D's Notebook

Month: January 2025 (Page 2 of 2)

Weekend Notes

January 13, 2025 /

A quieter weekend, although there were still enough activities over the past 5–6 days to justify an overly-long blog post.

Weather

A little over three new inches of snow Friday, on top of the 9+ we received last Sunday/Monday. Our street is one of the few side streets in our area that gets attention; the neighborhood behind us pays a private contractor to pass through and we enjoy the benefits of that. However, there was enough slush left over from the weekend that our street is a sheet of crusty ice today.

The joy of Friday’s storm was that it hit right in the middle of the day. Despite that, CHS did not dismiss early so C had a somewhat tricky drive home. She said she saw at least six accidents on her commute, but she made it safely. She said the four new tires I had to put on her car after her incident a week ago really helped with traction. No shit…

Then three hours later I had to head back to pick up L from practice. Getting to school wasn’t that bad, but the return was awful. We made it home without incident, although it took about 10–15 minutes longer than usual. And we saw lots of slide offs and small accidents.

While battery performance goes in the shitter, the Tesla gets around pretty well in the snow. Its heavy weight, low center of gravity, and dual motor setup makes for a pretty secure ride, as long as you don’t drive like a lunatic. I’m perfectly happy to slow down to keep things under control.

The forecast for this week is dry but super cold. Windchills as low as –20 midweek. Yay! I did have to break down and drive next door to the gym two days last week because the snow drifts in the parking lot were so high. If the windchill is as low as forecast Wednesday I’ll likely be driving again this week.

J Term

Last week was CHS’ annual J-term, a week of electives to ease back into the academic life. This year they shortened it to just one week instead of the two weeks it had been the last four years. That was smart, although the groups that traveled overseas (there were trips to Paris, Kenya, and the Galapagos) all had to leave early to squeeze everything in.

C took a Gilmore Girls session. They wore comfy clothes, read books, went to libraries, watched shows and movies, and went out for lunch or breakfast every day. Very intense stuff.

L’s was more serious. She took a careers in sports course. Tuesday they visited an Indy Car team to learn about their entire operation, including watching the crew practice doing pitstops in the garage. She’s not really into cars but thought that was cool. Wednesday they bussed up to Purdue and got to tour the basketball facilities and watch the men’s team practice. Matt Painter talked to them, as well. She LOVED this, even though she’s not a Purdue fan. Thursday they had a guest from the Horizon League who talked about what she does as a graduate assistant and how she is plotting out her career. This was extra cool because the speaker was L’s eighth grade buddy when she was in kindergarten at St. P’s. L was very interested in this path as well.

This morning they were back to normal classes at the normal time.

M went back to Cincinnati Friday before the snow hit 1) so she could hang out with the dude she’s been dating and 2) because she had a sorority meeting that started at 9 AM Sunday. She’s back in classes today as well.

KU Hoops

Whew! It was one thing to lose to Cincinnati last year in the Big 12 tournament, when Kevin McCullar and Hunter Dickinson were both injured and not playing. To have repeated that results at full strength Saturday would have been a disaster. UC seemed kind of stinky to me. I was worried that was where we headed that direction again. M even texted me during the first half to let me know my Jayhawks were losing to her Bearcats.

Fortunately KU decided to play some wicked defense in the second half and finally put together a little run late to win comfortably. UC’s 40 points were the fewest they had scored in 32 years. It was the fewest KU had given up in a conference game since 1963. I think the defense was very good, but, man, there was something going on in that gym. Both teams missed a million open shots. I’m not sure if it was the rims, if the arena was cold, or what. That was a despicable display of offense, though, and all the tapes should be burned.

I was very glad that I did not spent the several hundred dollars per seat the secondary market had tickets at the last time I checked. The week before Christmas there were tickets in the top of the upper level going for $600 each, which is insane. Some courtside seats were going for $2000 each. I know KU hadn’t played in Cincinnati since 1964, but jeez! I didn’t look to see if those dropped with UC coming into the game at 0–3 in the league, and KU 2–1. Regardless, for the quality of ball those teams played, anything would have been an overpay, so I was perfectly happy watching from my couch 102 miles away.

CFP

Ugh. After living in Indiana for over 20 years, I’ve come to really hate Ohio State. I’m not sure why; their success has never come at the expense of KU. We don’t recruit against them. I’m not a fan of another Big 10 school. Other than 2007, there’s never been a KU team that was in the discussion for the same level of bowl game as the Buckeyes. It’s just that as happens with programs that win all the time, I’ve come to dislike them and many of their fans. It doesn’t help that while most OSU fans I know are great, fun people, I know a few who are total dicks. Like people you never want to be around during games and talk the worst kind of shit after games. Just total nonsense. When you’re dealing with fanbases, the dicks always outweigh the normals.

And we all agree Ryan Day is a total psycho, right? Which is saying something in a sport where most of the coaches are psychos. For some reason his coloring of his hair and beard drives me nuts. Not sure why he’s not in a Just For Men commercial. Admit it, dude.

