Weekend Links [RandBall]

The weekend links are up over at RandBall. Subjects today include relief pitching, Jim Thome, and social media.

Several Very Short Essays On Sunday [Minnesota Vikings]

This will be the last time I speak of this at any length until following the 2010 season. One year will hopefully be enough to ease the pain. But for now, several very short essays regarding Sunday.

1.

Lots of folks seem to want to blame Brad Childress for the Vikings' problems. I can't quite fathom this; if there was ever a game that proves the ultimate impotence of coaching staffs, it was Sunday's. Put another way: Childress didn't fumble and also threw zero interceptions.

2.

There were Vikings fans who approached the Brett Favre signing with great trepidation, as they feared his tendency to make mistakes while trying to do too much. He kept that side - the side we call Crazy Favre - under wraps until his last play of the season. Minnesota supporters got more and more invested in him as the year went on. Favre jerseys appeared all over town; Favre-love blossomed throughout the area. It would seem, then, that the Vikings and their fans got exactly what we deserved.

3.

I watched Favre's postgame press conference. He supposedly sobbed for five minutes following the game, then clearly had to fight back tears when talking to reporters. He was just as broken up about it as I was. I've hated him for over a decade. Maybe it's appropriate that now, after one of his greatest failures, I finally realize why so many liked him so much.

4.

For all the talk about his greatness, though, remember that the Ol' Gunslinger is now right up there in Vikings lore with Bobby Lee, Wade Wilson, Randall Cunningham, and Daunte Culpepper. Yikes.

5.

Worse than 1987, worse than 2000, but not as bad as 1998. Nothing could be that bad.

6.

Antoine Winfield and Cedric Griffin both got hurt in overtime. Yeah, it's hard not to feel like some cosmic sniper's been working against the Purple for a long time.

7.

Remember the movie "Groundhog Day," where Bill Murray gets his face slapped twenty thousand times before he finally figures out how to make Andie MacDowell fall in love with him? Maybe that's how it is for Vikings fans. Maybe we have to go through one of each kind of loss, before we finally get to wake up on February 3rd.

8.

The great worry, of course, is that next year will be exactly like 1999. I really don't want to have to sit through another Jeff George era. Or another divisional-round butt-whipping from the Rams.

9.

I think that's all I have to say about that.

Pain, Again

Over the course of many years, it occurs to you: good things don't have to happen.

As much as I'd like to believe it, there's no justice or fairness or cosmic scale that will eventually be rebalanced. The Vikings will probably never win the Super Bowl. They may never play in it again. This shouldn't be surprising; there are other teams that have never been to the Super Bowl, who don't win it all, and there's no reason that their fans or Vikings fans will ever see the figurative promised land.

Such pessimism does not preclude hope, though. I hope like anyone else. My hopes were not beaten down pregame today, or in the fourth quarter when the Vikings trailed, and especially not in a tie football game when the Vikings had the ball.

I thought we had it, we the fans, I mean, we who have suffered. Even as Brett Favre dropped back, even as he rolled right, even as he threw back across the field. I could see it happening - one more completion, a field goal from Ryan Longwell, and the Vikings would be in the Super Bowl.

It wasn't to be. And there is no "wait 'til next year." It hurts and it'll always hurt, and there's nothing that says it can't always be the same way. And if you think it's just a game, I say no no no no no no no it isn't. Nothing this communal and this visceral and this painful is meaningless.

The pain is real. The pain is back. And I know that it will probably never go away.

Weekend Links [RandBall]

Need some cheering up after that Gopher hoops game? How about some weekend links?

That Did Not Go Well [American Cricket]

Yes, this post is about American cricket.

It is not about the senior national team, however. Our national team is still, as you might imagine, a laughingstock; we're currently ranked 33rd in the world, right between Nepal and Singapore. We're so bad that we have to start qualifying for the 2015 Cricket World Cup next month.

Our Under-19 team, however, has showed some promise. The youngsters actually managed to qualify for the 2010 Under-19 World Cup with relative ease, and headed to that tournament, in New Zealand, over the past weeks to attempt to make a splash on the world stage.

Things were looking up, I'd have to say. The U-19s even had a couple of American-born and American-raised players in the side, rare for American cricket, and the hopes of the few people paying attention must have been raised. The USA was drawn into a group with powerhouses Australia and South Africa, as well as Ireland, which is perhaps the most accomplished second-tier cricketing nation. The chances for great upsets were there.

