Link posts are one of those unique little sub-genres that really work on the internet, while being fairly unimaginable and or lame in other mediums. Sure, its an easy way out for the blogger, but they also help  inform people of material that may interest them, which is a legitimate service. Come to think of it, they remind me of the notices and advertisements you used to see in books and magazines, or the sort of review essays and bibliographic notes ("Recent Publications On ... ) in scholarly journals. I read recently that the Internet is like a vast copy-machine, which keeps a copy of everything for a record, but also produces millions of redundant copies for no good reason. In a few days, this very post, in all its rambling irrelevance, will be cached on search engines, it will be linked and copied on various feeds and aggregators and, well, if it was any good, also excerpted and referenced on other sites. While there is something new about all this, especially the fact that most of this is being done without much human effort, its also not quite that new. Meredith McGill has an excellent book called American Literature and the Culture of Reprinting, 1834-53 that describes the way antebellum newspapers and magazines reprinted just about anything they could get their hands on, often only crediting the original source in the most superficial of ways.

Of course, this has all been my way of saying "hey, this links post isn't so bad" which may or may not hold up to scrutiny. The truth is, its been a rough semester for me, trying to juggle teaching and writing my dissertation. (Do you ever get a headache because you've been on the computer too long?) Then there's the ever-present terrible Iowa weather, which throws nice curves at you like being unable to drive for days at a time. To make matters worse, there's all these new Royals blogs popping up, reminding me how much better RR could/should be. Alas, we must slog on and try to do the best we can.

• Mellinger's blog has hit the ground running, and just yesterday featured an interview with Dayton Moore.
• Like, Ball Star, Rany's blog has already established itself as a must-read. Despite dude's status as, umm, a doctor, and his work at BP and elsewhere, he's come out firing with regular updates. Sorta makes my whining seem even more pathetic, right?
• I just checked it for the first time today, but Royally Speaking launched in January and looks good.
• Undying Royalty originates from Minnesota and is another new Royals blog. (My writing has now broken down to complete garbage state, I'm running out of ways to say "here's another").) Given my love of precisely ascertaining the state of the Royals' fanbase, maybe I should talk to this man about how the Royals fare in the land of ten thousand lakes.
• Its a little old, but the Royals Waterfall blog had a nice requiem on Craig Brazell. He could have been my next Justin Huber. (I am seriously considering buying a Huber jersey, especially since its now evident he'll never be a Royal. I know he's not really that good, I acknowledge that. The jersey would, silently, acknowledge that. Still, we're going on what, year three of this little minor drama? I'd hate to let it pass without some ceremonial observance.)
• The baseball Jayhawks? Yea, not getting much love.
• Lookout Landing looks at the Angels, and sees... well, read it to find out.
• From what he wrote today at BP, as well as earlier this month, it looks like Will Carroll will be rocking the Devil Rays fan fest. Given his long standing symbiotic relationship with Jenn Sterger, it seems likely she'll also be there as well. (She was last year at least.) I really like Will, and have something of a good internet-friendship with him, still... yea. I just don't even know. So very odd, at least from the outside... I'm talking about the fact that the Rays even have a fanfest, of course. UPDATE! See the comments on this one.
• For weeks now Viva El Birdos has been simming a tournament featuring the All-Time Cardinals teams. If I was a better blogger I would have set this up for the Royals.
• Luke Zeller is a fairly nondescript player on an OK Notre Dame team. Still, dude's high school career ended in pretty much the most awesome way possible. Well, if you think hitting a half-court shot as time expires with your team down one, to win the Indiana State Title is awesome. (This is not relevant or timely in any way, but the clip is seriously worth watching. Complete with insane, Gus Johnson-esque announcer reaction.) In 7th grade, playing in a muni league (I couldn't make the school team that year, or any other) my squad actually lost in the same fashion, with a kid hitting a half-court shot at the buzzer. Considering those games were all featuring lame, not-good-enough-for-their-schools level players, like me, the games were understandably low-scoring. So nailing a 45 footer to win a game is fairly memorable. I remember crying and feeling horrible, despite the fact I was a total non-factor in the game (I scored maybe 10 points all season). Perhaps this can be a lesson for us: when the Royals lose, even Shane Costa feels sad.
• In between not writing my diss. and not doing blogposts and not being a good teacher, I've been reading a nice little book called, Oh, Mary, This London!. Its about a guy from Ireland trying to make his way in the big city during the swingin' sixties. In many ways I can relate, well except for all the major ones. He does struggle to simply pay the bills and lives in squalor and has to deal with quite a lot of literary posers, and I can identify with all that. It is so wonderful to have a full University library at my disposal however, I love pulling books like this one off the shelves and finding a hidden gem. Oh, Mary, This London! (the title is from an old song apparently) isn't quite as obscure as A Girl With Class was, or is, but its close. Nothing on MLA about it, and barely anything about the author, Michael Campbell, either. If Campbell hadn't written a fairly noteworthy novel with homosexual themes a few years later, I suspect there'd be nothing on him out there.