So, despite nearly 30 years of hating Texas for their political dominance of the Big 12, I was pulling for the Longhorns Friday. A lot of good that did me.

I also grew up hating Notre Dame, but my time in the Indianapolis Catholic community has softened my stance on the Irish. Plus, like a lot of folks, Marcus Freeman has won me over.

So there’s no doubt where my loyalties are next week. Sadly, I think Ohio State is going to overpower the Irish. And I’m now 100% against the 12-team CFP, because it lets clearly mediocre teams like the Buckeyes get hot for a month and win the damn thing.

I might watch a movie instead of the game.

NFL Playoffs

The opening round, so far, was kind of boring. The late game Sunday, with Washington bouncing in the winning field goal, was the only one with any true drama, and I barely watched that game because we had guests.

I guess there was drama in how many interceptions Justin Herbert would throw against Houston. And whether CJ Stroud would match him. I don’t watch the Chargers very often but it continues to baffle me, and many others, why The Ringer’s Steven Ruiz continues to rank Herbert well above Joe Burrow in his QB rankings. Maybe the Vikings and Rams will surprise us with a good one tonight.

HS Hoops

One game last week for CHS. L was able to warm up for the JV game, and count it as a rehab practice, but she was not eligible to return to play until this week.

The JV team started in a 13–2 hole but came back to win by 4. A really nice effort by them. I believe they are 10–3 for the season now.

Varsity was playing a top 10 4A team that has one of the best players in the state. Or, rather, one of the best athletes. This girl was the Gatorade Indiana soccer player of the year and won three state titles in her four years as a soccer player. She also won a state title in basketball as a freshman, and is one of the top 100 hoops recruits in the country. She’s going to Miami (FL) to play basketball. So, obviously, her genetic makeup and work ethic suck.

We held her to five below her season average of 27 points but that was the only high point of the night in a 24-point loss. Any positive momentum gained over the holidays seemed lost Wednesday. Varsity is 9–7.

This week is the Indianapolis City Tournament. The CHS varsity is seeded #1, based on the computer rankings, but our rivals Bishop Chatard are, arguably, the favorites.[1] They beat us last year in the championship game at the buzzer in OT, and I think they are better this season. Although we are the top seed, we have a tougher second-round game,[2] so hopefully our girls don’t slip up and we make it to the championship game Friday.

The JV tournament mirrors the varsity bracket, so your defending JV city champs are also the #1 seed. And they get their point guard back Tuesday! Other than the two top seeds, the other JV teams are trash, so a rematch is almost guaranteed in the title game. Last year Chatard played us close in the first half, then we ran away in the second half for a comfortable win. Their two best players from that team, and their best freshman this season, are all on varsity this year. L doesn’t think much of their JV squad but I’m not sure what she bases that on. I’m cautiously optimistic. And I’m more interested to see how her body holds up this week with three games in four days. She’s still only practicing about 50% of the reps so I doubt she has any of her cardio health built back up.

  1. In this week’s computer rankings we are #8 in 3A, they are #9. In the media poll, though, BCHS is #10 and we are not ranked. Our lofty computer ranking advantage is purely from playing a tougher schedule.  ↩
  2. The bracket is determined by the computer rankings two weeks before the tournament. The #3 and #4 seeds have actually swapped spots in the computer poll since the bracket came out. Last year CHS was the #1 seed but by the time the tournament started, Chatard was actually the highest ranked team in the bracket. Weird, but I guess you can’t roll out the pairings the day before games start.  ↩

Friday Playlist

January 10, 2025 /

We’re finally back in the normal swing of things this week. I’m pleased to say my various new music playlists are being refilled after the holiday break. I should have no trouble coming up with regular-sized playlists full of new music for the foreseeable future.

“Mallee Country” – Indian Pacific
Nothing like some lovely, jangle pop from Down Under to make you think of warmer days. Especially good on a day when our second snow storm of the week is expected.

“this is my california” – mary in the junkyard
This song would be a little more poignant, given current events, if this band was actually from Cali and not London. They sound like a mid-point between Mazzy Star and Big Thief.

“When He Comes Around” – TOLEDO
This band is neither from Toledo, Ohio nor Toledo, Spain. I guess they just like that word.

“Sanitized” – Katie Gavin
It’s not very often an album lands three different songs on my weekly playlist. Gavin has done that with her debut solo album. There’s a little Neil Finn quality to the music of this one.

“Nothing’s Ever Gonna Be The Same Again” – Darker Lighter
Salar Rajabnik lists on his biography that he was shaped by splitting his childhood between Tehran and Kansas City. That’s quite a combo! This sounds 100% like the alternative rock I heard on Music Choice back around the turn of the millennium.

“Nothing Compares To Nineteen” – Fiona-Lee
This singer sounds like at least two different Australian artists I can think of off the top of my head. Naturally that means she’s British. A really good song about the shit kids deal with today.