Things did not go well.

In the first match, the USA bowled to start, and the Aussies cruised to a rather comfortable 262. With work ahead of them, the Americans went to bat - and immediately fell apart, making seven of their ten allowed outs while scoring just 28 runs.

The scores for the first five Aussie batters: 32, 73, 13, 18, 33. For our brave American boys: 5, 5, 1, 5, 0. Our home country eventually lost by 108 runs, the equivalent of losing 119-68 in basketball.

The second match, against South Africa, went no better. The Americans batted first. The Americans batted poorly. For the second consecutive match, two American batsmen managed the embarrassing feat of making an out on the first ball that they faced (including poor Naseer Jamali, who was so victimized in both matches). They ended up scoring 163.

South Africa bested that total while making just two outs, which is like winning 8-2 in hockey despite playing 4-on-5 the whole game.

So, with no qualification for the next round possible, the USA faced Ireland - a team they'd actually waxed by 42 runs at the qualifiers. It was the country's last chance to win on the big stage. The USA batted first - and for once, started well, getting to 180 with five outs remaining. Of course, at that point came the collapse; America managed just 27 more runs for a final of 217.

This might have been enough, of course - it was plenty in the qualifiers - but the bowling went to hell. Ireland were stuck on 105 for the first four wickets, but put up another 104 runs without making an out, and ended up cruising to an easy victory. This, for America, is like losing 14-13 in baseball, after leading 13-2 in the sixth inning.

So, after all the hope - three losses, all with a collapse of some kind. Today, the team starts the ninth-place playoffs, which I suppose matter, though I can't think of why.

It's back to the senior team for our cricket hopes, then. The national team has two big tournaments in February. We'll wait and see if the older generation can get the hope back.

UPDATE: The Under-19 team's ninth-place playoff match against hated rivals Canada was rained out, and the Canucks will advance by virtue of a better showing in the group stages. Kind of a fitting end to the tournament, I suppose.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: I had no idea that the playoffs kept going at the U-19 World Cup. The USA lost to Zimbabwe in the 13th-place semifinals, crashing to an abysmal 115, their worst score of the tournament, and losing by five wickets. They did, however, manage to avoid last place in the tourney by waxing Afghanistan in the 15th-place match. They bowled out the Afghanis for a putrid 86, and took just fifteen overs to beat that score and win the match.

Oh Holy Crap Panic Time [Minnesota Vikings]

Do you ever have something just... hit you?

There you are, standing in line at the grocery store, or sitting on the couch watching reruns of "Three's Company," and suddenly, BAM! you realize something of great importance. Usually it's something mission-critical, like that you forgot your friend's birthday, or that you're in public and yet not wearing pants.

This happened to me, late on Wednesday night. I've been having a relatively calm week, and then the following flashed through my head:

The Vikings are one game away from the Super Bowl, playing against a tough but not-invincible team, and have a chance to go to the big game for the first time in 33 years.

Everybody remembers that the Vikings have lost four Super Bowls. What they forget is, since loss number four, they've also lost four NFC Championship games. They've been to the football Final Four eight times and have come up empty. In the NFC, only the Cowboys have lost at that stage more, and Dallas has five titles in 14 tries to console themselves. Even Los Angeles, with their solitary title in nine tries, is better off.

And yet - here we are again, for the fourth time in my memory. The generation before mine agonizes over the Super Bowl losses - by the way, the Vikings led none of those four games for even a minute - but mine is stuck with three NFC Championship failures, all excruciating.

The weight of this hit me on Wednesday. These opportunities don't come around that often. There is no "wait 'til next year," there's only 60 minutes on Sunday. One more chance for the Purple to erase some heartbreak from the most heartbreaking franchise in Minnesota.

So you'll pardon me the following:

Ohcrapohcrapohholycrapohmygoodnessholycrapholycrapholycrap (hyperventilating)

Probably the only legitimate argument in favor of a new Vikings stadium [Stadium Issues]

The Star Tribune noted the television ratings of Sunday's Vikings-Cowboys tilt. In the Minneapolis-St. Paul market, more than four out of every five people who had their TV on had it tuned to the Vikings game. Not only that, almost half of all TV owners were watching the Vikings game.

