30 April 2006

Being There

This past week has been somewhat hectic as usual for me. During the week, I've had:

• The usual library work.
• Local library association matters-- attending a meeting and awaiting scholarship applications. I'm on the association's scholarship committee.
• Paying belated dues to the state library association. I normally pay at the state conference, but didn't because it was cancelled due to Katrina.
• Working on getting a conference presentation for the same state library association finalized. It's not quite there yet, but it will be. I need to send an email query, and I'll do that this evening.
• Anime club. The final meeting of the semester was this past Thursday evening.
• Attending a teleconference on Google Book Search.

I'm in Hattiesburg again. I've helped my mother at her shop this weekend. I guess I'm the muscle of the operation. There's some heavy pots, and I get to carry them out. I had the pleasure of carrying out a few particularly heavy pots. I think I'll be calling a masseuse and see if I can get a 30-minute upper body massage this coming week.

Final exams begin soon at the college. I've got to attend some functions in the next few days. There's always book club. Also, there's my college's spring banquet. A co-worker and I are also planning to attend a party sponsored by a local alumni chapter for my alma mater's new president. It should be interesting.

27 April 2006

How does one become a Magical Librarian?

Well, one way might be to first be a library intern at the Conjuring Arts Research Center. Yes, the Conjuring Arts Research Center.

Here's the job notice. Looking at the staff directory: Sadly, no one actually has the title of Magical Librarian, but still...

Hmm... David Blaine's a member of their Board of Directors?

Gasoline Prices & the Economy

CNN has a handy timeline of gas prices when adjusted for inflation since 1945.

The 1986 entry hits home for me:
Saudi Arabia removes caps on production, crude price plummets.

My hometown was at the time (and still is) home to a major oil field in Mississippi. It was one of the top three fields in the state and arguably the number one field.

My hometown was much, much busier though before Saudi Arabia removed the caps on production. With production caps removed, oil exploration in Mississippi became less cost-effective. Now the price of gas is again at a point where some twenty-five years ago oil exploration in Mississippi was cost-effective.

I don't know if exploration will increase in Mississippi, perhaps not. It might be something to consider though.

25 April 2006

Nil-nil to the Arsenal...



The Gunners reach the Champions League finals for the first time in their history-- winning with an aggregate score of 1-0 over Villarreal.

24 April 2006

Edgar Rice Burroughs, Hugh Jackman, & Eugene Levy???

MyHeritage, a new (partially in beta) site, offers the use of face recognition software to help in genealogical research. If you think that's interesting, they also offer a free face recognition scan so you can see which celebrity you resemble.

Well, I tried it (you have to register and upload a picture to get the results), and the results are interesting...

I used four photos:

Photo 1:
Hugh Jackman - 66% (I should have stopped here)
Meat Loaf - 59%
George Michael - 58%
Joschka Fischer - 56%
Dustin Hoffman - 54%
Mustafa Sandal - 52%
Alizee - 52% ???
Hugh Hefner - 51%
Jacques Villenueve - 51%
Celia Cruz - 50% ???

Photo 2:
Edgar Rice Burroughs - 75%
Chaim Herzog - 70%
Omar Bradley - 70%
Alfred Schnittke - 68%
Henry Kissinger - 68%
Alain Delon - 67%
Lou Reed - 67%
Kris Kristofferson - 66%
Leos Janacek - 64%
Grace Kelly - 64% ???

Photo 3:
Eugene Levy - 57%
Luis Buneul - 56%
Jonathan Demme - 54%
P. Diddy - 47% ???
Dean Cain - 46%

Photo 4:
Males:
Viktor Yanukovych - 66%
Kevin Spacey - 53%
Russell Crowe - 52%
Toshiro Mifune - 50%
Eugene Levy - 50% ???
Robert Oppenheimer - 48%
John Logie Baird - 45%

...so Eugene Levy's name appears on two photos, but they're photos where I wore older glasses, so I'm apparently I'm a cross between Eugene Levy, Hugh Jackman, Lou Reed, Henry Kissinger, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and others, including, inexplicably, Grace Kelly...

23 April 2006

MySpace Banned. And the point is?

Del Mar Community College has blocked computers from accessing MySpace.com. And this story made the AP wires? It must be a boring day.