“Small Changes” – Michael Kiwanuka
One of my goals for 2025 is to listen to more of the great, new, modern soul music that is available. Part of that is because that’s one of L’s preferred genres – she’s gotten into Leon Bridges because of my influence – and while we have a lot of similar interests, this would be another good touch point for us. This is the first of several of songs in that vein I’ve added to my playlist of current music.

“Gepetto” – Belly
This week’s The Alternative Number Ones entry was about Belly’s “Feed The Tree,” which was number one for three weeks in the spring of 1993 (subscription required). This was one of my favorite posts in the series because Tom Breihan related how he was an eighth grader when Belly’s debut album came out, and in many ways Belly was THE alternative band to him at the time. While sharing Belly’s fascinating history – Tanya Donnelly was a founding member of both Throwing Muses and The Breeders before starting Belly – he also turned it into a big nostalgia piece for himself, talking about that part of his life and how music came to be important to him. His music writing is always great; this one was a little extra great.

Anyway, I loved Belly. I loved their first album Star. I’m pretty sure I bought their second album, King, the first day it came out. I loved it too. I was so bummed that broader musical tastes were changing and King and its singles made very little impact on the chart. So I loved this entry in the series. It made being a Stereogum subscriber even more worth it.

I bet most of my readers my age remember “Feed The Tree.” How many of you remember their next single, “Gepetto,” which was arguably better but peaked at just #8 on the alt rock chart? Total banger. Or, since Donnelly was from the Boston area, bangah!

Jayhawk Talk: Ups and Downs

January 9, 2025 /

KU basketball has become a roller coaster ride. Which is not the coolest thing when you are a fan.

A week ago they lost to an undermanned, sleep-deprived West Virginia team at home. It was the first time the Mountaineers had ever won at Allen Fieldhouse. In true WVU form, they tried their hardest to blow a big lead, but KU could only tie then have two awful possessions when they had the chance to take the lead. Shame Devonte Graham or Frank Mason weren’t available.

What was most maddening about this game was that KU never looked interested in competing hard. Zeke Mayo was the only starter who seemed engaged, Flory Bidunga the only bench player who made an impact. Those two fueled the big second-half run, but the rest of the team acted like WVU wasn’t worth their attention. Maybe they thought since WVU was missing their two best players it would be a glorified practice? It should have been obvious that wasn’t the case about two minutes into the game, but it still took them until well into the second half to finally flip the switch.

Where is Bruce Webber and his Try Hard chart when you need him?!?!

Then Sunday the total opposite, as the Jayhawks went to Orlando and annihilated UCF by 1000 points. Or 51, which might as well be 1000 in college basketball. It was the biggest KU win since 2008, the biggest conference road win in school history. And the wild thing is they really didn’t play all that well on offense. They missed a ton of open 3’s. They missed so many shots at the rim. You know, evergreen KU problems. But their defense was dominant, Shak Moore moving into the starting lineup seemed to energize the team, and Bidunga had his breakout game. He blocked every shot. He grabbed every rebound. Then he did this:

Mercy. I immediately started texting friends that Bill Self needed to talk to Adidas and everyone else to double-up Flory’s NIL bag so he has zero interest in being the #25 pick in this year’s draft. Fortunately he showed some typical freshman struggles last night so I doubt we need to worry about it too much for now.[1]

If they had shown even 50% of Sunday’s effort five days earlier, the West Virginia game isn’t close. You would think a team dominated by fifth and sixth year players would understand this a little better. Alas…

Then last night’s game against Arizona State managed to combine both the WVU and UCF games into one, 40-minute package. I missed the first half, but effort again seemed to be the issue. Then the Jayhawks came out and dominated the second half, turning a six-point deficit into a 19-point win. Shak Moore was, again, the difference. As a whole the team cranked things up on the defensive end, but his back-to-back steals that turned into dunks basically ended the game midway through the second half. Wild that a few weeks ago there were rumors that he wouldn’t play the rest of the year and would likely transfer at semester and seek a medical redshirt elsewhere. Dude might have saved the season.

Let’s bullet point a few good things, and a few concerning ones.

Good Things

  • Shak, obviously. Brings effort and energy and means DaJuan Harris doesn’t have the ball in his hands constantly.
  • Rylan Griffen figuring it out. His defense is improving, as does his general comfort level. Seems like he has a great attitiude. With that has come more minutes and more makes.
  • Flory’s continued moments of brilliance. I really need my Hoosier Jayhawk to hang in Lawrence at least two years. If he stays 2–3 years, he will be one of the best rebounders of the Bill Self era.
  • Zeke Mayo as the offensive alpha. Who saw this coming?

