I like football. And while the CFL isn’t bad, it lacks the glamour and glitz of its big cousin to the south. So I was excited when I heard the Buffalo Bills would be playing a few exhbition and regular season games in Toronto.

Until I saw the price tag. Tickets are averaging $200 a pop, which is insane. I’d love to see some live NFL football, but I also have to eat and pay rent.

The Globe and Mail breaks this gouging down pretty succinctly:

Rogers paid $78-million for eight Bills home dates (five regular-season and three exhibition games) over a five-year period, requiring them to set an average ticket price above $200 (including VIP seats that include some amenities). By comparison, the NFL’s New England Patriots had the league’s highest average ticket price last season at $91.

The positive side of that price point means that the Toronto games — sold out or not — will reap considerably more revenue than if the games were being held in Buffalo, which has the NFL’s lowest average ticket price at just $51.

So, to review: we are being asked to pay a 400 per cent markup just so a low-budget football franchise can shore up its bottom line. It’s not about fans. It’s about dollars.

All of this would be less galling if we weren’t being asked to shell out for the Buffalo Freakin’ Bills. They have the lowest ticket prices for a reason: they suuuuck. And it’s pre-season Buffalo Bills, before they’ve even sorted which players suck less than the others. Lame!

So, keep your over-priced tickets, Rogers. I’m going to an Argos game.

Growing up as a radical mountain-biking dude (read: an awkward teen who desperately wanted to be a radical, mountian-biking dude), I always though road biking was just a bunch of weird guys with shaved legs, wearing bright colours and grimacing with exertion.

And yes, road biking is all of those things. But when it comes to professional road racing, it is also really, really exciting. Especially this Tour de France business. The last minute sprints to the finish, the grueling climbs, the epic crashes, the profusion of brightly coloured jerseys (polka dots, even!) all denoting various accomplishments…these are all fun. But really makes Le Tour is the narrative of the whole thing. The race is 23 days long and involves some pretty interesting characters, so stories are lurking everywhere. The end result is surprisingly compelling.

Unfortunately, there are only four days left in the tour. But you can still the exciting conclusion. The official website has heaps of coverage, while Bicycling Magazine does a nice round-up. If moving pictures are more your thing, OLN has complete coverage at 8:30-11:30AM and again at 8:00-11:00PM. I recommend the morning coverage- it has better announcers.

So, check it out. Fast-paced, story-filled, shaved-legged action.

Eternal vigilance is the price of preventing a zombie apocalypse. Nunc Scio takes this mission very seriously, and endeavours to bring you the most timely and informative zombie news around the world.

Today’s tidbit: seafloor microbes that expend so little energy, they are really, to quote Wired, “more undead than alive“.

The ocean floor gets so little sunlight, and is almost totally devoid of other organisms. So, these little zombies-in-waiting need to use very little energy. Said scientist Christopher House:

“In essence, these microbes are almost, practically dead by our normal standards. They metabolize a little, but not much.”

Almost, practically dead? Oh man, what a smoking gun. No word yet on whether these seabed dwellers also have an unsatiable desire for living flesh.

Via ToB.

When journalism and a poor grasp of libertarian theory combine:

Anarchists’ gathering surprisingly organized

Genius. The reporter went for the big gag there, and I commend him. But as we all know, or at least should know, anarchism isn’t the absense of order. It’s a political system where everyone takes responsibility for decision making and organization within a given a society. There is no ‘state’, because everyone is the state. A nice idea, but one largely impossible to achieve. Spend 15 minutes in a Wal-Mart and you’ll see what I mean.

You’d think with the crumbling economy, disastrous foreign wars and impending climate calamity, Americans would have more important things to worry about than their local Starbucks franchise.

And you would be wrong.

The chattering classes are up in arms over Starbucks’ plans to close 600 stores. Turns out, the recent economic downturn has not been kind to the purveyor of over-priced coffee and fine blended products. Said one afflicted yuppie:

“Now that it’s going away, we’re devastated.”

Really? While I have been known to indulge in the occasional latte at my neighbourhood S-bucks, I cannot imagine a world in which its closure would be ‘devastating’. But a series of petitions and letter-writing campaigns have sprung up across the USA, all with the goal of saving their local mega-corporate coffee shop.

These people should take a look around. If the closing of your local Starbucks is the worse thing you have to worry about, you’re doing about 1,000 times better than 90 per cent of the world’s population. 

It is as close to an inviolable universal law as you can get: if you want to make something better, just add Star Wars. Holiday specials. George Lucas. My 14th birthday party.

And now, so called ‘great’ art.

Yes, over at Worth1000, there is an epic photoshop contest to take famour paintings and sculptures and Star-warsify them. Results are predictably awesome:

Awesome. Finally, art I can get behind. For more photoshoppy goodness, go here.