It's not unusual for colleges and schools to ban MySpace. Del Mar banned MySpace because:

An investigation found that heavy traffic at MySpace.com was eating up too much bandwidth, said August Alfonso, the school's chief of information and technology. Forty percent of daily Internet traffic at the college involved the site, he said.

"This was more about us being able to offer Web-based instruction, and MySpace.com was slowing everything down," President Carlos Garcia said.


And, you know, he's right. The college where I work bans MySpace for what I would imagine is similar reasons. There's been discussion about the usefulness of MySpace. The Librarian in Black has had several posts devoted to the topic.

While I like MySpace, I don't know if it's as useful for working as is, say, Yahoo Messenger or AOL Instant Messenger. I see the possibilities, but what happens may not be what is intended, or have consequences that, though they may be unintended, may negatively affect student learning.

Reaction from students at Del Mar is mixed. While Paul Martinez is understanding:

"The library is pretty much full with people on MySpace, and with them banning it you won't have anything to distract you," he said.

Another student, Zeke Santos, is perhaps more disagreeable:

"We pay for school and the resources that are used... It's our choice, we're the ones paying for our classes. If we pass or fail, it's up to us."

Yeah, but it's the college's role to help prepare people for the future. And while MySpace may be cool, if the consequences of high MySpace bandwidth use means that people aren't being helped by the college, then MySpace has to go.

22 April 2006

Earth Day

I spent the day carrying terra cotta pottery sold from my mother's shop to peoples' motor vehicles. I'll be doing that again tomorrow.

21 April 2006

Frank Melton, Part III

Here's the third part of the Jackson Free Press interviews with Frank Melton.

Lazy Friday

I'm at my mother's house in Canebrake. The past few days have been pretty hectic. Between the end-of-the-semester reports, homework, essays, and tests, news concerning our library consortium, and my continued adjustment to being a morning person, it's been busy.

I've mentioned before that I'm faculty sponsor of the college's Anime Club. We met last night. One of the students brought a DVD of episodes based on novels and manga from Read or Die.



I found the idea of the British Library as kind of a mix of MI5 and MI6 to be amusing-- not to mention the idea of a library having a Special Operations Division. I may just have to buy the manga.

18 April 2006

The Dead White Male of the Month


Paul Revere

17 April 2006

Pulitzer Prizes Announced

The Times-Picayune and the Sun Herald won Pulitzer Prizes for Public Service for their coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

The Clarion-Ledger was a finalist in two categories: Jerry Mitchell for Beat Reporting and Marshall Ramsey for Editorial Cartooning. The Sun Herald was also a finalist for Editorial Writing.

16 April 2006

Fever Pitch

In the Summer of 1994, I was a graduate student at USM participating in the Austrian Studies and British Studies programs.

I was in Europe for two months. I saw the US lose to Brazil 1-0 on July 4 at a restaurant in Vienna.

About a week later, many of the people who were involved in the Austrian Studies program flew to London. I participated in classes. I did some research at the Public Record Office.

I also had some fun. I got to go to Scotland and see where my family came from.

I also got a chance to see some soccer friendlys. One of the professors at USM, Frank Glamser (on the left), encouraged a group of students to attend Makita Cup matches at at Highbury.

I enjoyed the atmosphere. I saw Arsenal, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, and Napoli play. By the time the Makita Cup ended, I was a Gooner.

I've been following the Gunners ever since-- mostly via the Internet. Sometimes I get to see them play on one of the cable channels here in the US.

A few months later, a fellow grad student made me aware of Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch. I first read it either late in 1994 or early 1995.

I found it fascinating. I didn't know much about the club's history or what it felt like to be a fan of Arsenal. I still don't. Not having been brought up in the culture of soccer. I know, I know-- it's football, but I'm an American, so we're stubborn like this.

I've been happy when Arsenal won the Premier League. I was sad when the Gunners lost the Cup Winners Cup in 1995.

I'm rooting for Arsenal in their matches against Villareal. I also hope they get to fourth place in the league-- knocking out Spurs. I don't see back-to-back Champions League wins by English clubs.

Some eleven years after I first read Fever Pitch, I reread it. When I first read it, I had no idea who Nick Hornby was. He's a little bit better known now.

Still when most Americans think of Fever Pitch, they think of the baseball movie.

Now that I know a little bit more about the history of Arsenal, I've gotten to appreciate it a little bit more. I've not had a chance to go back to London since 1994. I won't see a match at Highbury before it closes for good. I'd like to get a jersey. I'll need to buy one.

