Librarian tracked down a list of books that inspired Kobe Bryant. It's only 75% predictable.

If you're a sports fan, you couldn't look for sports scores or stories in the past week without trudging through a media funeral procession for Kobe Bryant. The platitudes...the praise...the scandals...etc., etc., etc. It has been a public performance of artful misery to show you're dutifully depressed. A Sylvia Plath poem is a speedball of cheeriness by comparison.

Luckily, there's the Los Angeles Public Library offering a lighter take!

Keith Kesler, the social media librarian for the institution, searched through public interviews and social media posts for any literary mentions that the basketball superstar uttered. From that, Kesler cultivated a list.

The books Kobe read include:

“The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho
 
“The Illustrated Art of War” Sun Tzu

“Blink” and “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell

“Children of Blood and Bone” Tomi Adeymi

“The Hero’s Journey” Joseph Campbell

“Jonathan Livingston Seagull” Richard Bach

“Lone Survivor” Marcus Luttrell

“Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable” by trainer Tim Grover

“Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike” Phil Knight

“The Silver Linings Playbook” by Matthew Quick

“Sunny” Jason Reynolds

“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin

“Thirty Rooms to Hide In” Luke Sullivan

“Tuff Juice” by former NBA player Caron Butler

Look at Malcolm Gladwell with two books! And Doris Kearns Goodwin gets a shoutout!

I have to admit. I didn't think I'd ever mention Kobe Bryant and Doris Kearns Goodwin in the same sentence during my lifetime. Yet, here we are.

Former Drexel engineering professor accused of misusing $185,000 worth of grant money on strippers, sports bars, and iTunes

The romantic in me likes to imagine these were some swinging engineering classes, but I digress.

The former chairman of Drexel University's engineering department was charged last week by the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office for allegedly stealing $185,000 worth of grant money.

Professor Chikaodinaka Nwankpa is accused of spending the money on strip clubs, sports bars, and iTunes. The District Attorney's office charged Nwankpa with theft by unlawful taking* and theft by deception, each of which is a felony.

His alleged crimes occurred between 2010 and 2017 and seemed suspicious when an audit showed a number of "no receipt" purchases. When confronted, Nwankpa allegedly passed off his strip club visits as catering and food expenses, although many of the purchases occurred between midnight and 2am. But who doesn't get the late night munchies sometimes, amiright?

Of the $185,000, Nwankpa allegedly used $96,000 on "adult entertainment" and sports bars, while $89,000 was spent on iTunes, various meals, and other additional purchases. So, with that iTunes catalog, he has a future side-hustle as a wedding DJ.

Drexel placed Nwankpa on administrative leave pending the investigation, but he later resigned. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for January 29th.



*Isn't "theft by unlawful taking" sort of redundant? Theft is literally taking something unlawfully--no? Can you commit theft by taking stuff lawfully? Just sit there and grab something and promise you might bring it back? Why haven't we been told this before??

NFL player earning his Ph.D. at M.I.T. is NFL player no longer.

John Urschel is a math genius. He is also a very large man who can play football quite well. These are two things few people can be at the same time in life.

Urschel has already earned his master's degree in mathematics and is now pursuing his Ph.D. in the same field while attending M.I.T. while writing papers like he posted in this tweet:

New(-ish) solo authored paper on centroidal Voronoi tessellations accepted by SIAM Journal of Numerical Analysis!! https://t.co/ocBpjOPkTi pic.twitter.com/cbVaafydig

— John Urschel (@JohnCUrschel) April 28, 2017

That good ol' centroidal Voronoi tessellations! How many nights have I lost to the whimsical joys of deciphering that myself!

While Urschel is only 26-years old, in the prime of his football career, today he decided to retire from the sport and devote his life to math.

Urschel, like some other younger players, is concerned about CTE (the trauma the brain undertakes from concussions) and how a recent study by Boston University showed that 110 out of 111 brains from former players showed signs of CTE. It's an issue that's bothered Urschel since he had a concussion in 2015. As Bleacher Report quotes him as saying:

"I think it hurt my ability to think well mathematically. It took me about three weeks before I was football-ready. It took me a little bit longer before my high-level visualizations ability came back."

