Sporting News Today Fills Gap

Ever since the demise of The National, a daily printed sports newspaper, I've felt an opportunity has been missed. With fans as rabid as they are over everything from their favorite baseball, football and basketball teams to even their favorite NASCAR drivers, certainly a daily sports publication could prove profitable, no?

Maybe not. Newspapers and magazines are battling tough trends. Circulations are down, as are ad revenues.

Yet, online readership is up. So what do the people at Sporting News decide? They created a daily electronic publication.

It turns out it's pretty good, too. Rather than just aggregate links to already-published articles, as most outlets do with their digests, Sporting News provides a printed-newspaper-like layout for its daily Sporting News Today.

I like it. You can check it out here.

Just Purchased A Fourth Hard Disk

Funny the things I think about on a Friday evening.

I'm thinking about adding a fourth 7200RPM SATA hard disk to my Sony (main) desktop. Right now I'm dual-booting XP and Vista (on disk one). The second disk stores all my data and hosts the Windows swap file. A third disk serves as a backup for all my files on the second disk.

Why a fourth disk?

I'm leaning toward scheduling regular images of the main (operating system) disk. That image would get stored on the fourth disk.

Got it?

Oh, and the Kindle idea is dead, by the way. I've decided I'm the type of reader that requires a real book (plus the Kindle isn't backlit, so there's no easy way to read it in the dark).

Thinking About A Kindle

Increasingly, I find myself thinking about purchasing an Amazon Kindle. I read a lot. Really. I've already completed 17 or 18 books this year, and I'm easily on track for 30.

But I love paper-based books. I love the feel, the heft, the smell, the tactile sensation of turning pages, etc.

But I also love the immediate gratification of deciding there's a book I want now and reading it two minutes later without having to leave my chair. That's some cool technology.

I'm familiar with eBooks. I estimate I've published some 50 eBook articles (and I know I've reviewed some 30 or more eBooks.

That was back in 2003 or so, however. The books were purchased on a PC and downloaded to a small iPaq screen, ultimately. The experience was cool, though. I enjoyed being able to carry 30 books or more easily.

What I don't like is the inability to share a book, though. Say I buy a book on the Kindle, read it and wish to pass it to a friend. No can do.

Still, the Kindle has some other cool features. You can download the New York Times, read blogs and even access Wikipedia with it (all for free). And, my birthday is coming up. It looks like it's going to be a toss up between a La-Z-Boy or a Kindle. Right now it's too close to call.

Tony Stewart's Going To Swim Upstream

The NASCAR news is out: Tony Stewart is leaving Joe Gibbs Racing to take part ownership in Haas CNC Racing. That's a big leap, and one that requires quite a bit of faith in this day and age.

Why do I say that?

Consider this. Since 1983, when Richard Petty won his last race as a combined owner/driver, combination owners/drivers have won only 22 races. Just 22! In case you weren't counting, there have been 787 races since then.

That's quite a challenge. Especially when your other co-owner (Gene Haas) is reportedly in prison for tax evasion.

What's Bill Elliott got to say? As one of NASCAR's most prominent drivers who tried the owner/driver thing, he's qualified to comment. Told Stewart was basically given half the team, Elliott replied, "I'd return the favor and give it back."

Olbermann and Patrick To Re-Unite

Bring me your finest meats and cheeses!

Once one of the most entertaining duos in sports, Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick will join again. NBC is bringing the two together (as part of a larger crew that will also include former Bengal great Chris Collinsworth) in studio for NBC's Sunday night football show.

I'll watch, that's for sure. For a long time these guys had the best sport recap show on TV, hands down.