Matt Lauer somehow hit a deer with his bicycle.

Ahead of Geithner's plan (which is a reworking of Paulson's plan) Bank of America and Citi are buying up toxic securities in anticipation of selling them back to all of us at a marked increase. I don't ask for much, but I hope this rescue plan doesn't pass and BOA and Citi stay stuffed to the gills with all the shitpile they can eat.

Maybe this was the plan all along, get the greedy Citi and BOA to eat themselves to death, while at the same time cleaning up the balance sheets of everyone else. Geithner's a genius. And I guess Citi and BOA aren't using their TARP money to loan money like they're supposed to. Oh well.

I don't know why I can't stop writing about Candace Parker, but every time I see an article about her, I feel compelled. So here's ESPN The Magazine's cover treatment about Parker musing on whether she's the female Jordan. The title of this post stems from the fact that the article mentions Parker's C Cups in the first sentence and twice in the first paragraph. Thanks for straightening that out for us, ESPN The Magazine.

The question of the female Jordan reminded me of a post I saw linking to a list of players who have been called "The Next Jordan". That list was published in 2008, but I also found a list published in
2007 and one published in 2005. As far as I'm concerned, when Lebron wins 6 titles, we can start discussing him as the next Jordan, for now, it's a little premature.

I mocked '24' for taking about an encryption called Blowfish. I thought they had made it up, but it's real and Bruce Schneier wrote it. My bad.

A local designer makes the case that our signage sucks.

(Via GC:PVD)

It is what it says it is, and it's AWESOME.

Michael Pollanasked for your food rules. You gave them to him, and recently, he announced 7 of them:

-Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
-Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can't pronounce.
-Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter of the store
-Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot.
-It is not just what you eat but how you eat.
-Eat around a table at regular meal times.
-Don't buy food where you buy your gasoline. In the U.S., 20% of food is eaten in the car.

Plus, here are 4 bonus Michael Pollan Food Myths!

Myth #1: Food is a delivery vehicle for nutrients.
Myth #2: We need experts to tell us how to eat.
Myth #3: The whole point of eating is to maintain and promote bodily health.
Myth #4: There are evil foods and good foods.

A couple weeks ago, The New York Times wisely introduced Article Skimmer as an additional way for readers to interact with the news. It's fast, intuitive, and easy to use. I put this in the solidly innovative column that I've seen a bunch of from the Times over the last year or so.

But then let me introduce Skimmer's Bacon topic. I've been trying to think of a way to kill the bacon meme since January or so, but the New York Times just did it for me. I'm tired of the internet that allows lazy marketers to layer whatever they want with bacon and score cheap internet traffic. That's not an internet I want to live in, and I don't think that's the internet you want either.

I can't help but think the bacon topic is aimed at this cheap internet traffic and by catering to it, the New York Times has debased itself. Who do they think they are, really? They could have maintained their stodgy standoffishness, but by rolling around the mud with the pigs...well, let's just say that 'arbiter of cool' The New York Times is not. To say nothing of the fact that if you're a meme, and people send around links about you, and then everyone on the internet is talking about you, and then The Paper of Record talks about you, you're not a meme anymore. You've baconed the Times or some other cute play on jumping the shark. It should be noted for the record that, for the sake of my argument, I've ignored the likely scenario that the Topics on Skimmer are automatically created based on what the readers are searching for and reading. If that's not how Topics get created, well that's just sad. (Thanks, Aaron!)

Click image to enlarge.

Hanson + Smashing Pumpkins + Fountains of Wayne + Cheap Trick = surprisingly good.

I have, so far, only seen the first episode of Kings, but the second is on my TiVo, and I have a free moment to write about it now. (If all of this is covered in the second episode, well, my bad.)

It was an interesting surprise to discover that the theme of the show was not, as advertised, "What if the U.S. had a king?" Rather, it's, "What if the Biblical story of David took place in an industrialized society?" which is pretty cool, too. (If you don't want any spoilers, don't read 1 Samuel!)

What I'm spending the most brainpower on, though, is trying to understand the fictional world in which Kings takes place. Is it a post-apocalyptic version of our world? Is Shiloh built on the site of the ruined New York City? How big is Gilboa? Etc?

We get the sense Gilboa isn't all that big. We're told in the first episode that the front is only a few hours north of Shiloh, so if Shiloh really is Manhattan, then Gath is upstate New York? Or Massachusetts? Of course, it's possible that the world of Kings can't be mapped to real-world geography: I can't quite tell.

I'm especially baffled by the level of technology. They have skyscrapers, cars, planes, computers, cell phones, and the Internet, but their military technology is totally backwards. The Gilboans are fighting in trenches, for crying out loud. Gath's military superiority comes from their tanks, which the Gilboans don't seem to have. At the same time, we've heard talk of air support, we've seen helicopters, and we've even seen fighter jets in at least one quick shot. So, what the hell? Do they not have missiles and bombs? Why is Gilboan military technology so pathetic, given the sophistication of Shiloh? And what is Evil Military-Industrial Company Crossgen making its money off of? Rifles? If Shiloh is only a few hours from the front, why hasn't Gath bombed the crap out of it?

Basically, I'm hoping we'll find out that there's a coherent and interesting story about the kinds of technology they do and don't have in the world of Kings, but I'm suspicious that it's just bad writing.