MEDIA DIET | All that Deadspin's Tim Burke Wants Is a Free Day to Watch 'Veronica Mars'

For a man who spends so much of his day consuming media, Deadspin editor Tim Burke doesn’t spend a lot of time on his favorite shows. A typical day for the leader in gif sports reporting starts around 9 a.m. as he sits down to his home office in St. Petersburg, Fla., turns on The Dan Patrick Show, and plans his viewing for the day. If things go well, he’s done at 2:30 a.m. “I work 80 hours a week so I don’t totally have a lot of time for things other than on my ‘weekend,’ which I mostly spend playing shuffleboard or going to Rays games,” he emailed me this week.

The last thing he wants to do after absorbing every sports event his DVR can handle: Watch more sports. "ESPN is always on, as is FS1," he says. "I keep all the broadcast networks on other screens. NBA TV and NHL Network and MLB Network are also recording 24/7." When he doesn't have to be in front of a glowing rectangle he likes to garden, maybe hit the gym. Who can blame him? 

And in this context, Burke’s willingness to sit down for Veronica Mars is about as big an endorsement as you can get.

“I mean, I would absolutely love to take a whole day and sit down and watch the first season of Veronica Mars in full,” he says of the show, which tops his list of what he refers to as the “usual sort of Internet Person Prestige TV.”

"I just can't do that anymore, mostly because I have to work and on my days off I have to dedicate my whole day to my wife. I just think it was a wonderfully done television program."

Otherwise, Burke is lucky to live across the road from the world's largest shuffleboard complex, which also happens to attract a monthly gathering of old school gamers called "The Church of Nintendo" that holds a special place in his heart.

"So this guy called the Church of Nintendo brings all these old Nintendo systems and old TVs and sets them up with hundreds of games to choose from. I'd say 90 percent of the shuffleboard club members are under the age of 35," he says. The St. Pete Shuffleboard Club inspired Royal Palms, the absurdly successful shuffleboard club in Brooklyn.

“On Church of Nintendo nights I mostly like to play games I’ve never heard of or have access to, though we do play a ton of Mario Kart, etc. One thing those nights remind me too is that in retrospect Goldeneye is not actually that great of a game! I mean, it’s fun, but it’s really a pain in the ass compared to modern shooters. Oh, and Dr. Mario. That’s a game I can actually play with my wife, so we always sit down with that for awhile.”

Were it not for the shuffleboard complex Burke might steer entirely clear of all non-sports related media. But it's made him a board game fanatic.

"There's also tabletop games at Game night, so we'll always play a round of Settlers of Catan, which I like though I think at this point an optimal strategy has emerged which makes it kind of plodding. I have a ton of these games, even simple ones like Fluxx or Killer Bunnies, that I have tons of expansion packs for etc we've never even opened. I would really love to get back into playing those once a week."