flicked on the tv to catch the back nine of the pga championship. my tv was tuned to the new(ish) nbcs(ports) network. flipped it on the other day for the first time as they have the rights to the upcoming english premier league season. thus far ive seen a couple of minutes of a sailing event and, just now, a polo tournament. kind of reminds me of the early days of espn when they would broadcast bowling, billiards and whatever else they could get the rights to. nbc is not quite so desperate with soccer, hockey and the olympics but there are a lot of hours in the day. although espn is mostly chatter at this point. i always thought an olympic network was a no brainer, so maybe nbc will take that under advisement.
oh, and england beat the us at polo in overtime. champagne for everyone! up next, summer at saratoga. horsies!
curbesque original feature from larry david tonight at 9 on hbo.
list price: $190,000,000
not sure how this becomes a dramatic series over the long haul but looking forward to seeing Masters of Sex starring Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan on Showtime this fall.
just what the world needed, though i couldnt tell you if it was a music column about soccer or a soccer column about music. either way, the writer has a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of both from his perch in the uk than i ever will. im mostly in it for the name, Some Goals Are Bigger Than Others.
It’s about time football was afforded the same courtesies as the cultural mediums it often dwarfs for popularity, social impact and emotional agency – factors commonly used to try and legitimise other activities as worthy arenas of expression and artistic merit. A bi-monthly column on Drowned In Sound is the least we can do to level the playing field. After all, with their fetish for the obscure and esoteric, football geeks and hipsters are the new musos.
Sous Vide set to get a lot cheaper. The Kickstarter project has surpassed its' goal. Test units have been produced and favorably reviewed. Will supposedly ship in October for $199.
tonight is the night. its the Guinness International Champions Cup final in miami!!!
whats that? youve never heard of the Guinness International Champions Cup?
well, neither had i until i just googled it but it is one of the most important least important summer tournaments ever conceived as a warmup for football in the fall. yes, i said 'football'. deal with it, america!!
the matchup tonight between real madrid and chelsea, two of the teams with the deepest pockets and not coincidentally the deepest rosters, is particularly interesting because the former real madrid head coach burned his bridges in madrid and then scooted over to chelsea where he had formerly worn out his welcome but was brought back this summer with open arms and open checkbooks.
9 o'clock on fox soccer channel, soon to be fox sports1 since they lost the rights to most of their soccer coverage. but thats a post for another day. (what a tease.)
See it anyway.
if the nfl couldnt get a stadium in manhattan i dont see how the mls could. this would be at houston st.
comment about the boston redsox owner buying the boston globe for $70 million...
To put things into proper perspective, John Henry just agreed to a contract with Dustin Pedroia for about 100 million.
Amazon launches Amazon Art Marketplace with over "40,000 pieces of fine art from over 150 dealers and galleries." I'm not sure anybody actually wants to "demystify the world of art," but we'll see.
Superbaby’s story is one among a number of tales of athletic irregularity in “The Sports Gene,” a new book by David Epstein, who holds a masters in environmental science but now covers the science of sports for Sports Illustrated. Like a good academic, Epstein weaves a thicket of studies and double-blind tests into anecdotes like Superbaby’s. Beware, those who enter seeking a quick answer to whether or not your son or daughter has an athletic scholarship in his or her future: the book is heavy on talk about stop codons and VO2 maxes and bivariate overlap zones, and short on easy answers. It is, however, long on difficult questions. Can nature predict athletic performance? What about nurture? Is it possible to create a Superbaby from scratch? If we can, should we want to?
The answers, in brief, are “yes,” “yes,” “not quite,” and “ask your conscience.” But a bit of exploration of each proves fruitful.
geneology roadshow on pbs this fall.
Mycelial information networks:
When some plants are attacked by sap-sucking aphids, they emit volatile compounds into the air. These volatiles serve as a defense mechanism, and in more ways than one. First, they serve to repel the aphids attacking the plant. Second, they attract the aphids natural enemies, wasps. But there’s more to that: a team from the University of Aberdeen and the James Hutton Institute show that some plants use fungi to communicate the presence of aphids, allowing those plants to emit wasp-attracting and and aphid-repelling volatiles even before they have been physically attacked.
Our friend Megan, who runs Marble Valley Farm, told us an interesting story the other day. Her tomato plants are infested with tomato hornworm. This has always been a very difficult infestation for her to deal with (she is totally organic, so can't just drop death spray on them.) But after much research she came across a brief mention on the internet of using a black light in order to find them. She consulted several of her farmer friends and all were skeptical of this technique since none had heard of it before. Still, out of desperation, she made a trip to Spencer Gifts at the local mall, bought a black light, and went out into the fields with it that night. Amazingly, the black light light up the bugs perfectly. She said it was like picking lights off a Christmas tree. In a few hours they picked over a thousand hornworms off the plants (over 10 pounds!) And thus the tomato crop was saved.
One of her hippie workers fried one up and ate it, claiming it was "not too bad". Lucas was unsure of this verdict.
single family home made country ham, a friend brought back from his hometown Wakefield Va. This is my new thing. Next one i do is a Calhoun ham from Culpepper Va.
