At the time of the MLS expansion draft in December, I created a Twitter list (http://bit.ly/unionistas) that hopes to include the various players, coaches and execs that are gettin’ paid, gettin’ paid by Philadelphia Union. How do the various twitter streams stack up? Ranked best to worst, but worst is not really terrible. There are much worse streams in Philly sports (step right up, DeSean Jackson).

1. @Union2010 - The official front office feed. Updated frequently, often has breaking news. Maybe a step ahead of your email account. If you’re not a season ticket holder, this is the best way to get information on the Union.
2. @Tom_Veit - Tom Veit. The team president brings his loquacious personality to Twitter. You may well get heads up on upcoming announcements, such as when Veit hinted at the team’s agreement with 6 ABC before it was announced.
3. @bbknighton - Brad Knighton. Personable, looks to connect with fans. Shows the most potential for amusing his followers, and hopefully can give some insight into his upcoming training camp battle with Chris Seitz and Brian Perk.
4. @dannymwanga - Danny Mwanga. Danny got on to Twitter only after the draft, but he’s already established himself as among the most reliable folks on the team.
5. @speedsalinas11 - Shea Salinas. Hasn’t tweeted in a while, but seems excited about coming to Philly. Apparently unaware that he can tweet from his phone.
6. @amobisays - Amobi Okugo. Just an occasional tweeter, but keeps his followers updated on where he is and what he’s doing. Needs some more pop!
7. @perk89 - Brian Perk. Seems personable. I have no idea if he’s from southern California, but he looks and plays the part in his infrequent tweets. Seems stoked.
8. @nalu10 - Kyle Nakazawa. Still talking about midterms at UCLA (i.e. has not posted since October). I wonder if he finished his degree.
9. @JordanCHarvey - Jordan Harvey. Jordan’s feed is protected. I haven’t had a look.

Looking forward to seeing how these folks develop their direct line of communication with their fans. If you know of other Union personnel who are on twitter, please drop me a line at @rolando.

Is that Bix Beiderbecke?

I hate the default iTunes genres. I have over 100 genres (22,644 tracks). Here are a few.

• Rock: Classic (Rock music that you’d hear on WMMR) - 1307 songs
• Rock: Punk (Cacophonous music from roughly 1976-1980) - 508 songs
• Rock: Post-Punk (1978-1980, all non-American) - 190 songs
• Rock: New Wave (1980-1990, all non-American) - 256 songs
• Rock: Hardcore (all American) - 223 songs
• Rock: College Rock (nearly all American, 1982-1990) - 1050 songs
• Rock: Indie (late ’80s to present) - 3330 songs
• Rock: Alternative (1991-present on a major label) - 1080 songs

This doesn’t count my utterly ridiculous “Auteur” and “Auteuse” (really, douche?) genres, for so-called singer songwriters like Bruce Springsteen and Bryan Adams.

I rawther enjoyed @lbelgray’s post about old-fashioned procrastination, and wanted to share a tip. When I need to write, I shut off my MacBook’s network connection. I can do 99% of my work offline, so I set aside chunks of time for that. When I do it, it works.

A year ago, Everton finished fifth in the Premiership and made it to the FA Cup final. This year, they have stayed in the Europa League, but have been wretched for the first half of the Premier League season, and on Saturday were eliminated from the FA Cup. Nevertheless, with the return of Mikel Arteta from injury, the Everton roster looks far better than it did at the end of last season, when Arteta and Phil Jagielka went out with long term injuries.

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Updated my academic web page. Someday I’ll have more there but for now that will have to do. Tried to make it look like a LaTeX paper.

These are the worst jerseys in the NBA. All these teams have good-to-great historical designs they should use. Do it!

Visualizing my Premiership projection. If I were smart or could suck in data more efficiently, I might make something of this, but instead I’ll continue to overcomplicate the league table by putting it in two dimensions.

Starting from the top right, you find the front runners in the Premier League: Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester Utd. The next group of four seem nearly certain to seal up the rest of the English league’s European places: Tottenham, Aston Villa, Manchester City and Liverpool. Then come the hopeful monsters: Fulham and Birmingham City. The next group of three is Everton, Sunderland and Stoke City. After that, it’s a mess.