Day: December 6, 2021

November Media

Movies and Shows

Blondie – Apollo Theatre, Glasgow, 1979
This is AMAZING! Debbie Harry in her white-hot prime. The freaking drummer is insane, doing his best Keith Moon impression in his gold lamé suit.

A

The Bourne Identity
The Bourne Supremacy
The Bourne Ultimatum
I hadn’t watched any of these since the third installment came out in 2007, when I watched all three in three days. I repeated that over three nights last month. They still hold up really well. It was good to be reminded how much they influenced the Daniel Craig-era Bond movies.

Also, Matt Damon runs weird.

A-, A-, A-
Damon’s running: C-

Eastbound & Down, season one
I’ve never watched this, but have seen the Will Ferrell blooper collection plenty of times. One of my brothers-in-law and I like to repeat “Let the boy watch!” anytime we are together. This was about what I expected: dumb yet hilarious.

B+

The Commute: A four day paddle to work
Beau Miles up to his usual bullshit. I wish I had his adventurous spirit.

A

Old School
I caught the last half to two-thirds of this on Comedy Central one night. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve watched it. It holds up, although I wish I had been watching the un-edited version.

A-

Arrested Development, season one.
Before our trip I was looking for something to watch and decided to blaze through season one of this classic. I’m repeating myself, but this hold up, too. Quite well, in fact. Funny seeing Will Arnett back before he started working out and got biceps.

A

The Report
Red Notice
The Trial of the Chicago 7
These are the three movies I watched on our flights to/from Hawaii.

The Report fits right in with movies like State of Play that are focused on what should be boring investigations yet translate quite well into cinematic drama.

Red Notice was kind of dumb, but mindless entertainment and perfect for a plane. And I’ll watch anything with Gal Gadot.

The Trial of the Chicago 7
This was surprisingly funny. Not in an Old School way, but more in an “I expected this to be awfully heavy and I’m laughing way more than I thought” kind of way. Aaron Sorkin FTW, obviously.

I haven’t read, yet, about how historically accurate it was. But I enjoyed the hell out of it. Terrific acting all around, headlined by Sacha Baron Cohen, who continues to amaze me with his range.

A-, B-, A-


Shorts

The War On Drugs: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
So freaking good.

A+

Wake Turbulence From a Paper Airplane
Science! Beautiful science.

A-

‘The Green Reapers’
Unexpectedly awesome.

A-

Middle Kids – Records In My Life
One night I was watching a lot of Middle Kids vids and came across this charming piece from their early days.

A

Birds with Arms
On the one hand, it’s a bummer this is only 30 seconds long. On the other, it might get dumb if it was 60 seconds long.

A

Every Aston Martin in James Bond Explained
Ooooh, this is some sexy shit.

A

Roast Charlie Sheen – Jeff Ross
Jeff Ross Takes Bruce Willis to the Cleaners – Roast of Bruce Willis
Jeff Ross – Drew Carey Roast
Jeff Ross Gets Brutally Honest with Caitlyn Jenner (Full Set) – Roast of Alec Baldwin
Jeff Ross – Roast of Pamela Anderson
Jeff Ross – Roast Of James Franco
Another late-night binge. I stumbled across one of Ross’ roasts and spent the next hour or so working through some of his best.

A

How I Grew Up in The Coldest Town on Earth
No thank you. Tuck this away for when we go through a stretch where it doesn’t get above freezing for a week or two to remind yourself how good you have it.

B+

A whale saved my life
What an amazing story!

A+


Podcasts

Song Exploder: The War on Drugs
Adam Granduciel talking about the making of the single “I Don’t Live Here Anymore.” This is great, complete with segments of the various stages of demos the song went through. I especially love the tidbit about him leaving in a vocal flub because he could never come up with a lyric that fit that moment.

A

James Bond’s Spycraft Sound — Switched On Pop
Another piece that dives into the science behind music. It traces the common DNA on the music of the James Bond series.

B-

Holiday Notes + Kid Sports

It seems like most of the family has re-acclimated to being in the eastern time zone, but our days are still all messed up. A full, five-day school week this week will surely get us back on track.