Bad Things

  • AJ Storr being a complete waste. A massive recruiting miss. He played three minutes last night and it sounds like they were a disaster.
  • Hunter Dickenson’s offense. A mess. He’s 7’2” and has shot under 50% in three of his last four games. He shot just 33% against Arizona State. And it’s not like he’s shooting a ton of 3’s. He needs to plant his big ass in the low post and focus on what he’s good at.
  • DaJuan Harris missing layups and bricking 3’s. Listen, DaJuan was the starting point guard on a national championship team. He doesn’t suck. But it is totally maddening that his game has not improved more than 5% on the offensive end while his defense has regressed.

Mixed Bag

  • KJ Adams’ entire game. He’s been fantastic the last two games. No one plays harder. But he is so limited on offense and he doesn’t do the one thing he exels at – dunking – as much as he used to, is a mediocre rebounder, and not really a lock-down defender. Yet he starts and generally plays over 30 minutes a game. Storr really should have taken a bunch of his minutes, but that’s not going to happen. Fortunately Storr’s failure led to Bidunga getting some of KJ’s minutes. While Flory can’t do much other than dunk lobs within the offense, he’s a rebounding machine, and probably a better defender. I know Self loves KJ, but Flory playing more is the best way to maximize KU’s ceiling.
  • Bill Self. Listen, you don’t want to criticize a man who has won two national titles too much, but this team’s issues mostly come down to recruiting failures of one kind or another and not being able to find the right match of personel and scheme. That’s all on the coach. He’ll figure some shit out – going to pressure turned the Arizona State game around – but my worry is that the roster has the wrong mix of talent for him to get them to their preseason expectations. This team feels reactive, and each game will present a new set of problems that Self is forced to figure out and adjust for.

It feels like you should divide the Big 12 schedule into three-game stretches. KU just dropped one in what should be their easiest, or second easiest, of those stretches. Maybe they figured some things out in there. There are clearly some structural issues, but to me the biggest thing is can we count on all five guys on the court to play hard every minute they are out there? Storr seems like he might be buried for good. The rest of the team are making progress.

However, the next three games are at Cincinnati, at Iowa State, home vs Kansas State. Good teams can go 1–2 in that stretch. Showing up for any of those game indifferent and unfocused can turn respectable losses into embarassing ones. The next 11 days will go a long way towards determining what their ceiling is.

  1. I snuck peaks at three differnet mock drafts. He’s not listed in any of them, one of which even goes 150 players deep. That same site did have him #19 in their 2026 mock draft.  ↩

Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 109

January 7, 2025 /

Chart Week: January 7, 1978
Song: “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” – Crystal Gayle
Chart Position: #16, 22nd week on the chart. Peaked at #2 for three weeks in November/December 1977.

What is the first American Top 40 show I remember listening to? If you know me, you understand that I wish I could identify that broadcast to give it the appropriate commemorative post. My first vivid memories of hearing Casey’s voice for which I can clearly identify the year are from 1978. Mostly in the spring, after my parents separated for the first time, and my mom and I moved in with a friend of hers for a few months until we got our own apartment.

However, there are murkier memories from earlier that year in which I remember specific songs, but can’t be sure whether I recall hearing Casey introduce them on his program.

When I listened to this countdown there was a flood of recollections from this moment in my life. Specifically of a big snowstorm that hit southeast Missouri in January 1978, wiping out several days of school. Snow days are always awesome, but this time the Star Wars action figures that my parents got me for Christmas, which famously had to be shipped to kids all over the country weeks after the holiday, arrived the day before this bonus break. I remember sitting in my room playing with the most prized possessions I had owned to that point in my young life while we were stuck inside, the biggest hits of the day playing on the very cool, European clock radio my aunt and uncle had sent me from Germany.[1]

I’m guessing that storm came a little later in January than this countdown aired. So let’s say that sometime in the opening month of 1978 was the first time my brain registers me listening to Casey countdown the 40 hottest records in the country.

What entries sparked memories of that snowy month? Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “What’s Your Name,” “Sometimes When We Touch” by Dan Hill, “I Go Crazy” by Paul Davis, ELO’s “Turn to Stone,” “Just the Way You Are,” by Billy Joel, “We Are the Champions/We Will Rock You,” by Queen, and Styx’s “Come Sail Away.” I can hear them coming out of the speaker of that little radio as the sun reflecting off the piled up snow lit up my room. I can even feel the cold radiating off the window.

The tune that stuck out the most was Crystal Gayle’s biggest pop hit, “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue,” which spent three weeks at #2 in late 1977.[2] I think it registered the most because my dad loved it, and, under the tree for him on Christmas morning was a copy of Gayle’s We Must Believe In Magic album. I remember that LP vividly for two reasons. First was Gayle’s striking appearance. She was a dazzlingly attractive woman. I might have been just six, but I wasn’t too young to sneak peaks at her pictures on the album sleeve when my parents weren’t looking. I’m sure the photos were super wholesome, but it felt like I was getting away with something when I sat in the corner next to our record player and stared at them. Second, we had no country music in our house. Nothing even close. So, even as a wee youngster, I was surprised by the addition of an album by a “country star” to the family album collection.[3]

I think my dad, and tons of other people, liked it because it doesn’t sound country at all. It has a more jazzy, adult contemporary vibe. There’s just a hint of swing to it, as well, the gentlest cocktail hour nudge. Unlike Dolly Parton, who was at #5 this week with her delightful “Here You Come Again,” Gayle sang without any twang. “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” certainly leans more towards cheesy, country club cotillion schmaltz than Hee Haw honky tonk.

