Little Toy Robot

Here are some things that are keeping me busy lately:

• The Green Hour, by The Autumn Defense
• Begin to Hope, by (the divine) Regina Spektor
• Jens Lekman
• Tufte
• Pivot Tables
• Google Earth
• Joe Mauer

Poor John Le Carré! The highly regarded writer of literary espionage thrillers–one of those always cited by critics looking to make the point that genre fiction doesn’t need to be poorly written–has found himself yet again a victim of my attention deficit. I have given Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy a second shot, and, probably through no fault of the book itself, haven’t been able to crack triple digits.

What next? Jack Vance, perhaps. Also eyeing Lewis Carroll and Robert Louis Stevenson. And–of course!–Richard Dawkins. Stay tuned. I know it’s thrilling.

In other news, I am going to open this blog up to other topics. What, you ask? Extreme knitting? Beethoven? Coverage of the mythical Knight Rider movie? Nothing so interesting. Just little posts here and there about the Internet. I do so love the Internet!

After today’s news that Google is censoring its search results in China, many sites are discontinuing AdSense in protest. This includes my absolute favorite baseball blog, Baseball Musings. I think it’s great that people are making their voices heard and hitting Google where it hurts to draw attention to this.

Speaking of baseball, I’m very excited about Kenji Johjima and am looking forward to seeing how the first full-time Japanese catcher does in the Majors. This story on Yahoo describes some of the challenges he faces. If he’s successful offensively, he could put up numbers like Ivan Rodriguez did in his prime. Here are Johjima’s Japanese stats.

Two new albums came out yesterday that I can’t wait to check out: Jenny Lewis’ first solo album and Cat Powers’ latest.

It’s PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!

New episode of Lost tonight.

I’m in a bit of a funk in terms of reading fiction these days. I’ve been reading some Queen & Country comics, Time magazine, Entertainment Weekly, and some fantasy baseball predictions because I am determined to win every single fantasy baseball league I’m involved with this year. I am currently obsessed with what the move to the Nationals is going to do to Alfonso Soriano’s power numbers - not to mention what a move to the outfield might do to his fantasy value.

We all get enough spam as it is - why accept it when it comes from a source you can get to stop?

The next time you have a technophobic relative forward you a suspicious email, refer them immediately to Snopes.com, the urban legends site. They can also check this other Web site called “Google” (it can be found at www.google.com).

I just got one of those emails that warned against, among other things, putting plastic water bottles in the freezer, according to a newsletter from Johns Hopkins University. My normal reaction is “What the fuck?” followed by deleting the email and forgetting about it. But this time I decided to fight back, so my reaction was “What the fuck?” and then I decided to write poor Uncle L. back. It took me about two seconds to find this.

OC&PA: What do you make of this recent email warning that claims dioxins can be released by freezing water in plastic bottles?

RH: No. This is an urban legend. There are no dioxins in plastics. In addition, freezing actually works against the release of chemicals. Chemicals do not diffuse as readily in cold temperatures, which would limit chemical release if there were dioxins in plastic, and we don’t think there are.

Source? Johns Hopkins University.

I have an iPod, and I walk to work, so I listen to podcasts every once in a while. Here are some that I like.

Coverville: Probably the first podcast I found that I like. The song selections are hit-or-miss, but there always gems like a bluegrass version of “Comfortably Numb” that transitions into a massive heavy metal guitar solo (by a group called Copper Box). The show is produced a little too often for my light podcast-listening schedule, so I don’t listen to every show.

The Ricky Gervais Show: Who are they kidding? This show is all about Ricky’s bizarre friend (?) Karl Pilkington. I can’t really explain Karl, you have to listen to him to get it. The first episode had me laughing so hard during its (now regular) monkey news section that I honestly couldn’t breathe.

Slate Magazine Podcasts: I don’t know how I ended up subscribing to these, but I like the little 5-10 minute, bite-sized podcasts which are nothing more than people reading Slate articles. Which is good for me, because I don’t read Slate regularly. And if my subscriptions plops something into my iTunes that looks dull, I just ignore it.

this WEEK in TECH: Leo Laporte is a pro, and John C. Dvorak is such a crank that he’s delightful. I could live without the rest of the cast, but it’s always great to listen to Leo’s even-handed thoughts on technology and Dvorak’s no-BS view on everything.

