Immortal For A Limited Time

I should have posted this over the weekend, but I was slackin': Through tomorrow, Baseball Prospectus is having a free preview. I think this means that if you're interested you can read the articles I've had published there, including:

• My analysis of Pat Burrell's 2003 collapse and 2004 rebound;
• My analysis of spikes in batting average, and
• A brief historical note which appeared in a Prospectus mailbag.

On a related note, I've started listening to the podcasts of Baseball Prospectus Radio via iTunes. Hosted by Will Carroll (BP's injury guru), they're pretty entertaining. They get some good guests - this past week's interview with Dodgers GM Paul Depodesta was a lot of fun. My biggest gripe is that the sound quality is erratic, being solid during the studio talk, but degrading sharply for many of the interviews (even for the in-studio members, as well as folks on the phone). This means frequent volume adjustments while listening.

But hey, it's still a pretty good product for free.

I recently bought an XtremeMac AirPlay FM transmitter for my iPod. I also own a Griffin iTrip, but I've never been that happy with it: First, despite the cleverness of the iTrip technology, using the iPod itself to switch stations is extremely cumbersome. Second, the iTrip is wide enough to cover the "hold" button on my iPod.

The AirPlay fixes both of these problems: It has controls on the device itself to switch stations, and it doesn't cover the hold button. Unfortunately the external controls don't have a "fast-channel-skip" feature where I could hold the button down to cycle quickly through some channels (I tried it - it doesn't work). But other than that, it's just about perfect.

Makes listening to Baseball Prospectus Radio during my work commute pretty easy, actually!

Lastly, tonight I finished up watching the Justice League Unlimited cartoon (here's a decent-looking fan site about the show). It wraps up with a nifty epic focusing on government conspiracies, Leaguer-vs.-Leaguer, Lex Luthor, and a special (though not terribly surprising) guest villain. Impressively, the seeds of the finale were laid two seasons earlier - pretty cool for a cartoon.

The last few episodes focus primarily on Superman, with some Batman and Flash (enough to make me wonder if they're contemplating a Flash animated series next) and Green Arrow, with the final episode, "Epilogue", tying back in to Batman Beyond. It's not a perfect series, and I think they missed some good opportunities for fan geekiness and better storytelling (no Justice Society, a lack of true historical context for the characters, etc.), but it's a fairly good series. If this is the swan song of the animated DC series dating back to the early-90s Batman, then it's been a great run.

Speaking of great runs, it's way past my bedtime. Catch you later!