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Internet
January 16, 2008
Waste Time With Your Friends
Not long ago, Gelf told journalists everything they wanted to know about Facebook but were afraid to ask. With the breakneck pace of Facebook's development, the section on Facebook applications could use some updating. At the time of the original article (way back in August), Facebook Platform was just in its infancy. Months later, the apps have gone from a few, mostly useless programs that are good for a quick diversion, to many mostly useless programs that can occupy users for hours on end. Below, Gelf highlights some of the more interesting and fun apps popping up in a news-feed near you.
Politics
January 16, 2008
Primary Metaphors
The generally weird primary season has been especially screwy this time around. First, Hillary Clinton pulled off an improbable upset in New Hampshire. Now, with Mitt Romney's recent Michigan win, it's possible the Republican nomination might not be sealed until March. Such wackiness seems to have made our pundits a little loopy, and the off-the-wall metaphors have started to pour in. (Ann Quinlan of the Fort Worth Business Press was among the first, describing the Iowa caucuses as "evening coffee klatches with a serving of trigonometry.") Here are a few of our favorites:
Politics
January 4, 2008
Time for a Kucinich!
And the unanimous winner in the Iowa caucuses is … change! Nearly every major candidate cited "change" as the dominant force in Iowa and the press followed suit. While change as a concept is politically neutral and entirely inevitable, it is being invoked as a specific set of undefined values, and referred to as if it were a candidate itself. In fact, if you were to replace the word "change" with the name of a lower-tier candidate—say, Dennis Kucinich—you'd get an interesting view of caucus night in Iowa.
Politics
January 4, 2008
Feeling Their Oats
We can be thankful that the new year will bring us the election of a brand new president, but that day is still a good 10 months away. In the meantime, we've got months of discussion about the political "horse race" ahead of us, wherein the media tells us far more about candidates' polling numbers and momentum than anything resembling their platforms and plans. That seems to suit our current crop of candidates just fine—the equine metaphors have been flying for the last few months. One particular come-from-behind horse-of-the-people has been invoked in reference to no fewer than five very different candidates:
Varsity Letters
January 2, 2008
Gelf's Varsity Letters: 1/3 Interviews
The three sportswriters featured on the front page will be speaking spoke at a free Gelf event in New York on Thursday, January 3, at 8 p.m. Come by Thanks for coming by the Happy Ending Lounge to hear writers Will Leitch, Dan Shanoff, and Dave Zirin read from and discuss their writing.
Sports
December 18, 2007
The Curse of the Runner-Up
When the Bears lost to the Vikings on Monday Night Football to fall out of the playoff race, they were continuing in the mediocre tradition of Super Bowl losers. Not since 1972 has the team that lost the previous year's championship game come back to win it the next year. And not since the Bills of the early '90s has such a team even reached the Super Bowl. That's way worse than even an average team should do, let alone one of the sport's two best teams—and this curse of the runner-up holds true across all of the major professional sports. What is it about losing the championship game that dooms a team the following season?
Varsity Letters
December 18, 2007
January 3: Gelf's Varsity Letters
New York's Varsity Letters sports reading series rings in 2008 with its return on Thursday, January 3 at 8 p.m. At this free monthly event at a Lower East Side bar, hosted by Gelf, Will Leitch, Dan Shanoff, and Dave Zirin will read from and talk about their work, and take questions. Deadspin editor Leitch will offer prescriptions for what ails today's sports fans, Shanoff will sing the virtues of the bandwagon fan, and Zirin will take on some of the big political issues in sports.
Sports
December 17, 2007
Does It Ever Make Sense Not to Score a TD?
On Sunday, Brian Westbrook was hailed by his coach for not scoring in the win over Dallas. With just over two minutes remaining (and Dallas lacking a timeout), Westbrook broke free for an apparent touchdown that would have put the Eagles up 16-6. Instead, he took a knee at the one-foot line and the Eagles proceeded to run out the clock. Sure, it made for a good story on ESPN (and enraged several fantasy-football players). But was not scoring really a good idea?
Media
December 11, 2007
ESPN Borrows From Wikipedia
The next time that the folks at ESPN decide to highlight a local story about a young kid killing a big wild animal, they should try to make sure that the story they include doesn't crib wholesale from that bastion of truthiness, Wikipedia.
Internet
December 6, 2007
Seussical Domain Names
As someone who works for a company called GELF (and is about to launch a new company with an even sillier name), I'm always entertained when stodgy media outlets are forced to discuss the newest high-tech advance as taking place at a company called something like Xobni. Evidently, that self-consciousness has turned into inspiration, as several different news organizations have taken it upon themselves to chide entrepreneurs for looking to a certain literary M.D. for inspiration.
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