Friday Vid
youtu.be/RpmnMd8CU… “Christmas Medley” - Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra What happens when a couple of P-I-M-P-S get together over the holidays? Magic, that’s what happens.
Uncategorized
I'm Excited, Don't Know Why
So one morning last week I’m on my way home after dropping the girls off at St. P’s. I’m flipping through my stored channels on SirriusXM and not having much luck finding something to listen to. Until I hit channel 8, the 80s station. There, I hear that familiar church organ dirge, followed by some of the most recognizable first words of a song/album in rock history, Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life… My hand shot to the volume knob and cranked it up.
Hot Sports Takes
A few quick, very hot, sports takes. CFP As an alum of the University of Kansas, I generally root for chaos when it comes to determining a college football champion. So I was pleased that there was much controversy surrounding college football’s first final four. What happened, with Ohio State leap-frogging[1] TCU and holding off Baylor after they pounded Wisconsin in the Big 10 title game, is what happens all-too-often when the NCAA basketball bracket is being put together: a game played the last weekend is given entirely too much weight in relation to the rest of the season.
Fun With Editing
Over the weekend C. brought home a story she had written in class with instructions for the weekend. We were supposed to read it with her, then rewrite it to take out grammatical errors so she could record it in class on Monday. Which is a good thing. Her story, which was based on the Nutcracker, featured one very concerning spelling error. After Princess C.’s brother broke the Nutcracker she received for Christmas, C.
⦿ Sunday Links
A lot of links to share since I didn’t get around to it last week. First, what major city has the most unpredictable weather? Kansas City is No. 1, with Indy four spots behind. Which City Has The Most Unpredictable Weather? Joe Posnanski had a couple fine pieces of writing over the last two weeks. This one, profiling what life is like for former NFL player Priest Holmes, is wonderful and scary.
Friday Vid
youtu.be/bjQzJAKxT… “Do They Know It’s Christmas” - Band Aid We begin our three weeks of holiday songs with one of the more maligned songs in the modern Christmas song canon. Are the lyrics cheesy? Yes. Are some of the assertions about Africa factually incorrect? Yep? Is the drama cranked about a few notches too high? Of course. But, come on. The New Wave/New Romantic sounds defined the pop music of the first half of the 1980s.
Early December Notes
Man, have we had trouble getting the girls to put Christmas lists together this year. In years past, we normally had detailed lists from all three well before Thanksgiving. Followed by daily updates. This year, though, has been much harder. L. gave us a list about a week ago. C. and M. both started lists, but they kept disappearing or were never handed over. One day last week, when I asked the girls if they had their lists ready, M.
November Books
Another busy month. Four books, three of them good, two very good. I’ve been saying this for years, but I really should write down my thoughts on each one when I finish them, rather than waiting until the end of the month. My apologies for the disjointed thoughts and fuzzy memories on a couple of these. The Facades - Eric Lundgren This was the one book I did not enjoy, which was a bummer.
Holiday Jihad #1
Yes, that hallowed holiday tradition is back. It’s time for the first Holiday Jihad of 2014! This one just baffles me. Last week I added my annual bookmark for the site Christmas TV Schedule, so I can be sure to record the best shows of the season. I scrolled through to find the highlights and noticed one show in particular was hard to find. I hit Command-F[1], typed in “Grinch,” and reviewed the results.
Thanksgiving Notes
So, I’m putting this together beginning at 10:40 Sunday night. Christmas Vacation is on TV. The tree is lit. A Bell’s Christmas Ale is at my side. Yes, it is the most wonderful time of the year. Man, the holiday weekend went by fast. It seems like minutes ago we were out to eat on Wednesday night, watching basketball on the big screens, and thinking of all that the four days ahead held.
Turkey Day Tradition
This is better suited for a Friday Links post, but since I just saw it today and it’s relevant to tomorrow’s holiday, I thought I would go ahead and share it today. I think I had heard of this before, but never read the details. In 1939, President Roosevelt decided to change the date of Thanksgiving to add another week of Christmas shopping. The hope was that extra week would give a boost to the struggling economy.
Pre-Thanksgiving Notes
A busy few days between get-togethers, kid activities, and prepping for Thanksgiving. How about a few notes? M. has kicked off her volleyball career. She’s been to one skills session and another evaluation session as the fourth graders at St. P’s get slotted onto the appropriate team for their first year of CYO play. I haven’t watched any of her practices, but I’m hopeful that she can hang in there and make the occasional pass or serve it over the net, rather than be fearful of the ball.
⦿ Friday Links
There’s a new Kingdom Rush game out, so I better share some links before I disappear into it for the next week or so. Our first article is a look into the life of a college basketball assistant coach. If you don’t get hooked up with the right guy/program, it can be a real struggle to work your way up the ladder. I’ve always found it interesting that quite a few coaches spend time in pharmaceutical sales before they dive into coaching.
Friday Vid
youtu.be/vZEhean_R… “Slippery Slopes” - Jenny Lewis I realized last night that we are only two weeks from when I will begin unveiling my favorite songs of 2014. Although this song will not be on the list, Jenny Lewis will be making an appearance. I highly recommend the album from which this song comes, The Voyager.
Humbled
There are beatdowns and there are BEATDOWNS. What Kentucky did to Kansas last night was a BEATDOWN, with an endless number of exclamation points after. And I was lucky enough to watch it in person at Banker’s Life Fieldhouse. Yay. First thing, Kentucky is really freaking good. They have length on top of length, and their only “normal” sized player is probably faster than 98% of the players who will try to check him.
