I worked from home again today because of the snow. The beauty about today's snow is it was not weighty. The problem is, this morning it kept coming. Anyhow, it ended up being perfect timing. I have a portable XM device that I was letting expire next month. I was replacing it with an XM Mini-Tuner and Dock that I can hook up to my Onkyo home stereo. Well, it arrived today and within 30 minutes I opened the box, hooked it up, enrolled online and started receiving the signal. Not too shabby. Now if I'm home, I don't have to rely on only local radio to get me through the day.

Aaaah. Wolfmother. Loudly.

Meal of Links

The Beasties are releasing a 20th anniversary version of the classic "Paul's Boutique". And while you're listening to "Hey Ladies" be sure to use the dial, "Turn me up.", to take advantage of everything on the page.

David Simon has something going on post-"The Wire". Set in New Orleans and it's called "Treme". Looks like Steve Zahn stars.

Thor rolls a joint.

Looks like Live Nation and Ticketmaster will merge. Live Nation apparently butchered distribution of Phish tickets last week, so this is timely.

Shocking crimes in social media history. Lots of Facebook.

Google Latitude. I mean, I am not even on Twitter.

Exercise Yard

As soon as it appeared that Ben Roethlisberger had scored the first TD in the Super Bowl, my brother called me and said, "Whatever happened to that penalty about helping a runner?". For years now, we have seen lineman push the pile for more yardage. It happens quite often these days. But way back when we were kids, one of the whiskey or beer companies had an artist's rendering of all of the referee signals. I know it's cheap entertainment, but we didn't have the Internets. Well, the one for "Helping the Runner" looked stupid. It was moving your hands in front of you, palms up, like you were dancing. I've never seen it called.

However, the weirdest penalty signal I ever saw called was for Hurdling. Yes, that was a penalty in my lifetime. The great Harold Carmichael once leaped over a guy who was still on his feet. If his knees were on the ground, it would be OK. That's 15 yards, buddy. The referee actually had to do a little jump to call it. Hurdling has since been rendered legal.

But in the Super Bowl, the Steeler center gets in front of Roethlisberger (note he has a last name and does not go just by "Ben") and basically uses the same technique he used to get flagged for a safety later, by grabbing Roethlisberger and pulling him toward the goal line for a TD. It got overturned (I think incorrectly) but the lack of penalty still bugged me. Well, I stumbled upon a recent Jerry Markbreit column (yes, that Jerry Markbreit) and it's still a penalty.

One more thing:

Jeff Pearlman, who did really good work for ESPN.com, talks about what he hates about ESPN. And, he's right.

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