Month: February 2022 (Page 2 of 2)

Wednesday Links

February 9, 2022 / DB

As usual, this collection of links has been sitting in my queue for far too long. The two holiday-related pieces, though, were both published in the New Year, so they aren’t as old as they seem.

Every Winter Olympic Event, Ranked by How Terrified I’d Be to Participate in It

Has fighting the massive time difference for the third-straight Olympiad got you down? This might spice up your Winter Olympics viewing a little bit.

HBO Max Announces A Christmas Story Sequel with Original Ralphie Actor

This is kind of interesting. Peter Billingsley will play an adult Ralphie Parker who returns to his childhood home in the 1970s to, in a very Clark Griswold manner, give his kids the kind of Christmas he had growing up.

Two problems. 1) A Christmas Story was so great because it was based on Jean Shepherd’s writings. Will they be able to capture the spirit that was unique to Shepherd’s work? 2) They are filming it in Hungary, which is concerning. I’m sure the Hungarian people are nice, but their government, specifically their leader, is pretty whack.

The Case for Keeping Up Your Christmas Tree Until March

You all know how I am about keeping anything related to Christmas contained in a very specific window. So I would never go this route. But maybe some day, if I am lucky enough to get very old and very eccentric, I might become one of these people.

Coincidentally I got my hair cut the day before I read this article, and my stylist told me she takes her lights and decorations down, but leaves her tree up for months. I never knew that was a thing.

Listen, I’m not some sort of holiday weirdo…It’s about finding ways to make it through the winter doldrums.

How the Movie ‘WarGames’ Inspired Reagan’s Cybersecurity Policies

This begins with a story about how clueless Ronald Reagan was about technology. It turns into a fascinating connection between Hollywood and our defense policy.

The funny thing is, back when the screenwriters ofWarGames were writing the movie, they consulted a computer scientist named Willis Ware who had designed some of the systems at NORAD, and for years, Willis Ware had been warning the Department of Defense that computer intrusion was an issue, but they ignored him. Then, it gets back to the DoD indirectly through Reagan, because he watched WarGames. They then made a new policy to address what this guy had been talking about for years. So it turned out that making a Hollywood movie was a more potent way of escalating the issue.

A college football legend tells his side of one of the most hilarious/infamous recruiting stories ever.

So that’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but, straight from the horse’s mouth. Is that such a scandal? That the best player for one of the best teams in the country got a nice car? I don’t think so. I think I deserved that car—and a lot more than that.

Eric Dickerson Finally Tells the Truth About That Gold Trans Am

The need for police reform is real, for many reasons. That doesn’t mean totally defunding the police and turning our cities into a modern version of the Wild West, where people seek justice on their own. No, it means we need to have an honest, open discussion about what the role of the police should be in our society, how police forces should be funded and equipped, and how we can repair the relationship between police and the people they are supposed to serve and protect. In all neighborhoods, not just minority areas.

This amazing piece of journalism is a perfect example of a local police department run amok.

Police in this tiny Alabama town suck drivers into legal ‘black hole’

Two explorers skied across the Arctic ice cap. They ran into some issues. This story is bananas. It is cool that there are still people out doing stuff like this.

The untold story of the boldest polar expedition of modern times

Gerrymandering and redistricting has been in the news a lot lately. The Washington Post had fun with some rather oddly designed congressional districts. I live just a mile or two away from one of these.

Play mini golf on a course made of unusual congressional districts

Jayhawk Talk: Win Some, Lose Some

February 8, 2022 / DB

A Jekyll and Hyde entry today, as I have two very different games to cover.

Saturday’s win against Baylor was KU’s best and most complete performance of the year. KU smacked them in the mouth from the beginning and the Bears not only never responded, they never looked interested in responding. It was as easy a win over a fellow Top 10 team as KU has had in years. And it could have been even more convincing: KU missed a boat-load of wide-open 3’s throughout the game.

That win gave KU a two-game lead midway through the Big 12 season. Which didn’t seem possible about two weeks ago.

