What’s with Sportscenter and its obsession with comparing merely good teams from today to the greatest teams in history?  First, it was the focus on the Colts’ quest for perfection, who ended up not having as good of a record as last year’s Steelers team.  Then, as I said before the BCS bowls were played, it was the premature exercise of matching up USC against the top college football teams from the past 50 years, who turned out to be only the second-best team from this season.  Now, in what I believe is the most egregious example, ESPN runs a comparison between this year’s Pistons and the 1995-96 Bulls every time Detroit plays a game.  The 72-10 Michael Jordan-led Bulls team against this year’s Pistons?  C’mon!  Anyway, enough with the rant and on to the links:

1) “Bueller, Bueller” DVD – How did I meet my wife?  It was when her college roommate invited me over to watch “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” so I can’t tell you how important this movie is in my life.  Aside from the personal connection, this is one of the top ten Chicago movies of all-time (I’ll have a post on that eventually).

2) My So-Called Career: Paul Shirley’s Basketball Journal – Even if you don’t follow basketball, former Bull Paul Shirley’s entries on his life as a hoops vagabond are insightful and hilarious.  His blog from last season as the last man off the bench for the Suns was so funny and honest that he was able to parlay it into a possible career as a writer.

3) Tom Green Collaboration – First it was Patrick Swayze that caught the bug; now it’s Tom Green.

4) Korn Sells a Stake in Itself – Can a band become a true investment vehicle?  If this is successful, we could see a paradigm-shift in music industry financial models.

5) Mexican Coke on the Black Market – I don’t have a link for this (and even if I did, you’d need a paid subscription to see the article), but the Wall Street Journal had a fascinating front page article today on the insistence of many Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. to buy Coca-Cola that was bottled in Mexico.  It turns out that Mexican Coke is slightly different than American Coke – in Mexico, they use cane sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup as the sweetener and the drink still comes in glass bottles instead of plastic bottles or aluminum cans.  The thing is, Coca-Cola doesn’t want people to buy Mexican Coke in the U.S. because of how it impacts the profitability of the company’s American unit and the exclusive territorial rights of local Coke bottlers.  As a result, Mexican Coke can only be obtained by most American stores through backroom deals.  It’s just ironic that a foreign version of the most identifiable American product in the world needs to be smuggled into the U.S.

My thoughts on the Cubs are coming tomorrow.  Until then, have a great day!

Amazingly, the Illini didn’t drop in this week’s coaches’ poll (#6) and are only one spot down in the AP poll (#7).  To celebrate, here are today’s links:

1) Starbucks Economics – If you thought that “Tall” is the smallest size you can get of a drink at Starbucks, you’re wrong.  You can order a “Short,” but it seems Starbucks doesn’t want to let that secret out.

2) Breakthrough for the Dow – It’s amazing to me that the Dow Jones Industrial Average breaking 11,000 is a rare business story that gets elevated to the front page of general news yet it means almost nothing to anyone who owns stock.  The vast majority of people who invest in the stock market have some type of fund that mimmicks the S&P 500 (compared to the miniscule number of investors that own securities tied to the Dow), but I’ve never heard a general newscaster report about record levels for that broader market index.  It doesn’t make sense.

3) Simpson and Lachey Selling House – Own a piece of MTV history.

4) The Camaro is Back – Mullets everywhere are rejoicing.

And finally…

5) Thieves Steal Truckload of Pimp Juice – One of my readers must have had a bumpin’ poker night at Nelly’s expense.

Some baseball talk (it’s about time) in a little bit…

An interesting mix for the links today:

1) Ghostface Killah Releasing Limited Edition Doll – It’s kind of like a Teddy Ruxpin doll that sings “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta F–k Wit.”

2) Urban Colleges Learn to Be Good Neighbors – I mentioned before how my law school alma mater DePaul reaps the benefit of a great urban neighborhood.  Here’s how my sister’s alma mater, Penn, turned its formerly decrepit West Philadelphia (born and raised) location into a plus.

