* Fans of the BBC’s Sherlock — and you should be watching — will enjoy this New York Magazine story on Benedict Cumberbatch. Oh, fans of the new Star Trek will also like it.

And I’ve stopped using the iPad because I can’t figure out how to highlight some text.

* Alan Sepinwall offers up an appreciation of The Office. And the famed TV critic reviews the series finale.

* Nick Saban does not enjoy being compared to Satan.

* Grantland’s Jonathan Abrams talks to some old-school NBA players about what travel was like in the past.

* For soccer fans! Like Terry. Brian Phillips on Alex Ferguson, famous coach over in England who is hanging it up.

* With a new Trade Center opening, the New York Times looks at how security around the new building will cut it off.

* The mayor of Toronto was probably caught on camera smoking crack. Oh, Canada.

* Are newspapers making a comeback? Maybe. Maybe.

* The glorious return of Arrested Development is a week away. Like TV, Will Leitch liked the show the first time around – before it was cool.

The Birdman did not look like this during his time in Fargo.

The Fargo-Moorhead Beez live on in the NBA Playoffs. Don’t pretend like you didn’t know that.

I mean, it’s common knowledge that the franchise jumpstarted the pro careers of current Miami Heat forward Chris Andersen and San Antonio Spurs assistant Ime Udoka. In fact, they played for the Beez in the same season: 2000-01.

The team was in the International Basketball Association at the time, a league below the Continental Basketball Association. Yes, there was such a thing. Among the better IBA stories that I can remember: A player running off the court and out of the gym in an attempt to avoid arrest and a franchise relocation from America to Canada while the team was on a road trip.

How do I know all this useful information? Because the Beez were my first beat as a college kid at The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. And I enjoyed the bejesus out of their antics until they went under in 2002 – just one year after serving as the low-paying home to two future (and relatively longtime) NBA players.

Long live the F-M Beez.

I wouldn’t have predicted either journey. I have shoddy memories of both.

I’m pretty sure Udoka was brought in during the season, and I assumed based on his name that he was of foreign descent – maybe even a recent transplant. Not exactly. Born in Portland, it turns out, although his father is from Nigeria.

He was a solid player in the IBA – steady and unremarkable much like he was during his days playing in the NBA. He was the rare and inexplicable guy that produces at the same rate at every level. (Sort of like Greg Stiemsma). Udoka also seemed quiet and tough. In hindsight, maybe he was gritting his teeth, wondering how he wound up in Fargo.

Embarrassingly, the thing that stood out the most about him was a dark mark on one of his arms. I wondered if it was a scar or a birthmark – maybe a patch of eczema like I have.

Anyway, Wikipedia reports that Udoka broke into the NBA in 2004 and bounced around until 2011. Last year, he was hired as an assistant by the Spurs and coach Greg Popovich. That probably means that Popovich doesn’t hate him, which is high praise in the hoops world. Also, he has a child with actress Nia Long, best known as the object of Ice Cube’s affection in “Friday.” (And, presumably, “Next Friday” and “The Friday After That,” if those movies indeed exist.)

Andersen has had an even more eventful decade, including being banned from the NBA for drug use. That had to be a heck of a thing to deal with: Working your way up from the IBA only to get the boot from your dream job.

But like Udoka, he’s been something of a mainstay in the league, grabbing attention for his crazy hair and virtual suit of tattoos. Honestly, I’m not sure if he had any ink when he arrived in Fargo, coached at the time by the late Lorenzo Charles. (Yes, the Lorenzo Charles of Jim Valvano fame. And, yes, I need to write something longer than a blog post about all of this.)

Mostly, Andersen was a skinny pogostick added midseason, apparently from a junior college. He stood out more than Udoka and for non-cosmetic reasons – the dude could fly, but mostly took one-way trips. That is, he seemed to get unusually winded after just a few trips up the floor. This being the IBA, I figured he was a smoker (of some sort) rather than an asthmatic.

I can’t remember when or why he left, but he made enough of an impression in his short stint that I’ve tracked the duration of his career – to the then-fledgling D-League, to Denver and to exile and back. Basketball-reference.com says Andersen has made nearly $20 million in his NBA career. A good chunk of that probably went into the colored, scarf-like tattoo around his neck, but still.

