Month: November 2019 (Page 2 of 2)

What I’m Watching, Fall 2019

November 7, 2019 / DB

It’s been nearly three months since my last (and first) What I’m Watching post. I haven’t watched much in terms of variety since then, but I have packed in some quantity. So here’s a quick run down.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine I was doing some DVR cleanup, mostly deleting crap the girls recorded and never watched over the summer, and realized I had almost half of last season’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine to still get through. I worked through them over a couple weeks in September. It will never be the best show in Michael Schur’s collection, but it never disappoints. B+

Saturday Night Live I’m trying to remember the last time I watched new episodes of SNL regularly. I think I may have tried to watch it my first year living in Indy. Although Indiana did not observe Daylight Saving Time back then, local TV was always on the eastern time zone schedule, with SNL starting at 11:30. That was tough for someone raised on 10:30 SNL’s. I know I tried to get back into it a few times over the years but, for whatever reason, couldn’t do it.

Last spring I watched a skit that got some buzz – I can’t recall what it was – and ended up watching almost the entire episode. I made a mental note to give the show another try this fall. Which I have done. And I’ve enjoyed it more than I expected. The show has definitely changed over the years. The production values are much higher than even in the Will Ferrell years. I wish the cold opening didn’t have to be about politics every week, although Kate McKinnon as Elizabeth Warren is gold. I wish it wasn’t so obvious how even the cast members are reading many of their lines straight off the cue cards. But I’ve laughed more than I’ve been troubled by these minor complaints.

The bonus will be I actually know who most of the cast members are when Eddie Murphy hosts in December, an episode I would be watching whether I enjoyed the first five episodes of the year or not. B+

Halloween Wars We recorded three of the Food Network’s Halloween shows this month, but this is the only one L and I watched. I, personally, prefer the Halloween Baking Championship but L picked this as her focus. She enjoyed it, picking a favorite team and rooting for them the entire time. I wasn’t as into it as her, and spent more time getting excited about the various holiday baking shows that kick off this week. B

Murder Mystery There is always an entry here for a movie that S starts watching and I sit through, half-watching. I thought this was pretty dumb. She’s done it many times, but I just never buy Jennifer Anniston as this hot chick who has stuck with some semi-deadbeat husband for years. Come on… C

Springsteen on Broadway I watched this in small segments over several weeks. I really liked it, although I think I watched it in those chopped up bits because the beginning seemed to drag. Perhaps it is because that part of the show most mirrored what Springsteen wrote in his book Born to Run. The back half was filled with better stories and better songs.

I appreciated the stagecraft that went into the performance. If you don’t like Springsteen he will come off as arrogant and insufferable. But if you like him, you will enjoy him skewering his own image, pointing out how everything he has ever done is an act, and jokingly saying, “That’s how fucking good I am,” when he points out that he built a career on writing songs about working people when he’s never held a normal job in his life. B+

Stranger Things Finally, I watched all three Stranger Things seasons over about five weeks. I had watched season one before, but still started there to remind myself of who was who and what was what. I again found that season utterly magical, full of delightful moments that got deep into my Child of the ‘80s soul, well written and acted and paced, and ending with an absolutely perfect finale.

Season two was a little more uneven. It felt like they crammed 10 episodes of material into eight, and adding another couple of hours would have made the flow better. Its finale couldn’t match season one’s, but it was still quite good.

And then there was season three. I kind of hated it. The over-the-top, constant 80s references were annoying. The story was flat out dumb at times. I didn’t understand how Hawkins morphed from this tiny, rural town into something more along the lines of Bloomington or Columbus, complete with a big ass mall that was crammed with people. I thought a lot of the acting was really bad, both from the secondary characters and from a few of the main ones. Some of that bad acting came from poor writing. They kind of ruined Hopper, turning him into a parody of what he was in the first two seasons.

And then there’s the whole secret Russian sire under Hawkins. HOW THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN? They can just build this massive instillation below an American city and we have no idea? Come the fuck on. I know, I know, to watch this series you have to buy into parallel worlds, demonic creatures, and humans with super powers. But the logistics of the Russians somehow building this base in the middle of America and trying to tunnel into the Upside Down in secrecy made me flat out angry.
Season One: A; Season Two, B; Season Three, C.