Football Notes
Well, there’s snow on the ground. Probably as good of a time as any for my first lengthy football post of the year. Jayhawks It says a lot about the KU football program’s recent history that a win over another crappy team and a near-win against a very good team went down as the best stretch since the end of the 2008 season. So go ahead and laugh at us if your team has been a consistent winner over that span.
⦿ Friday Links
The college basketball season officially begins tonight. Tuesday I will be watching my alma mater take on the modern goliath of the NCAA, Kentucky, at Banker’s Life Fieldhouse. As aggravating as Kentucky is, I’ve been on record for a couple years as saying, like him or not, you have to give credit to John Calipari. There is no better recruiter in the game, as he finds every angle and uses it shamelessly.
Friday Vid
youtu.be/TLEXHFsSz… “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” - Tears For Fears I’m not ready to give up on the music from 1985 yet, apparently. Songs From the Big Chair just got its (slightly early) 30th anniversary rerelease this week, and Tears For Fears is making the rounds to promote it. I’ll share a review of the updated album in the links, but this performance seemed like justification to throw this song out as the vid of the week.
Reporter's Notebook
Well, the Hinkle Fieldhouse stuff was technically a lengthy reporter’s notebook entry. But I still need to get you caught up on the last month of work. The final regular season football game I covered came over a month ago, the same night as game one of the ALCS as a matter of fact. My team was down 24–0 before the first quarter was over. It had poured rain all day and was still raining steadily with chilly temperatures.
Hinkle
In the first six months I lived in Indiana, back in 2003, I had a pretty solid sports run. I went to the RCA Dome for a Colts pre-season game. I went to a Notre Dame football game in South Bend. I’m told that I went to West Lafayette for a Purdue football game, although that day is rather fuzzy thanks to a huge amount of alcohol. I went to an IU basketball game in Assembly Hall.
⦿ Friday Links
I failed to share links last week, so I’ll do it the way I originally planned and get caught up on a Friday. Still a few baseball things to get through. I’ll begin with a tech tip that could have been very useful when the playoffs began. But save it somewhere safe for next year. Jason Snell explains how to combine the video and crowd noise of the national TV broadcasts with the audio of the local announcing team.
Friday Vid
youtu.be/9SaHXd4Rh… “Brill Busters” - The New Pornographers We’re just about a month away from when I’ll begin unveiling my 20 favorite songs of the year. The top ten is pretty locked in. The second ten has some flux in it. And then there’s a third group of 10–15 songs that I’m still debating whether they deserve to slip into the top 20. This song falls somewhere between 15 and 35 right now.
October Books
A rash of baseball books read between games and even during commercial breaks. Wild Pitches - Jayson Stark Stark has been one of ESPN’s baseball ‘insiders’ and columnists for nearly two decades, and had been covering baseball nationally long before that. This is a collection of his favorite columns from his ESPN years. I should have read the back cover and realized that before I checked it out. I thought it would be more a collection of his thoughts on baseball with a few columns sprinkled in.
R's: Wrapping It All Up
I’m glad I was not alone. I heard from many of my friends who are Royals fans last Thursday. The common theme was we all felt like garbage following game seven of the World Series. I was able to shake off the funk by late in the day, as I began to see the big picture again. It sucks that one game can wipe out many of the good feelings built up in the 14 (or 176) games that came before it.
Halloween Wrap Up
Worst Halloween ever? As far as the weather was concerned, I think the answer was a resounding yes here in central Indiana. It was just a nasty night. It was cold, wet, windy, and miserable. Temps were in the mid–30s, the winds were gusting at close to 30 MPH, which made the steady rain come down sideways. There really was no way to stay dry. So none of us were disappointed when the rain turned to snow.
Friday Vid
youtu.be/3LDTOELWK… “Broken Hearted Savior” - Big Head Todd & The Monsters Not Halloween music, but the band is called The Monsters so it will have to do. Big Head Todd at Red Rocks? No pot was smoked that night. Their drummer is wacky. I’ve been putting together a list of albums you most likely owned if you were in college in the early-mid 90s. Sistery Sweetly, the album this comes from, has to be on that list.
R's: The End
I was nine years old when the Royals made their first World Series. We had moved to Kansas City less than three months earlier. Just three weeks earlier my parents interrupted me listening to a Royals-Mariners game to tell me that they were getting a divorce. I was dealing with a lot of shit, as Kevin Costner might say. When Willie Wilson struck out to end the World Series in game six, I burst into tears.
R's: Game Seven
I don’t think I’m getting much done today. It’s not yet 9:00 am as I write this and my hands are already jittery, my stomach an unsettled mess, and overall anxiety level is too high for this early. Game Seven is supposed to be one of the best phrases in sports. But it’s doing a number on me today. I would love a repeat of last night’s 10–0 Royals rout, where a 7-run second inning ended the game soon after it began.
R's: How Quickly The Tide Can Turn
The ebbs and flows of the baseball postseason can be tough. Between the long series, travel days, the breaks between innings, and the gaps between pitches and at-bats, there is so much time for the emotion of the situation to ferment, turning into something more potent than reality. For example, after Friday night’s Royals win, I think most Royals fans were ecstatic. The post-game show from the Power & Light district in KC sure made it appear that way.
⦿ Sunday Links
You know the drill. Watching lots of baseball, reading lots about baseball, not many links to share, etc. etc. etc. Thus, it’s kind of a requirement that I kick things off with an article about the crowd at Kauffman Stadium. You’ve read my thoughts on this. It’s nice that a national voice, who was actually in the stadium last week, agrees. The Royals fans, and that sound, is what makes this series unique.