3) Mystery of Mozart’s Skull – Is this the skull of the man who is the definition of the word “genius?”

4) Sox and Penguin Pals Safe at Home – It figures that the ones behind Hinsdale’s recent crime wave (we residents of Naperville knew it was only a matter of time before all of the riff-raff of Hinsdale would come out) were disgruntled Cubs fans.  Note to Cubs fans: if you want the right to desecrate cute penguin statues that are going to be auctioned off to raise funds for the new Brookfield Zoo penguin habitat, you need to win a World Series first.  Shame on you.

I’ll have a post on last night’s Illinois – Michigan State game later today.  In the meantime, here are some links:

1) Those Weird College Ads – Superb review of the different college ads that have run during the halftimes of this year’s bowls.  Considering that the University of Illinois has one of the best advertising programs in the nation (it’s a top feeder school for ad giant Leo Burnett), I’ve consistently been disappointed with my alma mater’s ads.  The only time that I can remember Illinois having commercials that didn’t look like they were shot on a fraternity-owned camcorder was the year when we had a series of ads showing alums like Roger Ebert and Ang Lee sing the “Hail to the Orange.”  Those actually looked as though they were produced by an advertising professional.  Since then, however, they’ve been generally corny and I haven’t been impressed.

2) Cat Calls 911 to Help Owner – I need to train my cat to do this.

3) Lindsay Lohan Admits to Trying Drugs – Note to Lindsay: I think most people noticed a couple of things other than your arms have been “missing” since you lost weight.

4) Jon Stewart Hosting the Oscars – After the Academy got rejected by Chris Rock, Billy Crystal, Tom Arnold, and Ike Turner to host this year’s Oscars, they were bailed out by Stewart.  The Academy needs to make sure, however, that instead of having a time limit on winners’ speeches, there has to be a 2-minute cap on any segment involving Stephen Colbert.

And finally…

5) Patrick Swayze’s New Career – You might think this is an Onion article, but it’s not.  It’s real and it’s spectacular.

This links have been in the queue for a while, so check these out:

1) The Onion’s Top 10 Stories of 2005 – Number 9 is my favorite.

2) Governor Lynn Swann? – I think the former Steeler WR wanted to make sure that he bested Lisa Guerrero for the “Dirtiest Career After Being an ABC Sports Sideline Reporter” Award.

3) Mama Said Knock You Out – I’m just waiting to hear that the Philly fan Clinton Portis’ mama decked out on Sunday was actually Donovan McNabb’s mama.  That would be a Clio-worthy Chunky Soup commercial.

4) Parents passing on New Trier – Ever wonder why some people who buy $1 million 3-bedroom ranch houses in arguably the best public school district in the nation end up dropping loads of more dead Presidents to send their kids to private schools instead?  This is why John Hughes made a decade’s worth of teen angst movies on Chicago’s North Shore.

And last but certainly not least…

5) Chuck Norris Phenomenon – “Chuck Norris isn’t hung like a horse.  Horses are hung like Chuck Norris.”  Here’s a timely examination of the resurgent interest in the great Chuck Norris.  If you haven’t received the ubiquitous “Chuck Norris – The Facts” email, here it is.

I hope everyone had a great New Year!  As we get back to life and back to reality, here are some links for the day:

1) The Cute Factor – Scientists are trying to figure out what makes humans believe certain things, ranging from baby pandas and penguins to movie creatures such as E.T. and Yoda, are “cute.”  The article points out how we take more of a paternalistic view toward those we consider cute, which is distinctly different from how we place those we consider “beautiful” on a pedestal.  Anyway, cuteness does have a huge impact on our behavior – everyone wants to save the whales, but no one has held a protest on the plight of the tuna fish.

2) Scandal on the Bass Fishing Circuit – Another link courtesy of Matt.  I can just see Senator John McCain grilling Babe Winkelman on whether he has ever snagged a bass.  As Matt aptly noted, “All of my heroes are dead.”