That lack of true country character is remarkable because of Gayle’s geographic origins and sibling connection. She was born in Paintsville, KY, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. You would expect her voice to drip of that hilly country, just like her oldest sister, Loretta Lynn. There was no mistaking where Lynn was from. On this song, at least, Gayle could just as easily have been from Southern California or New York as deep in the mining country of Kentucky. Some of that is explained by her family moving to Wabash, IN when she was four. Compared to rural Kentucky, Wabash was much more urban, which led to Gayle listening to all kinds of music other than country. And, apparently, softening her accent.

Casey referenced that biological link as he introduced “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” this week. He noted that despite her reputation as one of THE queens of country music, Loretta Lynn had never had the kind of Top 40 success her baby sister was having. For years there were rumors the sisters didn’t get along because of professional jealousy. They both tried to quash that talk, but for some reason it came to define their relationship in the music press. You wonder if it started with relatively innocent comments like Casey’s. Or if it’s just because people suck.

Gayle would crack the pop top 20 a couple more times in the Seventies as a solo artist, then hit #7 with the Eddie Rabbit on the duet “You and I” in 1982. She was a monster in the Nashville world, though. She hit #1 a staggering 18 times on the country chart, with 16 other singles reaching the top 10. That’s a hall of fame career. I haven’t listened to any of those tracks, so I don’t know if she sounded more traditionally country on them, or if her voice always landed in that sweet range where no genre could entirely claim it.

I don’t love this song, but I don’t hate it, either. While lacking any regional identifiers, her voice is very nice. Gayle does an effective job portraying her sadness about a romance that is ending, but adds a subtle smokiness that should make her man want to come running back to her. Legend has it that it features the first studio take she recorded of “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.” She took a couple more cracks at the tune, but the producer told her to stop, as her initial effort could not be topped. She doesn’t show off a huge range, but stays in a pocket where every note is perfect. To bad the rest of the track kind of stinks. But a pretty face and a pretty voice can go a long way. Especially when you are six. 6/10

  1. I’m not sure if this storm was connected to the Great Blizzard of 1978, which didn’t seem to hit Missouri. Some internet digging suggests that that winter was one of the snowiest in Missouri history, so it could have been any time in January/early February. Maybe it was this storm. I do remember we had to go to school twice on Saturday, for half days, to help make up the time we missed. I also found that the area we lived in got over two feet of snow in one storm a year later. I have absolutely no memory of that. Weird.  ↩

  2. It was stuck behind Debbie Boone’s “You Light Up My Life,” one of the biggest songs in chart history. Coincidentally “YLUML” it is also one of the worst songs in chart history.  ↩

  3. I received the Star Wars soundtrack album that Christmas, my first non-kid album. I was super bummed that it only contained the John Williams score to the movie and not Meko’s disco-flavored theme that had topped the Hot 100 that fall.  ↩

Weekend Notes

January 6, 2025 /

Friday I had an appointment to get C’s iPad looked at. After confirming it needed a new battery, the guy helping me said the replacement would take about a week to arrive, so it would probably be “next Monday.” He paused, we looked at each other for a moment, and then we both started laughing. We both thought Friday was Monday because of the New Year’s holiday. Time and space gets freaky over the holidays!

C and L were supposed to go back to school today, although CHS begins the calendar year with J-Term and this week was not going to be a return to serious classwork. Until the school, like most in central Indiana, called off Monday classes early Sunday evening because of our big snow storm. As I begin this Monday morning, we are sitting on about 6” of snow in our part of town, with another wave blowing through that is expected to add one more inch or so. Worse, the winds are kicking up even any roads that have been plowed will likely get worse over the next few hours. S’s office did not close and she had to go in at the normal time. She arrived safely but said the roads are horrible. I’m not 100% certain our snowblower is functional, so we’ll see how much effort I have to put into clearing the driveway later this morning.

**Update: I measured 8″ of snow in our driveway before I began clearing it. One more squall passed through mid-morning and added another inch. As expected, the snowblower did not cooperate so I had to do it by hand. It took over three total hours, with a little help from L at the end. I am very sore and tired.**

It’s not quite our 2014 snowstorm – that one shut the city down for days and wiped out a whole week of school – but it’s good enough for the girls, who get to sleep in one more day.