Someday. Again. Perhaps at Emirates someday.

A Feast for Crows

I finally got a chance to read the book. I purchased it with a gift certficate I had received as a Christmas present from a co-worker. It's a surprisingly quick read. I didn't know what to expect, but I liked what I read considering the structure of this book.

I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.

15 April 2006

Pottery & Pork

I've been at my mother's house just outside Hattiesburg since Thursday evening. The college didn't have classes yesterday, and it was a school holiday, which meant that I didn't have to be at work.

While I'm here, I'm helping her at her shop. I've mentioned previously that she's opened up a new business-- she's selling pottery and other garden-type stuff. It's in a new-- I hesitate to say strip mall because there's not many shops-- building, and her business is the first to open. It's also the first with electricity, air conditioning, and water. Phone lines haven't been installed yet though, but they will be.

Yesterday I helped a little with arranging the pottery, etc. Today, I helped out at the shop-- mostly providing musclepower, but also doing some selling.

She's had advertisements aired on the radio as well as print ads in her local paper. People have been paying attention to them, which is good for her.

After we closed for the day, she drove to the house. I went to Leatha's and bought two small pork rib plates and one pulled pork plate to go. While some of my fellow alumni from Mississippi State believe that Little Dooey has the best Mississippi barbecue, I've got to give the nod to Leatha's.

14 April 2006

Anansi Boys, Uncle Remus, & Song of the South...

I finally finished reading Anansi Boys today. Finally, time to get some pleasure reading done after working for months on the Project.

Having previously read American Gods, I'd been looking forward to Anansi Boys, and I wasn't disappointed. Definitely recommended. I liked the characters of Fat Charlie and Spider.

Incidentally, I dug up a little information on Anansi. I didn't know that Anansi stories were part of African-American folktales that Joel Chandler Harris was successful in popularizing in his Uncle Remus stories.

The stories were later adapted to film by Walt Disney. I remember seeing the movie when it was last re-released in the US 20 years ago. According to Disney CEO Robert Iger, it won't be re-released in the US anytime in the near future because of "the sensitivity that exists in our culture."

Now, on to A Feast for Crows.

13 April 2006

If you don't tell me how to drop laser-guided missiles, I won't try to tell you how to run a library.

I earned two degrees from Mississippi State University. A retired four-star general will assume the presidency of MSU next week. Here's a Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal article on Robert Foglesong.

I'm amused with what he said when he visited Mitchell Memorial Library earlier this week:

If you don't tell me how to drop laser-guided missiles, I won't try to tell you how to run a library.

I still prefer this Robert Ingersoll quote, which I've been using as this blog's epigraph:

Every library is an arsenal.

That doesn't mean that I'll salute General Foglesong when I meet him. Heh.

Frank Melton, Part II

Here's the second part of the Jackson Free Press interview with Frank Melton. Also, here's an article devoted to to ride-alongs with Melton.

Interesting reading, to say the least.

12 April 2006

At Swim-Two-Birds

My book club read At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien. We had our last @S-2-B meeting last night.

When we were reading Under the Volcano I stated that I was probably going to choose something more comedic. A few days later, Time magazine comes out with its 100 greatest novels list.

Lev Grossman noted that Dylan Thomas had said that @S-2-B "is just the book to give your sister if she's a loud, dirty, boozy girl." When I saw that blurb, I was intrigued enough to put it on my shortlist and subsequently have decided to select it.

I had thought that because this book is not particularly long that there would be three meetings. However, @S-2-B is not divided into chapters. Chapter I is the whole book; however, O'Brien provided some convenient stopping places. One problem I found out with the book that rereading is often necessary.

I had hoped that the last meeting would be on April 1, so that we could raise some pints in honor of the author on the fortieth anniversary of his death. However, with us being busy people meant that the proposed schedule didn't turn out to be as I had planned. That's ok. Plans go awry. I liked the romantic notion of toasting the author on the anniversary of his death. It didn't happen, but that's life.

Some things that came up in the course of reading @S-2-B. One question that came up was "Who is Finn MacCool?" Finn is a character in the book. And as also noted, he also appears in Finnegans Wake. Hopefully, the link will help shed a little light about Finn MacCool. King Sweeney also was a character.

In the course of doing some research, I found out about a German language movie version of @S-2-B. You can find out more about In Schwimmen-zwei-Vögel at the film company's website.