With his brain still intact, Urschel can get back to tweeting cryptic mathematics like this:

One of the most interesting open problems in discrete math to me right now is the tree packing conjecture. If you solve this, you're my hero pic.twitter.com/SQRbcPwL8C

— John Urschel (@JohnCUrschel) May 17, 2017

Tree packing something something something. All I'm envisioning right now is someone shipping a bonsai in a UPS box.

Baseball Opening Day, Walt Whitman, and Susan Sarandon

Most of Major League Baseball officially has its Opening Day today, the sports equivalent of a town crier heralding spring in the form of bat and ball and glove.

April is also National Poetry Month, a quick 30-days where Americans casually pretend they read poetry and recount that time in second grade they were really digging Shel Silverstein.

Many poets have written about baseball, though--one of the rare times literature and sports merge, as the construction, the imagery, the metaphors inherent in baseball are hardly found in other American team sports. Be it Donald Hall, May Swenson, Marianne Moore--when writers tend to comment or craft a piece about a sport, rare as it is, usually it's about baseball.

Case in point: Walt Whitman, of all people, is quoted in the movie Bull Durham by Susan Sarandon's character as she woos her latest lover, who is a baseball player. Sarandon's character, after all, believes in "The Church of Baseball." She claims Whitman said, "I see great things in baseball. It's our game, the American game. It will repair our losses and be a blessing to us."

Not quite what he said. Good try, though.

So what did Whitman actually say about baseball? The sport of bats and balls was newly created at the time Whitman was an old man. A writer named Horace L. Traubel began having conversations with Whitman late in the famed poet's life and took notes, compiling them in a book called With Walt Whitman in Camden. Being Whitman, of course, his thoughts weren't pithy.

His actual thoughts on baseball?


"I like your interest in sports ball, chiefest of all base-ball particularly: base-ball is our game: the American game: I connect it with our national character. Sports take people out of doors, get them filled with oxygen generate some of the brutal customs (so-called brutal customs) which, after all, tend to habituate people to a necessary physical stoicism. We are some ways a dyspeptic, nervous set: anything which will repair such losses may be regarded as a blessing to the race. We want to go out and howl, swear, run, jump, wrestle, even fight, if only by so doing we may improve the guts of the people: the guts, vile as guts are, divine as guts are!"

Later, in another conversation with Traubel, Whitman continued on baseball:


"Baseball is the hurrah game of the republic! That's beautiful: the hurrah game! well—it's our game: that's the chief fact in connection with it: America's game: has the snap, go, fling, of the American atmosphere—belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitutions, laws: is just as important in the sum total of our historic life."


If, as Sarandon's character in Bull Durham believes, that there is a Church of Baseball, then Whitman saw the divine in it a hundred years earlier in the twilight of his life, the American game, our game, a beautiful thing, with divinity found in guts.

Photos with Drake are an NCAA violation. Also boring.

Colleges and universities self-report violations they commit against the NCAA code of conduct from the previous year. It's a way of hoping that the mea culpa saves them from losing scholarships or lucrative invitations to bowl games and March Madness. It's also just a polite way of saying, "Oh, snap! My bad! Honest mistake!"

Which brings us to the University of Kentucky, which once reported that their former point guard (who has now gone pro), Tyler Ulis, created a violation when he met Drake backstage after a concert in 2015.

6⃣🙏 @champagnepapi

A photo posted by Tyler Ulis (@tulis3) on May 30, 2015 at 2:47pm PDT

The chills! The excitement!

This looks about as comfortable as a sixth-grade school dance.

It seems that one of Drake's management team recognized Ulis in the crowd (Wait--whaaaa?--because he's addicted to Kentucky basketball?) and invited him backstage. This was a problem because Drake is a big supporter of Kentucky basketball, for reasons only he and his own personal god understand.

This recent post from a few weeks ago on Instagram continues the Kentucky love:

Cold blooded. 💰✅ #BIGBLUE

A photo posted by champagnepapi (@champagnepapi) on Dec 17, 2016 at 4:40pm PST

Why a guy from Toronto loves Kentucky basketball is like a modern-day Riddle of the Sphinx. Who knows?