The whole thing doesn’t seem real: Did two guys who are helping NBA playoff teams really spend part of a largely forgettable season more than a decade ago in frozen Fargo with a team that would soon be defunct? Apparently.

I wonder if they kept any of their old Beez gear, if only as a reminder of where they had to go to get where they are.

When we arrived at my parents’ house in Minnesota on Tuesday afternoon I quickly noticed a stack of very old magazines sitting on their very new dining room table. Old Life magazines. Look magazines from 1964. A Ladies Home Journal from 1961.

And a Good Housekeeping from June 1921. How could I not spend an hour digging through these?

Ma and Pa Fury collected the magazines at a recent estate sale for the late Ward Wendt, the owner of the famous Janesville Doll in the Window. According to the mailing labels, some of the magazines originally belonged to Ward and some to a local hospital, which ended up in Ward’s hands at some point. The most striking thing about Look and Ladies Home Journal? Their size. These are, were, massive magazines, dwarfing anything you’d see today.

Look previewed the 1964 political conventions and also offered readers the chance to get four records for only 98 cents, a ploy that pulled magazine readers in for another few decades, all courtesy of the RCA Victor Record Club. Chet Atkins, Mario Lanza, Charlie Mingus, Jan Peerce…they’re all available! Some interesting letters to the editor, particularly about a past story about swimsuits. Mrs. Eva Garrett of Jonesville, Va., wrote, “If magazines and other prints would quit showing and glamorizing ["indecently" dressed women] and really show how indecent it is to expose their bodies as they would a flower, maybe someday we can walk the sidewalks without being ashamed of being women…” Makes me wonder what she actually wrote before Look put it in brackets.

The Ladies Home Journal from June 1961 offered a look inside the life of England’s queen. First of three parts. Also, five miracle do-overs to please the man in your life. I’d list them here but I really think women should track down the magazine themselves and put the do-overs into action, especially if their men have a Mad Men fetish.

But the Good Housekeeping occupied most of my time, particularly the first section and all those ads for all of those schools.

The section begins with an intro from Good Housekeeping, which assures readers no school is listed until it’s been thoroughly investigated by the magazine. In fact, if parents aren’t satisfied with the schools, the magazine offered to pay back the first semester payment.

There are schools for every state. In Connecticut, send Johnny to “Eastford: The School for a boy. For the development of manly boys into good citizens — leaders of men, by a rational system of training mind, morals and body.”

In Illinois there was the Illinois College of Photography. “Good paying positions in the best studios in the country await men and women who prepare themselves now. Our graduates earn $35 to $100 a week.”

Many of the schools show pictures of boys on horses, though none of them specifically teach, as far as I can tell, equestrian skills. Military skills, yes. Leadership skills, of course. And there’s a woman on a horse, staring into an open door where two women are chatting.

Sporty types should check out the Powder Point School in Duxbury, Mass. “Thorough instruction. Clean, snappy athletics for every boy.” In Brewster, Mass., parents could ship their daughter off to “Personality Camp for Girls,” which boasted, “For the girls who aren’t the prettiest, you can still win over snappy boys with a great personality.” Not really, but it did offer “attractive bungalows” and “corrective gymnastics.”

The actual stories were not snappy, graphic-filled appetizers. Hopefully writers got paid by the word back then. The stories go on for pages, in tiny type. There was fiction and poems and an incredibly large number of ads for underwear. A longstanding tradition existed back then: Advice columns. This one was “Dr. Wiley’s Question – Box” an oddly punctuated column — why the em dash there? The first question wondered, “What is the best substitute for whisky in severe cases of pneumonia?”

Dr. Wiley’s response? “Whisky is the worst possible treatment to use in pneumonia unless the object is euthanasia.” Heh. Dr. Wiley with the smackdown on Mrs. S.J.E. of New York. He notes that fresh air and nourishing food are best substitutes for whisky and says “The medical profession is rapidly reaching the conclusion that the prescribing of whisky is wholly useless for remedial purposes.”

The final question is fascinating and offers a great glimpse into medicine in the early parts of the 20th century. A reader writes in about her grandmother’s cancer and wonders if there is risk of infection and “whether her laundry should be done separately from the rest of the family. Should her dishes be kept apart?” Dr. Wiley says it’s best to take no chances in spreading it and to be on the safe side precautions should be taken with grandma’s laundry and dishes. At least he didn’t tell her to cure it with whisky.