When we all get into the inevitable arguments about the Vikings stadium debate - one which has many well-reasoned arguments against building a new stadium - I suppose it's instructive to remember that, in a way, we've already voted: with our television remotes.

The Curse of DVR [Minnesota Vikings]

You don't need more Vikings recaps, opinion, analysis, or coverage. You, like me, watched the game as closely as possible today, and don't need it explained to you again. You saw what I saw; you know what I know.

I think these are fair assumptions, at least, so I'm going to take the narcissistic way out and write about myself, because I did something I've never tried before. I taped a critical Minnesota game for later viewing.

I didn't plan this, but a friend called up an hour before the game with the intention of coming over to watch. This friend had unwisely joined a test-preparation class that meets every Sunday afternoon this spring from 1:00-4:30, and he was unhappy about the first class of the year falling right in the final three-quarters of a Vikings playoff game.

So, being good friends, we at my house acquiesced, and - from the second quarter on - recorded the game for late-afternoon viewing. I've done this before, of course, with dozens of games, but never with a Minnesota playoff game of any description. I thought it'd be easy, but I think we'd all agree - it was agonizing.

I, at least, had the option of holing up in my place and simply cutting off all lines of communication. My friend had it even worse, trying to avoid gazing at anyone else in order to avoid seeing reactions of any kind. (He drove back to our place with his glasses off, on the off chance he'd see someone in an adjacent car celebrating or otherwise betraying an indication of the final score.)

I can barely remember a longer afternoon. The phone cruelly went off a couple of times; I couldn't answer it or read text messages, obviously, but every beep caused another round of speculation. Every one caused my mind to race: It's 2:45. It has to be the fourth quarter. Is this a celebratory message? Complaining about the refs? Request for stout lengths of rope and good solid garage rafters?

The hardest part was, once we started the tape, resisting the urge to fast-forward to the end of the game to see the final score. It was wonderful to skip commercials and to skip the idiotic essaying of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, but it took all I had not to dive through to the end of the game.

I thought it might be nice to know that, as the game had already happened, there was no point in getting angry about changing the past. Instead, I felt like I'd lost whatever small amount of control I thought I had while watching the game live; it was like watching a tape-delayed malediction, and you knew that no argument would be possible and no changes could be made.

If you feel like pointing out that this wouldn't have been possible live, either, then you and I don't watch sports in the same way.

Weekend Links [RandBall]

I admit it's been a slow week - mostly because the main event in Minnesota is tomorrow's Vikings game, which I am trying to think about as little as possible. It is my hope that, the less I think about the game, the less overwrought I'll be come noon tomorrow. It's all about being Scandinavian tomorrow, and keeping my emotions somewhere below a rolling boil.

(Note: this never works. Perhaps it's my German heritage dominating my Scandinavian background. I do occasionally feel the urge to invade France during Vikes games, now that you mention it.)

Anyway, in order to take all our minds off the Vikings for a few minutes, it's my regular weekly effort at RandBall. This week's subjects: long-lost video, NHL stupidity, and some mid-January baseball talk.

The Grammar of Fandom [Pronouns]

Pronouns are seldom a divisive question, for sports fans - except when it comes to references to favorite teams. There are some fans who prefer to keep some ironic distance from their team; these fans would say that "they" won, should their preferred squad pull out a victory. Conversely, there are many fans (maybe most fans) who tend to say that "we" won.

I would even say that most fans change their pronouns, subconsciously, depending on whether it's a positive or negative situation. Consider a Vikings fan, describing that day's game:

VICTORY: "We won today! We're the best team for at least 100 miles!"
DEFEAT: "The Vikings lost. They suck. I may kill myself."

It's all a subtle way of putting some distance between yourself and the team in the bad times, or removing that distance at the good times.

Even so, there are those who always refer to the home team as "we". These folks are accompanied by a group of people who usually snipe, "We? How many minutes did you play tonight? HAR HAR COUGH SPITTLE" and so forth.

I find myself slipping between the two constructions, something that bothers me, as I'm nothing if not a stickler for consistent grammar (the forty thousand typos in this blog's history aside.) I've been thinking about how to settle this issue in my own language, and I think I've found a solution that's good for everyone.

