Tuesday Links
We’ll do some links today since I can’t seem to get my latest Reader’s Notebook entry finished, nor come to any thoughts worth sharing on other subjects. Guess I haven’t posted any links in a few weeks because the first is a few weeks old. Hell, it was old when I talked about it with friends in KC two weeks ago. My bad. The intro to this piece made me laugh out loud, because it is very true. For many, many years each time I flew I would have some kind of KU/Lawrence/KC shirt on. I figured I should always be representing. There’s almost an unwritten law of civic pride…
The Roy Kent Effect
This episode…hmmm. I thought about it a lot between my two viewings, the first on Saturday morning, the second Sunday evening. The idea kept occurring to me that every season has a lull episode, one where not much happens but the pieces are all getting sorted into the right places to build towards bigger developments in the future. That made a lot more sense back in the day when a full season included 20+ episodes and you had to work in some breaks. In the modern era, where a “season” is often 10-12 episodes, a lull episode feels like a waste. I’m hoping that’s what this week’s episode, “The Signal,”…
Friday Playlist
We’ve reached the point in the year when it starts to hit you how deep into the calendar we are. I’m only 4-5 weeks away from starting to give early attention to my favorite songs of the year list. Yeesh. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0zvkECw31R2wGdj2iy0LuZ?si=8419b47f03ab4604 “Undone” – The Shivas I know I had heard of this Portland band in the past, but can’t say that I recall any of their songs. This one is treeeeemendous! I sampled a few of their other tracks and none either sound like this or can match it’s feel. There’s really a little of everything in this track, from the ’60s up to the present. They get that mix…
“You had me at ‘Coach'”: Ted Lasso, S2,E5
I took a little heat from a few friends during our Kansas City trip for why the hell I’m not doing breakdowns of Ted Lasso as I did for ER back in the day. Sadly those ER breakdowns were all in my pre-blog life, and lost forever when I left my former employer in 2004. I wonder if they’re still stored on some old backup in their servers somewhere… I’ve never thought of going all-in on a show like that again. Not for Ed or Scrubs or The Office or Parks & Rec or The Americans or The Good Place, the shows I’ve been most obsessed with in their moment…
A Return to the Motherland
A wedding took us back to Kansas City for a very quick trip over the weekend.[1] I think most of my regular readers were at the wedding, so most importantly it was great to see you all! The wedding was wonderful and the reception everything we hoped it would be. It was a terrific night with nearly all of my closest KC friends dancing together for three or four hours. This wedding was originally supposed to take place nearly a year-and-a-half ago, but was wiped out by the first weekend of national lockdown. That was a bummer in many ways, but ended up being a good thing for me. Had…
Friday Playlist
By the time you read this post and begin listening to this week’s tracks, S and I will be on the road, headed west towards Kansas City and a weekend wedding. To honor that occasion, these songs are inspired by the collection of music the bride-to-be gave her DJ. Plus one song required any time I go to KC. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3iRzQbi6alNQgPWjqVV3L8?si=c547663919dc4c64
Oh Crap: College Sports Realignment Talk
I believe it was right as the Olympics were beginning that the first rumors surfaced that Oklahoma and Texas might leave the Big 12 for the SEC. My immediate reaction was, “No way. Texas isn’t leaving all the Longhorn Network money on the table so they can lose to Alabama every year.” Within three days we knew that not only were the rumors true, but the move was pretty much a done deal after at least six months of secret negotiations. I guess I should have known this was coming. When we went through the last round of conference realignment merry-go-round, I said the “new” arrangement would last roughly a…
Reaching for the Stars, Vol. 61
Chart Week: August 1, 1981 Song: “Don’t Want to Wait Anymore” – The Tubes Chart Position: #37, 7th week on the chart. Peaked at #35 for two weeks. The Tubes will collect residual checks until they die for one song: “She’s a Beauty,” their #10 smash from the summer of 1983. It is an absolute classic of its era; any list of best songs of the 1980s would be incomplete without it. If you listen to 80’s on 8 on SiriusXM or your local retro station very often, you are guaranteed to hear it a couple times each week. Nearly 40 years after its release, it still immediately reminds me…
Blog and Weekend Notes
First day of the new school year with all three girls in class, which I guess makes this the first day of “fall” for me. Seems like I should get into a better groove about posting here than I did most of the summer. I have a few works in progress, but I think I need to do a better job of translating thoughts in my head to text on the screen. Every now and then I’ll go back and read some old blog posts. I find it funny how much more I posted back in the old days of nearly 20 years ago. Any half-formed thought often got its…
Friday Links
Time to share some more things I’ve been reading on screens of various sizes. The Vaccine Cards Are the Wrong Size In the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal, as author Amanda Mull admits. But it sure is annoying. And signs of a bigger issue. The inconvenient paper vestige that vaccinated Americans now carry of that experience is an exasperating reminder not of the shots themselves, but of all the other missed opportunities our government has had to ease the pandemic’s many predictable problems. Those Were the Days of Our Lives A hilarious and lovely book excerpt about the glories of being allowed to roam free…