Incidentally, I also found out that Brendan Gleeson had recently said in an interview that he is adapting the book as a screenplay.

At the Edison Walthall bar, we had a good meeting. The conversation was great. Cotton was tending the bar, and there was a run on Bass by many of the PBCS. There were still some things that needed to be cleared up. First, the Greek phrase at the beginning of @S-2-B is a quote from Euripides' "The Madness of Hercules."

All things pass and give way to one another.

Fortunately Dylan, who has a minor in Latin, was a big help today in translating.

As previously mentioned I chose @S-2-B thanks largely to Dylan Thomas's blurb. I had said I wanted to choose something different.

It's certainly a different book. It's playful. The way O'Brien writes. I couldn't help but laugh.

One final thought, and something that came up in conversation last night... Trellis' final pondering: Ars est celare artem.

True art is to conceal art.

As far as the possible pun is concerned, just consider what Trellis was doing at the time...

11 April 2006

Connections and Reconnections

It's 11:45 p.m. and I'm feeling better.

I don't know if it's still the after-effects of the massage I had yesterday afternoon or having fun with friends at book club tonight. Perhaps both.

It's only Tuesday, but this week has been pretty hectic. Today was my long day at the reference desk. Not too bad really, but there's some things I wanted to get done in the office, but couldn't.

The monthly department head meeting was today. I wasn't at the meeting. My position would be considered one level below that of department head.

It's the usual thing that happens here at the library at this time of the year. The semester will be ending soon, so there are students studying more intensely than before, getting their essays ready, preparing their speeches, and, of course, the socializing.

The library at the college is very much a social place.

We have wireless. As far as I know, we're the only building on campus that is wireless. We have students here who conduct research on their computers, and we have students who play games on their computers.

Yesterday I received an email via a mailing list I subscribe to regarding this open position. I have a serials background & possess the qualifications needed to apply, but won't.

I like the flexibility of my position. I coordinate serials, am in charge of reference, do interlibrary loan, and request books for my campus. I do a lot, which is good. When I arrived at the college a little over five years ago, my duties were more confined, and after a while, I felt a bit trapped. I'm not nearly as trapped now as far as my work as a librarian is concerned.

As previously mentioned though, I do wish to teach history classes again as an adjunct.

My immediate supervisor also emailed me about the previously mentioned open position. We communicated back and forth about this position and how she wished that our former LTA was still here.

Apparently the LTA had been wondering why serials was so important. I have to admit that when I came to the college straight from a public library where I had started my post-MLS career, I didn't initially realize their importance to college libraries either. Realization, as you might expect, was quick to arrive.

I like to follow the news. I saw a link to a video feed on CNN about this lawsuit. Sid Salter has also made mention of it in his blog. The interesting thing is that this is the first time that the federal government is using the Voting Rights Act to allege racial discrimination against caucasians.

When he was The Intern for Bill Simmons on espn.com, I enjoyed reading and perusing the links that interested Kevin Cott. This morning, this video link was posted in the comments section. If you're in your 30s and like baseball, I believe you might find it to be as hilarious as I did. I email it to a few friends.

This afternoon, I'm checking in magazines. With the LTA gone and another person out sick, they've got to be processed, and so it's me. I'm checking in this month's edition of ABA Journal, and I'm looking for the issue number to confirm that I am checking in the intended issue.

I thumb through the pages searching. I glance at the letters to the editor, and I see G's name-- a friend from my undergrad days. We had a few classes together. After G earned his undergrad degree, he went to Harvard to get his law degree. I'd not heard from him in years. After a brief google search, I send G an e-mail.

My workday is soon over. I head to the house, relax for a bit, and then get ready for book club. I check my work email one last time and see that I've got an email response from G. He asks what's up-- and it's pretty open-ended, so I elect to wait to respond until tomorrow morning.

I get to the car where I had left my cellphone. I notice I have some phone calls-- all from C. C & I were undergrads at MSU at the same time. He tells me that he's sent the video link to practically his entire mailing list-- and that's a lot of people. He mentions that a mutual friend, B, might get a kick out of it too. I believe I still have B's email address-- we were in a yahoo fantasy football league a couple years ago.

C was also a college friend of G-- even more so than me. If I recall correctly, C originally introduced me to him. One semester later, G & I were in the same section of a class. I had sent C an email about the letter to the editor and the response. C tells me to say hi for him, and I will.

