Thompson Winters – Miami, Florida

Offense: Conspiracy to export, and exportation, of a military aircraft to a foreign country in violation of the Neutrality Act of 1939; 22 U.S.C. § 448(a).

Sentence: Feb. 4, 1949; Southern District of Florida; 18 months in prison, $5,000 fine.

Maybe all Presidents pardon and/or commute sentences for a lot of people with drug related convictions.  Who can forget about the pardoning of Roger Clinton, Jr.?

Really cool ideas for stuff…

http://www.yankodesign.com/2008/12/23/best-of-yanko-design-2008/

My favorite design is that rolling bench (#2) unless the rain soaks all sides of the bench. It would be awesome for the hour or two after a rain. There would be a lot of shin bangin’ as well.

Kevin Rose, thank you. Will Kevin digg the originally submitted Digg link for the article seen in his Tweet?

P.S. Is that new Kevin Rose/Digg BusinessWeek article on the way to the presses? Like Inc. Mag’s recent cover story, it should be interesting to see if a rumored BusinessWeek story soon to come will be able to compete with the earlier BusinessWeek article seen back in the day…