Last night’s loss at Texas took away some of that shine. It was the worst kind of loss: a game that was on KU’s racket, as a tennis commentator would say, and they managed to piss away through a combination of bad luck and poor execution.

That game made me angry. It kept me up for hours last night, which hasn’t happened in awhile. It’s not like I was tossing-and-turning reliving key plays the way I used to. I just had so much frustration and adrenaline in my system that I couldn’t relax and fall asleep.

A four-point lead with just over a minute to play. Free throws coming for an 81% shooter. Two misses, a terrible Texas shot that banks in, a perfect play by KU ruined by a bad pass, a missed front end of a one-and-one moments later, and the game was gone. The Big 12 race was over if Christian Braun hits his free throws, if Tre Mitchell’s brick rimmed out like his others had, if David McCormack knocks down his free throws, if Ochai Agbaji’s lob to McCormack doesn’t hit the rim, if the entire team executes better on KU’s last possession down one.

Making a mess out of the final 65 seconds of the game was the perfect compliment to how KU fucked up the end of the first half, when KU fought like hell to tie the game, had the ball with 30-ish seconds left, and still went into halftime down five.

Those plays get magnified in a loss like this, where though the final margin was three, the game really came down to any one of several possessions. Change any one of like 10 different possessions, and KU wins.

The loss is extra frustrating because KU absolutely torched one of the best defensive teams in the country, shooting nearly 60%. While Texas took Agbaji out of the game – KU has to learn how to get him shots when teams do that – his teammates stepped up big time. They hit a ton of tough-ass shots in the first 19 minutes of the second half. I wouldn’t say KU’s defense was great, but it was solid. The Longhorns shot just 42% from the field, and 15% from three.

KU should win this game by double digits based on those numbers. It was the endless run of awful turnovers, especially in the first half, that negated all of that good. You can’t give a team 17 points off turnovers in a single half. It’s one thing to turn the ball over because Texas is forcing you into bad plays. It’s another to throw the ball right to them or into the crowd. Or to dribble the ball off your own foot or knee. Or to not protect the ball on a rebound and let Texas strip it away or force a held-ball. KU had a shit-ton of sloppy, unforced, dare-I-say soft turnovers.

So what do you take away from this game as a fan? Are you pissed that your team blew what could have been a massive win? Are you angry that this team struggles so much to take care of the ball? Are you pissed at guys who have played their asses off for nearly 40 minutes but clank free throws because they are either gassed or the moment gets to them?

Or do you focus on the good? The great shooting numbers against a terrific defense, on the road? The mental toughness to weather both a big Texas run in the first half then the absolute meltdown in the final 30 seconds before halftime, and still control the game for the next 19 minutes? At the entire team stepping up when Agbaji is taken away? At what an absolute bitch Jalen Wilson has become? How Joseph Yesufu is making some plays? How DaJaun Harris shut down James Akinjo Saturday and held Marcus Carr to 10 points on 3–10 shooting Monday? How David McCormack played as hard as he ever has in battling Texas’ bigs and the Jayhawks were a much better team with him on the court?

Realistically, I should be focusing on all that good. This team played its best basketball of the season over the past week. Winning at Texas was always going to be tough, KU played a fantastic second half and nearly got it done. There’s a lot to build on.

But when the loss comes because KU basically handed UT 11 points in 90 seconds combined across the two halves – that’s not counting the banked-in three, either – it is tough to remember all that good.

Reader’s Notebook, 2/7/22

February 7, 2022 / DB

Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir
Officially a 2021 book, I finished this over New Year’s weekend. It was my 53rd book of 2021, just getting me over book-a-week pace for those 12 months.

This treads similar territory to Weir’s excellent The Martian, again focused on a man who is stuck in space alone. This time, though, the stakes are much higher.

Ryland Grace is a former teacher who finds himself alone on a spacecraft sent to another solar system in an attempt to save Earth. Or at least our sun, which is under attack from a newly discovered, alien form of life that is eating away its energy. When he reaches his destination – a “nearby” star that seems immune to these attacks – his two crew mates have failed to wake from their induced comas and he is confronted with another alien life force on a similar mission.