We did have a little mishap in the storm. We let C drive to work Sunday, thinking she would be home before the roads got bad. Turns out we miscalculated by about an hour. On her way home she slid through a turn and hit a curb, popping a tire. Luckily she was right next to a gas station and was able to pull into the parking lot and wait for us to come change the tire for her. Given the age of the tire, that probably means we get to buy her a new, full set. Happy New Year!

Some more notes from New Year’s week.

NYE

The girls all had plans to ring in 2025 with friends. M traveled to Columbus, OH to hang out with some sorority pals for a couple days. She had a good time and traveled back-and-forth safely. She has one more week at home before UC classes resume next week.

C got together with her friend group. Seems like they had fun. L was supposed to do the same with a smaller group but started feeling bad Tuesday afternoon and ended up staying in her room all night. C came home Wendesday morning feeling bad, an illness that got worse Thursday. She’s been sick for the better part of a month and Dr. Mom finally called in the antibiotic troops to get her cleared up before the second semester begins. The drugs seem to be working so hopefully she starts ’25 healthier than she ended ’24.

As tends to happen, S was in bed well before midnight and I stayed up until just after the ball dropped. I don’t have any great fondness for New Year’s Eve, but I do like to see the calendar officially flip over to the next year and then sit around for a few minutes to make sure civilization doesn’t start breaking down because of some computer bug or whatever.

Thursday

Thursday was a big day for L. First thing in the morning she went back to sports medicine for a check-up on her foot. She was officially cleared to return to practice, although she’s supposed to take it easy and focus on rehab exercises for the time being. She was back at practice Friday and Saturday, the coaches letting her play in about 50% of the reps. There is still some foot pain, so we’re a little concerned that taking six weeks off did not resolve the issue. Unfortunately, she will not have enough practices to be cleared to play Wednesday night, so her first potential game will be in the City tournament next week.

Immediately after she got back from sports medicine I took her to the BMV where she got her driver’s license. She had passed her driving test nearly three months ago and just needed to wait the 90 days after her birthday to be eligible for her license. We got there as soon as they opened and were out in about 15 minutes. She’s driven herself to practice twice, along with going to a boys basketball game Saturday and run a few errands on her own. It would be nice if my days driving her to practice were over but as she and C share a car, those glory days won’t arrive until next year.

Sunday morning S and I took down all the Christmas decorations and got the house cleaned up. It’s always a little weird and a touch sad to be confronted with a “naked” living room after five weeks of having the tree, lights, and other decorations warm the space. Our house was still aglow last night, but this time because of street and house lights reflecting off the snow pack outside. Seriously, I woke a couple times thinking someone was shining a light into our bedroom it was so bright.

Colts

A mediocre season came to an appropriately mediocre ending with an overtime win over Jacksonville in front of a diminished but surly crowd. Tons of the people who bothered to show up left in the second half as the roads began to slicken and the stands were mostly empty as the game went to the extra frame. They would have been better served playing the game at one of the small, college stadiums in town. Then they could have been out in the elements, too! Kind of a shame that despite this massive snowstorm spreading across the country, not a single NFL game was affected by it because the Chiefs were in Denver, the Colts play in a dome, and the Bengals played Saturday night in Pittsburgh.

Owner Jim Irsay wasted no time in saying that GM Chris Ballard and coach Shane Steichen would return for the 2025 season, a decision that pleased zero Colts fans. Get excited for another year on the mediocre treadmill!

Pacers

Hey, they might actually be playing good ball! They climbed back to .500 with a win Saturday. Throw out the disaster loss in Boston right after Christmas, an L they got revenge for two nights later, and they’ve generally played pretty well for about three weeks now. Tyrese Haliburton’s highs have been higher, his lows not as low. Andrew Nembhard returning seems to have steadied the entire roster. They have back-to-backs with Cleveland in a week, which should go a long way to showing how legit they are.

KU Hoops

Talk about wild mood swings! Last week had such a wide variance I’ll hold off my thoughts until tomorrow.

Sunday Links

January 5, 2025 /

What better time than a snowy Sunday to finally share the links I’ve been stacking up over the past month or so.

After reading a 007 novel recently, I wondered why we haven’t heard a timeline for when the movie franchise will launch its post-Daniel Craig era. Turns out there is a lot of drama between the long-time producer of the series and Amazon, who now own the rights to it.

According to WSJ, an Amazon Studios exec’s description of Bond as “content” in an early meeting was like a “death knell” to Broccoli. She has since referred to the folks at Amazon as “fucking idiots” to friends and expressed deep concerns about the e-commerce company being the right fit for Bond.

Looks like we’ll have to keep waiting.

Next James Bond Movie on Hold as Producer Clashes with Amazon

We don’t currently have Max, so I haven’t been able to watch the well-reviewed Yacht Rock series. Whether you’ve seen it or not, you can dive into some of the details of the genre here.

The (Slightly Abridged) Yacht Rock Dictionary

Since Shrinking wrapped up season two a couple weeks back, I was finally able to read this good piece about the man behind it, Bad Monkey, Ted Lasso, and other great TV shows.

