Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

Roger Answers Your Questions, Eddie and Nik

Nik is a relative stranger in a strange, kiwi-infested land.

Who is your favorite historical figure?
Oh, I have no idea; it changes all the time. Right now, I’m rather keen on Thurgood Marshall, who was counsel for the NAACP in the Brown vs. Board of Education case before he ended up on the Supreme Court.

What one country have you always wanted to visit?
There are so many. I’ll pick Japan because it intrigues me the most.

What’s your favorite kind of candy bar?
Mounds. Mmmm, coconut.

Do you like my new haircut?
You’ve never looked better.

I tend to give Eddie a difficult time for the sometimes large chunks of time between posts, yet he asks me questions anyway:

Aside from Paula Abdul, what other dark musical secrets does your collection hide? Milli Vanilli? David Lee Roth? Ratt? Hanson? Mariah Carey?
I don’t really know what constitutes “dark musical secrets”. Of the ones listed: no; one with Van Halen; no; 1 song on a compilation disc; yes-a greatest hits CD.

Has Lydia picked up any habits at school that you and Carol don’t approve of? How do you handle it?
Not really. We’re trying to make sure she’s being assertive enough. There was a brief time a while ago when a boy in her class was trying to bully her, and she was too acquiescent, but that seems to have passed. She does say, “Eeew, gross!”, which I figure she got from another student.

What are you reading right now? (That’s my favorite question to ask people.)
Shrub by the late Molly Ivins.

And speaking of Bush, let me pose a question to you all. In Salon magazine Glenn Greenwald, in an excerpt of his new book, “A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency,” says: “One of the principal dangers of vesting power in a leader who is convinced of his own righteousness — who believes that, by virtue of his ascension to political power, he has been called to a crusade against Evil — is that the moral imperative driving the mission will justify any and all means used to achieve it.” So the question is: Has the President been corrupted to do evil while trying to good, or as a friend posits:
“Call me cynical, or whatever, but I don’t believe for one nanosecond that Bush and his handlers believe in good and/or evil. They want power and control and empire. The only good they believe in is what’s good for them. As far as I can see, they have achieved the degree of power that they have because so few people recognize just how base are their motives.”
I actually know one of the 26% or 28% who support GWB, and it’s because he’s “a Christian man.” I swear to Rudy. So, since he’s “a Christian man,” the things he does, from the war to stem cell restrictions, are “Christian” position. If you’ve read this blog before, you know: 1) I’m a Christian, and 2) this logic REALLY hurts my head.

ROG

The Great 28

Twenty-eight years ago today, Lynn Moss made an honest man out of Fred Hembeck, a story he’s written about here (June 23), here (June 23), here, and ESPECIALLY here. Kudos to you both. Go to Fred’s MySpace blog and send them your best wishes.
***
And speaking of Mr. Hembeck, he e-mailed to remind me that Paul, Ringo, Yoko and Olivia are set to appear on Larry King’s CNN show June 26 (9 pm Eastern, 8pm Central) to discuss the first anniversary of Cirque de Soleil’s Fab-inspired “Love” show. Incidentally, my wife went to the Cirque de Soleil show “Delirium” this week in Albany with a friend of hers, while I stayed home with Lydia. She said it was very good, but that she needed to watch some more MTV or something, because of all the frenetic movement.
***
The other music-related thing I’ll be taping this week is “Paul Simon: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song”. On my local PBS station, it airs Wednesday at 9 pm, and features a bunch of folks singing the songs of Simon. It was taped last month.
***
I’ve never golfed in my life, yet I was intrigued by last weekend’s piece in the Wall Street Journal, The Problem With ‘Par’; If players at this weekend’s U.S. Open can’t hit the target score, who can? by John Paul Newport (June 16, 2007). Specifically, this paragraph:
“The notion of par has always been somewhat mushy, and is further confused by the word’s other English-language usages. In most PGA Tour events, for instance, subpar scores are par for the course. Unless, of course, a pro is feeling physically subpar, in which case he might shoot above par. On the other hand, only amateurs with decidedly above-par skills can ever hope to post subpar scores.”
***
If I lived in the Los Angeles area, I think I would apply for this job out of sheer curiosity:

The following position is available at E! Networks:
Job Title: Researcher
Organization: Research
City: Los Angeles
State: CA
Full-time position with benefits providing research, public records and ready reference.

Description: Provide entertainment research in support of all Comcast Entertainment Group units (E!, Style, G4, E! Online, International) including the following:
* Supply in-depth story and background research to assist writers and production staff.
* Locate court documents for legal backup.
* Access public records to locate individuals and track assets.
* Review copyright and trademark records to establish ownership and locate rights holders.
* Answer “ready reference” questions.
* Vet scripts for accuracy and perform fact checking.
* Help maintain both conventional and digital archives and databases.
Skills: College degree required; experience working in a library, archive or research setting; excellent organizational skills; extensive understanding of online databases, particularly Lexis/Nexis; excellent writing, spelling and grammatical skills; ability to work well under pressure; interest or experience working in the entertainment field a plus.
E! Networks is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

Contact Gina Handsberry at E! Entertainment. Please direct all inquiries to her at ghandsberry@eentertainment.com. She writes, on a listserv I access:
“This is not a media research position (i.e., we do not analyze Nielsen data). Rather, it is a show research position (we provide content research for the programs on the network) and would be well suited for a librarian, information professional, or anyone who has experience doing research for journalistic endeavors. It’s not an easy position to fill, so I thought a post here couldn’t hurt!”
ROG

ROG

THE MORTAL SIN of blogging

…is to blog about blogging.
What's My Blog Rated? From Mingle2 - Online Dating

Mingle2 – Online Dating

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:
* dead (6x) * gay (3x) * death (1x)

There’s a guy I know who was wondering about whether he should start a second blog, one for his librarian side and another for his more frivolous self; evidently, he went the dual route. He said the latter blog would be the one that he might show to a prospective employer. I noted that said prospective employer could easily find his other blog as well.

