Filament Friday 01/10/2014

The Saints travel back to Seattle looking for revenge. They say it’s a dish best served cold, but it’s going to be a wet and windy Saturday in the great northwest. Forecasts call for temperatures between 49 and 41 degrees. Is that cold enough for revenge? What if we did something more post-modern, like a revenge flan? Is flan served hot or cold? Only one way to find out – with filaments!

  • It’s served cold, generally.
  • Grantland has a preview of this weekend’s playoffs that will fill your Who Dat heart with both optimism and dread.
  • Meanwhile Canal Street Chronicles takes a break from the playoffs to review this season’s Saints rookies. While you still have to wait another year or two to really grade a draft class, this one is looking really impressive. Kenny Vaccaro, Kenny Stills, Terron Armstead and John Jenkins have all been important contributors (or more) this season.
  • Since it worked last week I will only predict that a game between the Saints and Seahawks will occur tomorrow, but you can see other people’s predictions here.
  • I had fun on Twitter with the #WittmanFace.

     

  • The Wizards go for their third in a row tonight, this after losing three in a row. Only three times this season have the Wizards sandwiched a loss between two wins, every other time they have lost a game they’ve lost at least two more after it. That’s two each 3- and 4-game losing streaks. Or, to put it another way, excluding 3+ game losing streaks the Wiz are 16-3. I have no earthly idea what this means.
  • Jan Vesely had a big night versus the New Orleans Pelican‘ts
  • When I came across “How to Draw Manga” on WikiHow I was immediately reminded of a “How to Draw Comic Book Characters” thing I did in 9th grade. I was roundly mocked by all the “cool kids”. That was an awful school, there were, maybe, five decent human beings attending there. Maybe seven. I’m actually Facebook friends with one of them. True story.
  • If you’re a fan of Star Trek and blooper reels (and, really, who isn’t? You’re not? Get OUT!) then this is a must click. My favorites are anything with Picard and everything with Worf.
  • As much as anything, I am linking to this to save it, juuuust in case I start running again.
  • What does the fox say? “You’re invisible, but I’ll eat you anyway.
  • While foxes use their magnetic sense to hunt prey, dogs apparently use it for, well, kind of the opposite thing.
  • What the hell, cows can sense magnetic lines, too?! Can every other animal besides humans do this???
  • Wow. So, so, very close. The science of magnetoreception, besides sounding like Magneto pretending to be rabbit ears, must be a difficult field of study, as evidenced by this line, “In the end, Baker relented and he moved on to the science of sperm“. I guess you can call that the money shot quote.
  • Owls, like most birds, can probably sense magnetic fields as well, but did you know their faces are radar dishes. Nature is awesome. Unless you’re a rodent.
  • I had some adventures in eating this week, including my first Pho. It was pho-nominal. I’ll be here all day folks, remember to tip your waiters.
  • It’s my tradition to make cajun or creole cuisine when the Saints have a playoff game, so for Saturday night’s win over Philadelphia I made a shrimp etouffee similar to this one. It was the Wife’s first etouffee and she loved it.
  • This is one of the greatest pranks I’ve ever seen (even if it’s really just an ad). I would probably fall for this sooo hard.
  • Dan Snyder should read this. Being a decent human being really isn’t that hard, is it? I feel sorry for a lot of DC NFL fans.
  • I love the artwork in The Silmarillion Project.
  • I was all over LifeHacker this week, learning options to sync my music library, what to do in case of a roadside emergency and how to not get arrested.
  • I’m usually not big on those “## Amazeballs Ways to Make Your Home and Garden Crap on Martha Stewart” lists, but, I’ve got to say, this one has some really good ideas.
  • Topps is producing a line of cards for Major League’s 25th anniversary. Jobu will be mine…
  • A 17 year old (with some help) solved the mystery of Angel’s Glow.
  • Speaking of angels fortunate circumstances, three Cubs’ prospects escaped serious injury.
  • Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas made the Hall of Fame. Maddux will enter Cooperstown as an Atlanta Brave, but he’ll always be a Cub in my heart.
  • Every single high school, college and minor league pitcher should read this. Maddux was a genius on the mound and, likely, off of it as well. “I am the house,” indeed.
  • It’s less than five weeks until pitchers and catchers report. To help while away the time, here are the Cubs’ Top 20 Prospects as determined by John Sickels. Who knows who makes it to the show, but the job Epstein and Hoyer have done injecting talent into the Cubs minor league system is simply impressive.
  • The last piece of big business this baseball offseason is the Tanaka sweepstakes. If Theo and Jed can land the Japanese right hander 2014 is going to look a lot more intriguing. There is, of course, lots of competition.
  • There is, as every year, much controversy about the HOF votes, but it really does seem to be a big mess. Here are some fine ideas on how to clean it up.
  • Lists like this make me feel a little too old, but, damn, 1994 was one hell of a year for music. I had all but two or three of these albums.
  • I’ve fallen out of my Simpson’s habit the last few years, but this makes me think I should take it up again.
  • You know nothing about suits.
  • I’ve been to a few of these bars.
  • Lots of trivial tidbits in this list of all 32 NFL team nickname origins.
  • From the Onion, the worst sports teams of all time. The ’99 FSU Dance Team infuriated me.
  • This is the kind of thing that goes underreported, but blows my mind – astronomers have taken an actual photograph of an exoplanet. The pic was taken by the Gemini Planet Imager at the Gemini South telescope in Chili in only it’s first week of operation – what will it be capable of when they figure out how to use it?!

    Aww, look, I think it's smiling!

    Aww, look, I think it’s smiling!

  • If that’s not mind blowing enough, try wrapping your head around the scale of intergalactic distances.
  • One of the savviest business deals ever is coming to an end.
  • With the ban on incandescent light bulbs now in effect, do I need to change the name of this feature? Crazy Friday Links (CFL)?
  • This Song of the Week has been stuck in my head, though not this version.

About Dylan Steele

A Louisiana native, Dylan Steele now lives in Halethorpe, Maryland. A web developer by day, he is also an occasional musician, frequent dog walker and sometimes hoopster. And now he blogs, too.
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