Top three bUGLY recommended books for the week:

  1. Killing Pablo by Mark Bowden. This is a great book about the extraordinary, if not violent, life of Pablo Escobar. The cash flow this guy was pulling in the 70’s from his cocaine empire was ridiculous (at his apex he was listed as the seventh richest man in the world by Forbes magazine). Read it!
  2. Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger. This is no “Catcher in the Rye”, but its still quite impressive. If you have a few minutes while kicking it in the Barnes & Noble Starbucks, grab this book and read the first story ” A perfect day for bananafish”. Ole Seymour will shock you, no doubt about it. To be honest, if my name was Seymour I’d probably end up doing the same thing.
  3. Cod: A biography of the fish that changed the world by Mark Kurlansky. I don’t know what to say here. I was getting ready to jump on a flight to Dallas, it was a small book, and I had recently watched the all day marathon of “The Deadliest Catch” series on the Discovery channel. I’ll call it the perfect storm for purchasing a book titled “Cod”. Anyway, a great read. I think I am going to read Marks other book titled “Salt” soon. By the way, who gets fired up about researching cod and salt? I bet he sucked at kickball as a youngster.

Top three bUGLY recommended links for the week:

  1. NOTCOT - “A visual filtration of idea + aesthetics + amusement”. What can I say here. I like to get the scoop on emerging trends, gizmos, and gadgets. I have a terrible sense of fashion (lying of course in efforts to sound humble) and have no eye for art, but this sight is visually appealing to me and they do have some pretty cool stuff on the site form time to time.
  2. UFCJunkie - A great site for all things UFC. This site is updated multiple times a day, and seems to get information either before or around the same time as some of the other mixed martial arts sites.
  3. bUGLYbLOG - This guy is pure genius. He’s funny, attractive, and can write the hell out of a childrens story. Whether your wanting to feel bad about you lack of creativity or attractiveness, or wanting to know what cool guys like to blog about, the bUGLYbLOG is for you. Oh yeah, the velvet mantis is an excellent speller as well, if thats what makes your head spin. I heard the dude invented corn.

The top three bUGLY sports stories of the week:

  1. The NBA all star game sucks. It is now officially on par with the NFL pro bowl. I realize the pro bowl is going to suck each year because there are no guaranteed contracts in the NFL, but what excuse does the NBA all star game have. Shaq was an all star. What gives, he’s played in like 4 games this year. Oh well, I think I remember Craig Hodges participating in the three point shootout after he had been booted out of the league. The Barkley vs Bevatta race was nice though.
  2. Go Vols - Nothing like falling right back off the tracks with a throttling by the Gamecocks. A total of 9 points combined from Chism and Crews is a little disconcerting. I realize they are freshman, but they dropped 20 on the Gamecocks the first time around.
  3. I heard a Hyundai won the Daytona 500 this past weekend. Okay, I’m lyin. I gotta say I have been more interested in Dale Jr.’s battle with his step mom than I have been with the actual racing. If Dale Jr. has a son and names him Dale, will he be Dale Sophomore? Don’t give me that “the third” crap, it doesn’t make sense. I expect that if Dale Sophomore has a boy, he needs to be referred to as Dale Freshman.

bUGLY bonus… I went to the Cracker Barrel tonight for dinner. In your face.