Sports

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Sunday Link-Off: (Sports) Media Matters

valerie-van-der-graaf-beachbunny13-04You know, it’s tough to have weekend plans completely ruined by the incompetence of a parcel service. You promise delivery on a Thursday but rather than fly the parcel from Mississauga  UPS drove it from there to Northern Ontario. Yeah, why use the convenient airport that’s right there.

Anyway, today is a Sunday which means that it’s time for the end of the week links. Let’s start with Dutch model Valerie van der Graaf.

Bad news for people claiming that the “tax and spend liberals” are crippling America’s economy, they need to do a little fact-checking. The federal deficit is actually shrinking. (NPR)

In professional wrestling, Hulk Hogan could use his political clout to influence the outcome of matches. Now, he’s trying to do the same to the First Amendment. (Mugshots)

Are blogs dying or just evolving from their classic form? (The Dish)

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Sunday Link-Off: Taking Control

nina-agdal-nicholasroutzen13-02It’s the end of the week. It’s been a busy one at Lowdown HQ too with all the work we did for Canadian Gaming Week. Maybe we’ll do that again in the future but for now we’ll resume normal programming. So let’s start today’s links with Nina Agdal.

The week before last was about two things: Terrorism and gun control. At first, those were two separate issues. Now, you can actually link the two as bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was on an FBI watch list but was still able to buy high-powered firearms. (Bloomberg)

Midterm elections in the US Congress is still a ways away but gun control could be the biggest issue in 2014. (The New Republic)

Australia banned all semi-automatic and automatic firearms despite concerns over the effect it might have over people’s safety. Almost 20 years later, Australia is one of the safest places in the world to live. To be honest, I felt safer in Australia than I did in Toronto or Ottawa. (Uproxx)

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Sunday Link-Off: The Business

christina-hendricks-flare13-05It’s the end of the week so it’s time for links. Formula One is back this weekend so I’ll have some racing content over the next couple of weeks. I don’t think I’ll have time for a gaming column this week because I’ll be busy playing through a few games. In the meantime, since Mad Men is on tonight, here’s Christina Hendricks.

As someone who, on occasion, considers himself a member of the media, I’m a little unnerved by the lack of attention being paid to a court case in Colorado over a journalist’s sources in the James Holmes investigation. Taking a reporter to court for reporting is the beginning of a slippery slope. (New York Times)

Justin Trudeau is seen by many as being in the shadow of his father but he is his own man and has economic policies that should make Bay Street happy. (Canadian Business)

I don’t know what Bitcoin is or why it’s having a crash but I find the fact that a virtual currency can have a crash fascinating. (Yahoo News)

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Wednesday Link-Off: The Fool or the Fool Who Follows Him?

alessandra-ambrosio-victoriassecret13-14I’ve been busy this week so today’s set of links might be a little shorter than usual. Hopefully, it’s a case of the decrease in quantity is made up for with an increase in quality. Anyhow, let’s start with Alessandra Ambrosio.

One of the all-time greatest hockey players, Gordie Howe, turned 85 this past Sunday. While he’s just as spry as any 85-year-old. The problem is the toll the game seems to have taken on his mind. (Detroit Free Press)

Disney is a massive corporation. Not many companies would have been able to afford to buy LucasFilm, after all. However, it’s not the Mouse but the Mothership, ESPN, that brings in the biggest dollars. (The Economist)

How does the NRA protect the right to bear arms? Not through meaningful discourse or the use of facts. Solely though scaremongering. (TPM)

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Sunday Link-Off: Wonderful Easter Time

irina-shayk-xti13-09You know, there aren’t many (maybe any) songs about Easter. What if Sir Paul McCartney did an Easter song? Would he do Wonderful Easter Time as the logical follow-up to Wonderful Christmastime? Anyway, let’s kick off this not even slightly Easter themed post with Irina Shayk.

Writer Jay Caspian Kang looks back at last year’s shooting at Oikos University and examines the effect that it had on various parties involved. (New York Times)

Nick D’Alosio just made $30 million by selling a story summarizing app to Yahoo. His Summly app condenses articles down to four “need-to-know” lines using a licensed algorithm to do so. Not only is the app apparently not that good, D’Alosio’s reputation in the tech community isn’t that great. (Gawker)

Meagan Marie is a community manager for Crystal Dynamics. She’s one of the seemingly few women working in a video games industry that’s often fairly regarded as sexist or misogynistic. When she wrote about some of the moronic and misogynistic things one so-called member of the gaming media said at PAX East, she heard from the rather unsavoury corners of the interweb. But she’s absolutely right in what she says and all gamers should read her blog post about it. (Meagan Marie)

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Sunday Link-Off: Playing Favourites

olivia-wilde-marieclaire13-05It’s the end of a long week of writing. From Monday to Friday, we posted over 9,000 words. Doing a thorough week of blogging is a bit tiring so I’ll apologize in advance if next week is a bit quieter. However, we have the F1 race recap (assuming that it didn’t get rained out overnight while I was asleep) and a new gaming column coming up this week. I’m hoping to get a review for The Showdown Effect done this week too.

