Friday Kitsch Cover

Courtesy of an anonymous commenter, we'll go the other direction. Johnny Cash performs Nick Cave's "The Mercy Seat".

Leave your nominations for next week's Kitsch Cover in the comments.

Why Does Barack Obama Hate Coca-Cola

This is not change we can believe in.

Two Dudes Playing Fake Plastic Instruments

More substantive posts will be coming shortly, but if you need some low-fi background noise at any point in the next 24 hours, two guys are trying to set the world record for "Longest Continuous Rock Band Drumming" [yes, this record is tracked; there's now a Guinness Book of World Records devoted solely to gaming]. You can watch on Ustream here. The whole thing is a fundraiser for Texas Children's Hospital (one of the drummers is from Texas; the other is Canadian and thus does not need to go to these extreme lengths to fund his country's health care system); you can donate here United Way, you can donate here, though I think somehow they get credit if you go here and the follow the "click here to donate" button.

Friday Kitsch Cover

Via First Draft, The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain performs Isaac Hayes' "Shaft".

I can dig it. Leave your nominations for next week's Kitsch cover in the comments.

Competitive Balance

While I carp about the Yankees spending too much money, Dan Drezner makes the appropriate points. It's a rather curious phenomenon that baseball remains the most competitive sport, despite having the weakest salary cap rules and the largest revenue disparities. In other sports news, I take back all the bad things I said about the Giants, who have given the Falcons a glimmer of hope that they will win the NFC South (though I cannot figure out how the tiebreakers make this happen). Now, it's an unlikely scenario, but just having the chance has felt nice.

Thread topic: The experiences of Atlanta and Tennessee this year have put an end to the "mobile quarterback" era; Defend or refute.

Santa Baby, Hurry Down The Internets Tonight

Something seems to be clogging the tubes at the moment, but you can view the North American Aerospace Defense Command's Santa Tracker here.

Never say we didn't bring you the important stuff.

OMG!

The eerie but wonderful street performer I saw in Cambridge back in 1997 who called herself the "Eight Foot Bride" was Amanda Palmer, recently of the Dresden Dolls!

More NYC Sports Bashing

I swear I'm not trying to turn this into a regular topic, but big thanks to New York Football Giants for laying an egg against Dallas, making it that much harder for the Dirty Birds to make the playoffs. At this point, Atlanta has to win out while hoping that two out of Tampa Bay, Philadelphia, and Dallas lose one of their final two games. Outcome unlikely.

While We're On The Subject of New York

There's no reason for the Yankees to spend $82.5 million on whatever's left of A.J. Burnett's arm. In the absolute best case scenario, Burnett turns out to be Jason Schmidt, who had five-and-a-half fairly healthy years of high-quality pitching after several injury-plagued years. In that case he probably more than earns his money. But the median scenario is much, much worse; Burnett will probably only pitch effectively for three of those years, his contract will make him impossible to unload if he flounders, and five years is just an awfully long time for a pitcher with anything but a stellar health record. The fact that the Yankees are able to outbid every other team in baseball by a factor of 1.5, coupled with their willingness to accept lower profit margins due to higher labor costs, is causing sever market distortions.

Now the Braves are going to be left praying that Kenshin Kawakami makes the transition effectively. And that's their best hope.