The magazines are an incredible look back into a different world. A different publishing world, a different cultural world, a different medical world. In 90 years someone will stumble upon old Dr. Oz columns and express amazement about how little he knew about illness and disease. They’ll hold old Sports Illustrateds and Esquires in their hands and ask their parents, “Paper? This is what paper felt like?” They’ll read advice columns and long nonfiction pieces. Or maybe they’ll just make fun of the ads. But I doubt they’ll enjoy them as much as I enjoyed these magazines.

All joking aside, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from the video-extra experience. A friend asked on short notice if I could fill a spot. I didn’t have anything else planned and got the OK to include my 9-year-old daughter – it would be good blog fodder and some temporary hero status at home, if nothing else.

It wound up being more than that – not the part, but the idea. 

The background goes like this: A local ad writer and freelance author is compiling some of his works into a book, one of the pieces being about what it would be like to be accompanied by a DJ. A local DJ put that story to music for use in a video to promote the book. A local rapper agreed to direct the video. A local video producer signed on to, well, produce the video.

The set of TV’s debut as an extra.

My segment took place on a city bus, my mission to sit there and occasionally offer a puzzled look in the direction of the author and his DJ, which I did with an intensity that would have frightened Daniel Day Lewis. The hardest part might have been picking out clothes – I’m so rarely in an office setting that I’ve forgotten what “work attire” means.

By the time we arrived, the director and videographer were getting set up and the bus had been cleared for use. Everything went like clockwork. It did not feel the way that local videos often look.

But the thing that stuck with me the rest of the day: The level of creative energy. Again, pretty much everybody involved does something else for a living yet they were displaying passion, knowledge and professionalism in something else – for little to no money, probably.

For little to no money. When did I start to connect the creative process with getting rich or famous? What a disappointing realization.

The odd thing is that I don’t genuinely operate that way: I didn’t choose to go into journalism for the money, and Fury and I don’t update this blog five days a week for any sort of compensation. Yet somewhere in my brain, there’s an assumption that art isn’t worth pursuing unless there’s a financial payoff.

That’s what I liked about being around this crew for a couple of hours: There was an abundance of positive, creative ambition. Meanwhile, another friend recently signed a deal to write a book about his fishing habit. And my all-time favorite coffee local shop – on the week of its fifth anniversary – announced a move into a new and much larger space.

What does this mean for me aside from the fact that I have a bright future as an extra? At the very least, it reinforced the idea that Sioux Falls is an interesting place to live, inhabited by countless do-it-yourselfers. We’re all better off for it even if we don’t buy the book or watch the video.

It’s all there on the video. But if you don’t have the patience for viewing, simply read the old boxscores.

The 3-pointer dominates in today’s NBA, as teams space out the floor, drive and dish out to shooters scattered around the perimeter. The shot has altered how the game is played. Need proof? Check out the composite boxes from the NBA Finals in the early 1980s, which is something I make a habit out of since the Lakers won five titles throughout the decade. Reliving the past makes it so much easier to deal with LA’s dreadful present and unknown future.

Last year, when the Heat defeated Oklahoma City in five games, Miami went 42 of 98 from 3. The losing Thunder hoisted up 105 3-pointers, hitting 32 (somehow, even though it’s a year later and he’s playing for a different team, which isn’t even in the playoffs at this point, James Harden just missed another 3 in the Finals. It’s a weird time-travel thing). Compare those numbers to the NBA Finals from 1980-83.

When the Lakers beat the Sixers in six games in 1980 — you know it as the game Jamaal Wilkes scored 37 in Game 6, while Magic Johnson had a pretty good game himself in the closeout game — LA went 0-4 on 3-pointers. For the whole series. Four attempts in six games, no makes. Philly? The Sixers went 1-16 (Doc Erving made the one, possibly by leaping from beyond the 3-point line and throwing down a dunk). It’s startling and it is obvious when watching those games how the teams avoided the line as if they’d receive an electrical shock if they ventured outside it. The perimeter players operate from 20 feet and closer, dumping the ball down low in tighter spaces.