I think using "we", in some situations, is fair. Teams belong as much to the fans as any player on the team - maybe more so, if you think about it. We fans have usually been invested in those team's successes far longer than the players and the coaches on that team. So when we fans are referring to the team's fortunes in general, or making any statement that applies to the team as a whole and to the team's fanbase as a whole, it's fair to use "we" or "our" in reference.

That said, when referring to the team specifically - especially in terms of the team's performance - it's silly to use the first person. The players are the ones on the field or court or ice - referring to execution or performance with "we" or "our" is just silly.

Here's some examples of the usage I'm going for:

• "We won today!" (This refers to the team in general, or the fanbase as a whole."
• "They played pretty well today." (This refers to the team's specific performance.)
• "Their passing game was pretty good." (It would be incorrect to say "our" passing game.)
• "I think this is our year." (Saying "their" year incorrectly places distance in the relationship.)

Splitting hairs? Sure. But I'm going to start trying to stick with this usage.

Weekend Links [RandBall]

Please enjoy a few weekend links. This week: mascots, junior hockey, and play-calling - and some blatant and annoying self-promotion.

Tomorrow, January 9: Happy Minnesota Failure Day!

The Vikings are in the playoffs and taking a rest this weekend. So what better time to celebrate a holiday that I just made up: Tomorrow, January 9, is Minnesota Failure Day!

Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of a special day in Minnesota sports history. On January 9, 2005, the Vikings beat the Packers 31-17 at Lambeau Field in the wild card round of the NFC playoffs. Randy Moss caught two touchdowns and feigned mooning the crowd, Brett Favre threw four interceptions and lost yet another home playoff game - it was a great day.

That day, almost five years ago. was the last time one of our four Minnesotan pro teams advanced in the playoffs. The Vikings lost the next week in Philadelphia, then waited four years for another playoff game, losing again to the Eagles last year. The Twins have won two AL Central titles since then, but failed to win a playoff game either year. The Wild lost first-round series against Anaheim and Colorado. The Timberwolves have been a joke for the entirety of those five years.

It's been five years, with five more chances at the playoff brass ring. All failures.

So why, then, do I wish to celebrate Minnesota Failure Day? Only to remind us what's at stake next week. The Timberwolves will not end our streak this year, and the Wild are not currently in the playoff spots, either. Should the Vikings trip up next week, it'll be at least ten more months of waiting.

Let's hope another classic home Favre-ian playoff loss isn't on the cards.

"NSC Minnesota": Pro soccer continues in Blaine

Regular readers may remember the situation of the Minnesota Thunder. Until recently, the Thunder were the area's sole professional soccer team, playing in the USL, which was the second-level (or "Division 2") soccer league in America, below the MLS.

The autumn had not been good to the Thunder, or to the USL. You can read the wonderful InsideMNSoccer.com for all of the gory details (and probably for the info I'm about to provide here), but here's a short summary:

1. Half the teams in the USL, including the Thunder, broke away to form a new league, called the NASL.
   
2. It turned out that the Thunder hadn't paid pretty much anyone with whom they did business, and in the process, they alienated pretty much everybody on the local soccer scene.
3. Later, the team's coach quit. Then they released all of their players. Then their GM left the organization.
4. While all of this was happening, the USL and NASL were taking turns slapping each other upside the head.
5. Based on this, the U.S. Soccer Federation - in charge of sanctioning a Division 2 league - threw up its hands and refused to sanction either.
   

U.S. Soccer wasn't about to let 2010 go forward without a Division 2 league, though, and so they got both parties together and worked something out. Thursday, they announced an agreement; the USL and NASL will effectively combine for 2010, playing in one league with two conferences, the USL Conference and the NASL Conference.

Now, while the league situation may have been worked out, the Thunder still have no players, no staff, no coaches, and no place to play. They also (presumably) have no money, or this all wouldn't be a problem. What I'm trying to say is this: it would appear that the Thunder are dead.

Pro soccer in Minnesota, however, is not. Thursday's league announcement meant that the National Sports Center could officially announce the creation of their hoped-for team and hold a conference call.

Curious about this new franchise, I called in (along with your other, better, local soccer journalists - Brian Quarstad, Bruce McGuire, and "Super Rookie"). Hosting the call were Barclay Kruse, the National Sports Center chief communications officer; Paul Erickson, the executive director of the Minnesota Amateur Sports Commission; and Kris Bjerkness, the NSC chief administrative officer, and the man who's most in charge of getting the team off the ground.

