Thursday, January 15, 2026
I started 2026 with two books that were recommended from a couple sources I trust. With mixed results. American Sky - James Grady This novel landed on the best non-fiction list of Steve Donoghue, a poster of tremendous and voluminous year end lists. Thus I was really excited to get to it, described as a muscular, coming-of-age story. It left me wanting. The story follows Luc, a young man growing up in Montana, from roughly 1963 to 1970.
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
A very good Tuesday night in our house. First, the Irish began the City tournament with an expectedly easy, 33-point win. Next, as a nice surprise, KU pounded previously unbeaten Iowa State. Can’t ask for a better evening than that. Rather than dive into those games, I’ll instead share a post I’ve been sitting on for nearly two weeks. I really should have posted it on a weekend, as most of it is rather out-of-date.
Monday, January 12, 2026
CFP My goodness! I expected IU to beat Oregon. But like that? A complete ass kicking, the type you expect Alabama or Georgia or Ohio State to put on some feel-good-story team that got a bunch of breaks and stumbled into the playoffs? No, no way could the Hoosiers do that to the Ducks, a team loaded with five star recruits and future NFL players. Yet they did. Without much effort, it seemed.
Friday, January 9, 2026
Every four weeks for the past four months I’ve shared some brief thoughts about the NFL season. The common theme was I had no idea what was going on, as teams took turns looking good for 2–3 games then looking terrible. Following that trend, as I look at the playoff bracket, I am befuddled. How the hell am I supposed to have confidence in anyone from this group of teams? There isn’t a single one that doesn’t have at least one major question.
Friday, January 9, 2026
[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1khaUmcFyoxiQgYpkKT6w2?si=e785712237c44101) “Gold Paint For Blue Skies” - Peter Matthew Bauer Former Walkmen lead singer Hamilton Leithauser released an excellent album almost exactly a year ago. Here his former bandmate’s latest sounds like it easily could have been a Walkmen song. I can’t help but wonder what it would sound like with Leithauser on vocals. “Rule 31” - Radio Free Alice I love this band’s name, harkening to clandestine shortwave stations of ages past.
Thursday, January 8, 2026
A wild couple nights of basketball that included three extra periods to resolve two games. Because of that, a rare mash-up of college and high school notes. Jayhawk Talk From the verge of a disastrous 0–2 Big 12 start to an exhilarating win that didn’t really answer the questions thanks to a pretty amazing three minutes Tuesday night. KU’s defense completely fell apart in the second half, giving TCU layups and wide open 3’s, which the Frogs refused to miss.
Wednesday, January 7, 2026
My final four books of 2025, which ended up being my most prolific reading year on record. Appropriately, and I’m not making this up, I read 67 books last year. Honest to God! SIX SEVEN!!!! Cross, Sanctuary, The Devil - Ken Bruen Three more entries in Bruen’s brilliant Jack Taylor series, read over roughly a week. Somehow they are getting even darker, with a terrific twist in Taylor’s life thrown into this set.
Tuesday, January 6, 2026
A few more catch up posts I need to crank through before we officially turn our backs on the old year. The final quarter of 2025 ended up being my worst workout stretch of the year. Not a huge surprise, as the weather turned, I had a couple weeks of foot pain, I spent several days shuttling C back-and-forth as she battled her mystery illness,[1] and then the holidays hit. My longest stretch of not breaking a sweat before December was three days.
Monday, January 5, 2026
Shut down the blog for nearly two weeks and there’s a lot to catch up on. I’m sure none of you want to get back to work anyway, so consider this a public service on my part. Holiday Stuff It was your standard Christmas around our house. I spent nearly all Christmas Eve day prepping, making five casseroles for Christmas Day plus baked beans to take to our Christmas Eve gathering.
Friday, January 2, 2026
The Usual Suspects Elf Christmas Vacation A Christmas Story A+, A+, A+ Holiday Baking Championship Well, they did it. After how ever many years of watching these holiday baking shows - at least a decade - the Food Network finally drove me away. Following the semi-debacle that was this year’s Halloween Baking Championship, I was hoping things would return to normal for Christmas. Alas, based on the first episode it seemed like it had also been hammered into stupidity by the producers.