Right, you’re not here to hear me ramble on about blog stuff. Since Jackie didn’t feature her yesterday, here’s Olivia Wilde.

What is the Republicans’ game with the sequester? They’re actually looking to cut any specific thing. They just want cuts, wherever they may come from. (Think Progress)

Watch out, celebrity tweeters. The Federal Trade Commission is thinking about cracking down on paid ads that you post on Twitter. (Wall Street Journal)

Cardinal Bergoglio came from absolutely nowhere to become Pope Francis. After Cardinal Ratzinger won the Papacy as the favourite the last time out, you’d be forgiven if you thought that the favourite winning was the norm. However, it’s really the exception and long shots winning are the norm. (FiveThirtyEight)

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Sunday Link-Off: Behind the Scenes

lauren-cohan-esquire13-03Well, I jinxed us when prepping the intro for this post. Originally, I said we got through the week intact when we almost didn’t. Anyhow, next week is our F1 preview week. We’ll have all the usual features and we’ll even throw in our Mass Effect 3 Citadel review for good measure. But first, we have the Sunday links. Since there’s a new episode of The Walking Dead tonight, here’s Lauren Cohen.

We all know that Disney came from seemingly nowhere to drop $4 billion to buy Lucasfilm  and everything Star Wars but do you know how the deal came together? (Businessweek)

Keeping with behind the scenes stories, here’s a look at CERN’s chase to find the Higgs boson. (New York Times)

Sports owners are well-known for crying poor. However, one owner has been proven to be a liar when crying poor. The Carolina Panthers aren’t a hard done by team. They made over $110 million over the last two years. (Deadspin)

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Thursday Link-Off: Form an Opinion

anais-pouliot-eres13-02I did tell you on Sunday that we’d be a day late with this week’s set of mid-week links. I hope you enjoyed yesterday’s history of Mass Effect 3 post. That’s not the end of our Mass Effect coverage because we’ll have a review of the Citadel DLC next week. But for now, here’s Canadian model Anais Pouliot.

Have you ever wondered how you formed an opinion about an article or author? It may have to do with the contents of the comment section. (New York Times)

People think social media is a good proxy for public opinion but a comparison of public opinion and Twitter opinion shows Twitter generally skews more liberal. (Pew Research Centre)

Hugo Chavez died this week. If you want to know more about the former leader of Venezuela and his legacy, the Economist has you covered. (The Economist)

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The Death of the Arcade Sports Game

blades-of-steel-01Growing up, I got an NES when I was about four or five years old. I had that console all the way until I was 11. Naturally, I logged a lot of hours on the dozen or so games that I did have for that system. Perhaps no game got put through its paces like Blades of Steel. I wasn’t the only one who did, though. Hockey fans all know about the classic game that had hitting everywhere, slap shots ricocheting off the boards and more than a few fights.

If you’re a child of the 90s, it might not have been Blades of Steel but there was certainly a classic sports game that was simple yet fun that you poured hours into. Football fans had Tecmo Super Bowl. Basketball fans spent their time on fire playing NBA Jam.

But look at the sports games released now. How many noteworthy sports game releases are what could be described as arcade-y? Not since 2010’s remake/updated NBA Jam released on the Wii have we had a new arcade-style sports game that wasn’t kart racer. It certainly seems as though a genre that has spawned quite a few cult hits is now all but dead.

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Sunday Link-Off: What If…

nina-agdal-aerie13-11Well, it’s official. I was wrong about this year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Cover. I thought SI would pass on Kate Upton for the second-straight time because she might have been overexposed and they could make waves and bigger headlines with a fresh face like Nina Agdal. Turns out that I was wrong and they think that Kate will sell more copies than the other options. So, for no particular reason, including bitterness, here’s Nina Agdal.

We’re less than a year from the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and it sure looks like the Russians have been taking some liberties with their workforce while trying to get venues ready. (The Economist)

One of the most unexpected big topics in American politics this week was who the President can order to be killed. If Nixon was alive, he would certainly be an expert on that. (The New Yorker)

Speaking of Presidents of the United States, in his retirement, George W. Bush has become a bit of an artist. (Gawker)

After the jump, the what ifs of sports, a look at the greatness of Community and the President does Pokemon. Continue reading →