Below, a few things we learned.

Q: This new league - it's one league with a USL Conference and an NASL Conference? Does that make sense?
A: No. And nobody can quite explain it.

Both the USL and NASL apparently wanted to have their names on the league, which we don't have a name for yet, either. We do know that a bunch of NASL-affiliated teams, including Minnesota, ended up in the USL Conference. We also know that the schedule will be balanced and the playoff structure has yet to be worked out. There is a fair chance that the notion of conferences will be 100% meaningless, except to give the USL and NASL something to name after themselves.

It is currently designed to be as confusing as possible. But there will be a league, and that's the important part.

Q: We don't know what the league is called... do we know what the team is called?
A: Nope! But there are certainly plans, and for now, we can call it "NSC Minnesota."

The NSC will be holding a naming contest, which will likely be announced early next week. They'll be running this online, in conjunction with the Minnesota Office of Tourism, and it'll run for a couple of weeks. Happily, there will be the option of writing in votes for idiots like me who will attempt to stuff the ballot box with traditional names (Minnesota Kicks, Minnesota Strikers, et al).

Q: What about all of the Thunder-related folks who got caught up in the great purge?
A: Not surprisingly, the new team is likely to have somewhat of a familiar flavor. Manny Lagos will be the new team's director of soccer operations, continuing (in a way) his former role as Thunder GM. He and Bjerkness are currently in the process of building the team from the ground up.

The NSC team acknowledged that "one of the earlier decisions we make" would be hiring a coach, something they hoped to accomplish in "the next 2-4 weeks." As for the players Thunder fans came to know and love, Bjerkness promised to take "a serious look" at bringing back those that are interested. He noted that some of those players now live and train in the area, and would be candidates for the base of the new team. Management is also attending the MLS Combine next week, and will be holding local combines at the end of January and again in February, in the hopes of unearthing talent.

Q: So this team is basically Thunder Mark II.
A: Not really. It was reasonably clear that there is still some acrimony between the NSC and the Thunder, the latter of which was rumored to still owe great chunks of cash to the former. Erickson and Kruse acknowledged that, in order to get the local franchise rights for this league, the NSC did not have to pay the Thunder, but there were negotiations of some kind between the NSC and NASL. The group said they were "not at liberty to describe the exact transactions," in terms of compensation for the franchise rights, but that the terms of the deal were "very favorable."

As for potential repercussions from the Thunder, regarding the new team, the NSC was terse: "We're not going to comment on anything the Thunder might do," said Kruse.

I may be reading too much into this, but I would not characterize the relationship between the Thunder and the new team as "warm."

Q: What about the Thunder fans, who presumably will be throwing support behind the new team?
A: I was very impressed by the thought that the NSC has already put into this area. For example: they already have come out and offered to honor any deposit that fans may have put down on 2010 Thunder tickets.

The NSC is also planning a couple of "stakeholder summits", the first on January 21, giving fans a chance to find out about the new team. (Details will likely be available on nscsports.org as they are announced.)

They also promised to bring back the beer garden. Clearly, they know their potential fans.

Q: Will the new team break the bank, or do we have another shoestring budget on our hands?
"We're not going to be like Steinbrenner with the Yankees; we'll do it the NSC way," said Erickson. The NSC Foundation, a nonprofit operating entity, is in charge of the operations at the NSC, and will be the team owner. Erickson hopes that this will give the team a built-in financial advantage, since they're the only Division 2 team in the country that owns its own facilities and already has a large full-time staff that will be working, in part, on the operation of the team.

That said, nobody will expect the team to spend wildly, or over-spend. Said Kruse, "We would not have embarked on this if we weren't confident that we could operate it with financial integrity." Erickson said that the team would likely be in the middle of the pack, in terms of player spending, but would always have a program that was "well-funded."

Q: So when do we start hearing radio ads for the new team?
A: Probably never. The group acknowledged that they wouldn't likely participate in a statewide marketing blitz, instead choosing to focus on targeted marketing plans. If you're a youth soccer coach, I would expect to be hearing a lot from them.

