The NHL schedule was released today and look what we have going on during the week of Thanksgiving. On Monday 11/19 the Bears are at the 49ers for Monday Night Football and the next night, Tuesday 11/20, the Blackhawks are at San Jose.
The last time I saw the Bears play on Monday night in person, it was the 2006 Week 6 comeback game in Arizona. Pretty sure I had nine seizures during that game. Also, I almost got into a fist fight with an asshole Cardinal fan. I think I have to do this.
Slim pickings for links today.
-A day late on this but here's the trailer for the Monsters, Inc. prequel, Monsters University. [Wired]
-The Rays are wearing 1979 throwback uniforms. They didn't exist until 1998. [USA Today]
-California wants to legalize sports betting. Yes, please. And then Washington. Thank you. [Ventura County Star]
-Some highlights of the Blackhawks 2012-13 schedule. [SCH]
-Dude doesn't look like a lady. Really interesting story about art, transvestites, and 18th century Britain. [The Guardian]
-Can't recommend this "Alfie Rises" video highly enough. It's a mashup with the Dark Knight Rises trailer. [Backhand Shelf]
-The headline of this article, "The Blackhawks Have Dealt with Patrick Kane" sounds rather ominous. Makes McDonugh and Wirtz sound like a couple goomba hitmen. [Sun Times]
-Crazy-ass blog post about how Switzerland is prepared to blow itself up and hide inside mountains if WWIII ever gets going. Nutty (and cool as hell). [BLDG BLOG via @mattufford]
-NBC and its' advertisers are pleased with the playoffs shitty ratings. Wait, what? [Sports Business Daily]
-21 pictures that will restore your faith in humanity. [BuzzFeed]
-Was looking for something else today on YouTube and came across this *great* scene from Tombstone. Kilmer shoulda won an Oscar.
-Looking at the top 10 prospects in this weekend's NHL draft. [Buzzing the Net]
-Tracking NHL teams' ticket sales. Looks like the Hawks have the longest waiting list out there. [Sporting News]
-Everything you ever wanted to know about Justin.tv. I thought the stuff about streaming sports was interesting. [Fast Company]
-Sports Illustrated is counting down the top 100 Olympic moments leading up to the London games. They have done numbers 100-38 so far and each day they unveil a new moment. Really enjoyed this. [SI]
-If you watch Game of Thrones then this is a must click. So. Good. Thanks to @kanerdance for the link. [Tumblr]
-A couple years ago my wife and I considered moving to Madison. We even went there on a reconnaissance mission. We thought it was going to be young, hip, liberal, and cool. Turned out to be the Nilla Wafer of American cities. Great brats and beer can only go so far. This guy should have asked us before he left Portland. [Thirty Two]
-Gonna keep beating this Seattle arena drum til someone brings me a damn hockey team. [Grantland]
-I'm not encouraged by this review of Brave. I was looking forward to it too. Damn. [Deadspin]
-The second trailer for P.T. Anderson's The Master is out. Looks effing amazing. Supposed to be based on L. Ron Hubbard's life and the invention/rise of Scientology. Here are both trailers.
My wife and I hit up the Seattle Pinball Museum over the weekend and look what I found. From 1978, a Bobby Orr Power Play pinball machine by Bally. /Dead
So much going on here that I don't know where to begin.
First of all, Bobby Orr in Blackhawks sweater is just bizarre and wrong. Dude played 26 games in Chicago over three seasons and was basically a husk of his former self. It's a very sad story. Check out the Chicago part of the tale HERE.
Reading that, you can see that Orr was in a financial pickle in the late 70's so he apparently was up for any endorsement opportunity that came along including pinball machines. So somewhere in that window of time during which Orr played in Chicago he got hooked up with Bally and they made this game. According to the little sign above this machine at the museum, Bally made over 13,000 of these machines which in the pinball world is a shit ton.
So you've got Bobby Orr's Chicago Blackhawks and the Canadian All-Star Team represented, and then on the left side of the back glass and table you'll notice several fleurs de lis. WTF. I was trying to figure that out then I just decided that this game was probably meant to be marketed to arcades and bars in Canada for the most part and you couldn't have a machine like this in a Quebec bar in the late 70's without Frenching it up a bit (see HERE for an explanation on that).
Anyway, after achieving three or four mind orgasms, I spent at least an hour playing the game. I wasn't going to quit until I had the high score, which took me about 45 minutes to get. I was talking with the lady who runs/owns the museum and asked her if they ever sold any of their machines. She asked me which one I was interested in. "This one," I say, point at the Orr machine. "Oh, no," says the lady. "We would never sell that one. We had a guy offer us fifteen hundred for it one time."
Looks like it's time to start socking away the nickels and dimes. My hockey/pinball lust will not be satisfied until I own one of these machines. It will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine.
As far as the museum is concerned, I highly recommend it if you're ever in Seattle. They have about 40 machines ranging in time from the 1960's through the present. For $10 ($7 for kids) you get a wristband that allows you to play all the games for as long as you want. All the games are set to free play. It's awesome.
To the links!
-A story about life in one of the poorest counties in the U.S. I went to college in Appalachia so some of this is familiar to me. [The American Prospect]
-A good interview with Woody Allen (the older I get, the more I like his work). [Wall Street Journal]
-Woody's son unleashed a hellacious zinger on Twitter yesterday (father's day). [ABC News]
-Mitch Albom (whom I don't like) conducts an exit interview with Nicklas Lidstrom (whom everyone likes). There's some good stuff in there. [Detroit Free Press]
-The Yotes need a lawyer, stat. Shut 'em down and give me a damn hockey team, please. [Eye on Hockey]
-The Hawks sign Bollig, Smith, and Hutton. [ESPN Chicago]
-More on the signings plus some draft stuff. [Third Man In]
-Here's one my wife will like. A note from Audrey Hepburn to Henry Mancini, praising his work on the score for Breakfast at Tiffany's. (Mooooonriver!) [Letters of Note]
-The 50 Coolest Book Covers. My favorites are Gatsby and Clockwork Orange. [shortlist.com]
-"You provide the food film and I will provide the perspective." Taking the snark out of film reviewing. [The Telegraph] (+20 cool points if you name the movie that quote comes from. Looking at you, @kateipambu.)
-Some more Seattle arena stuff. This piece is focused on the Sacramento Kings situation (an on-going disaster) and the likelihood of that team moving up here. Someone give me a damn hockey team. [Pro Basketball Talk]
-I'm an über-casual NBA fan but this Simmons column breaking down the OKC-Seattle dynamic was good. [Grantland]
-A wedding in Colorado hired former Bulls P.A. announcer, Ray Clay, to do their introductions. Awesome.
Thursday, June 21, 2012 at 1:48PM 
