http://bit.ly/pQhgje I hate it when stupid people come to sports bars and start asking stupid questions

This woman was on the other side of these two guys who were sitting next to me. They were so clearly Bulls fans they could have had it tattooed on their forehead. Everytime one of the Bulls made a shot, they screamed at the top of their lungs. Everytime they missed, the guys would yell obscenities and pound the bar. So sometime around the 3rd quarter, she turns to them and says "so which team are you rooting for?" I almost said "they're rooting for the team that escorts dumb bitches out of sports bars because they're wasting a perfectly good seat with their brain that is too simple to comprehend the concepts of winning and losing" but instead I let her yammer on for the next 20 minutes about how much she likes shopping in Chicago. Whatever. She's beyond help.
Sachin Tendulkar's involvement in India's one-day series against England has been ended by a toe injury. Photograph: Lee Smith/Action Images

Preamble Look. This preamble could contain 1000 spine-tingling, eye-watering, knee-trembling, finger-lickin' dollops of peerless prose on everything from Praveen Kumar's wrist position to Eoin Morgan's Popeye forearms to the aural balm of Hold On by Wilson Phillips, but they would be wasted. All anyone really wants to know is: what's the weather doing?
The news isn't good. It has been seriously grim down south. Wild is the wind, and it's raining too. Conditions are so severe that even the most intractable fashionista may be inclined to substitute their hip original green Penguin windcheater with an industrial windcheater from Milletts. Despite that, many folk on a popular social-networking fiasco reckon the forecast i s decent and we will get some play at some stage. I'm not sure. Has a one-day series ever finished 0-0 before? (Actually, yes it has, although that was only a two-match series.)
If you only read one thing today, make it the lyrics from Baz Luhrmann's Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen). Obviously. You should read them every day, you know that. But if you read another thing, make it this courageous and alarming piece from the superb Dileep Premachandran.
Today's YouTube clip is one of the great Test hundreds. Take ten minutes out of your lunch to watch it, or else. Here's the innings, here's the scorecard, and here's the Wisden report. The story of Kim Hughes, the boy who had too much talent, is life-affirming and extremely poignant. It's told beautifully by Christian Ryan in Golden Boy, a book I'd recommened unequivocally. The book includes this amazing picture of Rodney Hogg throwing a punch at Hughes, the captain, during a Test against the West Indies. Imagine if that happened now!
You know it's not your day when... a squeaky-bummed bird* locates the eye of the needle – or, rather, the mouth hole of your Flat White as you leer lovingly at it in preparation for that first swig. What are the odds?! Some would suggest that, with it being Starbucks coffee, there would be discernible alteration to the taste. Not me though. Not me.* I obviously mean bird in the ornithological sense. The only time I describe women as birds is when I'm holiday and somebody hacks into my email account