Bill Lawrence Has Conquered Apple TV+

For decades I’ve said if I ever won the lottery – I’m talking hundreds of millions here, not small change – my dream would be to own a radio station. Even today, when radio is almost a niche format, I think it would be super cool to have my own station that played music currated independently by local DJs. So it makes me sad that Stephen King has decided to unload the three radio stations he owned for years. I doubt they played cutting-edge music, but it is cool that folks in Maine had locally-owned stations that didn’t rely on an algorithm cooked up in LA and played the same 15 songs on repeat endlessly (I assume his stations weren’t operated that way).

Stephen King Announces Closure of His Maine Radio Stations

Update Apparently at least one of his stations has found a new ownership group that promises not to alter its format.

I had no idea there was this comedic “mystery” behind one of the greatest SNL sketches ever.

Yang shared that “People tense up at the table when they see it’s just your piece, but we were like, ‘You know who did it incredibly well was Will.’ And then we read ‘More Cowbell.’”

Will Ferrell blows mystery of non-existent “More Cowbell” co-writer wide open

And I thought it was just because I was getting old and my eyes getting worse that oncoming headlights bother me so much.

“As usual, we’re trying to play catch-up and figure out how we’re going to address the problems that have been created by this thing that we thought was a solution.”

Asleep at the Wheel in the Headlight Brightness Wars

The great Rodger Sherman on one of the most unique and fun plays in NFL history.

It happened. IT HAPPENED. It really happened! It’s a slightly-before-Christmas football miracle!

Everything you need to know about the fair catch kick, football’s vestigial tailbone

Tom Whitwell’s annual, super enjoyable, list of things he learned.

52 things I learned in 2024

Many fun things in there, but my favorite this: Why Old Sports Photos Often Have a Blue Haze, which was a reminder that a Jayhawk is responsible for some of the greatest sports pictures ever taken. Photographer Rich Clarkson Has Covered the Final Four for 60 Straight Years

And a couple more similar lists:

Your body carries ~literal pieces of your mom~—and maybe your grandmother, siblings, aunts, and uncles.

77 Facts That Blew Our Minds In 2024

The producers of Mork and Mindy needed censors who spoke four languages to catch all the swear words Robin Williams tried to sneak in.

52 Things I Learned in 2024

Finally, surfer Alessandro Slebir may have shattered the record for biggest wave ever surfed. Crazy photo.

Friday Playlist

January 3, 2025 /

Still not back in a normal music groove yet, so today you get one of my occasional, fun, “let Spotify spit some random tunes out and make a playlist from them” deals.

“Spin The Bottle” – The Juliana Hatfield Three
What a great blast from the early Nineties.

“Needle” – Middle Kids
Even their “mediocre” songs from overlooked EPs sound great.

“Dance Of The Clairvoyants” – Pearl Jam
It was nearly five years ago we were excited about this PJ song. Who knew it, and the solid album it came from, were just precursors to their best music of the century in 2024.

“Safe European Home” – The Clash
My two, all-time favorite bands back-to-back? Spotify knows what’s up. Here The Only Band That Matters make fun of themselves for romanticizing Jamaica because of their love of reggae music only to have a very different experience on their first visit to the island.

“Unpretty” – TLC
When the best R&B group of their generation went indie rock…and it worked! I switched by CNN’s New Year’s show the other night and the TLC ladies were on, although they were being interviewed. I guess they had performed earlier in the night. Good for them! They were all bundled up so I couldn’t tell if Chilli is still as hot as I thought she was in 1992. I’m going to assume yes. This hit #1 in 1999.

“JackInABox” – Turin Brakes
One of my favorite songs from the mid-2000s when WOXY.com was my primary way of finding new music.

“South Side” – Moby
Remember when Mody ruled the world for about five minutes?

“Tightrope” – Janelle Monáe featuring Big Boi
KC homegirl in the house.

“(Can’t You) Trip Like I Do” – Filter and The Crystal Method
More late-Nineties, electronic goodness.

“Save It For Later” – The English Beat
One of the greatest songs of the Eighties.

Reader’s Notebook, 1/2/25

January 2, 2025 /

I completed my final book of 2024 late Saturday/early Sunday as I was battling some insomnia. It was my 62nd book of the year, making 2024 one of my best reading years ever.[1] I read seven books in two different months, six books in three separate months, and never fewer than three books in a 30/31-day stretch. Pretty good work. Now I get to start all over again.

The Siege – Ben MacIntyre
I’ve read two of MacIntyre’s books before, and heard about this latest one via a couple different podcasts. It relates the 1980 takeover of the Iranian embassy in London by Arab terrorists. Our generation remembers the Iranians occupying the US embassy in Tehran well, but I did not remember this event, which lasted for six days that spring.