On the Media from NPR/WNYC: A weekly wrap-up of media industry news, though I think it has a wider appeal. Bob Garfield’s pieces are always smart with a helpful dose of humor.

I was born in New York, grew up mainly in Florida, went back to New York for college, and it looked like I’d be there all my life. But then someone lit a fire under my ass and I made a quick move to Atlanta and then on to Chicago.

So now I’m in Chicago.

“Little Toy Robot” is a nickname I made up around the time my brother got in trouble with his employer for blogging under his own name. I like robots.

I love to read. Some of my favorite authors are Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Jeff VanderMeer, China Mieville, Mervyn Peake, M. John Harrison, Kim Stanley Robinson, Cynthia Ozick, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Bruno Schulz, Zoran Zivkovic, Vladimir Nabokov, Witold Gombrowicz.

A list of my favorite books would place these three near the top: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon, The Years of Rice and Salt, by Kim Stanley Robinson, and The Enquiries of Dr. Eszterhazy, by Avram Davidson.

My favorite nonfiction writer is Lawrence Weschler. My favorite comic book author is Alan Moore.

Music is a huge part of my life, despite being partially deaf in one ear. All-time favorites include: Uncle Tupelo (and its offspring), Big Star, Pavement, Silver Jews, XTC, The Flaming Lips, Beulah, Jellyfish, Yo La Tengo, The Decemberists, Quasi, Velvet Underground (and both Lou Reed’s and John Cale’s solo work).

I love baseball. I also love playing fantasy baseball. I am a Yankees fan. When I was growing up, the Yankees weren’t a good team and Don Mattingly was my hero. I am sympathetic to teams in cities that I’ve lived in, such as the Florida Marlins and the Atlanta Braves.

So, I’m using WordPress 2.0. WordPress is blogging software that is free. It’s an alternative to Blogger and Moveable Type. It can be used on your own domain, like littletoyrobot.com, or you can use it on the wordpress.com free hosting service, which is like TypePad (which isn’t free) or Blogger.

I had been using WordPress 1.5 so this was an upgrade. I followed the upgrading instructions here and it only took about 10 minutes. It would have been quicker but I had to get up to get myself a beverage. I was thirsty.

The WordPress 2.0 admin interface is much better. It’s slicker, quicker, more attractive, and it makes managing themes a snap. I’ll be playing around with it more in the next few days, but for now I can say that WordPress 2.0 has the official Little Toy Robot Seal of Approval.

Started the year out in Atlanta and moved to Chicago, rather unexpectedly, in September.

I took a few trips: northern Alabama (parents), Denver (work), New York (work and fun), and Detroit (twice - work of course).

Five favorite CDs of the year, in no order:
Decemberists - Picaresque
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine
The National - Alligator
The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema

Five favorite movies of the year:
Serenity
Batman Begins
Kung Fu Hustle
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Howl’s Moving Castle

No booklist. I listen to a lot of new music and see some new movies but tend to be slow getting around to new books.

Note that I said “favorite,” not “best.” That’s all I can really lay a claim to.

Why did I stop blogging? I started to get very busy at work, and very lazy at home. Plus, I thought the world was saturated with bloggers. Well, nothing has changed, but ’tis the new year, so let’s give this a shot…

- January
- February
- March
- April
- May
- June
- July
- August
- September
- October
- Novemeber
- December

Yes, I landed (figuratively) in Chicago safe and sound! I am traveling to Denver (”for business,” as us big boys like to say!) next week so the blog will continue to be quiet. But feel free to email me to say hi.

In case any stalkers are interested, there will be a very small, beer-fueled celebration of my upcoming move to Chicago this Saturday, September 10, at Manuel’s Tavern on the corner of North Avenue and N. Highland in Atlanta.

Hey everybody, I’m moving to Chicago later this month!

Dilbert’s funny again today!