In 1980 the Celtics coasted past Houston in six games. Boston had a guy named Bird and other long-range shooters like Chris Ford. The Celtics were 3-for-16 on 3s, with Bird — in the conversation for the greatest shooter who ever wore short shorts — only going 1-for-2. Houston made 3-of-11, with Mike Dunleavy, who was still years away from making bizarre substitutions and creating odd end-of-game strategies on the sideline, making all of them for the Rockets.

The Lakers again defeated the Sixers in six in 1982 and they followed a familiar pattern: Magic won the Finals MVP and no one shot from 23 feet, 9 inches away from the basket. LA went 1-for-7 on threes in six games, Philly 4-for-9 (Andrew Toney was actually 3-for-4. Shoot the ball, ‘Drew!). When the Sixers finally got some revenge in 1983 it was thanks to Moses Malone’s dominating presence in the paint. When Philly swept the Lakers, the victors made…zero 3-pointers. How many did the Sixers shoot? Two.

Things finally started changing a bit in ’84, when the Celtics went 9-for-23 in their seven-game victory over the Lakers. But even in ’86, with Bird at his peak and the Celtics again defeating Houston in six, Boston was still only going 12-for-35. Not that there was a dramatic change in the evolution of the game, as Detroit only went 5-for-20 when winning the 1989 title. By 1990 the Pistons were shooting 56 3s in their 5-game victory over Portland.

The game’s obviously not returning to those types of numbers, not when so many advanced stats show how efficient it is for teams to shoot 3s instead of long 2s and not when the game is becoming ever-more reliant on perimeter players, whether it’s guys who can get to the basket thanks to superb ball handling or can launch and hit threes with two defenders in their face. To watch Stephen Curry operate above the three-point line is to see the game being played in a way that’s unique in NBA history, someone who shoots more threes than anyone but makes a higher percentage than the best who have ever played. Imagine a team shooting four threes in a game today, much less in a series. The league and the Feds would investigate the players and coach for point-shaving.

Back to another player with unique skill sets: Magic. Look at his career numbers and you’ll see how long-distance shooting changed, even while he still spent all his career leading fast breaks and mystifying defenses with his passing, drives and late-developing hook shot. Magic entered the league with a reputation as a poor outside shooter and he didn’t go out of his way in trying to prove critics wrong. From 1980-88 here’s how many three-pointers Magic made:

7, 3, 6, 0, 7, 7, 10, 8, 11

Zero! That was in 1983. Even in 1987, probably his greatest season when he won his first MVP, he only made 8 3s, and one of those was a famous midcourt buzzer-beater at the end of the third quarter in a regular season game against the Celtics. When Magic threw his entry passes to Kareem he was well inside the line and you wonder why anyone played him honestly out there. But Magic was always adding elements to his game, whether it was becoming the best free-throw shooter in the league one year or the mini-hook. But nothing compared to how he developed his 3-point shooting. After making 11 in 1988 he made 59 in 1989 and then 106 in 1990. Even in 1996, when he returned to the NBA but only played in 32 games, he hit 22 3s, basically matching his total from his first five years in the league. If Magic played today? He’d be launching 5 a game himself.

The game’s completely changed, but one thing hasn’t: The NBA playoffs are still the best basketball in the world and my favorite two months of the year.

Oh, and the Lakers? They again can’t make threes and I wish Metta World Peace would follow the example of his forefathers and never shoot them.

* The Columbia football team is in the news, but not for good reasons. A defensive player is accused of a hate crime and several other players had their racist/homophobic/anti-Semitic/asinine tweets revealed. That Ivy education really paying off. The CU Lions Blog has more information.

* The Great Gatsby is opening to less-than-stellar reviews. Here’s Wesley Morris’ for Grantland. No matter how bad the reviews I’m looking forward to seeing it. Team Leo.

* Not everyone loves The Great Gatsby the book. In fact, New York Magazine’s Kathryn Schulz absolutely despises it. Is she just being contrarian or are there some good points? Or both?

* Why don’t superheroes work on television?

* Oh-oh. According to The Wrap, American Idol might dump all of its judges for next season.

* Sad newspaper news. The Daily News got rid of numerous employees this week and some of the big names in sports include Tim Smith and Sean Brennan. But the biggest name was the legendary college hoops writer Dick Weiss, whose nickname is actually Hoops.