Weir’s story is, most of all, charming. The way he handles Grace’s interaction with the alien he encounters is wonderful. There are plenty of predictable elements in the story, but it is a work of fiction about the near-future and technologies that don’t exist at the moment; you can’t take it super seriously or think this is high literature. It is a fun, entertaining, and even heart-warming read.

How Beautiful We Were – Imbolo Mbue
Glad I read this before it gets banned/burned. It is the story of how a small, fictional, African village attempted to fight back against the American oil company that was polluting its environment as well as their corrupt government that failed to hold the oil company accountable. Pretty soon someone is going to decide this book is offense, or undermines our white, American way of life, and get it thrown out of public libraries.

An Ordinary Spy – Joseph Weisberg
I did not know until recently that this co-creator of The Americans had released a novel before he helped to create that show. It is presented as a heavily redacted memoir of a former CIA officer (Weisberg briefly served in the CIA) who runs into issues in his foreign posting and then must try to uncover the truth of his assignment with the help of another semi-disgraced, former officer. It was kind of frustrating to read because long sections are blacked out, as if the CIA review board had decided those passages weren’t fit for pubic consumption. It got annoying after a hundred pages or so. Which detracted from a decent, but not great, story.

Winter – Karl Ove Knausgaard
One day I’ll go back and continue KOK’s My Struggle series. I’m just never in the right frame of mind when I think of it. Instead I tackled this, one of his seasonal essay collections. Some of them are interesting. Some are not.

Need to Know – Karen Cleveland
Another book by a former CIA officer about a CIA officer. In this case a counter intelligence officer who learns that her husband is a Russian sleeper agent. She makes a decision that protects her family, but in turn, opens a cascading series of new threats.

There was a lot of potential in this story. The big problem, though, is that the main character wasn’t super sympathetic. Her choice to protect her husband/family led her to compromising an important CIA program. While I can understand wanting to keep your family safe, by making that decision I lost interest in her finding a happy solution to her dilemma.

Cleveland does try to amp things up in the closing pages. It has the obligatory twists and turns, some of which you could see coming long before, another of which genuinely surprised me. It wasn’t a waste of time, but it also isn’t one that I’m going to think about much in the future.

Friday Playlist

February 4, 2022 / DB

Although our big winter storm was kind of a dud – I’m guessing we are in the 7-8″ range instead of the 12″+ that was forecast – this is snow day number two for our girls. Which means as soon as I get this posted I’m outside for round number two of shoveling so S can head to work in a bit.

“Running with the Hurricane” – Camp Cope
I’ve been digging this powerful song for a couple weeks. Since it has a very Americana vibe, I forgot the band is Australian and probably should have been in last week’s playlist. But maybe I should include an Australian artist every week, right?

“Lights” – Band of Horses
BoH hasn’t released an album in six years. They’re about to fix that, and both of the lead singles have been really good.

“Still Life” – Carson McHone
This slides into my little happy place that only female, folksy, singer-songwriters has been filling lately.

“Listen the Snow is Falling” – Galaxie 500
An obligatory listen on cold, snowy days.

“Excursions” – A Tribe Called Quest
As I noted in my January Media post, this song was used to magnificent effect in Station Eleven.

“Ca plane pour moi” – Plastic Bertrand
While on the subject of old songs used in prestige TV shows, I finished the first part of season four of Ozark last night. Holy motherforking forkballs! This semi-obscure Belgian song from 1977 got prominent usage in an episode. This video is really something!

Reaching for the Stars, Vol. 68

February 3, 2022 / DB

Chart Week: January 26, 1985
Song: “Do What You Do” – Jermaine Jackson
Chart Position: #19, 14th week on the chart. Peaked at #13 the week of January 5.

How do you define a single? That dilemma has long frustrated people who track the popularity of music. Over the years Billboard magazine has used a variety of definitions for how to classify individual songs on its different charts. In the current, streaming age, for example, just about every track can be considered a single the moment an album is released. In the past, the definition was much more stringent when separating singles from album tracks.

This Jermaine Jackson song opens a door for us to look at how singles were categorized in the 1980s.

