Was listening to an interesting interview with Jonah Keri, a sportswriter for Grantland and Baseball Tonight analyst. They talked about writing articles from more of a statistical perspective including season predictions. The simple stats of injured players can really lame out the story of the Boston Red Sox losing a 9 game lead over the Rays due to either “Beer, Chicken Wings, and Video Games” or the Great Pumpkin, Dan Johnson, being very clutch. But simple stats can make it easier to understand that there are reasons that the Rays games have horrible attendance like being mostly surrounded by water, the original owner causing problems and being a young team.

Another great stat resource I just heard about via the interview with it’s founder, Nate Silver, is FiveThirtyEight.com. I know some readers of this blog, mostly just Neil, love simple charts but not always all the analysis that goes with it, but the topics seem pretty interesting. Check it out.

Nothing else to report except this update from Brian and Ellen’s travels:

• Pornburger. A website that puts recipes to amazingly decadent burgers once a week. Just the pictures look amazing. Via Design You Trust.
• Fin ring.  Using a ring around your thumb to control all your devices.  The video makes it seem cool, but the funniest part is how the female model wearing the ring has a fucked up pinky that they keep zooming in on (check at like :50 of the video).  Why wouldn’t you get another model to showcase a product for your hand?
• Along with some other cool releases, Record Store Day is going to include a glow-in-the-dark vinyl version of Ray Parker Jr.’s Ghostbuster theme.
• Here are some fun facts about Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. Via Pop Candy.
• Aidan Jr?  This kid knows his swear words.
• Have you ever wanted to actually see and hear man who said “You’ve Got Mail!”?
• If you haven’t seen this on some fireman’s facebook feed, then this construction worker escaping a fire is worth a watch.