Thursday, December 5, 2013
Six Seconds in Dallas: A Micro-Study of the Kennedy Assassination - Josiah Thompson Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK - Gerald Posner Well, I got a little obsessed around the anniversary of JFK’s assassination. Aside from numerous TV documentaries watched and online stuff read, I came across an Errol Morris film that features Josiah Thompson. After watching it, I rushed to the library and picked up Thompson’s book and I was off.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
There’s no real way to tease this, other than to suggest you go look at it. New Wave Artists Aging Gracefully Well, not all of them are aging gracefully. Be on the lookout for: Boy George (!), Tears For Fears (???), and Simon LeBon (WTF). I think it’s safe to say that Pete Burns has had the most profound change in appearance. And, if you pay attention to the musical heroes of our youth, it will be no surprise that David Bowie and Susanna Hoffs have aged the best.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Note: I’ll kick off my look back at the music of 2013 later this week. Here’s an appetizer about music in, but not of, 2013. I forget what the motivation was, but for some reason last night I decided to check and see when season two of The Americans was supposed to start. Unofficially, I found early February. Which is kind of a bummer. Mid-January would be much nicer. I guess I can go stream all of season one after the holidays to refresh my memory before the new ones air.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
A full month of books, but also one in which I got obsessed by a specific topic late. So I’ll chop this into two entries: one for the non-obsession books then a second, tomorrow, for the books that haunted my dreams for a couple weeks. The Things They Carried - Tim O’Brien The Quiet American - Graham Green I began the month in a bit of a Vietnam jag. I read an article about Pham Xuan An, “the perfect spy” of the Vietnam War, which got me interested in reading more about the war years.
Monday, December 2, 2013
Mondays are for catching up. After a long holiday weekend there’s even more to share, so here we go. The girls had a long, five-day weekend. We could have used warmer weather as we really needed to shove them outside more. I’m not sure where they get all their energy. Or why they refuse to listen to us. Wednesday M. got a replacement for her fish, Sparkle, which died two weeks ago.
Friday, November 22, 2013
It’s assassination season, amped up 10,000% by this being the 50th anniversary of JFK’s death. I’ve watched bits and pieces of several shows about the assassination over the past week, and plan on settling down with the History Channel later and watching some more. This is nothing new. It’s long gone now, but in high school I taped a rebroadcast of the original NBC coverage on Nov. 22, 1963 and watched it over-and-over again, fascinated by history unfolding on live TV.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Time, and technology, march forward. The first widely popular desktop application that played MP3 files, Winamp, is being shut down in December. AOL Shuts Down Winamp For Good I first downloaded Winamp in December 1997. Pearl Jam had a new single, “Given To Fly,” that was getting airplay in advance of its official release. I kept reading on Pearl Jam discussion lists how you could listen to “radio rips” of the song if you had the right software1.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Forgive me as I link to one thing and then take it in a completely different direction. Esquire has a terrific profile of George Clooney in the December issue. I’ve always been a big fan; he seems like the kind of guy you would almost be happy stole your girlfriend from you. “So what happened with you and Jane?” “Oh, she’s dating Clooney now. But I’m totally cool with it. He’s really much better for her.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
The belated weekend wrap up. Man, was it a crazy weekend. First off, we were lucky that the awful storms that blew through Indiana split before they made it to our house. We had some heavy winds, but nothing like the 80 MPH gusts they had downtown, or the tornadoes that were just to the north of us. The sirens did go off, and we hustled the girls to the basement for a bit.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
It’s a double sick day. C. came home early yesterday with a fever and L., who was already on medication for a bad cough, was burning up this morning. Good times. We’re deep into a Netflix binge that will likely last all day. I got called to come pick C. up about 2:20 yesterday. When I got to school, M. was sitting in the office with a big, proud grin on her face.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
I love it when the Onion says things that are both funny and true. Example: their take on a new (fictitious) ESPN show. “We’re looking for three, maybe four absolutely reprehensible, know-it-all fucks to sit around a table and share their idiotic opinions about the day’s biggest sports stories,” said ESPN’s vice president of original programming Jamie Horowitz, adding that ideally, the obnoxious, pig-headed pieces of shit will be a mix of annoying national sports columnists, repulsive former athletes, and one prick from Boston.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Wow, that was worth staying up late, and feeling kind of miserable this morning, for. All the pre-game chatter amongst KU fans, at least the ones I interacted with, was, “Well, I just hope we make a game of it and the kids get some experience that will pay off later.” Funny what a sloppy season opener can do to expectations. Some of that pessimism was because unlike KU, Duke returned several players from last year, and added a transfer with D1 experience.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Ominous skies here in Indy today. We’ve had a couple of small snow events already, nothing that accumulated, but tonight we may get as much as an inch. And then the temperatures are expected to to tumble for most of the week. I guess Mother Nature still has some bitchiness left after the (seemingly) endless winter of 2012-13. We have a clear view of those skies, too, now that most of our leaves have fallen.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Finally, the games begin. It’s been a long run since that sad Friday night in Dallas last March when Elijah missed, Trey hit, and Michigan knocked off the #1 seeded Jayhawks out of the NCAA tournament in overtime. Given how last season ended, this has been a surprisingly un-angsty off-season. Well, there was angst plenty of angst until May, but then for some reason a lot of that went away.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
It’s been a nice, relaxing week. With the exception of C.’s Daisy Scouts meeting yesterday, we’ve not had a single event outside of school. Which has been nice after two-plus months of soccer practice and games. M. and C. wrapped up their seasons on Sunday. M.’s team had a great game against an opponent that had not lost all season. It was a tense affair, as the coaches for the other team were being very aggressive, throwing all their defenders forward the entire game, in an effort to clinch the undefeated season.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
A Spy By Nature - Charles Cumming. I read Cumming’s Trinity Six earlier this year. After a slow start, I really liked it. I keep hearing Cumming’s name listed as one of the best young espionage writers going, so dove back in for another. Here, he focuses on a young British man, Alec Milius, who is drifting through his early 20s in the early 90s without any direction while his friends from school find success and fortune.
