The Sad Bear

July 25, 2008

if only today were a typical day

EDIT: Don't read this post. Go to the nearest corner and read the print edition sports section of this week's Onion.

EDIT #2: Good examples which still can't capture the power of The Onion's "furniture text" items and sidebars.

#1:

And more recently, a 2006 decision in the case of Rodriguez v. The Fans of New York cemented the legal precedent established in the 1940 case of Williams v. The Fans of Boston, which made it clear that baseball fans are free to boo, no matter how nonsensical it may seem, players on their home team. Link

#2:

Alex Rodriguez entered a sports memorabilia store and flipped through a copy of Beckett Baseball Card Monthly ... "Upper Deck's got a high book of $40? Now that's just insulting. And Fleer — Fleer didn't even move at all? Goddamn Fleer." Link

***

I grabbed fresh copies of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal from the newsroom counter and walked toward my desk with the sense of urgency appropriate to an intern. No matter where I go, be it the bathroom on the next floor up (the best one), or across the room to a fellow intern's cube, I move like I mean it, even if I don't.

In this case, I was squirreling away the newspapers -- adding them to a stack which already included yesterday's NYT and WSJ, plus The Onion, Vita.mn, a folded-over Reason magazine, today's Star Tribune, and a nice snag from the communal book pile: "Sex, Lies, and Handwriting."

Silliman, Reddit, and BoingBoing -- in that order -- still loomed online.

But I couldn't read much until 10 p.m. because I spent my day interviewing a musical saw player, conducting an interview over Chipotle burritos, laughing over this nice newsroom gesture, and talking journalism with a 17-year-old who hopes to enter the field and who thus far has made a single documentary: 17 minutes about his two friends who decided to box one another.

I got to bike home at about 9 p.m., burdened by no traffic.

When I did start reading, a missing serial comma spurred a silent mental rant. From A1 of the Strib:

A gee-whiz state lab, investigators dubbed "Team Diarrhea" and a unique approach to sleuthing illness contributed to the breakthrough.

That aside, I found so much worth reading that I even held off on watching the revolutionary new three-ball juggling video from Wes Peden and Jay Gilligan. Which all leads to this short list of links:

+ Skewering the mascots WSJ article
+ Indefinite article, definite anger (a letter)
+ A child named Yeah Detroit
+ NYT: Everything's Fine and Absaroka

Labels: Chipotle, journalism, New York Times, reading, Star Tribune, Wall Street Journal

by Tony at 12:42 AM |