You don't have to be a fan of the New York Yankees to appreciate writer Mark Lisanti's brilliant creation, Derek Jeter's Diary. The hilarious faux-record of the future Hall of Famer's innermost thoughts and observations appears in weekly installments on grantland.com. Jeter, the composed, somewhat distant captain of the team turns out to be the perfect target for Lisanti's needle-sharp…

Even lifelong Yankees fans like me have no idea what the hyper-private Derek Jeter is really like or what he really thinks about anything. So when Lisanti's Jeter pens this after an "ugly win" in Detroit -- "The W is always the most important thing, the thing you want so much that you wake up in the middle of the night, sweating through the silk sheets… -- I'm laughing, but I'm also thinking, 'Hmm, that could be exactly how Jeter's mind works.'

The real point of the diary, of course, is to be funny, and Lisanti never disappoints. For example: You never quite trust a guy who spent that much of his career on the Red Sox; the entire time Johnny Damon was with us, he wasn't allowed to wander the Stadium unsupervised because there was a credible fear he signed in New York only to assassinate Robbie… That "credible fear" is a master's touch, and the diary is full of them. So check it out. It's a grand slam.

Photo by Keith Allison/Wikimedia Commons

With more Americans turning to mobile devices for political news, navigating the plethora of politics apps camouflaged in red, white, and blue can be overwhelming . We've tried a bunch and found six we really like. They're all free and will keep you well-supplied with up-to-the minute campaign news, analysis and other fun stuff. Here's what's on our ballot:

1. NBC Politics (iPhone and iPad)

The NBC Politics app is a comprehensive guide to NBC's campaign coverage, presented in a visually-appealing and easy-to-navigate format. In addition to social sharing (users can opt to share their favorite stories directly to Twitter or Facebook), one of the app's stronger features is the Tip Sheet, which breaks down the most important moments along the…

2. The New York Times: Election 2012 (iPhone and Android)

The New York Times is a no-brainer for exceptional political coverage. For their Election 2012 app, the Timeseditors highlight the best of their politics reporting from the day's print edition as well as the web, including my personal favorite, the excellent statistics-driven FiveThirtyEight blog. Another nice feature of the Election app is access to the Times' comprehensive…

3. TPM PollTracker (iPhone only)

PollTracker from Talking Points Memo is exactly that: an app dedicated exclusively to tracking state and national political polls. Users can even enable push notifications to receive new polling results as soon as they become available.

4. POLITICO Playbook (iPhone, Android, and tablets)

The brainchild of Politico's chief White House correspondent, Mike Allen, Playbook is Allen's daily rundown of the all the insider political news that outsiders need to know. The app is a simple yet effective single stream of reads directly from the POLITICO website.

5. Campaign 2012 (iPhone and Android)

Although Campaign 2012  is independent of any news organization, I like that it allows users to swipe-through the top political headlines of major politics outlets such as Salon and the Huffington Post. The app also has a neat feature that lists the feeds from the official @BarackObama and @MittRomney Twitter accounts, side-by-side for your viewing pleasure.

6. Real Clear Politics (iPhone, Android, and tablets)

The popular political news aggregator has an app that closely resembles the website: a running list of the day's top politics stories alongside detailed polling data. Though basic, it's an excellent place to get your politics fix.

Photo credit: © Comstock/Thinkstock

In mid-June, swarms of honeybees took to the streets of New York City, prompting something of a mild panic—and then the kids showed up. Eighteen of them pulled out the crayons, colored pencils and markers to make sense of the situation for The New York Times' City Room blog as part of the "Kids Draw the News"feature, a self-explanatory program that was started in late April. Since then, artistically-inclined sprouts aged 12 and… Read More >>

As a kid, I spent a lot of time with a Speak & Spell in my lap (though you might not know it from my current tendency toward typos and other spelling mishaps). If you're a child of the '80s like I am or the parent of a child of the '80s, you remember this laptop precursor well—the bright orange case, the strange-yet-soothing robotic voice. I thought… Read More >>

Instead of cozying up with the morning paper in your breakfast nook today, pour over this fun infographic that highlights some of the billion-and-one benefits of a morning grub session. Make sure to munch on a bowl of hearty oatmeal (sprinkle some cinnamon and add some fresh fruit slices for a healthy treat) and not a dish brimming with Trix: In one study… Read More >>

The crown jewels of the 90s: Scrunchies, Spice Girl lollipops, and Tamagotchis, to name a few. And who could forget those wonderfully terrible songs that laid the foundations for our guilty pleasure playlists on Spotify? When I came across BuzzFeed's 20 Worst Songs of the 90s, I wondered whether these now archaic hits were atrocious or amazing. Who didn't dance around to LFO's "Summer… Read More >>

During the 1930s and '40s, before Theodore Geisel was Dr. Seuss, he was Don Draper. A "mad man" from Madison Avenue, Geisel began his career concocting and drawing remarkable ads for America’s largest companies. Lucky for us, the University of California, San Diego,has collected some of his pre-Seuss work. In ads for NBC, General Electric, and Ford, to name a few, one can see the… Read More >>

I've painstakingly nurtured windowsill basil plants, and shooed ambitious animals out of past gardens. I might not have a bright green thumb, but there’s at least a hint of pale green there. But grow mushrooms? Don’t mushrooms just appear from little forest elves, or some such magical place? It turns out they can appear from used coffee grinds… Read More >>

Reader's Digest editor-in-chief Liz Vaccariello recently recommended an article from Bloomberg Businessweek about the worst day to buy salad for lunch. Afterwards, the folks at Businessweek posted another fascinating item on lunchtime behavior: an infographic illustrating how people act when buying their midday meal at “fast casual” restaurant chains like Chipotle, Cosi, and Pret A Manger. Businessweekobserved restaurant-goers and… Read More >>

To mark the passing of a grim milestone — the death of the 2,000th American service member in Afghanistan — the New York Times has created an extraordinary digital archivethat includes every U.S. service member killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. The archive is presented on the Times' website as a grid of tiny squares, with each square representing an individual. Clicking on a single square brings up a picture of the… Read More >>