Drake's Instagram game is a bit weak. He has over 35 million followers who revel in pictures of Drake, uhh, leaving a hotel:

A photo posted by champagnepapi (@champagnepapi) on Dec 8, 2016 at 9:37pm PST

Goodness. I haven't seen such a thrilling moment since I stood outside a nearby Motel 6 for ten minutes.

It's becoming readily apparent that the only real violation here is that Drake's social media accounts are criminally boring.

Serena Williams announced her engagement by writing a poem on Reddit.

Serena Williams became engaged to Alexis Ohanian, the cofounder of Reddit the other day, and announced it to the world via a poem on--surprise!--Reddit. Somewhere, Twitter is pissed.

Specifically, Williams announced on the forum "ISaidYes" (aka: r/isaidyes), where brides and grooms share stories of how their own proposals occurred. If you're happily married, by all means, enjoy the tenderly sweet tales and occasional videos and photos. Alternatively, if you're frustratingly single, I'd recommend having a bottle of cheap bourbon nearby before perusing.

As for Williams and her poem, it is as follows:

I came home

A little late

Someone had a bag packed for me

And a carriage awaited

Destination: Rome

To escort me to my very own "charming"

Back to where our stars first collided

And now it was full circle

At the same table we first met by chance

This time he made it not by chance

But by choice

Down on one knee

He said 4 words

And

r/isaidyes

This engagement doesn't look like it's off to a flying start. She's already coming home late? That doesn't happen until at least a solid five years into any healthy relationship, never mind before you're actually engaged.

Born poor, born remote, born long ago, but born with a desire for knowledge.

A two minute video of a Nepalese gentleman who, at 69-years old, went back to school and is in the 10th grade.

The real highlight might not be that he went back to school. It might be the smooth soccer moves this man has for his age. I'm half his age and just felt a hamstring pull.

Plus, it should be noted, that's a world class beard.

So which college or university sent the most students to the 2016 Olympics?

There is no major rhyme or reason explaining which schools sent the most students to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, just like there's no rhyme or reason to Ryan Lochte. Some things defy explanation.

In U.S. News and World Report's list of the top 11 schools sending the most students to the Games (you know, ties happen, like in the Olympics--everyone gets a bronze!), you find Ivy League, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, and Pac 10 schools.

The list:
1.  Stanford University, 29 students
2.  University of California-Berkeley, 16
3.  UCLA, 15
3.  USC, 15
5.  Penn State University, 13
5.  UNC-Chapel Hill, 13
7.  University of Oregon, 12
7.  University of Texas-Austin, 12
9.  University of Washington, 11
9.  Princeton University, 11
9.  University of Georgia, 11

If you're wondering where your no-name NCAA Division III backwater Podunk of a powerhouse college ranks, let's assume not too high.

Unless Cheetos consumption becomes a competitive sport, plenty of us from no-name schools will have to find our rooting interest in the athletes that matter. Like that flag bearer guy from Tonga. Nobody flag beared better at flag bearering like that guy. He won, like, six gold medals in flag bearing, I think.

Saturday Morning PSA of The Week: The sweet, sweet golf swings of Bing Crosby.

Today's public service announcements are all information and no imagination--but yesteryear's? Those were full of drama, plot lines, and cameos from B-grade celebrities, all wedged into one minute of absolute fantasticness.

Consider this a trip back in time to when PSAs were sometimes worth watching more than the Saturday morning cartoons.

Today:  Pony up some cash so Bing can tee it up, okay?





Random Thoughts and Questions:
1.)  "I play like a cow with a musket."  Well, that's better than a pig with a Bowie knife, I guess.
2.)  "A touch of arthritis." Remember back in the day when every ailment or disease was "a touch of" something? "Oh, I have a touch of Ebola, but nothing I can't shake."
3.)  What's up with Bing Crosby's sweater? Collars and lapels on a hefty cardigan? Did he steal that from the Mr. Roger's Winter Collection?
4.)  So, wait--new arthritis research made sure Bing could go back to playing this weak golf game? So our donations are making a difference, I see.

