HINES WARD is a wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers. You will notice him because he always seems to be smiling, even when he’s tackled. The joy this man gets from adrenaline and violence is so pure and awesome that if football didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it to prevent Hines Ward from breaking into zoos and biting polar bears in half.
Ask most American’s what their favorite pizza topping is and there’s a very good chance the answer will be pepperoni. With Pizza’s big day fast approaching (the Super Bowl is to pizza what Valentine’s Day is to flowers), the New York Times takes a look at pepperoni and its absence from nearly all of the high-end pizzerias that have opened up in recent years.
Across the United States, artisanal pizza joints are opening faster than Natalie Portman movies. But inside those imported ovens, pepperoni — by far America’s most popular pizza topping — is as rare as a black swan.
On the complete oposite end of the spectrum, pepperoni is readily available at our nation’s four major pizza chains. If you’re in an area without much pizza choice, you may find Slice’s pepperoni pizza delivery guide to be an asset. Personally, I’ll be sticking with my neighborhood Grimaldi’s.
Though I’ve grown to love pizza toppings such as soppressata, caramelized onion, arugula and even brussel sprouts, pepperoni has remained my go-to choice. When those little red discs curl up and the edges get crispy, it brings any pie that much closer to pizza perfection.
The Seattle Seahawks Marshawn Lynch had a 67 yard touchdown run that literally made the ground shake during his team’s upset win on Saturday:
Vidale said a seismic monitoring station located about 100 yards west of the stadium registered seismic activity during Lynch’s run. The shaking was most intense during a 30-second stretch about the time Lynch broke free from the line of scrimmage, finished off his touchdown and celebrated in the end zone with his teammates.
After that, Vidale said, the shaking died down, but it took about a minute for the shaking to completely fade away.
I was in the car, so I heard this run live on the radio and it sounded amazing. Lynch’s run was so video game-like (he broke 8 tackles!) that he inspired at least two separate youTube mashups:
My Chicago Bears are heavy favorites to beat the Seahawks in the playoffs this weekend. I hope the Bears saw this run and will not act as though they’ve won before the game has started.
Sunday, the NFL is bringing us some great playoff match-ups. On paper, neither game looks like a blowout and there are some genuinely likable teams and players involved (well, except for that evil team from Minnesota). Under normal circumstances, I’d be stocking my snack cabinet for an epic day of couch potato-ing. Instead, I’m going to be schlepping into Manhattan for my first “Settlers of Catan” tournament.
“The Settlers of Catan” may be the most popular game you’ve never heard of. Though more than 15 million copies have been sold worldwide since its release in 1995, it has been slower to catch on in the United States. Americans are coming around in a big way, though. Early last year, Wired ran an article on how the game may be changing the way people in the U.S. think about board games:
Most impressive of all, though, Settlers is actually inducting board-game-averse Americans into the cult of German-style gaming. Last year, Settlers doubled its sales on this side of the Atlantic, moving 200,000 copies in the US and Canada—almost unheard-of performance for a new strategy game with nothing but word-of-mouth marketing. It has become the first German-style title to make the leap from game-geek specialty stores to major retailers like Barnes & Noble and Toys “R” Us.
Settlers is now poised to become the biggest hit in the US since Risk. Along the way, it’s teaching Americans that board games don’t have to be either predictable fluff aimed at kids or competitive, hyperintellectual pastimes for eggheads. Through the complex, artful dance of algorithms and probabilities lurking at its core, Settlers manages to be effortlessly fun, intuitively enjoyable, and still intellectually rewarding, a potent combination that’s changing the American idea of what a board game can be.
If you’re a fan of board games, I definitely recommend picking up a copy of “Settlers” (About 30 bones on Amazon.com) and giving it a shot. And no, you don’t have to dress as one of the tiles to play…
Like a lot of football fans, I have wasted countless moments today thinking about Bill Belichick’s decision to keep his offense on the field for a 4th and 2 try from their own 28 yard line. On one hand, 4th and short tries have something like a 55-60% success rate and a first down essentially ends the game. On the other hand, the likelihood of Peyton Manning going 28 yards in two minutes would have to be very high — seemingly high enough to counter the chance of 4th down success.
A conversion on 4th-and-2 would be successful 60 percent of the time. Historically, in a situation with 2:00 left and needing a TD to either win or tie, teams get the TD 53 percent of the time from that field position. … A punt from the 28 typically nets 38 yards, starting the Colts at their 34. Teams historically get the TD 30 percent of the time in that situation.
Statistically, going for it gives the Patriots a 79% likelihood of winning while punting gives them only a 70% chance of winning. Even if you assume the Colts are well above league average in end-of-game situations, he says “it’s pretty hard to come up with a realistic combination of numbers that makes punting the better option.”
Update: Bill Simmons breaks down Belichick’s fourth and wrecklessdecision and argues that the stats aren’t just wrong — they’re insane:
Inane Angle No. 1: “Statistically, it was the right move”
So we’re saying 55.7 percent, huh? [referring to the NFL 4th and short conversion percentage] That’s the success rate for a road team playing its biggest rival, in a deafeningly loud dome, coming out of a timeout — a timeout that allowed the defense to get a breather and determine exactly how to stop the obvious five-receiver spread that was coming because the offense’s running game sucked — along with that same defense getting extra fired up because it was being disrespected so egregiously/willfully/blatantly/incomprehensibly. I say lower. By a lot.