There’s nothing all that special about “Do What You Do.” It was the second biggest pop single of Jermaine’s solo career, and spent three weeks atop the Adult Contemporary chart. I guess that made it special to him.

What is more interesting is this track’s B-side, “Tell Me I’m Not Dreamin’ (Too Good to Be True),” a duet with brother Michael. When Casey mentioned that was the B-side for “Do What You Do” on a January 1985 countdown, I was confused: I remembered hearing it a lot on the radio in the summer of 1984.

My mind was not playing tricks on me. “Tell Me I’m Not Dreamin’ (Too Good to Be True)” was indeed a pretty big radio hit in June 1984. But thanks to a conflict between the brothers’ record companies and Billboard rules, it never registered on the country’s biggest pop chart.

Michael was signed to Epic Records, Jermaine to Arista. While Michael was cleared to record the track for his brother’s album, the labels were unable to reach an agreement on how to share credit for it as a single pressing. So Epic blocked it. I would imagine this pissed off a lot of people at Arista, who were likely thrilled at the prospect of poaching a little of Michael’s magic. However, radio DJ’s across the country still inserted the track into playlists, knowing their listeners were clamoring for new MJ material. They played the hell out of it, in fact.

At the time, Billboard did not include songs on the Hot 100 that had not been released as official singles. When an album track or B-side began getting heavy airplay, labels had to scramble to press it as a single if they wanted to get Hot 100 recognition.[1]

There were still ways to track “TMIND(TGTBT)”’s popularity. Radio and Records magazine published its own singles chart that was based exclusively on radio airplay. On that chart, the Jackson brothers hit #6 in June 1984. And Billboard had a Hot Dance Club Play chart that tracked, well, what dance clubs were playing. Only in the hot dance clubs, obviously. “TMIND(TGTBT)” was #1 there for three weeks.

Despite that commercial success, if you pull up old Billboard Hot 100 charts or listen to old AT40’s, it’s as if it never existed. Crazy.

I’m not a big fan of “Do What You Do.” It’s a sleepy, saccharine, soulless, and totally generic mid–80s ballad. It’s made worse by Jermaine’s vocals, which sound mailed-in. I wonder if he was going for something along the lines of Michael’s “She’s Out of My Life.” The problem is that as sappy as that song was, Michael’s emotion was completely genuine, ending with him breaking down as he sang the closing lines. I don’t sense any real heartbreak in Jermaine’s delivery. I think it would have sounded better if someone like Peabo Bryson or Freddie Jackson had sang it. 3/10

As for the B-side, I know I dug it when I was a kid, and I enjoyed listening to it a few times this week. It definitely leans way into the sound Quincy Jones and Michael created for Thriller. Replacement-level Thriller, to be fair, but the sound is still there. Even today, hearing those pseudo-Thriller vibes gets me pumped. That’s probably just memories of being excited to hear new Michael Jackson music a few months after the final Thriller single fell off the charts. It doesn’t hurt that the best part of the song is when Michael sings. He just has so much more personality and urgency in his voice than Jermaine does. I also hear a little New Wave influence; something about the synthesizers reminds me of The Fixx. 7/10

This became a bigger deal in the 1990s, when record companies often refused to issue songs that received heavy airplay as singles to force consumers to buy more expensive CD’s. ↩

January Media

February 2, 2022 / DB

Shows and Movies

Cobra Kai, season four
See here.

B+

Narcos: Mexico, season three
A very good wrap-up to the series’ three-year look at the Mexican drug cartels of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Typically great casting and writing. This had some similar themes as season five of The Wire. It pulled in the press, which is an important part of any story of the Mexican drug wars. The most compelling angle of the season, Mexican cop Victor Tapia’s quest to find who is snatching and murdering women who work at factories near the US border, somewhat mirrored Jimmy McNulty’s search for who was murdering prostitutes in the final season of The Wire. Both felt out-of-place. Tapia’s timeline was staggeringly emotional, especially as you saw it slowly wearing him down (he looked like a sad, Mexican Aaron Rodgers). But the writers never really connected it to the main story, even by making Tapia share info with the DEA in exchange for help with his investigation.