Friday, January 2, 2026
[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6tvtOhBpV86iwslJC9dDey?si=bf12d86559754283) “The New Year’s Resolution” - Spielbergs I made just one resolution this year, and I already broke it. Such is life. “Fighting Back” - Voxtrot Voxtrot had a little moment during the blog rock era in the 2000s. Next month they will release their first album in 19 years. On this lead single they sound like they haven’t missed a beat in their time away. “Day In The Sun (Gettin’ wit U)” - De La Soul, Q-Tip & Yummy
Wednesday, December 31, 2025
For my readers who have followed me here for years - thank you all! - you know my brain works in very linear/circular ways.[1] I’m very into the rhythms of the year: the flow from week-to-week, the changing of the seasons, when school begins and ends, etc. Something was ingrained in my brain when I was young, or perhaps I was just born that way. Regardless, the end of one calendar year and the beginning of the next has always struck me as an Event, even if we rarely actually celebrate the actual arrival of the New Year anymore.
Monday, December 29, 2025
Once again we have reached the end of a calendar year and one of the greatest days of the blogging year: the unveiling of my favorite songs of 2025. This year the process was as fun as I can recall. As you know, I keep a running list throughout the year, constantly shuffling songs in and out as they catch my fancy. When fall arrived this year I wasn’t really sure about the songs I had stashed away for the final evaluation.
Tuesday, December 23, 2025
Time to close up Ye Olde Blogge Shoppe for the Christmas holiday. To celebrate I’m going to offer a playlist I last shared a couple years back that features some of my favorite Christmas music deep cuts. Some of these are fun, some are wonderful, all of them are terrific. Merry Christmas to all my readers! [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2ePGgAHss85zKUcdlV9ZyS?si=ed2b0abae2c94a77)
Monday, December 22, 2025
A relatively chill weekend for us without any of our football teams playing and no KU basketball. Power Out Friday morning I was jolted out of bed around 5:30 when high winds sent a tree or branch into a power line located a couple hundred feet from our back windows. The sky lit up with all the fun colors that electricity can produce. Luckily our power just blinked for a moment then functioned as normal.
Friday, December 19, 2025
I am putting the finishing touches on my Favorite Songs of 2025 list. Not sure if it will get posted before or after Christmas, but it is getting very close, my friends! For this week’s playlist I’ll share the songs that were in the running for the final list but just missed. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2KMNrynzoqZd7f55r8npoJ?si=3493579c5e214f54) “Afraid Of Guns” - Motorbike Best new music from Cincinnati I heard this year.
Wednesday, December 17, 2025
Chart Week: December 11, 1982 Song: “The Look Of Love (Part 1)” - ABC Chart Position: #20, 14th week on the chart. Peaked at #18 for three weeks in January 1983. As a true music geek, sometimes it really pisses me off when a band’s best song was not their biggest hit. I realize this is purely subjective; who am I to say that a single that barely cracked the Top 20 is a better track than two others that each landed in the Top 10?
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Some of these I knew, some were new. I can’t believe this one was new to me. “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division was a direct response to the popular pop song “Love Will Keep Us Together” by Captain & Tennille. Very Good Music Fun Facts So fun he quickly did it again. More Very Good Music Facts The Ringer recently re-did their best TV episodes of the century list.
Monday, December 15, 2025
Winter is kind of horseshit. Talk about that and other things that happened over the past few days below. Winter Weather The biggest event of the weekend was our latest winter storm Saturday. We didn’t quite hit the predicted snowfall of 6–7 inches, but we were easily over 5” at our house. It started snowing late morning and continued all day long. Fortunately L’s game was cancelled, and we didn’t have any reason to leave the house.
