FROM THE OVEN: Phone Lines and Punch Lines

Reporting requires making lots of phone calls, sometimes to complete strangers. Here's what happens when the complete stranger you thought would be on the other end of the line turns out to be a completely different complete stranger: 

In order to write about the threat of minimum wage that loomed over California state workers as a result of the legislature's budget impasse, I had to get in touch with a sampling of state employees.

When I called the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, a receptionist said she would transfer me to the appropriate person and proceeded to put me on hold. Moments later, I was somehow connected with an angry man in Iowa who was calling the CCPOA for an entirely separate and unknown reason.

"Someone has their lines crossed," he said. 

Perhaps to lift his audibly foul spirits, the man decided I was the perfect audience for a joke.

"If Obama and Nancy Pelosi were on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and they were sinking, who would be saved?"

"Uhh ... "

"America!"

Then he hung up.

DROP IN THE BUCKET: Air of Superiority

John Wooden, if you're reading this from your plush recliner in Hoops Heaven, stop now. You won't like it.

For everyone else -- the grounded folk who appreciate the alley-oop lobs, the fast-break flights and the open-lane opuses -- stick around to admire and analyze the complex relationship that basketball players have with that innocent orange rim resting 10 feet in the air.

See, there comes a time in a dunker's life when he must defy not only gravity but the basic bounds of morality, when he must fuse elevation and embarrassment, when he must posterize the defender in front of him.

Fans of the flush should be forever grateful for the invention of video, which allows us to keep and collect the great moments of the game's craftiest poster children. Over the last two years, a YouTube user to whom we are all indebted corralled footage of the 50 best dunks in Division I college basketball history.

Without further ado, enjoy 14 miraculous minutes of dunk-drenched art (and the literary accompaniment that follows) after the jump.

SHOOTER'S TOUCH: Cloudy With a Chance of Glass

Not sure exactly where this experiment is headed. But that's OK, right?

Photography is a master of introduction, so here's the first post. Disregarding its artistic merits, this is one of my favorite photos out of thousands taken during my semester abroad in London two years ago.

It wasn't completely overcast on this particular September afternoon, which made for some nice reflections at Old Spitalfields Market.

Hopefully, "Shooter's Touch" will be one of several recurring features in this space. Expect some more photos as well as burger reviews, sports analysis and various music-based offerings.

Whatever is thrown into this infinite abyss, it'll be organized. It won't be as funny as a segment on The Colbert Report, as well-written as a column by Bill Plaschke or as involved as a Christopher Nolan film, but it'll be my best blogging effort to date. Kind of like Barack Obama being the best African-American president the United States has had to date.