Golf: In Da Club

November 5, 2019 / DB

It was a big weekend, as I had my much anticipated visit to a local country club for a round of golf with a friend. But before we get to that, I must share the round I played nine days earlier.

That day I was not sure of my goal. It was a cold, dreary day and I had a hard time getting motivated. But, looking at the forecast and my schedule for the next week, I realized this might be my last chance to play before the country club visit. So I bundled up and forced myself to go. When I got to the practice green, I saw one foursome of old guys teeing off, with a five-some of old guys behind them. That seemed to make for a long round. So I decided to just play nine holes and to walk, figuring that would keep me from pushing them and give me a chance to hit extra shots if they were moving slowly.

The front nine went pretty well. I was spraying the driver but always leaving myself an angle to the green, and my approaches were spot-on. I was two-putting everything but still playing solid. I caught and passed the first group in front of me on the fourth tee. The group in front of them was fast so I managed to finish the nine in under 90 minutes, shooting a 43. As I walked to the clubhouse I debated whether to play another nine. I was hitting it well, but might it be a good time to just stop and savor those nine holes? As I passed the 10th tee I saw it was open, so I popped into the starter’s room, got clearance to play the back nine, and continued.

That nine was very much like the front: I was playing steady golf and recovering when I got into trouble. I nearly eagled a long par four after destroying a drive and getting a great bounce with my approach. On another hole I sent my approach about thirty yards to the left of the green, landing in the 17th hole’s tee box. Luckily no one was standing there. My pitch hit the flagstick and I tapped in to save par.

I did not look at my score when I made it back to the 17th, but I knew I was playing well. My drive was long and just off the fairway. When I reached it I was blocked from advancing by a tree. No big deal. I pitched out to the fairway and left myself a very manageable approach. I took an easy swing – too easy it turned out – and came up short of the green. My pitch barely made the green and I had a 40 foot, uphill putt for bogey. I turned that into a four-putt and carded an 8. Not good.

I stepped to the 18th tee and told myself to relax, one bad hole can’t ruin your score but two can. I took a deep breath and pounded my drive nearly 300 yards and in the fairway. I stepped up to hit my approach, took an easy practice swing, reminded myself I had been hitting these well all day…and hit about two inches behind the ball, taking a huge divot that traveled farther than the ball.

“FUCK YOU, D!” I yelled at myself.

I dropped a ball to prove to myself that I could make the shot. I pulled this one badly into some thick grasses well to the left of the green. That was significant because it was the only ball I lost in the round. I walked up to my first shot and again sent the ball left, but this time just a few feet off the green. I chipped on, two-putted, and carded a 6 for the hole.

As I totaled up my score I saw I was sitting at 30 when I stepped to the 17th tee. The 14 on the final two holes really hurt. Sure, I had just shot 87 for 18 holes, but I knew I left three shots on those last two holes. 84 would have been pretty dope.

While I walked to my car I burned off that disappointment and realized – Holy Shit! – I just shot a legit 87! My goal this fall was to break 100 and I had just broken 90! And that was without doing anything exceptionally well all day. Just steady, boring golf where, the 17th excepted, I avoided any blowups. I felt ready to tackle a real course.

So, Sunday. We got pushed back a little because of frost. When we teed off the windchill had pushed out of the 20s into the low 30s, but it was still quite nippy. As I hit balls on the range, I was lacing everything and feeling good. Never a good sign. My goal for the day was to break 100. This was a much tougher course than any I’ve played,[1] I was playing with someone, and I was wearing layers to fight the cold.

I will tell you that I had a lot of fun. For most of the day it was just the two of us on the course. My host, E, is a med school buddy of S’s and plays around a 5 handicap but is not cocky about it and does not make you feel bad about not being that good. We walked the course, hit extra balls when we needed to, and had a great conversation.

But my game was shit. Strangely, and to the befuddlement of my host, my best shots of the day came from the rough. Every time I was in the thicker stuff, I would absolutely flush the ball and hit it straight at my target. I lost two balls by just destroying what were supposed to be easy shots and having them sail OB. When I was sitting in the fairway, I would push it, pull it, or chunk it. I bet I hit 10 great shots from the rough. Maybe four or five from the fairway.