Monday, November 4, 2013
OK, cramming three things together that aren’t each related to the others, but I can link them enough to justify the single post. And, I know, all of these would have been much more timely a week ago. You were busy, too. Let’s get caught up together. First, radio. Last week was the 75th anniversary of the War of the Worlds broadcast. I’ve always been fascinated by it for a variety of reasons.
Monday, November 4, 2013
A very busy few days. So let’s catch up quickly. Halloween was postponed a night in most of central Indiana thanks to some heavy rain and dangerous winds that rolled through Thursday. It actually wasn’t bad until most kids would have been inside, but I doubt walking through the rain would have been very much fun for anyone. Friday was a gorgeous, mid-fall evening. We had a peacock (M.), cat (C.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
The girls are on high alert, as the holiday season officially begins this week. There is extra tension in the air this year, as the Indy area is expected to get hit with big storms tomorrow night, likely to include heavy rain, damaging winds, and lots of lightning. Several cities have already postponed trick-or-treating until Friday. Our city has not done so yet, but it would not surprise me if that changes in the next 24 hours.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
It’s time. The Pacers kick off their regular season and KU plays their first exhibition game tonight. Two teams with huge expectations begin their journeys to hopefully joyful spring endings. More about the Jayhawks next week, when their real season begins. For now, the focus is on the Pacers. I heard one national radio blowhard1 say he expected the Pacers to, far and away, have the best regular season record in the league this year.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Wrapping up our break of fall while watching Game Four of the World Series. Lots of fun crammed into the past four days. We headed down to the LVS Thursday afternoon. It was cold, rainy1, and the LVS lacks cable and internet. This was our first time trying such an outing. I’ll admit, I was a little worried. But everything worked out pretty well. The girls played and read and watched movies and, yes, fought and annoyed us on occasion.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
M. and C. begin fall break today. Well, actually it began at 1:00 yesterday thanks to early dismissal. Now they get today, tomorrow, and Monday off. Catholic schools know how to do it! So naturally we’re off to Florida again… Kidding! Two trips to Florida is enough for one year. We are getting out of town, though. We’re heading downtown, first, and making our annual trip to the Children’s Museum’s haunted house.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Three weeks ago I picked the Red Sox to beat the Cardinals in six games in this year’s World Series. Look at what teams made it to the Series! Still, I have to change my pick. The Cardinals pitching is too good. Wacha and Wainwright will stifle the Red Sox bats early in the series. Those two will pitch at least twice each should the series go seven games. The Sox have good pitching, but it’s not that good.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
House policy is that our girls get to have a big party, where friends are invited, for their birthday every fifth year. Which meant this was the year L. got to do something. Following in the footsteps of both of her big sisters, she selected Monkey Joe’s for two hours of jumping around. We waited until her school was on fall break so we could do it while M. and C.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Indy is a little bleary-eyed today. And for good reason. Man, was that some game last night. From the Colts fan perspective, it had about all we could ask for. The brief, but appropriate, tribute to Peyton Manning before the game. The quick three-and-out by Denver to start the game. A vintage Manning drive after a couple punts that put an “Uh oh, here we go,” vibe in the stadium. The huge plays by the Colts defense to change the tide of the game (Four different times, no less!
Friday, October 18, 2013
For some reason it’s been very hard to write up my thoughts about Pearl Jam’s Lightning Bolt. Not because I don’t like it; I do. Not because it follows the same basic formula the band has been using for nearly a decade; that is true but that doesn’t make it indistinguishable from the last two albums. Not because there’s nothing interesting about the album to put into words; there’s plenty. Not because I find myself agreeing with the theme of every positive review of the album I’ve read; I can always find something to write about my favorite band of our generation.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Posnanski revisited his 32 Best Calls In Sports History to honor the 25th anniversary of Kirk Gibson’s home run in the 1988 World Series. Checking in at #10 is Larry Munson’s epic call of Lindsey Scott’s 92-yard catch-and-run that helped Georgia beat Florida in 1980. I remember watching the game live, and probably hearing some network announcer call it, and I’ve heard the central part of Munson’s call many times. But I had never heard the aftermath, which is absolutely incredible.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
My current favorite music writer, Steven Hyden, goes beyond the simple album review for the new Pearl Jam disk. Instead, he examines the band’s entire career, assesses what’s overrated, what’s underrated, and what’s been properly rated, and then does the final math. Pearl Jam made some great records in the '90s, some not-so-great records in the early '00s, and some very solid records in the last several years. The band is always worth seeing live.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Slapping together some notes while attempting to actually stay awake past halftime of a Monday Night Football game, as the Colts are battling the Chargers. Not sure why I’m bothering. The Colts vs. San Diego has been nothing but bad news for about ten years. My assignment last Friday was to cover RHS going to play DCHS, the team that lost the 83-78 thriller earlier this year. DCHS came in averaging 56 points and 550 yards per game.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
It’s been a busy and frustrating couple of weeks. And some of it is beginning to catch up with us. The last two Sundays we’ve had torrential rains, which have wiped out soccer games each week. L. had her first make-up game last night (She scored two early goals, then none after that.) and M. has one tonight. Plus regular practices on top of that has us rushing around even more than normal.