Who needs me when you have these scribes?
* Let's kick things off with an exploration of the history of North American waterparks by Bryan Curtis, and it's an awesome read. Most, if not all, of the rides and design of modern waterparks were designed by two guys (George Millay and Jeff Henry), and as a frequent visitor to London's old Wally World park in my youth, I tip my cap to these guys. This article also is kind of a new horizon for Grantland features as wow, they go all out with the page design for this one, including interactive graphics and an actual video allowing you to "ride" one of the giant slides. So yeah, if you have vertigo, you might want to have someone read this one to you.
* The cool graphic layout isn't just limited to one ESPN site, you also see some interesting visuals for this ESPN The Magazine profile of Jerry Jones by Don Van Natta Jr. This is a very well-written piece that hits the perfect sweet spot between 'puff piece' and 'pull-no-punches expose,' and it's almost enough to make me kind of pity poor ol' Jer…..ah, who am I kidding, I'll always hate the Cowboys.
* Gawker's Jacob Clifton looks at both the finale and more or less the entire first season of The Leftovers. It's a nice breakdown of how the show examines grief and the loss of hope (or, grief AS the loss of hope) and really gets to the heart of the fascinating Guilty Remnant, perhaps the favourite for the 'villain of the year' on TV this year. To touch on my own thoughts on the show (after two episodes) as it related to the original book, it's interesting that Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta have essentially run through the novel's story just in the first season. It's an interesting narrative choice and an exciting one, since I have no idea what the hell Season Two of this show could possibly look like. Whatever happens, Carrie Coon is the breakout TV star of the year and she deserves an Emmy.
* Golf fans with short attention spans may not even remember Anthony Kim, yet it wasn't long ago that he was considered the latest next big thing of the golf world. Now, Sports Illustrated's Alan Shipnuck catches us up on why Kim isn't playing on the PGA Tour and why he's living a very low profile (albeit still somewhat of a baller) life. It's kind of an interesting moral conundrum that only the very wealthy would face: would you give up your life's work, something you've trained since childhood to do, for $35 million bucks? Ok, so maybe it's not THAT much of a conundrum.
* Finally, we have a ranking of Mortal Kombat II's characters from Grantland's Shea Serrano. While the omission of Jade, Smoke and Noob Saibot was pretty glaring, Serrano's list is pretty solid. My own personal ranking...
12. Kung Lao
11. Mileena
10. Shang Tsung (Serrano is right, you wasted half the fight trying to remember the codes to morph into the other players)
9. Reptile
8. Johnny Cage
7. Scorpion
6. Kitana
5. Jax
4. Liu Kang
3. Sub-Zero
2. Baraka
1. Raiden
* Let's kick things off with an exploration of the history of North American waterparks by Bryan Curtis, and it's an awesome read. Most, if not all, of the rides and design of modern waterparks were designed by two guys (George Millay and Jeff Henry), and as a frequent visitor to London's old Wally World park in my youth, I tip my cap to these guys. This article also is kind of a new horizon for Grantland features as wow, they go all out with the page design for this one, including interactive graphics and an actual video allowing you to "ride" one of the giant slides. So yeah, if you have vertigo, you might want to have someone read this one to you.
* The cool graphic layout isn't just limited to one ESPN site, you also see some interesting visuals for this ESPN The Magazine profile of Jerry Jones by Don Van Natta Jr. This is a very well-written piece that hits the perfect sweet spot between 'puff piece' and 'pull-no-punches expose,' and it's almost enough to make me kind of pity poor ol' Jer…..ah, who am I kidding, I'll always hate the Cowboys.
* Gawker's Jacob Clifton looks at both the finale and more or less the entire first season of The Leftovers. It's a nice breakdown of how the show examines grief and the loss of hope (or, grief AS the loss of hope) and really gets to the heart of the fascinating Guilty Remnant, perhaps the favourite for the 'villain of the year' on TV this year. To touch on my own thoughts on the show (after two episodes) as it related to the original book, it's interesting that Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta have essentially run through the novel's story just in the first season. It's an interesting narrative choice and an exciting one, since I have no idea what the hell Season Two of this show could possibly look like. Whatever happens, Carrie Coon is the breakout TV star of the year and she deserves an Emmy.
* Golf fans with short attention spans may not even remember Anthony Kim, yet it wasn't long ago that he was considered the latest next big thing of the golf world. Now, Sports Illustrated's Alan Shipnuck catches us up on why Kim isn't playing on the PGA Tour and why he's living a very low profile (albeit still somewhat of a baller) life. It's kind of an interesting moral conundrum that only the very wealthy would face: would you give up your life's work, something you've trained since childhood to do, for $35 million bucks? Ok, so maybe it's not THAT much of a conundrum.
* Finally, we have a ranking of Mortal Kombat II's characters from Grantland's Shea Serrano. While the omission of Jade, Smoke and Noob Saibot was pretty glaring, Serrano's list is pretty solid. My own personal ranking...
12. Kung Lao
11. Mileena
10. Shang Tsung (Serrano is right, you wasted half the fight trying to remember the codes to morph into the other players)
9. Reptile
8. Johnny Cage
7. Scorpion
6. Kitana
5. Jax
4. Liu Kang
3. Sub-Zero
2. Baraka
1. Raiden
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