Word is Narcos as we know it is complete after six seasons. However, the creators do have a new series in the works that will feature Sofia Vergara as Colombian drug queen Griselda Blanco. ¡Sí, por favor!

A-

14 Peaks: Nothing is Impossible
Nepalese climber Nimsdai Purja attempted to climb the 14 tallest peaks in the world in seven months. This is the story of that quest. It’s pretty badass. I bonded with my girls’ orthodontist because we both watched it the night before I took L in and we started talking about it.

A-

The Bourne Legacy
I tried to watch this on one of our flights home from Hawaii, but the HBO Max app kept glitching and I gave up. It does not stand up to the level set by the Matt Damon Bourne movies. Jeremy Renner doesn’t run as weird as Damon, but he still runs kind of weird.

B- for the movie, B for Remmer’s running

The Power of the Dog
This got crazy critical buzz. It was too arty, slow, and oddly sexual for me.

B-

Eastbound & Down, season two
Stupid, stupid shit. But good stupid.

B+

Red Sparrow
I guess it’s been too long since I read this novel, one of my favorite spy books of recent years, because a lot of this seemed unfamiliar to me. Or maybe they changed a lot. Man, was this violent. Like uncomfortably violent at times. I liked the book, so I liked this, although reading the critical response section of the movie’s Wikipedia page it seems a lot of critics did not like this movie. Jennifer Lawrence was spectacular, though. The critics and I agree on that.

B+

Killing Them Softly
A slow burner of a crime movie about two deadbeats who rob an illegal card game and have to face the consequences. Scoot McNairy, who was terrific in Narcos: Mexico, plays a completely different and unexpected character here. Brad Pitt is solid. Ray Liotta does Ray Liotta things. But James Gandolfini’s aging, alcoholic hitman steals the show. As a whole, the movie tried to be too artsy at times.

Station Eleven
Based on Emily St. John Mandel’s critically acclaimed novel, which takes place during and after a flu pandemic wipes out much of the world’s population. I read the book several years ago, and am pretty sure I enjoyed it. Apparently I didn’t remember much, because a lot of this was new to me. I guess that’s what I get for reading 50-ish books a year.

Turns out, after reading some articles about the show, there were a lot of changes made, including two MASSIVE alterations, when adapting the novel for TV. All came with Mandel’s approval, which I found interesting.

It was wonderfully shot, has amazing music, and does an excellent job working on the viewer’s emotions. The entire series leads up to a specific moment, and that moment is amazingly restrained and should absolutely slay anyone with a heart. It also had one of the most delightful scenes in recent prestige TV history. This was a creepy, strange, and beautiful television experience. I don’t think everything totally worked, but it was very good.

A-

Apollo 13
I stumbled across this one afternoon and was transfixed for the next two hours. Even though I’ve seen it plenty of times and just watched it a year or so ago. Never gets old.

All Madden
Ostensibly a summation of John Madden’s professional life – it first aired about a week before his death – it also felt like a 74 minute homage to my generation’s childhood. So many memories bubbled up as I watched.

Curb Your Enthusiasm, season eight
I had heard Curb lost its mojo after season seven. Still, I decided to give season eight a whirl one night and was pleased I did. Clearly not as good as season seven, but it was still pretty, prettttty, prettttttttty good.

A-

Shorts

Our Universe is SO big, it’s mindblowing!
Science!

Hear the Otherworldly Sounds of Skating on Thin Ice
L and I watched this old favorite after she made cool sounds on the ice in our front yard one morning.

25 Facts You Didn’t Know About Seinfeld
Most of these were old trivia to me, but I still learned a few things. I dock it a full letter grade, though, because the narrator doesn’t know how to pronounce Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ name correctly. Come the fuck on, dude.

C+

Springboard: the secret history of the first real smartphone
I had a Handspring Visor and loved it. This is a great look back at how the Handspring company defined what handheld technology would be in the 21st century, and how it laid the groundwork for the iPhone-led smartphone revolution.