Off to bed. I have to open up the library tomorrow morning.

10 April 2006

My Right Shoulder

My right shoulder's been hurting for the past couple months. Last week, my right arm was tingling. I called up one of my co-workers yesterday to ask for masseuse recommendations. She gave me a couple names, and I called one.

I set up an appointment for today just before I went in to work. That hour was definitely worth it.

My right arm's not tingling anymore. I plan to head back because there's only so much that could be done in an hour.

I'll be helping my mother at her shop this Easter Weekend. I have the feeling I'll be carrying pots, which will likely necessitate another visit to the massage therapist.

08 April 2006

Housekeeping...

Surfing through the web today, I clicked on Gareth's blog and wandered around a bit before getting to The Hot Librarian's blog. I noticed the way her blog is organized, and, well, I am a pack rat when it comes to adding blogs and web sites, so I borrowed her way of setting up a blogroll and adapted it for my purposes. I think it looks only slightly contrived.

Edit: 09 April 2006 - I did some more editing, and it looks a little less contrived-- not to mention cleaner.

07 April 2006

The Frank Melton Interview

I like to read the Jackson Free Press. The JFP has posted part one of its interview with Jackson's mayor. Interesting reading.

I'm interested because even though I don't live in Jackson-- I live less than a mile from the city-- whatever happens in Jackson has an effect on what happens elsewhere in Hinds County as well as Madison and Rankin counties.

One thing I've noticed while on the job...

One of my responsibilities is interlibrary loan. There's a library here in Mississippi (I'll refer to it as Library Z) that when we receive a request for a journal article via interlibrary loan it's usually also available electronically via MAGNOLIA-- Mississippi's statewide consortium. I've not counted how often Library Z has sent requests that could be filled via MAGNOLIA, but it happens at least once a month-- maybe even twice a month-- for the past year or so.

Lately, I've been sending Library Z persistent hyperlinks to the articles in the conditional lending notes. There have been other libraries that have sent ILL requests for articles that were available electronically. When I've sent the links to the records, those libraries have made sure to see if the articles can be gotten through MAGNOLIA or other databases first before sending ILL requests. It sometimes makes me wonder when will Library Z follow suit...

05 April 2006

Peabody Awards

WLOX has won a Peabody for its Katrina coverage. The ABC station in Biloxi stayed on the air despite its roof being blown off. WWL in New Orleans was also similarly recognized.

My mother has decided to go back into business...

My mother has always been the social type. She likes being out and about. She doesn't get the chance to do that as often as she did.

Some eight years ago, she started selling these:



Yep. Beanie babies. She started selling them about two years after my father was defeated for re-election for supervisor in Jasper County. She and my father had started off by going to fairs and festivals then they opened a shop in Laurel.

They then moved the shop to Turtle Creek Mall in Hattiesburg, where it had been until mid-2004.

My mother also opened up kiosks at Northpark, Bonita Lakes in Meridian (if I recall correctly), as well as Tuscaloosa. She began cutting back on the non-Hattiesburg shops a year before my father died.

She kept up the kiosk in Hattiesburg for about a year after my father died-- selling beanie babies for about seven years and doing pretty well at it.

Now, she wants to get back into retail again.

No, not beanie babies this time.

Pottery.

It looks like I'll be helping her some on weekends again much in the same way I helped out with the beanie babies.

04 April 2006

I am not a morning person...

One of my library's technical assistants is no longer working here. The LTA had earned an MLS in the past year and found it difficult to find a library position locally. The LTA began working here in July, but the 150-plus-mile commute apparently was too much.

Friday was the LTA's last day on the job.

In the meantime, I agreed to come in to work at 7:30 on Wednesdays and Thursdays to open up the library. I already come in at 7:30 on Tuesdays. I am so not a morning person.

I am barely functional until I have a couple cups of coffee. I'm on my first cup of coffee at the moment. I'll get my second cup later this morning-- perhaps in an hour.

Now, my library has a job opening for a library technical assistant. Fortunately, we can advertise for this position. We'll see what happens. The New LTA had better be a morning person.

03 April 2006

34

It's after midnight. I'm watching the Chicago White Sox play the Cleveland Indians on TV.

My father would have been 81 years old today. He died not quite three years ago.

When I wished him a happy birthday in years past, it always seemed that he smiled all the time when I wished him a happy birthday. Now, I'm remembering his smile.

