The $14,000 Bianchi by Gucci Urban Bike

I once worked with someone who came from a privileged background & he had no problem flaunting it, or talking about it openly. "Mike," I would ask him (name changed to protect identity). "What's with the expensive threads? Why wear a $1,000 blazer to work?" His answer: "Because I can." Which is precisely the answer I would expect an affluent to give if you were to ask them what possessed them to purchase a $14,000 bicycle. The Bianchi by Gucci features a black carbon fiber frame with the green/red/green color scheme that is quintessential Gucci.  Oh and in case you were actually interested in riding this thing, here are some more specs that may be of interest to you: it weighs a mere 22 pounds, includes 11 speeds, hydraulic disk breaks, water bottle headlights and wheel reflectors.

Must be nice, Mike.  Must be nice....

[books] when the game was ours

The 80s were freakin' awesome for so many reasons. One of those many reasons was the constant duel Larry Bird and Magic Johnson treated us to for much of the decade. "When The Game Was Ours" is an inside look at the rivalry from the player's own perspective - with commentary from Boston Globe writer Jackie Mackmullan, who covered the Celtics during the 80s. One of my favorite thing about sports is the "story within a story" narratives that play out - things that you would have never heard of otherwise. Take the night of June 12, 1984 for example. After winning Game 7 of the NBA Finals against Magic's Lakers, Celtics Larry Bird and Quinn Buckner are on a team van, on their way from the Boston Garden to a college campus just outside of the city where their cars were parked. The plan was to pick up their cars and drive back into the city to party it up with the rest of the Celtics players. There's so much traffic on the way out that Bird & Buckner decide to hop out of the van, flag down a random car heading inbound on Storrow Drive and jump in for a lift back into the city. Imagine this scene: two six-footers crammed into an unsuspecting (and probably stunned) Celtic fan's car, getting a ride into the city just hours after winning the NBA Finals. This sort of stuff only happened in the 80s.

[sport] nike soccer ball vending machine

Clever idea from the marketing folks at Nike. Nike installed soccer ball vending machines throughout New York City to promote their joga3 campaign (nikesoccer.com), just in time for the Copa Mundial 2006. While I'm curious how much the soccer balls cost, I think it would have been great if this machine dispensed South American soccer players instead. The US could have used a few of them this year (cha-ding!).