Other People's Writing

* An admittedly morbid but fascinating look from The Guardian's Sam Knight at what will happen to the United Kingdom (and really, the world) when Queen Elizabeth II passes away, and how institutions all over the UK have prepared for the sad day.  It ranges from BBC Radio already having their playlists arranged with properly sober music choices to, in fact, quite a bit of uncertainty since it's been so long (1952) since the UK has had to deal with a changeover in royal power.

* As someone whose parents have a weekly "Dominos night" (on Tuesday, for the two-medium special deal) and whose friends always order Dominos when we get together to watch Survivor, I've had more than my share of the pizza chain over the years.  Bloomberg BusinessWeek's Susan Berfield looks at how Dominos regained its foothold in the pizza market thanks to tech-friendly ways of ordering and delivery.  (Bonus points to Bloomberg for laying out the article to resemble the Dominos Pizza Tracker.)  There's also some focus on my single favourite ad campaign of all time, the "our pizza isn't good, we're changing it" that was so upfront it was actually brilliant.  Maybe I should start doing that.  Folks, this blog's content has been going downhill for years...

* Speaking of Survivor, here's a wonderful story from Good Times Santa Cruz's Aaron Carnes about how the show unwittingly formed a connection that led to Kelly van den Berghe (wife of Lex, from S3 and S8) getting a kidney donated to her.

* Oral history time!  Sportsnet's John Molinaro, my old pal from the Toronto FC beat, put together the oral history of all the club's ups and downs over their first ten years of existence.  (Specifically, it was about eight years of down and then the last two years have been ups.)

* A rare good article about Saturday Night Live from Rolling Stones, which a few years back published a ranking of SNL cast members that was so bad that the earth should've been salted so such a piece could never again grow.  This one, however, lets the cast speak for themselves, with various actors describing their favourite sketches of all time.  Highlights include learning how everyone kept a straight face during Chris Farley's Chippendales audition sketch, and that Christopher Walken's Continental was actually based on a real show.

* A profile of the always-fascinating Jack White by the New Yorker's Alec Wilkinson.  There's rather little about the White Stripes since the band is not exactly at the forefront of what White is up to these days, which is turning Third Man Records into a cornerstone for the vinyl record industry.