The Vega Brothers | Official Trailer
There have long been rumors that Quentin Tarantino planned on doing a movie centered on John Travolta’s and Michael Madsen’s Vega brothers. Here is a brilliant fake trailer for said movie, using footage from other films.

One-Minute Time Machine
Hilarious. Also don’t fuck with time.

Exit Strategy
Speaking of fucking with time. This short is creepy and touching.

A-

Adam Granduciel of The War On Drugs Breaks Down “Occasional Rain”
Since I have no musical talent, I’m always fascinated with how artists get from an initial thought to a recorded song. So I love shit like this.

Podcasts

The Prestige TV Podcast: Station Eleven Final Thoughts
First time listening to a Spotify podcast. This was a useful tool when collecting my thoughts about Station Eleven.

The Prestige TV Podcast: Ozark: Where We Left Off
I fired this up before I dove into the final season of Ozark. Not as helpful as the Station Eleven episode, but still a decent refresher.

B+

Jayhawk Talk: Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

February 2, 2022 / DB

Bad news is supposed to come in threes. KU seemed poised to fulfill that cliché Tuesday in Ames, IA.

Ochai Agbaji tested positive for Covid, taking the likely All-American out of a key road contest.

Remy Martin’s knee refuses to heal, and he was ruled out of the Iowa State game as well.

Throw in a game in an arena where KU is hated as much as anywhere else, against a team that believed they had beaten the Jayhawks in Lawrence a couple weeks back, and everything seemed lined up for a second-straight loss.

But rather than a third piece of bad news, it ended up being a trio of surprises that changed the narrative.

DaJuan Harris played his ass off. He was, to be honest, mixed in the first half, combining a couple tough shots and some brilliant defense with a handful of bad turnovers and passivity on offense. I was again lamenting how Harris gets taken out of his offensive game against more physical defenders, forcing the KU offense to start way too far from the hoops. But in the second half he attacked and was key to KU building a big lead shortly after halftime that was never really threatened.

This felt like a game when David McCormack would either be really good or really bad. He was really good, going 7–7 from the floor and making Iowa State pay for their defensive scheme with three long jumpers that he calmly swished. Add in 13 rebounds, a couple blocks, and generally playing under control, and it was another one of those Good Dave games that make him so frustrating. (All that good outweighed two of the worst passes any KU player has ever thrown as ISU made a charge late in the first half.)

The biggest surprise was Joseph Yesufu getting minutes and taking advantage of them. I thought he was good in his brief run in the first half, forcing two turnovers and helping KU get two transition buckets. After making a brilliant steal and assist, he went to the bench, and did not return in the first half. I was screaming at the TV, since Harris was playing passive during this stretch and ISU was trimming a 10-point deficit down to four.

Joe returned a minute into the second half and then only sat a couple minutes the rest of the game. He was really good. Especially for a guy who had played right around 20 minutes total in the first seven Big 12 games. He guarded the hell out of his man. He pushed the tempo on offense. He hit maybe the biggest shot of the game, a corner three after two-straight Cyclone triples had cut a 12-point lead in half. He also got open for an easy layup and made a great pass to setup Jalen Wilson for a tree. He was rusty, badly missing two other threes and blowing an open layup (that McCormack dunked home).

It’s been a mystery why Yesufu hasn’t played more. He seems to struggle on defense, which is the easiest way to lose minutes on a Bill Self team. But not playing at all, when Remy and Bobby Pettiford have been hurt/ineffective, made no sense. Self has never said much about Joe, I guess because he hasn’t been asked, so my assumption has been that Joe has struggled in practice, too, and thus hasn’t earned the chance to get those rare minutes of game action.

Injuries opened the door for him last night. Thank goodness he took advantage of the opportunity. Seven points, four rebounds, four assists (one turnover), and three steals in 23 minutes is a great line from a guy off the bench. If that built both some confidence in the player and some trust in the coach, Yesufu can be a big factor in the back half of the Big 12 schedule.

Stats

February 1, 2022 / DB

January 2022

Something for Kate – 54
The Beatles – 42
Phantastic Ferniture – 35
The War on Drugs – 34
Frightened Rabbit – 25

Complete stats available at my Last.fm page.