Sportswriter loses bet, picks up $2,100 dinner tab for billionaire and his wife.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics states that the median salary for an average newspaper reporter in the United States is $36,360. A reporter's average salary usually maxes out at roughly $81,580--and that's not for any old reporter. That's for a Scoops McGee type person, someone with the fifty years' weight of misery, shame, and newspaper ink holding them down. Cigars, high-waist khakis, and a pocket full of back alley sources are their M.O. And Scoops still has to own a 15-year old, 250,000 mile Chevy Impala on his salary.

Tim Kawakami is one such writer. He works at the San Jose Mercury News covering sports, and recently recounted on a podcast how he made a joking bet that the San Francisco 49ers' billionaire owner Jed York wouldn't have the team's new stadium built by a random 2014 deadline. A chuckly ha-ha was had by all.

Except the stadium was built by 2014. Except Kawakami still agreed to buy dinner. Except York wanted that dinner. Except York was bringing his wife along, too. Except everyone agreed to go to The French Laundry for the dinner.

[[[pause]]]

If you don't know, The French Laundry makes for a once-in-a-lifetime dining experience. It is also like pouring kerosene on your life's savings and smoking feverishly around the fumes. Reading the wine list alone will take the rest of your afternoon to cover. Looking for that casual $50,000 bottle of wine? It's there, my friend. "Screaming Eagle Vineyards." Hotkey search that. Then double-check your credit limit.

[[[end pause]]]

The problem Kawakami had with the whole situation wasn't that he paid off the non-binding bet, but that York didn't seem to register the impact of such a meal on a measly sportswriter income, at The French Laundry no less. As Kawakami recounts:

"If I thought Jed [York] was sticking it to me, I’d almost be okay with it. I don’t even think he knew. I don’t think he knew what $2,100 means to a sportswriter who didn’t inherit a billion-dollar team."

That's right. The 36-year old York is a billionaire because grandpa was one, and such stacks of cash get passed down two generations. And, as I told you, check that wine list out. It's $310 a person for food The French Laundry. Three people = $930. (Service is included.) York cranked out another $1,200 on Kawakami through drink, but was oblivious.

Maybe York was oblivious that there was a $50,000 bottle available on hand. Things could have snowballed so much more rapidly.

NFL wide receiver has a punctuation first.

An umlaut!

You know what an umlaut is probably, and it's not that little fleshy thing hanging at the back of your throat. That's a uvula. Common mistake.

An umlaut is the punctuation mark of two dots above a letter found in many European languages, like German. It's sort of like if a letter had its own uvula, you might say.

Which brings us to German footballer Moritz Böhringer, who was just drafted by the NFL's Minnesota Vikings. The young rookie assumed he would have to spell his last name as Boehringer because the league's strict uniform policy forbids non-English punctuation. Even his Twitter handle can't manage an umlaut.

Except, for reasons unknown, the NFL changed their position.

Böhringer, not Boehringer.@MoBoehringer received approval from the @NFL to add the umlaut on his jersey. pic.twitter.com/w5oefFZZtT

— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) May 11, 2016

First Poland, now football jerseys. Germany never quits invading.

Rock, Paper, Scissors is SO amateur hour by Alaskan standards.

A college education decision is riding on you, buddy...

Sometimes you go the rock, paper, scissors route when deciding things. Sometimes you gun down a bear. But this is Alaska we're talking about, so you get one guess where this is going.

High school senior Chase Ferris of Palmer, AK, had the choice of playing football at the University of Mary or attending the University of Wyoming to hit the books. Sports versus academics. Both had advantages for our young charge here, but both left Ferris confused what to do. So Ferris took the logical step, as the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reports:


(Ferris) picked a spring bear hunt earlier this year to help him make the final decision. If he got the elusive bear he’d tracked before, Ferris would follow the call to play football at the University of Mary. If not, Ferris would turn his focus to academics at the University of Wyoming.

[...]

