The Olympics are happening EVEN AS WE SPEAK

August 8th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

Here’s what I want to know: If the Olympics aren’t a trap, can someone at least explain to me why we’re letting our athletes travel to a country that has a clearly advanced time-manipulation program? It’s only 8:37 in Chicago this morning, but somehow, it’s dark in China, and the Opening Ceremonies have already been dazzling the assembled crowd. Of course, it’s hard to tell if they’re actually dazzling the crowd; the Party has instituted a death penalty for frowning at any mention of the Olympics, smog, Sudan, Tibet, or the Cultural Revolution.

In the meantime, did you know China’s artists are selling out faster than bloggers? They are:

Rising nationalism and pride in China’s emergence as an economic power, and robust state support for artists who steer clear of political defiance, have transformed China’s cultural landscape since the early part of this decade. Today, directors, writers and painters who seek to expose the darker side of authoritarian rule not only enrage the censors, but also often find themselves shut out of the lucrative market for Chinese art, books and film. Many of those who find less political outlets for their talent, on the other hand, can get rich.

“People really are selling their talent in a way that can make them money,” said Ai Weiwei, an internationally recognized artist based in Beijing. “They really know that if they work with the government, they’ll benefit.”

The selling out has culminated, like many things in China’s recent history, with the Olympics. A formerly political director, Zhang Yimou directed films about poverty and Chinese culture and various other things the Chinese government knows are lies. Yimou even went so far as to lie to Chinese censors to get a movie made; the censors then banned him from making films for five years. Then he realized the error of his ways, went on to make “Hero” (you remember “Hero,” starring Jet Li), and he just finished directing the Opening Ceremonies in China’s modern coronation.

See? Sticking to your principles is bullshit. Let that be a lesson to you.

Anyway, the Olympics, man. They’re here. 13 hours from now.

Wrigley Field was half circus, half Ben Kingsley movie last night

August 5th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

Hey, Postmen readers! Perhaps it’s been a while. I hope you’ve enjoyed the numerous FanHouse links that have now fully covered our front page. Allow me to apologize — things are slowing down here, perhaps permanently. Busy busy. We’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, you should watch these videos of Wrigley Field last night. There was this big old storm, you see, and it came crashing down on the North Side of Chicago — tornadoes, huge winds, lightning — it was biblical and terrifying. Most of my neighbors lost their power. I didn’t, and I was playing Rock Band all night. I’m a nerd.

But Wrigley Field, that’s where things went a little crazy. Not only did people slide on the tarp during the storm, a large number of fans somehow waited the thing out and risked life, limb, dignity, and life to stay and watch the Chicago Cubs play baseball. Not smart. Also: kind of awesome.

China’s Internetz r broken

July 28th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

Stroll with me down memory lane, won’t you? 10 years ago. 1998. Jay-Z was riding high off the commercial success of Hard Knock Life, which wasn’t nearly as good as Reasonable Doubt but had some bangers, too. Bill Clinton was getting his knob-slob schedule openly dissected in the halls of Congress. Matt Drudge was still considered cool. You remember.

Every time you wanted to use the internet, you had to plea with your parents to get off the phone, Mom, I’m supposed to chat with my friends about our “homework” assignment, and I can’t while you’re talking to Grandma and you said you wanted us to have the internet for educational purposes so LET ME USE IT MOM. Ah, memories.

China’s Olympic peeps remember those days — in China, that was actually just last week (ht: SbB):

Slow connection speed and apparent restricted access to news websites have riled many of the media outlets already in Beijing 12 days out from the opening ceremony. The Chinese ruling party is widely known to monitor and limit all internet access within China. However, two years ago BOCOG media services head Li Jingbo promised in the official China Daily newspaper that there would be uncensored access during the Games, which begin on August 8.

Japanese reporters said click-through connections would not work. Connections drop out frequently and several organisations, including the Australian Olympic Committee, say the speed is up to 10 times slower than in Australia. One picture takes at least two minutes to send.

On one hand, this is surprising, because not only is China trying to use the 2008 Olympics to prove its status as one of the world’s great countries, its overall broadband speed is gaining ground on the fastest countries in the world. (The U.S., as it stands, is good, but not Japan-or-Sweden great.)

