Thursday Links (4/29)

One of our regular readers, Kathleen, finds it amusing to email me predicting disaster every time I say I'm going to take a couple of days off. She's right, of course. If I'm expecting a little bit of relaxation, that essentially guarantees all hell will break loose.

So it is with great trepidation that I inform you that I'm taking the next few days off from the blog. I'm heading to New Orleans for the second weekend of Jazz Fest, and my plan (for now) is to leave my laptop at home. (I admit, I'm a junkie, and the only way I can quit is to not have access to the blog.)

So what does this mean?

Well, for one, it means you'll be limited to just the two-a-days posts for the next few days and no other blog postings from me.

It also means some key player is going to get arrested or transfer or bare-knuckle box Mark Richt on Broad Street in a fight to the death. Because there's no way I actually get to take a legitimate weekend off.

But I'm still going to try, so cross your fingers and hope you don't have to hear from me again until next week.

In the meantime, here's a brief links post to help please the blogging gods...

-- With all the draft hype about A.J. Green starting already, Marc Weiszer notes that next year should end a long drought in the draft for Georgia receivers.

-- Chip Towers writes about Georgia's aggressiveness on the recruiting trail -- particularly in the state. The press release UGA sent out yesterday about recruiting was definitely a bit out of character.

-- Tim Tucker talks turnovers. (That was your winner for most alliterative sentence of the day.)

-- I'm guessing you've already seen this column from the Red & Black taking on Aron White's letter which questioned the merits of another column in the newspaper. Really, it's little more than red meat for easily perturbed Georgia fans (and players by the sounds of some of their Tweets).

My advice to the young journalists practicing their craft at the Red & Black would be this: You print the papers, so you can always have the last word. But if your argument was written and researched well enough in the first place, you won't need to employ that advantage so often.

I might also add that the paper might want to reconsider how quickly they criticize when they're not always the best at editorial decision making.

-- It was only Western Carolina, but at least Georgia has a win on the diamond for a change.

-- Macon native and Georgia golfer Russell Henley will be playing in this weekend's Nationwide event in Athens.

-- Chris Low has some interesting thoughts on the potential of SEC expansion. This whole debate reminds me of the words of a very wise man by the name of Ron Burgundy: "That really escalated quickly! I mean, that really got out of hand fast." (Note: There were horses, and a man on fire, and Jim Delany killed a guy with a trident!)

-- And more from Low: The SEC's likely first-round picks in the 2011 draft doesn't include Clint Boling.

-- Bloomberg has an interesting story on how college football seems to be recession-proof, with 51 public schools studied showing an 11 percent increase in revenue from 2007 through 2009. (h/t Matt T.)

-- Construction on the fire-damaged Georgia Theater is set to begin next month, but they're still looking for some donations to ensure the project is completed.

-- Spin has its list of the 125 best albums of the last 25 years. I'll be honest, I didn't have time to read through them all, but I looked at the top 25 and I don't have many serious problems. These lists are always about mixing hipster intelligence about under-appreciated and little known works with an even greater hipster appreciation in an ironic way about albums that were well received. In other words, I usually feel these lists are more about making the magazine look cool than anything else. That said, I was surprised by what was No. 1 -- and while it probably wouldn't top my list, it would be awfully close. In fact, I was just discussing that album -- and why it's my favorite from that band -- with Fletcher Page the other day.

-- Steve Carrell says he might be leaving "The Office" after next season. I'd be OK with that. Love the show, but I can't help but feel like it's running on fumes.

-- This might be the ultimate "I'm not sure how I feel about this" sequel. On one hand, I'd be utterly excited about it, but the rational side of me knows it's probably not going to end well.

-- OK, that's it for me for a few days. I know I have a few dozen emails to respond to from readers dating back at least a month, and I promise, getting to them is going to be at the top of my priority list upon my return. And in the meantime, if you have questions for our final UGA installment of two-a-days, send them in to dhale@macon.com.

Have a great weekend, folks.