* Short first names mean bigger paychecks. Plan accordingly.

* The horrific case of former Minnesota State Mankato football coach Todd Hoffner took another turn this week when he left the school, though it’s not known if he was fired or left on his own. Hoffner was arrested and charged with possession of child porn last year before being totally exonerated. He was innocent. No technicalities, nothing like that. Wrongfully arrested. Unfortunately he lost his coaching job and now his reassigned position at the university.

* Rolling Stone has a profile on popular rapper Macklemore and his struggles with alcohol and drug addiction. It feels unusual to read about an artist trying to avoid chemical excess at the height of his powers rather than embracing it.

* From the department of nonsense, Late, Late Show host Craig Ferguson recently declared TV’s town – Sioux Falls, S.D. – as the booty shaking capital of the world. Um … what?

But don’t worry, NBA haters, it’s not all pro basketball. No, the guys also break down the thrilling Season 1 finale of Splash on ABC. … You know, Splash. The celebrity diving show. Yes, that’s a real thing. And, yes, we watched parts of it.

Just listen to the podcast. Here’s the link.

You can’t tell me the Vikings wouldn’t have won a Super Bowl under Burnsie, if only he hadn’t been so god damn loyal to Bob Schnelker. Ya gotta get Steve Jordan more involved in the offense, especially at the goal line.

Drew Pearson is still saying he didn’t push off? Jesus Christ. I suppose Nate Wright just went flying like that because he felt like it.

You shouldn’t hate anyone. Except Ron Davis.

Why doesn’t anyone steal home like Rod Carew anymore?

Timberwolves never should have fired Bill Musselman. What did they expect him to do, try not to win?

Say what you will about the funding, but I really think the Metrodome going up is going to help the Gophers get back on the road to the Rose Bowl. What other school has that type of facility?

Vikings were a lot better when they played in the cold. They’ve gone soft in the Metrodome. Everything changed when they moved in there.

How in the hell are the Twins supposed to play home games in April and October in this godforsaken state without a dome? Dumb idea ever leaving the Metrodome. And they lost the best homefield advantage in baseball.

Someone want to explain why we never throw on first down?

Kevin McHale wasn’t even the best player at the state tournament his senior year. Maybe the Wolves should have hired Lingenfelter.

I’d rather avoid the highway. We’ll take the side roads there.

Did you see Sid’s column?

God, Bremer’s terrible.

I’ve got 9 grandkids and can remember the names of half of them — the 11-year-old, the one with the weird haircut, goofy-looking, never remember his — but I’ll remember Edgerton’s 1960 starting lineup until the day I die: Veenhof, Verdoes, Kreun, Wiarda and Graphenteen.

No I didn’t see the ending, fell asleep.

Why don’t we ever blitz on third down?

Why can’t anyone block a field goal like Matt Blair used to do every week?

Heeey, Timberwolves dancers. Huh? Oh, yeah.

Barry Wohler might have been the best athlete this state ever produced.

NFL Films still show that Hank Stram matriculating down the field clip? No way that Vikings team should have lost that game. And to lose to that cocky SOB…

No one had stronger hands than Joey Browner.

You’d think the Gophers had never seen a zone defense before. Seriously, why the hell can’t they run an offense against a 2-3?

Jim Kaat was best fielding pitcher you’ve ever seen.

It’s a travesty Kent Hrbek never won a Gold Glove.

Aiding the runner. Seriously. The Vikings are the only team in the history of the NFL to have that called against them, except for that time Fridge literally carried Walter Payton. You’re telling me the NFL isn’t out to get the Vikings?

I don’t even know why in the hell I even follow these teams anymore. What’s the point?

What time are the Twins on?

Don’t believe me? Watch ESPN or listen to sports talk radio today – somebody is bound to bury the Miami Heat for losing Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinal at home and crown the Chicago Bulls for winning that contest. Nate Robinson is sublime; LeBron James stinks; etc., etc.

Now, maybe the Heat will bow out and indeed not repeat as champs at the end of this injury-marred postseason – that would be newsworthy and a rip-able offense. But this is a best-of-7 series, and it’s only just begun.