Happy Birthday Dad.

02 April 2006

Saving Daylight

I'm in Hattiesburg. Well, Canebrake, to be precise. I'm visiting my mother.

I drove down here via Heidelberg this afternoon. I had a couple of errands to do today.

I had a decent weekend I believe. I spent the time relaxing and sleeping. I even did a little cleaning-- a little.

I thought about going to Crossroads, but I was just too tired Thursday & wanted to relax Friday and Saturday. After the goings on of this winter, I needed a little relaxation.

I went to Hal & Mal's Friday and Saturday nights. I also went to Don's. I listened to The Hong Kong perform. I'm pretty oblivious about them. I don't know who they are, but they sound good, but then I have a thing for rock bands with a female lead singer. Especially good singers. I bought one of their CDs.

I also renewed my Crossroads membership. I like to try to support the society even though I don't get a chance to see any of the movies on Monday nights. Sadly, I work on those nights. C'est la vie.

Saturday night, I was at Hal & Mal's and this very inebriated woman has the dancing jones.

Afrosippi is performing. I recognized one of the performers, but couldn't remember from where. Scott Albert Johnson mentioned that he was Jimbo Mathus who also performed with Burnside Exploration. He also mentioned if I recall correctly that one of the people also was in the Taylor Grocery Band. I remarked that they just needed Kenny Kimbrough on the drums, and SAJ said that he was on the drums, which prompted me to do a doubletake.

Kenny had a cap and an African printish-type outfit on-- not something I've seen him wear in his previous drumming gigs that I've witnessed-- and I've seen him perform previously with a few bands including Burnside Exploration, Taylor Grocery Band, and as the drummer for Slick Ballinger at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art's Blues Bash a few years previously.

She dances by herself. She tries to get other guys to dance-- including a guy whose wife wasn't reacting too well to her efforts. Everyone else at that table was laughing.

Finally, I decided, what the heck. She wants to dance? She'll dance, then. I got her hand and twirled her around, and we danced for a few minutes.

I relaxed for a little while & then headed over to Don's. I was disappointed I didn't see Richard Johnston perform, but then again, the last time I saw him perform, I totaled my car the next day. I left Don's at 1:45. I made it back to the house at 3:05. Thank you, Daylight Savings.

01 April 2006

The 2006 Gashouse Gorillas

My yahoo league had its draft Tuesday evening, which is book club night for me, so I let the computer draft the players for me. I think the computer did a good job. I was assigned the second pick in the first round, which also means I got the next-to-last pick in the second round.

The first round selection:


Albert Pujols, 1B, Cardinals


The second round pick:


Roy Oswalt, SP, Astros


The third round pick:


José Reyes, SS, Mets


The fourth round pick:


Richie Sexson, 1B, Mariners


The fifth round pick:


Randy Johnson, SP, Yankees


The sixth round pick:


Félix Hernández, SP, Mariners


The seventh round pick:


Andy Pettitte, SP, Astros


The eighth round pick:


John Patterson, SP, Nationals


The ninth round pick:


Eddie Guardado, RP, Mariners


The tenth round pick:


Rickie Weeks, 2B, Brewers


The eleventh round pick:


Matt Holliday, LF, Rockies


The twelfth round pick:


Brian Fuentes, RP, Rockies


The thirteenth round pick:


Willy Taveras, CF, Astros


The fourteenth round pick:


Shea Hillenbrand, 3B, Blue Jays


The fifteenth round pick:


Brady Clark, CF, Brewers


The sixteenth round pick:


J.D. Drew, RF, Dodgers


The seventeenth round pick:


Mike Piazza, C, Padres


The eighteenth round pick:


Javier Vázquez, SP, White Sox


The nineteenth round pick:


Sean Casey, 1B, Pirates


The twentieth round pick:


Brandon McCarthy, SP, White Sox


The 21st round pick:


Kenny Lofton, CF, Dodgers


The 22nd round pick:


José Vidro, 2B, Nationals


The 23rd round pick:


Justin Duchscherer, RP, Athletics


Three Astros. Three Mariners. Two Brewers. Two Dodgers. Two Nationals. Two Rockies. Two White Sox. No Cubs. It looks like a pretty decent draft for me. I've already gotten a trade offer for Pujols and Oswalt, which I rejected earlier this afternoon.