"I let it all come down to fate, and fate chose University of Mary," Ferris said Monday after he signed his National Letter of Intent to attend the Bismarck, North Dakota, school and play for the Division II Marauders. "We'd gone up for (the bear) once. We hadn't seen it in two days. I said, we kill it, I'll go play football."


Sure, why not? I'm not sure what the correlation is between bear killing and football, unless you're talking about the anemic Chicago Bear variety. But it's Alaska. This sort of rationale is Ph.D. type material.

No word on how Ferris plans to decide upon future life issues, like marriage, kids, or sensible midsized sedans. Animals have been warned to keep their heads on a swivel though.




The University of Mary football team went 1-10 last year. So a lot more bears need to die for that record to change.

Philly.com might want to rethink that headline...

The Philadelphia Phillies baseball team is having a good year, with their pitching staff striking out seemingly everyone they face. Lest you don't know, "K" is the baseball scoring symbol for a strikeout.

This led Philly.com to post a story about their home team's strikeout dominance with the following headline, which this Twitter user caught:

Uhhh, hey @phillydotcom, you may want to reconsider this headline. pic.twitter.com/Fe59SV5dfq

— Tim Lemke (@TimLemkeTweets) May 1, 2016

Smooth.

Once alerted to their snafu, Philly.com swapped out the headline for the following, which has no double-meaning. No, none whatsoever. Not for a team that had a player just suspended for banned substances:

Sigh. Let's try this a third time...

Andrew Luck has a book club. Wait--what?

"So when I read, I feel it tingle up in here."

For those of you not the slightest bit athletically inclined or aware of professional sports, Andrew Luck is a superstar NFL quarterback who plays for the Indianapolis Colts. He's like Peyton Manning without the Papa John's endorsements and noodly throwing arm or Tom Brady without the Brazilian supermodel wife and illicit air pump equipment. Andrew Luck is that good.

This makes it all the more surprising that Andrew Luck has started a book club. Athletes read? you might ask--and I know, I'm as startled as you by this revelation. But starting this month, Luck will introduce two books--one for "Rookies" (books for kids and teens) and one for "Veterans" (or, as he describes, "more seasoned readers")--as part of an online book club. During the NFL season he plans to have guest athletes hold down the fort with their suggestions while he plays until the Super Bowl has come and gone.

If you're wondering what the gimmick is, well, it seems to be a ploy to read. That's the gimmick. Otherwise, there isn't one. No cross-promotion, no alliance with BIG BOOKSTORE, no advertisements, nothing. If this book club became any more innocent there'd be a recommendation for the Poky Little Puppy. (Get on it, Luck.) He seemingly just wants people to read.

Listen, Andrew. Peyton Manning didn't build his brand on a silly thing like books. Those can be had free at a library! FREE! Manning built his brand on Papa John's, Mastercard, Buick, Gatorade, Reebok, Sprint, Nationwide, ESPN, DirectTV, and little Sally's lemonade stand down the street. At no point was there a free communal shoutout to some favorite John Grisham thriller.

It makes my ribs ache because it's funny and they're the Canadiens (and I'm a Bruins fan): Twitter whoopsie for Montreal Canadiens leads to problem jersey names.

Much like when the New England Patriots celebrated their one millionth Twitter follower by creating customized avatar Twitter jerseys for fans, the Montreal Canadiens followed suit for the same reasons.

The problem?

Not everyone's Twitter handle is--how shall we phrase this politely?--good.

Take the @ILOVEISIS jersey. Yes. That ISIS. Not the ancient Egyptian goddess with the wonderful wings.

Hey, welcome to the family!!

Twitter trolls came out in abundance with every unsavory handle they could muster--all because every time they posted to the Montreal Canadiens Twitter feed they were replied with a visual similar to above.

Except if you followed hockey (you don't) or you're a Boston Bruins or Toronto Maple Leafs fan (you're not) you'd know it's difficult to tell which were Twitter trolls and which were actual Canadiens fans.

NFL offensive lineman going for his PhD in mathematics at MIT.

If this doesn't remind you of those six seasons Albert Einstein played linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles, nothing will.

