I’m not much of a Fantasy Football person, despite A) loving football like it was my adopted child and B) being an uber stats nerd.

You would think the two go hand in hand, but alas, I don’t have the patience for it. I come out of the gate fast and furious, not unlike Vin Diesel, and then like the actor about a few weeks into things I sputter out and trade off all my players worth anything. This has also been known to happen during the baseball season.

I think, mostly, it’s that getting obsessed about the fantasy side of the sport takes away from my enjoyment of actually watching and following the games. Don’t get me wrong, that makes absolutely no sense at all, but that’s how it is. Still, I love listening to my buddies’s glory stories. How last year someone changed their team name to “Tom Brady” or how one guy almost ran the table or how one person doesn’t draft anyone on the Colts because Dungy is notorious for bagging the final two or three games of the season.

So more than anything else, Fantasy Football is about your dude(tte) friends. The documentary 10 Yards celebrates all of this.  Though it’ll be available on DVD at the end of September, you can watch it now for free thanks to SnagFilms (the Hulu of documentaries).  The filmmakers decided to eschew a traditional release platform, releasing it for free on iTunes (next two weeks only) as well.  Oh wait, but that’s not all.  You can also download music from the soundtrack for free at OurStage.com.

The film includes interviews with current and former NFL players including Shannon Sharpe, ‘Boomer’ Esiason, Desmond Clark, Chester Taylor, Ryan Longwell, Jarrod Cooper, Bernard Berrian, Artose Pinner, Steve Beuerlein and Andrew Walter; with footage from from Lansing, Detroit, Oakland, Birmingham, San Diego, Raton, NM, Denver, Seattle, Washington DC, Philadelphia, New England’s Gillette Stadium, Miami, Minneapolis and Concrete, WA.

“10 Yards is a movie about bonding with your buddies,” said Hunter Weeks, director of the film in a press release. “We’re excited to release this movie in a way that gives fantasy football leagues and curious fans the chance to view it immediately and everywhere.”

Though the movies captures the phenomenon of 20 million fantasy football fans it aims its lense on the whacked-out j.fred’s Intergalactic Championship League, where the top prize is a box of Twinkies.

In many ways, you can feel the cracks of traditional theatrical release beginning to widen.  Not necessarily because of this movie, but just in general.

No sane person I know actively went out and saw the (I’m assuming) schmaltzy Jack Nicholson/Morgan Freeman flick The Bucket List. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t come up with our own personal list of stuff to do before we die.

Over the years I’ve managed to knock off a bunch of stuff I’d like to do which includes: painting a self-portrait, running with the bulls (well I may have to do this one again as I didn’t run so much as get caught on the course but then I was so freaked out by the bulls I bailed at the end before sneaking back into teh stadium), sky diving, and so many others.

But there is still plenty left I’d like to do: from camping in New Zealand, scuba diving, driving a high-end sports car, attending the Oscars, publish a book, brew my own beer, learn to make one perfect cocktail, cook a seven-course meal for family and friends using produce I’ve grown myself, visit every MLB ballpark with my Dad in one summer, see the Kentucky Derby, ride a motorcycle, visit every continent, et cetera.

We all have these kind of things that seem like an unreachable dream. But does that make them any less achievable?

Esquire is helping the ball rolling by publishing their list of “75 Things Every Man Should Do Before He Dies.” The list is a bit dude centric, but what do you expect from a men’s magazine.  The point, of course, is not to check things off a list, but rather make a concerted point to live a full and rich life.

It’s about saying yes to things rather than no, it’s about facing fears and meeting them head on, it’s about embracing challenges for no reason other than to conquer them.  Too often we don’t appreciate small things like a great meal or that perfect glass of beer at the end of a tough day, or we don’t think making a perfect omelette is worthy of praise.  Ultimately, lists like these are nothing more than an excuse to rejigger your life and get a fresh perspective.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve accomplished more than my fair share of things on Esquire’s list.  What would be on yours?

Well, we still think he’s pretty special around here. A recent study by Microsoft, of their messenger services, found that all people are separated by only 6.6 human connections. So, whether it’s Kevin Bacon, Rush Limbaugh, Manny Ramirez, or the homeless guy whom you pass with disdain you’re only 6.6 people away from them!

So yay for that

The study was conducted in 2006 when Microsoft controlled almost half the world’s instant messaging traffic. They combed through 30 billion records from among 180 million people.

“To me, it was pretty shocking. What we’re seeing suggests there may be a social connectivity constant for humanity,” said Eric Horvitz, a Microsoft researcher who conducted the study with colleague Jure Leskovec. “People have had this suspicion that we are really close. But we are showing on a very large scale that this idea goes beyond folklore.”

Thankfully no one’s tax dollars were wasted here. Science at work and what not.  Now someone just needs to pull Kevin Bacon from ledge, seeing as how his legacy is tainted. It’s not just him, it’s everyone everywhere. [The Washington Post]

I’ve been racking up a lot of new music and I’ve been doing an otherwise terrible job at sharing it with you all. So here’s some great tunes to kick start your Wednesday morning. I checked out The Republic Tigers last night at the Towne Lounge.  You never know how you feel once you get out of work and if staying up late is worth it.  I didn’t stay for the whole set, but what I did see I was impressed with.

I do sorta dig The Republic Tigers breed of sensitive electronic rock. It’s not quite progish, not even close, but that’s the descriptor that comes to mind. Like it’s an Americanized late-period Britpop.  The Tigers write tight upbeat pop songs, with dark and moody underpinnings.

Photo by: Jalapeno at Philly’s North Star Bar

One day I will get my camera back up and working.  So on to the new music.  MORE »

I remember the first time I saw one of Amazon’s Kindle eBook readers in the wild.  I leaned in closer to the mechanism, drool dribbling down my 13 chins.  I wanted one but at the time, they ran for $400, and that’s just stupid.

Next time I saw one was on Boston public transportation—or the Homeless Pee Pee Shopping Cart, as we like to call it.  The thing look chunky, unruly, and expensive.  Imagine losing a Kindle.  $400 down the drain.  Now imagine losing a paperback copy of Shutter Island.  $7.99 down the drain.  Which do you prefer?

But that’s neither here nor there.  Superduper special sources have revealed to CrunchGear that a new breed of Amazon’s uber-popular Kindle readers will be available for the holiday season.

The first is an updated version with the same sized screen, a smaller form factor, and an improved interface. The source told us that Amazon has “skipped three or four generations,” comparing the old Kindle to the 1st gen iPod and the new version to something like the sexy iPod Mini.

Okay, which iPod Mini are we talking about?  The one that looks like a chode?  Or the clunky old-school one?

Another Kindle model will be as big as an 8.5″ x 11″ piece of paper.  In a world where technology has increasingly become “smaller is better,” I can’t imagine the buying appeal of a big ol’ Kindle.  Also, until they make those constantly updating newspaper tablets like in Minority Report, I’m not interested.