This idea was gifted to me by none other than Mr. Bradley Woodrum. There are a lot of ways it could have gone. This is the way it went. Disclaimer: pink packing peanuts are really very bad for the environment, guys. And as ever, click to embiggen — if that’s something you’re into.

P.S. So I’m not the first person to notice this, huh?

It’s a fact of science — and by “fact of science” I mean “I heard on the news or something once” — that the human brain is, more or less, programmed to search out narratives. The instinct is so strong that, in those cases where it (i.e. the brain) encounters seemingly disparate facts and events, it (i.e. the brain) will compel a human being to name Yuniesky Betancourt as the starting second baseman of his baseball team.

In maybe — although not definitely — related news, Newsday reporter Jim Baumbach’s Twitter coverage of this morning’s jury selection for Roger Clemens’ impending perjury trial is more amusing than all of your spouse’s work stories.

Some recent selections from Baumbach’s timeline:

Jury selection in the Roger Clemens perjury trial, take two, begins Monday morning. I’ll be live tweeting from inside the courthouse…

— Jim Baumbach (@jimbaumbach) April 10, 2012

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Trick question. The answer is obviously the one pictured below:

How cold is it at Wrigley Field today? Look for this masked coach on FS Wisconsin. First pitch 7:05 CT! twitter.com/MikeVassallo13…

— Mike Vassallo (@MikeVassallo13) April 10, 2012

As part of our ongoing efforts to destroy that thing known as The American Work Day, NotGraphs presents this coverage of a thing that’s actually happening right now elsewhere on the internet.

Approximately 27 minutes ago, virile American Sam Miller casually introduced the following to an unexpecting public:

Jamie Moyer was alive during the Bush administration. BOTH of them. #LesserJamieMoyerFacts

— Sam Miller (@SamMillerBP) April 2, 2012

What followed could only be described as “a medium-sized to slightly-below-average-sized” tidal wave of other tweets also utilizing the #LesserJamieMoyerFacts hashtag.

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Dear J.P. Arencibia,

Cheers,
Born-Again Blue Jays Fan

Please realize that Opening Day at Rogers Centre is sold out so do not wear white shirts as it would be hard for us to spot #TheManInWhite

— jp arencibia (@jparencibia9) March 31, 2012

H/T: The peerless Jeremy Blachman for the inspiration. If you haven’t read the entire Ask NotGraphs! series, you haven’t made the correct life choices. There’s still time for you, though. I’ll never stop believing in your potential.

Former U.S. Vice President and longtime environmental activist Al Gore has died somewhere in America, quite possibly alone and quite possibly of a shattered heart.

Although details of his passing aren’t yet available — at this writing, I’m not even sure the family has been notified (do they even care?) — the prevailing fact is that Al Gore is dead.

Some might call it odd that hoary organs like the New York Times and Washington Post are silent — aggressively silent, it would seem — on Mr. Gore’s blood-flecked, regeneration-through-violence and viscera-beflamed demise, but the truth remains that Al Gore is dead.

Do the circumstances surrounding the incontrovertible fact of his death suggest malice aforethought on his part? Or, perish the thought, play most foul? Or was it the sort of clumsy, banal finale that awaits most of us? Was there a pratfall? Were bowels voided? Did he see his kindly grandpa bathed in alabaster light?

We don’t know. All we know is that Al Gore is dead.

Please join me in mourning his passing from this world and in celebrating his life and works. For Al Gore, age 63, is dead.

Source:

Angels slugger Mark Trumbo is famous for his power potential and his power potential. Insofar as musical tastes are concerned, however, Mr. Trumbo embraces a pregame oeuvre at which the discriminating aesthete, who is always too much with us, might pshaw and snort:

The best I can say for his selections is that, unlike Wagner, they don’t make me feel as though something sweeping, organized and racist is about to happen.

URGENT UPDATE: Commenter Grant points out that Mr. Trumbo was merely having a go at us. He is once again a Young Man of America in good standing.

The Brewers are placing a statue of maybe-literally-immortal Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker outside of Miller Park this summer — nor, if the following tweet from Tom Haudricourt of the Journal Sentinel is any indication, does it appear as though Uecker is bashful about what crowds will see.

Uecker on his pose for the statue: “It’s kind of a Schwarzeneger-type thing. Beefcake, speedo, pretty buffed. It’s really enhanced.”

— Tom (@Haudricourt) March 21, 2012

Yesterday, Carlos Beltran tweeted this picture of himself alongside two “killer” whales / Orcas who are gratuitously public affecting AKA making out AKA greeting each other in a friendly way. The multiverse implications are obvious here: once you click, you will have turned away from the world without this photo (colder, darker), and walked into the world with it (kissier, happier). Here is an illustration, even more literal than usual:

Somehow this one slipped between the cracks — C.J. Wilson pranked Mike Napoli… by putting the catcher’s phone number on twitter. He wasn’t particularly contrite about it afterwards either:

Perhaps “Nap Nap Weiner” will take an item off of this list of suggested revenge pranks?

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