E noted around the 12th or 13th that I wasn’t rotating completely on my follow through. I’m going to blame it on the cold and a tight back. As I focused on turning after contact, I began hitting it better. In fact, those next five holes were by far my best of the day, routinely out-driving E.

So, to the score. 55 on the front, 53 on the back.

For all the issues I’ve laid out above, the big issue was the putter. My putting was garbage. Some of that was speed. These were way faster greens than what I’ve played on this fall, even in the cold. I was leaving myself with 8-foot come-backers after missing six-footers. I also had a hard time with the slope of the greens. I’m used to one or two greens per nine having elevation, and then not much. There wasn’t a flat green to be found at E’s club. About the same time I got my swing together I finally figured out the speed and began turning three putts into two. But I had only one one-putt all day, often missing by several inches to one side or the other. That was simply not knowing the course and having a hard time finding the line.

We both played our fair share of leaf balls. The ground crews had blown all the leaves off the fairways into the rough between them. Frankly I’m amazed we found as many as we did, but we both lost at least three balls in the leaves that were piled up.

E also took time to work with me on my sand game, as I found green-side bunkers four times. The first time I shot my ball across the green into the opposite bunker. We spent five minutes working on how to get out. By my fourth trip to the sand, I finally hit a nice, soft shot that left me with a five-foot putt. That I naturally missed. Anyway, that’s the nice part of being on a course that only a few other people were on; if you fuck up you can take some time to figure out what you did wrong and try to correct it before you have to use that skill again.

E also taught me about equitable stroke control. For you non-golfers, that’s a fancy way of saying there is a cap on how bad a score you can post on a given hole, generally triple-bogey. I think the logic behind this, which goes into how handicaps are calculated, is a little dodgy. But I gladly shaved a stroke off my score because of it.

So, anyways, it was a pretty good day. I wish I had played better, but it was what it was. This was a longer, tougher, better course with a lot more elevation changes than where I had been shooting my 92s and 87. I would have been thrilled with a 99. 108 is not the end of the world and just highlighted the areas I need to improve upon.

I hope this wasn’t my last round of the year. But the forecast sure looks like we only had four weeks of fall and are officially in winter. If it was my final round of 2019, I think I’ve hit two of the three goals I set before I had my first lesson:

Break 100. Check, and I broke 90!
Get my game where I would not be embarrassed to play if someone good invited me to join them. Check. I didn’t play well Sunday but I did not embarrass myself. Well, maybe I did on one shot. But just that one.
Get my game to the point I could explore replacing my starter clubs with “real” clubs. I need to talk to my instructor about whether I’ve reached the point where I can go to a fitter, or if I need to get more consistent before I can do that.

So that’s that. Counting up my scorecards, I played five, 18-hole rounds; three, nine-hole rounds, and at least 11 rounds at the pitch and putt course. Not a bad way to get back into the game after over a decade away from it. Obviously, I’m really enjoying it.

Sadly, I learned yesterday that the city is going to close one of the two courses I’ve been playing and turn it into an adventure park. I liked having two reasonably priced, fairly open public courses within 20 minutes of our house. I’ll have to find another one to balance my “home” course in the spring.

500–800 yards longer than the two courses I’ve played this fall, and course ratings of 71.9/130 vs 68.4/110 and 66.3/106. ↩

Weekend Notes

November 4, 2019 / DB

As has become routine, a quick-ish rundown of what went down over the weekend.

Halloween

OK, not technically the weekend, but worth a few words about how the girls spent Halloween.

M went to a friend’s house to hang out and watch movies.

C, along with most of the girls in her grade, dressed as Dalmatians. They didn’t quite make it to 101 but you get the idea.

And L dressed as Robin from Stranger Things and joined two friends who were dressed as Dustin and Steve from the show.

The big thing was that this was the first year ever our girls did not trick or treat in our old neighborhood. Last year we were still trying to sell the old house so we went over to turn on lights, put a car in the driveway, and then hang out with the neighbors. This year C and L were in separate neighborhoods near St. P’s, hanging with school friends.