Starting my PhD in math at MIT this offseason!!! pic.twitter.com/vjcSctVx9i

— John Urschel (@JohnCUrschel) January 26, 2016

In other news, Johnny Manziel is one Jägermeister-fueled bad night away from a career at Safeway. We all have paths in life.

Pretty much no one in your everyday life knows how to write.

Are you an elitist English snob? Do you go to the grocery store and shake a fist of fury at the express lane stating 12 Items or Less? Do you spit in disgust at the sight of repeated misspellings? Do you privately wear tweed and a monocle and wish you had a British accent?

Your great fashion sense aside, the following photos make up the first of multiple posts about the adventures of everyday life and the dumpster fire that is the English language that surrounds us.

Because everyone really needs an editor in their life.

What's been defaced here is common sense.

This hot mess includes an ellipsis for no apparent reason. Such drama! Don't tell me how it ends!
And clearly Cott Corporation has some hatred toward determiners and prepositions.

---------------------------

You know what's suspicious? Randomly capitalized words.

Maybe that giant eye should keep a look out for that.

-----------------------------

The Virgin Mary not only needs a pair of shoes, she also needs an apostrophe, too.

-----------------------------

Fewer, Arnold. Not less.

It's sort of like how you have fewer major championships than Jack Nicklaus, not less.

------------------------

It's never optional to throw in a hyphen on a whim.

--------------------------

Did you know that a hyphen is not the same as an em dash? And that periods are sort of non-negotiable?

Also--why? Why would anyone play 1,080 hours of underwater Monopoly?

Wait, I think you're a little off.

Well, at least spelling ineptitude sort of solves the brouhaha over what to call the team.

Kobe Bryant retires with a poem, enjoys stealing socks.

Thumbs-up if you love socks!

As a Celtics fan, I remember when Larry Bird retired, announcing it with a series of obscure haikus that combined the allure of caterpillar mustaches and 1980s short-shorts.

And Bill Russell! That scamp! When he called it a career he sent out a press release in iambic pentameter, full of floral imagery.

Which brings us to the Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant, who announced his retirement yesterday via a poem he wrote.

Some highlights:

Dear Basketball,

From the moment
I started rolling my dad’s tube socks
And shooting imaginary
Game-winning shots
In the Great Western Forum
I knew one thing was real:

I fell in love with you.

A love so deep I gave you my all —
From my mind & body
To my spirit & soul.

Ampersands! The spaghetti lovechild of a conjunction and the word 'and.' And Bryant lets his inner-Emily Dickinson out with the em-dash. Bonus points.

And we both know, no matter what I do next
I’ll always be that kid
With the rolled up socks
Garbage can in the corner
:05 seconds on the clock
Ball in my hands.
5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1

Poor dad. His multi-millionaire 37-year old son won't stop stealing his tube socks. Won't someone please buy Kobe a six-pack of socks for Christmas?

You say meh-meh, I say...err, meme.

Baseball announced its annual awards this week, and National League MVP Bryce Harper gave a slew of interviews.

During one interview he stumbled upon a question (in essence, "Want to be bald or never hit homeruns?"), and Harper answered the following (0:25 for the "meh-mehs"):

In trying to avoid becoming a meh-meh, with his flub Harper is probably well onto becoming a meh-meh.

The word that's tripping him up--and, admittedly, many people, let's face it--is "meme," pronounced "meem."

To Harper's defense, the word is barely older than he is, having been created in 1976 by evolutionary biologist and famed atheist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. There's an unspoken rule that academic papers or books of any heft require the creation of some phrase or word as the backbone of its argument--or academics turn their collective nose up. Dawkins created meme--from the ancient Greek word mimeme, which means an "imitated thing," to explain the evolutionary principle how culture transmits and evolves--a "self-replicating unit." Meme aligns itself with the similar gene, in both theory and pronouncement.

Nowadays, the word has been revitalized because of the internet. Internet memes occur everyday, replicating on levels Dawkins could never have imagined 39 years ago. And because Harper tried to avoid becoming an internet meh-meh, the internet memes have already begun:

Going back to the original question that caused this whole problem for Harper in the first place: He does have one hell of a head of hair.