For lovers of the exhibition matches that traditionally coincide with the gigantic USA Cup youth tournament, they promised to continue that tradition, as well.

Q: So really, what's your gut feeling about the new team?
A: One thing that Kruse (edit: it was Erickson) said really struck me. He said, "We want people to know - fun fact - we aren't millionaire owners. This is a unique situation in that it's a nonprofit organization running the team. Nobody involved with the team will receive one dollar more; we're all doing this out of the love of the game. It's a totally different attitude. Our motivation is different than a wealthy individual's interest."

This, to me, has the potential to be the most interesting part of the new team. They will have to be concerned with their bottom line, of course - no NSC program could survive if it lost gobs of money - but ultimately, this venture isn't about maximizing team revenues. It's not about getting a stadium built in St. Paul, or advertising a line of soccer stores - it's about promoting the game of soccer in Minnesota, and tying it to youth soccer around the state.

There's at least the potential that the NSC Minnesota team will be about the soccer and the fans, not about development and ticket sales. It remains to be seen whether this translates to a winning team and a leap forward in fan experience.

Happily, though, the people behind the new franchise are passionate about soccer, and have a financial plan that doesn't involve a wizard stopping by in Year 3 with a hundred million dollars. In terms of stability - something the Thunder obviously lacked, towards the end - they couldn't be better positioned.

An old classic [World Junior Championships]

Tonight, the USA takes on the hated Canadians for the World Junior Championship in Saskatoon. Canada's won five gold medals in a row; the Americans have won just one medal in the span, but somehow are still booed mercilessly at every turn by inferiority-complexed Canadian fans. According to reports, some Canadian radio stations are getting in on the act today, going out of their way to call Saskatoon hotels in order to give early wake-up calls to American players.

In other words, Canadians are rather fevered about this game, and are willing to be classless pricks about it. I don't know about you, but that attitude makes me really, really want to beat those maple syrup-loving hosers.

With all this in mind, a link to something I put together two years ago at World Junior time, which may now have lots of incorrect numbers but has no incorrect conclusions: It's the USA-Canada tale of the tape.

The Future of Reading in 2010 (or, Why Newspapers Won't Die This Year)

I am a reader by heart. It's my favorite activity, the one that I'm most likely to be doing at any given time of day. Presumably it's a favorite of yours too, unless someone is reading this out loud to you, and this makes both of us invested in this: 2010 is all set to be the year of the digital reader.

For example, Amazon's Kindle reader is perhaps that company's greatest success; it's the most-coveted item that Amazon sells, according to CEO Jeff Bezos. For books that have a Kindle edition, almost one in three editions sold via Amazon is sold for the Kindle. On Christmas Day, the company sold more Kindle books than physical books.

In the computer-hardware world, meanwhile, rumors about an impending Apple tablet computer are swelling to a crescendo. Just about everyone seems to believe that, at some point in 2010, the company will introduce to its legions of die-hard fans... something. Maybe it'll be like a laptop with a touch screen. Maybe it'll be like an over-sized iPhone. Or maybe it'll be some great leap forward that nobody except the super-geniuses in the Mac Tablet design department can foresee.

This year, then, is poised to be the beginning of the end for printed matter. Amazon wants you to read your books on the Kindle. While they're at it, they wouldn't mind you reading your magazines and newspapers there. And if Apple is truly about to blow all of our minds with the iTablet or MacNotepad or whatever it's about to be called, you can bet they'll be aiming for a slice of these markets.

I wonder: come January 2011, what will reading look like?

First of all, I don't think it's possible to design a technology - hardware, software, or otherwise - that can completely match every one of the traditional dead-tree formats.

The Kindle is perfect to read books, especially all-text books like most novels. It is, in fact, designed to first of all be an e-book reader - to be something you can curl up with for five hours, or take to the beach. It is the closest any company has come to replicating this experience.

It isn't, however, good at displaying magazines (unless the magazine is New Yorker-style text-heavy.) There's no color and no layouts, and so if your magazine is colorful or otherwise eye-catching, the Kindle can't come close to matching your reading experience.

An Apple Tablet might be better at that; it's likely to have a bright, colorful display, one that can do justice to magazine layouts (or to textbooks or other image-conscious titles). Unfortunately, if it's like every other computer display ever made, it'll be tough to use it to read books. Backlit screens are hard on the eyes, they work poorly in sunlight, and don't particularly replicate the fun of getting lost in a book for an afternoon.