The point is this: We seem to overreact at an alarming rate even though technology has made the world smaller – that should have made us more calm due to a greater global perspective. But it hasn’t. And that can’t be good. If the settlers had overreacted, they’d have never moved West. My oldest daughter overreacts to anything and everything because she’s 9. It’s like we’re Walton minus the satire (and the fused ankles): “That was the worst pass in the history of basketball.”

It. Drives. Me. Nuts. I nearly (nearly) took a break from Twitter the other night because I was getting so annoyed by all the panic, the Chicken Little scenarios. Here’s an idea: Take a deep breath, think and let things play out.

I blame this – and pretty much everything else – on the 24-hour news cycle. Discussing, sharing or planning as a means of making sense of things has turned to blindly speculating and/or freaking out. Why? Because it’s hard (and maybe even impossible) to fill an endless news hole with level-headed ideas and information; so people talk and talk and talk and talk until they get so far ahead of the story that they approach the edge of the cliff.

“This is the end of days.” Except it’s not. Our opinions don’t matter as much as we think they do – mine included. This post included, frankly. And … my head just exploded.

Never mind. As you were.

Columbia University’s sports teams are probably still best known for two things: Lou Gehrig played baseball there and the football team couldn’t win a game in the early 1980s. Today the football team remains a work in progress thought it’s always tough to see if there’s actually much progress being made. The Lions’ basketball team pulls off an occasional big victory — last season the Lions defeated Villanova — but never challenges for an Ivy title and an NCAA berth.

But the baseball team is another story, a different kind of story at Columbia. A winning story. On Saturday the Lions hosted Dartmouth in a best-of-three showdown for the Ivy League title, the winner earning the spot in the NCAA tournament, which won’t begin until the end of May.

I again made the three-minute walk from our apartment to the Columbia baseball field. In the first game Columbia won 6-5 in 10 innings, squandering a ninth-inning lead but then escaping a bases-laoded, no-out jam in the top of the 10th before winning it in the bottom of the inning. The second game, played under blue skies and in perfect weather — sorry, Minnesotans. Put a sweatshirt on — took place in front of a packed stadium.

Even in college, spring sports occupy an odd spot on the intensity scale, particularly in places that actually experience winter weather. Back in high school our spring sports seasons never seemed as…important as fall and winter offerings. Part of that has to do with the weather, which can shorten an already-short season into a month. And even when the weather warms up, there somehow seems to be less on the line when it’s a leisurely outdoor baseball game in the middle of the afternoon, which doesn’t compare — or at least doesn’t in my biased mind — with the atmosphere you get on those cold fall nights under the lights at a football game or in a packed gym during a playoff basketball game. We’re so happy to simply have weather that’s fit for humans and insects that the on-field results don’t seem as critical.

I had a similar feeling sitting in the stands Saturday, but certainly the players took it as seriously as any player in a bowl game or a Sweet 16 battle. Columbia was looking for its first title since 2008 and only its third-ever appearance in the NCAA tournament.

The second game didn’t have the drama of the first, even though Dartmouth took a 2-0 lead and still led 5-4 entering the top of the seventh. That’s when Columbia pounded out double after double in a decisive six-run inning. The crowd enjoyed the final two-and-a-half-inning coronation, especially a group of little kids near the field who were apparently in the process of working off the dozen energy drinks fed to them before the game by their parents. In college baseball no deficit is too large, but Dartmouth never threatened after Columbia’s outburst and the crowd savored the final innings. (If you’re wondering if Ivy crowds have more creative ways of insulting umpires, no. Eyesight taunts were common, as were pleas for the men in blue to figure it out, even though they were wearing black.)

The game ended 12-5, Columbia’s players stormed the field and now the Lions wait to see where they’ll go in the NCAA tournament.

Chances are the Lions won’t make it to the College World Series in Omaha. The Lions went 0-4 in previous appearances in 1976 and ’08. Columbia was the first team to earn a berth in the tournament, thanks to the Ivy League’s early championship series. The Lions are hardly a perennial power in the Ivy League — Dartmouth, for instance, was making a sixth straight appearance in the championship series. But this is now two NCAA appearances in five years. A few more of those and Columbia baseball might very well be known more for its success in the 21st century than its most famous player from the early parts of the 20th century.