I’ve found articles that indicate that many blogs are temporarily or permanently abandoned. But I was curious how many folks have multiple blogs. I know Greg has his main site and his daughters’ site. Some others as well. When I toyed with having my blog hosted with, as someone might say, the evil Hearst Times Union, the guy in charge of the blogs said I had two blogs in my blog, one with Lydia, and one with everything else; I disagree. For me, it’s all one life continuum. Yet, Greg’s division works for him, and me.

Or I always think I have the one blog. There’s also the one where I post articles that interest me, but that’s just to fuel the main blog; oh, the picture I posted there I did by following these directions. And I don’t have time to do another real blog, though I contribute to my work blog. I had so much factoid stuff that I helped set up the New York State Data Center Affiliate blog. And I started the Friends of the Albany Public Library blog, but that’s pretty topic-specific.

So, I only have the one blog. Or two. Or five. All active, i.e. updated within the last week.

Which reminds me of a reference question I had last month. The guy asked, among several other questions, how many blogs there would be in five years. How the heck would I know? I noted that, hey, maybe people will get off blogging by then. He wrote back and asked why I thought so:

“It’s not that I have any special insight that blogs will go away. It’s that by the time I embrace a technology, it’s usually a sign that the technology is on its last legs. That’s slightly cheeky, but not entirely. I’m not what you would call an early adopter, so I figure if *I* can do it, it’s on its way out. Sort of how Marvel Comics came out with a character called the Disco Dazzler around 1980 (to their credit, they DID drop the Disco just before its release.)”

My mantra: when everyone else has moved onto podcasts and videocasts and whatever the next technological breakthrough will be, I’ll probably be one of the dinosaurs still blogging.
***
Alan David Doane is BACK! After poking his head out on Groundhog’s Day, he started writing a bit in April and May, but in June, he’s posted with a vengeance (sometimes literally). He even cited, ahem, me. Welcome back, ADD. Those 75 historic e-mails were kind of interesting – except for the weird one about time zones – but I’m glad they’ve stopped.
***
Oh, and I seemed to have inspired Mr. Hembeck, who, in his June 20 post managed to evoke Brian Wilson and a fairly obscure former member of the New York Mets. It even makes sense, in that Hembeckian sort of way. Here’s Fred’s rating:
What's My Blog Rated? From Mingle2 - Online Dating

Mingle2 – Online Dating

No bad words were found.

ROG

ROG

Nik Experiences the New Zealand Winter

One of the great things about knowing people who live in other places is that you get perspectives from those other people. For instance, I’d be inclined to say, today is the first day of summer. Or not. But Nik, who I should note I’ve never met personally, only through his writings, is an expat American about to experience winter in the Southern Hemisphere.

Which is a roundabout way of saying: it’s time for my summer/winter solstice edition of (drum roll, please)… Ask Roger Anything, in which you can, well, query myself, er, about any topic. Ask me about the two times I got to shake Nelson Rockefeller’s hand or how many Supreme Court justices I’ve met, or anything about sports or race or politics or religion or music or television or being a librarian. Well, anything except the Dewey Decimal System; that’s as deep dark secret.

You may ask a maximum of 16 questions apiece, except for Gordon, who can ask as many as he wants; bring ’em on, Piscean!

But DON’T ask me bizarro trivia questions, such as the one I saw on Ken Jennings’ blog this month:

Consider the universe of baseball statistics. Forget about ones that are averages, and thus a player’s score can go up or down over time — batting average, ERA, slugging percentage, and the like. Focus on the ones that accumulate. Also, forget about statistics that nobody tracks, like ground rule doubles in extra innings under a full moon on astroturf. Stay with statistics that people have actually heard of.

Now consider that among such statistics there’s the concept of one category being a special case of another. If you do one, you necessarily do the other, but not vice versa (otherwise two statistics would be called “synonyms”). A perfect game is a special case of a no-hitter. A double is a special case of a hit. An at-bat is a special case of a plate appearance. A save is a special case of a game played, but a hit is not because you can have any number of hits in a game.

At last, the question. There are two statistics, one of which is a special case of the other. The career leaders in the two categories — the guys who did each the most times — are different men with the same first and middle names. Who are they?

Oy. I barely understood the QUESTION, let alone had any idea what the answer was.

Anyway,

the

answer

is

Henry Louis (Hank) Aaron holds the record for career home runs (755) and Henry Louis (Lou) Gehrig holds the record for career grand slam home runs (23).

Of course, Barry Bonds is in a well-publicized pursuit of Aaron’s record (currently at 748), and Manny Ramirez, last I checked, stood at 20 Grand Slams. Bonds, BTW, is the career leader of a statistic with his initials: Bases on Balls.

So don’t ask me questions like that.

ROG
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