Then again, a lack of internet access would be a pretty handy way to keep opinions on China, and the games, as quiet as possible. It’s pretty hard to send back photos of Democratic protesters when those photos take 56K-style speeds to get there. And porn? Forget about it. What good is the internet without porn?

ESPN launches ‘blogosphere’ just after anyone with any clue stops saying ‘blogosphere’

July 24th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

The long-circulated rumors that ESPN would be launching a series of bloggers — and by bloggers, they mean former newspaper beat reporters with little experience blogging — are officially true today: ESPN has launched “Our Blogosphere,” which I’m pretty sure is just today’s headline, and not the name of the community, but man would it be funny if it actually was because no one who hates cringing really even uses that term anymore.

Anyway, welcome, ESPN. I anxiously await the reportage from your controlled storm of roboto-bloggers. Leachin’ ain’t easy, son.

The Sporting News’ new model: Good idea, meh execution

July 23rd, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

As anyone who’s going to be interested in this already knows, the Sporting News has a new distribution model debuting today. Check it out here.

Essentially, it’s a publication sent out each morning in PDF-esque format, allowing TSN to deliver a print-style product but without any of the weighty costs of print distribution. Great idea, right? Sort of.

The problems with the new Sporting News are worse than the benefits the model provides. The pros? Not having to pay for print costs; being able to give advertisers eyeballs without worrying about browser ad blockers; not being forced to customize the news hole to advertisers’ whims; using big, bold art to illustrate stories. There are probably a few more that I’m missing, but those are all innovations from print, which wasn’t doing well enough with advertisers or subscribers to maintain its high cost of production.

The cons? The stories aren’t linkable themselves (you have to click a button and then find the link, which seems clunky); the stories also probably aren’t crawlable, meaning SN is losing out on potentially large search traffic; and I can’t copy and paste text, thus making it unlikely to blog something I can’t include in my own post. Also, the notion that people want to actually read print font and graphics is proven when the product is actually print, but do people really want to squint at a PDF version of a daily newsmagazine every morning? I doubt it.

Wonkishness aside, The Sporting News deserves a lot of credit for trying something new here, and in a way, they’ve succeeded. As a supplement to their web site (and the Sporting Blog, which rulz), it’s a good start. As a supplement. Thinking it a replacement for the real thing would be a big mistake.

Luol Deng is, like, so angry you guys

July 21st, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

Luol Deng has long seemed miffed that he wasn’t awarded a contract extension — insofar as one’s play can be the sign of such things, he made it clear on the court last year — but he’s never come out and actually said as much. That changed late last night, when Deng told Adrian Woj(narahsdflkasjg)* of Yahoo! Sports that his ish needed to be resolved in two weeks. After that, he’s done. He’s super, super serial:

Deng is determined to come to terms on a long-term contract, but he has set an Aug. 4 deadline to reach an agreement. Once Deng, 23, leaves the country for the European Championship qualifying tournament, he will a sign a one-year qualifying offer for $4.5 million and become an unrestricted free agent in 2009. The message to the Bulls promises to be implicit: Unless the two sides come to terms soon, Deng will never again negotiate with them. He will not let the uncertainty over his future hang over another basketball season, and unless a sign-and-trade is worked out, Deng will play out his final season in 2008-09 and sign elsewhere next summer.

In a way, I’m sort of happy Deng has decided that he’s not going to be held captive to the winds of yet another Jerry Reinsdorf season-long negotiation. That seems fair. But it’s a little ridiculous to think that contract talks really impair one’s ability to play basketball that much. Is it really that much of a strain? You can’t, like, play hard, and stuff? Really?

*I just want to make clear that I know this “joke” — screwing up Woj’s name so badly that it’s obviously intentional — is not funny. Oh my god, his name is ethnic and mono-syllabic! That’s hilarious! I know, OK? I just really didn’t want to figure out how to spell his name. Sorry.

