• Holiday Weekend Notes

    The first weekend of the summer is in the books. We were busy. M and C finished classes on Thursday. Unless there’s a surprise coming we don’t know about, they both had really good semesters with just one B between them and a handful of A+’s. And now M is a senior. Yikes! I took C to finally get her…

  • Friday Playlist

    https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1S8VmIz2vLY58bOnc84YPa?si=67bf765e15ae4f71 “Turn Up The Sunshine” – Diana Ross, Tame Impala Calling it right now: this is the cross-generational, cross-genre song of the summer. One of my nephews loved Pharell’s “Happy” when he was two. I predict his two-year-old brother is going to be crazy about this song. “Summer Nights” – Hazel English And this should be the indie rock song…

  • Some Bond Links

    I really enjoyed this look at Pierce Brosnan’s career. Especially the section where the author discusses how despite, seeming to be the ideal James Bond, Brosnan’s run in the series always seemed lacking. Mostly, the Brosnan Bonds feel like a franchise trying to figure out how to pivot back to relevance, casting a seemingly perfect Bond who, unfortunately, symbolized a…

  • Reader’s Notebook, 5/25/22

    Good grief, I’ve gotten bad about these again. Didn’t I say I was going to start posting after I finished each book to keep from getting so far behind? Or did I just think it? Regardless, I clearly failed to follow up. I guess that will be my goal for the summer, when I expect my reading pace to quicken.…

  • Weekend Hoops: The Ville

    L’s first true travel basketball tournament of her life is in the books. She had fun, but it was a mixed weekend results-wise. Hoops first. Her team went 2–2 for the weekend. Friday night they got absolutely annihilated by a team from Canada. Whatever your mental image of how Canadian seventh grade girls should look and play, these girls were…

  • Friday Playlist

    https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1zOgnk1hAyASh3VtPfMlOR?si=32493b6bdd5449c8 “Rewind” – Whimsical Some very turn-of-the-millennium shoegaze from Northwest Indiana, of all places. “Alive” – POLIÇA Oh, damn! This song absolutely slays. “Bones” – Rosali After some shoegaze and electro-pop, let’s take things in a completely different direction. It sure seems like a whole lot of shreddy songs like this come out of Philly. I think Rosali has worked…

  • Year One With An Audi

    Last week was the one year anniversary of me acquiring my Audi Q5. As my car search series was immensely popular – I believe at least 10 people read it – I feel like I owe those fans a one year update. Aside from some minor quibbles, I am still deeply in love with my Audi. It isn’t perfect, but…

  • On the iPod

    You may have missed the news because of more important things, but Apple officially retired the iPod line of music players last week. That’s not exactly true, as the iPod Touches that were discontinued were more iPhones without a cellular radio than anything resembling the classic iPods. But, still, Apple no longer sells a dedicated portable music player. There have…

  • Weekend Hoops Notes: B-town

    L finally got back in hoops action this weekend. The tournament her team was scheduled to play in in Indy got cancelled because of lack of teams. Our coach scrambled and got us into a tournament in Bloomington. Which is nice since they’ve been working on the main highway between Indy and B-town approximately since I moved to Indiana. There…

  • Friday Playlist

    https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ZyKR7YFqwhX5O169NXdvH?si=94e27eb74ddf48cb “Better Days” – Liam Gallagher I’ve never been a huge fan of the Gallagher brothers’ post-Oasis solo/group efforts. But this song is solid. And I hope that Liam is right that the better days we’ve been waiting for eventually get here. “Nowhere At All” – Young Guv Nobody is better right now at making hazy, summery, jangle pop like…