However, it does seem to me that books and magazines are fully capable of being overtaken by one of these technologies. I still like both in printed form, but I'm a noted fuddy-duddy who fears change and believes that the old ways are best. (Case in point: I still buy CDs, sometimes.)

Here's what I wonder, though: will there be - will there ever be - a technology that's capable of matching the newspaper?

Right now, there are readers that are scoffing in loud voices. Some people are rolling their eyes; others have stopped reading entirely, and gone on to something more diverting. But if you're still with me, then hear me out.

I often joke that I'm the last person under the age of 30 that subscribes to the newspaper. This can't possibly be true, of course; I'm sure there's plenty of people like me who enjoy it despite growing up in the computer age. Plus, there have to be a few business-school strivers who read the Wall Street Journal, some hipsters that get the New York Times, and some slow readers who like the pictures and short words in the USA Today.

That said, there aren't many of us younglings who enjoy the gray remnant of the analog age. Most people of my generation have long since turned to the internet for their news; I suspect many, many more people under 30 read startribune.com than subscribe to the print edition. Some of them read it on their mobile devices, others simply in front of the computer - but few consume it non-digitally.

This is true, but I ask of you - have you ever seen a technology that displays the newspaper even a tenth as well? Every attempt to produce an electronic edition has been terrible. Reading a single story on a cell phone takes five minutes - one to read the story, and four to wait for the 3-4 pages to load. Reading stories on the internet takes three clicks, plus the effort to locate the story in amongst the flashing advertisements on every newspaper web site. The Strib will still let you subscribe to an electronic edition of the paper, which is basically a giant picture of the paper that fills your web browser. Please do not do this. It's an incredible pain to read, unless you have a monitor the size of a large-screen television.

Reading the paper flows naturally. Tomorrow, I'll go to the front page of the sports section, find the Gopher basketball story, follow it to an inside page (turning the page takes a fraction of the time of an internet page load), then read the associated content - Big Ten standings, game preview, etc. - that's sure to be right there. Doing all three online would take minutes; doing all three on a cell phone might take days. Doing all three on a Kindle would be like reading a text-only version and wouldn't flow very well. Doing all three on an Apple Tablet would take forever and might burn out your retinas.

This doesn't even consider the inherent advantages of print: You can drop it on the ground without being out $400. You can fold it up and put it in your pocket. You can write on it. You can wrap Christmas presents with it. You can put it on the floor and let the dog use it. And when you're all done with it - presuming you don't have a dog - you can send it back to the newspaper company, via the recycling center, and let them make more newspapers out of it.

You might say that this is a web design problem or a web connection speed problem, not a technology problem. Unfortunately, I don't think that those problems will get fixed in 2010. As far as connection speeds, we aren't exactly living in the dial-up days; speeds won't get that much faster any time soon. As far as web design, it's certainly possible to improve it - but newspapers have absolutely no incentive to do so. They need to maximize clicks to maximize page views to impress advertisers, or they need to get you to subscribe to the print version; making the paper easy for you to read online really isn't in their interest.

So here's what I predict for reading in 2010: books will go Kindle. Magazines and picture-books will go Kindle, or Apple Tablet, or whatever - but newspapers will still be around. Newspapers will die only when news dies. They're just too good of a reading experience to be otherwise replaced.

Reading list: On football fandom

Boy, I like Rand's Page 2 column at the Strib today. It's on the subject of fandom and football and whether we ever outgrow this sort of thing.

(Normally I put stuff like this into the weekend links, but that'd sort of smack of brown-nosing, wouldn't it?)

Twins Joke Writers To Strike? [Twinkie Town]

It's been a bad off-season for those of us who enjoy making the same Twins jokes. Over at Twinkie Town, it sounds like the joke-writers union is taking action.

No Redmond? No Boof? No Gomez? WHAT WILL WE DO?

Weekend Links 2010

After a refreshing Christmas break, I'm getting back into the swing of things with the first 2010 edition of the weekend links. Subjects covered this week at RandBall: the end of the decade, the end of the decade, and the end of the decade.

All those who wish to argue about whether it's really the end of the decade, please line up to the left to receive a punch to the face.