Rashard Mendenhall is like everyone else: He detests Ron Zook

July 21st, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

Ron Zook has a long and storied history of intensity. What happens when a star running back can’t match it? He gets paid (the Steelers are the perfect place for him, by the way) and then complains retroactively. Which is the best way to complain, I think. You don’t hvae to take responsibility for anything that went wrong, but you get to tell people they suck all the same. Like, for example, yesterday: R and I were going to Pitchfork, and R thought it would be a smart idea to get off the train at Merchandise Mart and walk to the Clinton stop instead of just transferring at Clark and Lake, which, dude, of course that was a terrible idea, but also of course I held my tongue until the thing actually failed and he felt bad about it and we were all sweaty walking through the West Loop. I win!

Anyway. Rashard Mendenhall is pissed at Ron Zook:

The Big Ten’s most valuable player a year ago, Rashard Mendenhall remains unhappy with how coach Ron Zook treated him, he says, though he declines to give specifics. “It’s just how things were run overall,” he said. “I’m not mad. There’s no hard feelings. That’s just how it was.”

How very vague. It may have something to do with Rashard’s brother, Walter, who was recently asked to transfer by Zook. Walter did transfer when it became clear he had no chance to play in 2008. Still, Rashard won’t be more specific:

Still, wounds remain. In a June interview with the Champaign News-Gazette, Rashard Mendenhall said, “As long as Ron Zook is there, it will be hard for me to support the University of Illinois football team.”Mendenhall said Sunday he doesn’t feel that way because of his brother’s situation or because he didn’t start until his junior year, but he offered no specifics.

I joked about Zook’s noted intensity in that stupid opening paragraph, but what else can it be? The Illini were surprisingly successful last year. They went to the Rose Bowl. If you can’t get along during a season like that, either someone’s pushing too hard (Zook) or, well, let’s just blame this on Zook. It’s way more fun that way.

Lesson one in how not to be a human: Don’t choke youth refs

July 14th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

You know what’s awesome about sports? Everything. Pretty much everything.

You know what sucks about them? Parents who actually care about the outcomes of their children’s sporting contests. A man arrested for choking the referee of his six year old’s soccer game — six fucking years old — is going where he deserves to go: jail.

William Favretto pleaded guilty to battery Friday and was sentenced to 14 days in the Grundy County Jail and two years of probation. He also must stay away from the victim, undergo anger-management counseling, pay $500 and apologize to the referee and the Morris Soccer Association.

“Mr. Favretto’s conduct was totally out of line,” Grundy County State’s Attorney Sheldon Sobol said.

The incident began when Favretto’s wife argued with referee George Wilhelmsen that her son had been fouled and a foul should be called. The referee repeatedly asked her to leave the field, but she wouldn’t. Her husband then ran onto the field and attacked Wilhelmsen. Several adults pulled Favretto off Wilhelmsen.

By legal standards, that punishment is probably enough. A few days in jail, probation, an embarrassing apology … whatever. That’s probably all our overworked punitive system can handle.

Morally? There should be a special section of federal-pound-me-in-the-ass prison reserved for people who get worked up about youth soccer. Seriously. You people fucking suck.

Ronnie Brown feels me

July 11th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

MJD’s latest interview at Shutdown Corner just happened, and it was solid throughout, but I have to bring up one of Ronnie Brown’s answers, because I’ve been saying this for years:

MJD: Okay, last question for ya. If you could wake up tomorrow with one superhero power, what would you like to have?

Ronnie Brown: You know, I don’t think anyone’s ever said this, but the ability to not get tired. No fatigue.

MJD: Oh, man. So you wouldn’t have to sleep at all? That would be awesome.

Ronnie Brown: I could just do whatever. Wouldn’t have to worry about getting tired. I could run around all day, doing whatever I wanted to do.

YES! Exactly. Now this is a practical superpower. Do you know how many times I sit awake in bed, incredibly tired, thinking about how awesome it would be to never fall asleep? EVERY NIGHT. Think about how much more you would get done. If you worked a nine hour day, that leaves 15 whole hours to do whatever the hell you want. 15 hours of recreation. No more would I be forced to choose between blogging and blowing shit up in Grand Theft Auto 4. Why not do a few hours of both? Also, I wouldn’t just have seen Raging Bull last night; I would have cleared that hurdle by the time I was 10 and moved on to more pressing concerns, like curing cancer, or blogging.

Damn it. Sleep is such a waste of time.