Brian Wilson and 'The Machine' make World Series more fun
10/28/2010"...as human beings we are capable of making sense of situations based on the thinnest slice of experience."
— Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and The Tipping Point.
FRESH FLAKES: We here at Thin Slices love a good baseball flake. You know, guys like Bill "Spaceman" Lee, Jim Bouton and Mark :The Bird" Fidrych. So we're thrilled with this dude from the San Francisco Giants, the black-bearded closer Brian Wilson. In interviews he likes to mention "The Machine," and the folks at Deadspin have launched an investigation into what he's talking about. Fun stuff that you pretty much never get from football players or basketball players. RL
TAKE ME TO THE MOVIES: There's lots of good movie news circulating today, making for a celluloid thin Slices grab bag. Christopher Nolan has announced the name of the new Batman film and revealed who a couple of the new villains will not be. Peter Jackson has worked out the labor issues that were bedeviling The Hobbit in New Zealand. And James Cameron has two sequels to Avatar planned, which definitely excites us. Start popping the corn. Er, maybe we should say start saving money so you can afford to buy the over-priced popcorn at the theater. RL
YUKKING IT UP: The folks at Saturday Night Live came up with a withering, and really funny, take on the Brett Favre saga with a spoof of a new line of jeans that he could be hustling. The Favre thing -- endless drama about his retirement status, highly inappropriate photos he may or may not have sent a Jets employee, and the fact that sports blabbermouths refer to his games as "Greek tragedies" -- has turned a guy who used to be a really cool athlete into a bit of a buffoon. RL
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