Although I missed the annual dad chili cook-off and sitting in the driveway and drinking, it was nice to drop the kids off, come home for a quiet evening, and then go pick them up when they were done. We only had one group of three trick or treaters at our house. That was mostly because it was snowing, the windchill was in the 20s, and kids were not spending a ton of time outside.

World Series

Again, not officially last weekend. But that was some game seven, with the Nationals coming back to win with a 2015 Royals-like, late-inning rally. I’m still in a little shock that the Nats were able to pull off the upset. It will be interesting to see if they’re any good next year, between having the oldest roster in the league and a number of free agents to be.

L Sports

Basketball on Saturday. A nice win by eight over a team that was a good match. She scored one basket.

Soccer on Sunday, a makeup of a game that she was supposed to miss. She was kind of reluctant to play, we think because of getting hurt in her last soccer game. But she ended up being very glad she went. They won 5–1 to clinch first place by two games. She had an assist and then, finally, a classic L goal. She had a defender on her heels, faked her both directions until the girl turned her hips, cut the ball inside, flicked it outside to get an angle on the goalie, and then finished. She raised her hands and threw her head back, as if she, too, was saying, “Finally!” This was her only goal that was from her work this season, rather than a tap-in or from the penalty spot. Think she was glad to know she still has it.

Royals Hire Mike Matheny

Not happy about this. At all. His one, glaring weakness in St. Louis was his inability to handle young players. That’s what the Royals need right now, someone similar to Ned Yost who can nurture the young prospects as they begin working their way to the majors.

But I also thought Ned was a bad hire and he clearly learned from his failures in Milwaukee, although he was still driving us crazy deep into 2014.

So I guess I’m open to being surprised if Matheny ends up working out. Doesn’t mean I have to like it right now.

High School Football

Friday was week two of sectional play. Cathedral had a bye in week one so it was their opener. On a cold, clear night they ran up a 38–0 lead before halftime, played the sophomores through a running-clock second half, and advanced 38–13. M and C really wanted to go, so I bundled up in my ski trip clothes and sat through it. Thank goodness for that running clock. This Friday they play the team that knocked them out of the playoffs last year. That team has won eight straight games so it should be a good game.

KU Football

One of the most reliable things in fall is KU coming off a big win, there being excitement around the program, and K-State kicking their ass and sending us Jayhawks back to reality. Bill Snyder may be gone but the math remains the same. For now.

Just an ugly loss. Pushed around on both sides of the ball, Carter Stanley playing his worst game of the year, and not converting when they had chances to keep the game close early.

I didn’t expect to win. I was hoping we could keep it competitive, though. There’s been progress, but still a long way to go.

Colts

I was at L’s game when I heard groans go up. I looked at my phone and saw that Adam Vinatieri had missed another field goal, this one that likely would have won the game. So two of the Colts’ losses are directly on him and his misses. He gets credit for winning last week’s game – although his misses in that game made the game-winner necessary – so he’s still trending to the bad side. It might be time, Adam. It might be time.

Of course, none of that matters if Jacoby Brissett is out long-term. Brian Hoyer was decent yesterday. But if the Colts have to rely on him for multiple games, I think winning my bet that the Colts will not win 10 games is back in play.

Friday Playlist

November 1, 2019 / DB

“November Has Come” – Gorrilaz. Hey, look, it’s November 1!

“Your Book” – Say Sue Me. Might this be the first time I’ve featured a band from South Korea in these posts? These kids have zero K-Pop to them; this sounds straight out of the early ‘00s indie era.

“Downtown Lights” – Frankie Lee. Lee grew up in Stillwater, MN. In the mid–90s actress Jessica Lange moved there with her husband Sam Shepard. This song is inspired by a dream Lee had about he and Lange walking through current-day Stillwater and lamenting how “yuppies” and tourists had taken the once sleepy town over.

“Iridescent” – Hundredth. I don’t know much about this band’s past work. Apparently they were once a hardcore act but have morphed their sound in a pretty unlikely direction. This is light, shimmery and full of mid–80s goodness and couldn’t be more opposite from hardcore.

“Silver” – DMA’s. These Aussies continue to ape Oasis’ sound. And they continue to make completely freaking great music while following the Oasis template.