Our holiday schedule is all out-of-whack from normal, though. The day after Thanksgiving is normally our decorating day. Since we were hiking through Waimea Canyon ten days ago, that wasn’t possible. L and I got a bunch of the decorations out on the Friday before we left, placing them around the house as we listened to the Cathedral semi-state game on the radio. But we left the tree for when we got home. S and I got that put up last Thursday night, completing our decorating for the season. We didn’t put up any outside lights this year. The five big spruce trees in our front yard we lit last year that remain dark. I’ve heard from several friends who are disappointed that they don’t see them shining brightly as they drive by. We also ordered our Christmas cards yesterday, a week later than normal.

These little things shouldn’t be such big mental hurdles. But everything does seem just a little off. Again, a normal week should rectify that and we’ll all be freaking out that Christmas is just two weeks away when next weekend rolls around.


Saturday was Cathedral’s winter formal, back after a year’s Covid-induced hiatus. It was a much more hectic night that two years ago, when we had just one girl going and she had friends over to our house to get ready.

C asked a guy friend of hers from St P’s to go with her (this is a girls-ask-boys deal), but just as friends, and she was awfully casual about the whole thing. Since it was the first time she went to a dance with a boy we had to give her a little slack. They were going with a big group of kids, and the plans were constantly changing, which was annoying to S and I, who like to have details locked in. We texted another parent Saturday afternoon to see if she knew what was going on. Her response was, “Good Lord, I have no idea what the plan is!” Kids…

M went with a group of girls and left our house before allowing us to take a picture of her and C together in front of our tree. When S learned M had been gone for 20 minutes, she was not pleased.

We took C to the gathering point for her friends. We stayed about 10 minutes and got a few pics before leaving. Before the group departed for the dance, there were something like 46 kids gathered at that house. Bless those parents!

We left early because the family who was hosting M’s group was having a parent party and we wanted to get there before the girls left. This group was only nine girls and not all the parents stayed, but it was hectic for a bit. We laughed later at how the ladies stayed upstairs all night while the guys were downstairs. I guess we can’t complain about our kids acting weird when the parents won’t mix. It was cool to get to meet a few new dads, though. We stood around and watched football while having stilted, guy conversations until the group thinned to a more manageable number and the dialog got easier. Meanwhile the ladies were upstairs getting into the wine and having a good-old time! The juniors all left the dance early and when they came downstairs, M said, “They are so loud and you guys are so quiet!” Facts.

It sounds like the dance went well. Both girls said the music sucked. I don’t think C and her “date” spent a ton of time together, but that was true for most of the “couples” who aren’t actual couples. Ahhh, the awkwardness of youth! I can’t judge: I didn’t go to a dance until my senior year because I was too nervous/lacking in confidence/fearful of rejection to ask anyone.


Speaking of CHS, I should note that the football team won the state title while we were away. I was able to listen to part of the game while we were getting ready for our luau. They fell behind 7–0 early and were struggling to move the ball. But the QB snapped out of the mini-funk he had been in and a junior wide receiver went off, racking up over 220 yards on the night, leading the Irish to a fairly easily 34–14 win. That wraps up a 27–2 run over the past two years, with the only losses coming to Center Grove who went 28–0 over the same stretch.


L started her first winter basketball league yesterday. She’s playing on a team that has girls from four different parishes. She was super excited when she heard a friend of hers, who is probably the best seventh grader in our part of the archdiocese, would be on the team. That girl is on crutches, though, and may not play until the second session begins in January.

The team has practiced a lot but Sunday was their first time playing together, and you never know how that will go. After her practice Thursday L said, “We are soooo bad!” She was wrong. They won their first game 44–21 and the second game 39–20. They are really good on D and have two girls who are fearless going to the hoop and can convert. We jumped on both teams early and neither game was in doubt after the first quarter.

L played solid. She scored six in the first game. She missed a couple shots late and I told her she deserved to miss them since her coach told the team to stop shooting. She only scored two in the second game. She moved the ball well, though, and played decent D. She had a couple steals both games and got some tough rebounds in the second game. Once she tried to back a girl down in the post and shoot a turn-around jumper. She didn’t come close to hitting rim. I was running the clock and a mom from the other team was keeping the book. I started laughing and said, “Not strong enough to do that yet!” The mom said, “That was a sweet move, though!”

I think playing with these teammates will help L’s game, as she’s running with legit scorers and will have to hone her distribution skills. They have three more weeks of games – two before Christmas, one after – and then I think most of the girls will stay together for the second winter session.

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