3) Marion Barry Robbed at Gunpoint – Barry, the only man in history who has served 4 terms as D.C. Mayor as well as a 6-month sentence in jail for smoking crack on camera, stated that the perpetrator ran suspiciously like former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett.

4) Paris Hilton Christmas Display – I apologize for not finding this until after the holidays, but there’s just way too much potential for inflatable Christmas lawn ornament jokes here.

More on the week in sports in just a bit…

A slow day in the office for me means a busy day of reading for all of you.  Here are the links to prep you for this Christmas weekend:

1) School District Housing for California Teachers – If you’ve followed the real estate prices at all over the past few years, you know that there’s no more expensive housing market in the country than tech-haven Silicon Valley.  I know a whole lot of teachers, which means that I also know that their salaries wouldn’t go very far in a region where the median housing price is above $700,000.  So, the Santa Clara School District has started buying apartment buildings and offering units to their teachers at below-market rates.  This isn’t the product of left coast naivete – the economic justification is that the costs saved from reducing the massive turnover of the district’s teacher workforce caused by the high fixed costs of housing make the below-market apartment offers a sound investment.

2) Lost Star Melts Down After Drunk Driving Arrest – I appreciate the irony of the actress who plays a former LAPD officer on Lost getting belligerent with the Hawaii Five-O.

3) Passion of the Spaghetti Monster – Following up on Wednesday’s link, Matt sent in a great Wired interview with the creator of the Spaghetti Monster.

4) City News Bureau Closing Down (audio story from NPR) – Marshall Field’s isn’t the only Chicago institution going away after this holiday season.  The Chicago Tribune announced earlier this month that it was closing down the legendary City News Bureau, where young and hungry reporters have been trained to hunt for stories on the street since 1890.  Any institution that introduced writers like Mike Royko, Kurt Vonnegut, and Seymour Hersh to the world had to be doing something right.

Happy Braggin’ Rights Day!  I’ll have comments on the Illini-Mizzou game and Quin Snyder’s celebrity look-a-like after tonight.  Until then, here is the first installment of recommended reading on the web in Land-o-Links (I was going to call this recurring section the more clever “Land of Linkin'”, but then I realized that people might mistake me for some advocate of the band Linkin Park – which I certainly don’t want to happen, and Eric Zorn from the Chicago Tribune uses this title for his links):

1) Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster – The water cooler talk around the nation today is centering around the case ruling that rejects Intelligent Design (I thought we resolved the debate on Evolution in public schools 80 years ago, but I digress).  Any random talking head blowhard can critique Intelligent Design, but the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has taken this issue to a spectacular level.

2) Oracle of Baseball – This is the baseball version of the Kevin Bacon game.  Plug in any two baseball players in history and the program will show you how they’re linked by teammates and teammates’ teammates over time.  For a baseball junkie such as myself, this is like crack with an angel dust chaser (if you’re a movie buff, the classic Oracle of Bacon is here).

3) Stricken Genius (click on “Read the stories”) – On a different note, if you haven’t seen this powerful front-page series on pianist Alexei Sultanov in the Chicago Tribune over the past few days, I urge you to take a few moments out of your day to do so.  Sultanov was a musical prodigy that won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition as a 19-year-old.  At the age of 30, he suddenly suffered 5 successive strokes that left him completely paralyzed and unable to walk or talk.  While Sultanov wasn’t able to move any other part of his body, he eventually was able to get his fingers to move enough to play the piano once again.  The greater point is that he was born with musical gifts that few had ever seen, yet the pressure of living up to his own high expectations of himself made him curse those gifts when he was healthy.  It took the loss of Sultanov’s gifts to get him focus back on why he had loved music in the first place.  With all of the stress and anxiety that we have in our personal and professional lives, taking the time to appreciate what we have is an old adage that never gets old.