Flightedit

iJobs device/somewhere between LGA and CLT

Let’s say you’re a businessman or woman, the vague description that calls to mind people in pinstriped suits, carrying briefcases while closing deals on one of several cell phones (even though, in truth, it could literally be anyone in any profession). You’ve got a meeting in San Francisco with a hotshot tech company that you’re going to try to buy before it gets too big. Or perhaps you are a family of four, having arrived at JFK in the midst of another polar vortex dressed in vacation gear because you’re headed to San Juan for an extended weekend. Or maybe, like I was, you are a college student flying standby, sending prayers to your preferred deity and the Special Services desk that a seat, just one, leaves itself open for you to make it home in time for Christmas. Even the exit row will do.

In any of these cases, until recently, you were going to come face-to-face with a cultural touchstone that had become synonymous with quasi-gag gifts and airplane perusing. It was the bible for people who had forgotten their own reading material and the most important window into things we did not know we needed. I’m talking, of course, about the delightful in-flight catalog SkyMall, which filed for bankruptcy last week after twenty-five years of peddling weird and wonderful products.

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blogdebasket.com

The NBA announced its All-Star starters this week, with a certain pair of Spanish hermanos at the forefront. Interestingly but not surprisingly, Steph Curry beat out LeBron James and Anthony Davis as the highest vote-getter, and the Eastern Conference has an entirely new backcourt for the first time since 2000. Elsewhere, Kobe Bryant, destroyer of efficiency ratings, has become Kobe Bryant, destroyer of his own rotator cuff, and LaMarcus Aldridge’s injury has the Blazers reeling.

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America is the best place, and if you disagree, you’re wrong. I say that not because I’m American (although I am, and damn proud) but because in America, not only do more people watch the Super Bowl than vote for their president* (*not a real statistic, but I’m 100,000% positive it’s true), but also will create a massive scandal that allows them to talk about “deflated balls” in the media for two weeks straight.

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Foxsports.com

We are not Lleyton Hewitt. Or, at the very least, I’m not, and I imagine the overwhelming majority of my readership is not as well. This is true for a lot of reasons; I am not Australian, nor am I the youngest men’s world No. 1 in history. I have yet to win a Grand Slam singles title, despite my wildest dreams, nor is my middle name Glynn. Most of all, however, I am not Lleyton Hewitt because I will never know what it’s like to play tennis on speedboats in the Sydney Harbor with Roger Federer.

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Knicks fans wear paper bags on their heads during loss to Rockets

Getty Images

I’ve avoided this for so long. I ignored it like a ne’er-do-well roommate, years behind on his rent but always at the forefront of craft IPA and porter trends that cost more than a cigarette addiction in New York City. Speaking of, the apple has truly gone rotten in Madison Square Garden, as your New York Knickerbockers have plummeted to a new low. “But the cap space!” you say. I know. I know. It’s always the cap space, until it’s not. Elsewhere, the best team in the Eastern Conference (which is sort of like being the best dissenter in a Soviet gulag, but still) is up for sale, and the Pistons bring new meaning to the phrase “addition by subtraction.”

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bostonherald.com

Forget 50 Shades of Grey. Forget… other popular and mainstream erotic novels (?). A Gronking to Remember is here — well, was here — and it will make you forget every other book you’ve ever read in your life. This modern masterpiece was penned by acclaimed (read: several of her Kindle novels have five stars on Amazon) author Lacey Noonan, the wordsmith behind other great works such as Hot Boxed: How I Found Love on Amazon and I Don’t Care If My Best Friend’s Mom is a Sasquatch, She’s Hot and I’m Taking a Shower With Her. However, her most recent work, centered around Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, was apparently way too steamy for Amazon, as the book (which cost a whopping $3 on e-reader) seems to have been pulled from the website. Luckily for all of you, I managed to sneak in a download before that happened.

In A Gronking…, Noonan introduces us to Connecticut housewife Leigh, who catches one glimpse of the patented Gronk spike (or the “football throw down thing,” as she so eloquently puts it) on a football Sunday and falls in love at first sight, much to the chagrin of her beleagured Jets-fan husband, with whom her marriage is already on the rocks.

Anyway, once she sees the Gronk spike, it’s all over.

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From sports.yahoo.com

Trading away team headcases is a time-honored NBA tradition. From Dennis Rodman’s Detroit exit in 1993 (and then from San Antonio to Chicago in 1995) to Ron Artest’s unceremonious trade out of Indiana in 2005, getting rid of serviceable but troublesome players allows both teams and players to move on from the skeletons of a marriage gone awry. In situations like these, a player’s future success (Rodman’s with the later three-peat Bulls, Artest’s with the Lakers) tends not to cast the trade in a bad light because the team had decided it simply could not function the same way anymore.

On Monday, two teams expurgated veritable Anthony Fremonts, as the Cleveland Cavaliers dealt Dion Waiters to the Oklahoma City Thunder while acquiring J.R. Smith from the New York Knicks as part of a three-team trade which also involved Iman Shumpert. Both Smith and Waiters had endured franchise-altering waves in the last few months, and now each is set to test exactly how much a change of scenery can do to help a player’s psyche, to the betterment or detriment of their new teams.

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We made it. After 17 weeks of Hypothetical Betting on the Hypothetical SuperContest our journey has come to a somber end. Last week I needed to go a perfect 5-0 in order for me to finish the gambling season with a winning record. My picks went 2-3, and my final record against the spread came to a semi-embarrassing 40-45. I did not come close to winning the Hypothetical SuperContest. That honor would go to CH Ballers, who went a remarkable 64-20-1 ATS on the year. That is a ridiculous run, and his $1,500 investment of actual dollars netted him a return of $736,575 and the title of top bettor in the land. Many, many congratulations. I apologize for not writing about his streak sooner, but as my bets turned dismal, it became painful to see the names of those succeeding around me. I’m sure in future years when I am a better bettor I’ll pay more attention to the leaderboard; it was just a down year.

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SuperContest_Promo

All good things must come to an end.

Sadly, the NFL regular season is no different. There are very few things I enjoy more than a full slate of games on an NFL Sunday. If I were asked to pick my 30 favorite calendar days of any given year, I guarantee that all 17 of those Sundays would be included on the list, with Christmas, Thanksgiving, Selection Sunday, and a few random nights where I got lucky with cards or women thrown in to fill out the rest. Read More