Friday, December 12, 2025
Just enough songs this week to put together a playlist, with a little help from a couple seasonal tracks. This is likely the last normal FP of 2025. Also, I think I finally figured out how to embed Apple Music playlists. With Spotify becoming more and more problematic, I think it is important to offer than option even if most of my readers are on Spotify at the moment. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7po07MiDSybEPX4Ew0OlXw?si=4ce642d51d5b4f6b) “December” - Cheetah Cheetah Bison
Thursday, December 11, 2025
The Poet’s Game - Paul Vidich Vidich’s books have been hit-and-miss with me, perhaps because they lean more towards proper literature than pulpy, exciting spy works. There’s a dryness and darkness to them that feels very Russian, and for me difficult to connect with. Honestly I could flip a coin on this one to determine whether it was a hit or a miss. Like his other books, it lacks that crackling energy I want from the genre.
Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Chart Week: December 1, 1984 Song: “Valotte” - Julian Lennon Chart Position: #18, seventh week on the chart. Peaked at #9 the week of January 12, 1985. When Julian Lennon released his first album in the fall of 1984, there was no mistaking his genetics. His voice was eerily similar to that of his late father. Hell, I was 13 years old and far from a Beatles expert, and even I was shocked at how much son sounded like dad.
Monday, December 8, 2025
A HUGE sports weekend in our house, for a lot of reasons. Border War I’ll start with the best part of the weekend, for me at least, KU pounding Mizzou in Kansas City. And Darryn Peterson was back! Well, kind of. That’s a whole other deal that I’m not going to get into today. The Tigers battled gamely for 16–17 minutes. They seemed to have momentum after a thunderous Mark Mitchell dunk forced a KU timeout.
Friday, December 5, 2025
Apologies for there not being a playlist last week. I intended to post one but didn’t get around to it before I had to take C and her friend to the airport. That leaves me with a lot to share this week. We’ll see if I am able to edit or that means you get a super-stuffed edition this week. [embed]open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Jungle Love” - The Time The great Jellybean Johnson died a week ago.
Thursday, December 4, 2025
As NFL week 14 begins tonight with a massive game between Dallas and Detroit - Are the Cowboys for real? Can the Lions salvage their season? - it reminds me I’m due for my monthly collection of thoughts on the league. Sadly the NFL remains as inscrutable as it has been all season. Two weeks ago it seemed like Philadelphia had finally stopped fucking around and were ready to romp through the last third of their schedule.
Wednesday, December 3, 2025
A couple quick notes before an emergency high school basketball update. Weather We had winter storm #3 of the young season Monday evening into Tuesday morning. The heaviest snow of the event fell right during Monday rush hour, meaning both S and L had to drive home in it. They made it here safely, if slowly. Once again we were in the predicted 2–4 inches zone, with the expectation it would be on the heavier end.
Monday, December 1, 2025
Video Slow Horses, season five A bit slower to start than some previous seasons, but a pretty fantastic ending. And plenty of Roddy Ho meant this might be the funniest season so far. At least one more season to come. A- The Lowdown Lots of critical praise for this, which turned out to be pretty accurate. Other than a lull in the middle of the season, it was very good. Sterlin Harjo, who also created Reservation Dogs, was the main force behind this one.
Monday, December 1, 2025
Thanksgiving week 2025 is in the books. It was mostly good. Other than me thinking Friday was Saturday all day. Lots happened, so here’s a lengthy breakdown to wade through as you ease back into your routines. Thanksgiving We hosted this year, only having 15. We could fit everyone at one (big) table! I feel like I have the food portion of hosting down. I know how to make a decent turkey.
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
This whole Olivia Nuzzi thing is wild. I remember reading one of her pieces a few years back, when she first rose to prominence, and thinking she was trying too hard to make herself part of the story. Little did I know! Another example here of a writer who only dabbles in politics cutting through an issue better than the alleged experts. A guide to the absolutely ludicrous Olivia Nuzzi media scandal
Monday, November 24, 2025
HS Hoops It was a two-game weekend for CHS. Things began with a bummer when L was told on Thursday she was going back to JV (along with one other junior). She needs minutes and JV needs players. That was a rough night in our house, as you might imagine. That’s about all I’ll say on that topic for now. Friday we drove 90 minutes south to play 3A #7 Jennings County, who came in 3–0.