MacIntyre spoke to many of the surviving hostages, police and military, and government officials involved in the event, which allowed him to piece together a highly detailed, very British accounting of every moment of the crisis, from before the terrorists – who had the stated goal of autonomy for an Arab-majority province in Iran – entered the embassy to the quick but problematic assault by British special forces to free the hostages.

It is a fascinating tale not just for the shady motivations of the terrorists, more on that in a moment, but for how it was one of the first public uses of British SAS forces. The unit had existed since World War II – as one of MacIntyre’s other books outlines – but was barely known to the British public until they stormed the embassy. Quite different from America, where our special forces have always been celebrated as both the elite of the elite and as a warning to forces that want to do us harm.

Now to the terrorists. While most of the force were Arab Iranians who truly sought the autonomy back home they believed the Islamic government had promised them when they supported the 1979 revolution, the power behind them was much less narrowly focused. The organization, training, and money all came from Iraq, leading directly to Saddam Hussein and the super terrorist Abu Nidal. Saddam wanted to embarrass and destabilize the new Shiite government in Iran, hoping to increase his own power in the region. This disastrous event in London was one of the direct causes of the horrific Iran-Iraq war, which lasted for eight years. That, in turn, led to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, as Iraq wanted to take possession of Kuwait’s oil reserves to stabilize its economy after the Iran war. Which led to US troops being stationed in Saudi Arabia before liberating Kuwait. The presence of which was one of Osama Bin Laden’s motivations for declaring a holy war against the US. And you know what happened from there.

Anyway, a highly interesting read about a seemingly unimportant blip in history – to most Americans – that ended up being massively impactful on all of our lives.

There Was Nothing You Could Do – Steven Hyden
I intentionally saved this for the end of the year. What better way to wrap up the 40th anniversary of the greatest year in pop music history than with a book about one of that year’s biggest albums?

In Hyden’s latest, he takes on Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The USA, the biggest, most popular, and perhaps most impactful album of The Boss’ career. However, this is not just an assessment/break down of the album itself. Hyden takes a long look at where Springsteen was when he recorded the album, how he was already struggling with the weight of success and popularity. How the E. Street Band was already beginning to fracture ever-so-slightly. How Springsteen took a deliberate step back on Nebraska. How, despite their huge differences in sound, how many of the songs on Born In The USA were recorded around the same time as Nebraska was. Biggest of all, Hyden examines what the USA cycle did to Bruce and how he changed in the years after, from pulling back further from the pop mainstream to separating from the E. Street Band to becoming more overtly political.

Bruce Springsteen is one of the most important and influential artists of the rock era. Because of that, whether you like him or not, his story is important. And the most important part of his story is the point where he both embraced popularity and decided that wasn’t for him.

Favorite Books of 2024

I’ve written about every book I read this year already, so no need for blurbs about my favorites. Here’s a list of the ones that I enjoyed the most. Not all of these were new releases.

The Peacock and The Sparrow – I.S. Berry
Calico – Lee Goldberg
Brooklyn Crime Novel – Jonathan Lethem
The Family Chao – Lan Samantha Chang
Chain Gang All-Stars – Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
The Wager – David Grann
Carrie Soto Is Back – Taylor Jenkins Reid
Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) – Jeff Tweedy
Middle of the Night – Riley Sager
Nuclear War – Annie Jacobsen

  1. Included in that total were two photo books that were more pictures than text.  ↩

December Media

January 1, 2025 /

Holiday Shit

Elf
Christmas Vacation
A Christmas Story
Die Hard
Assorted SNL holiday sketches
A’s all around.

Band Aid – The Making Of The Original ’Do They Know It’s Christmas?’
Not a true documentary but rather a collection of the raw film shot on November 25, 1984, the day the vocals were recorded for this holiday classic. A remarkable view of a moment in time that became eternal.

A

Holiday Baking Championship
Surprise winner! After looking like a total doofus the first couple weeks, home baker Steven came out of nowhere to capture the title. Thanks to both the way the calendar fell and our new DVR limitations, this was the earliest I’ve ever finished the show, a full week before Christmas.

A-

Die Hard (1988): 20 Things You Never Knew!
Best of the Die Hard OBSESSION | Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Topical.

Giving away my stolen christmas tree
Beau Miles holiday bullshit!

How A Fake Band Made A Christmas Classic – The History of Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses
Wonderful summary of the history of a wonderful song.

Movies, Shows, etc

Shrinking, season two
A terrific second season puts this in the running for best show on TV. It continued to avoid the trap so many shows in its vein fall into: being too cute and satisfied with itself. Each week had many deep, genuine laughs. Most episodes had touching moments. A couple were incredibly moving. This was a show we looked forward to each week and were seldom disappointed by. It is an A++ cast that share fantastic writing with us. Repeating something I’ll say below about another show: the world would be a better place if we had more programs like this.

A

St. Denis Medical
A couple more new episodes this month. I think it’s still finding its way, but remains solid. As I don’t watch any other sitcoms on regular TV, I have to assume that they are all garbage based on how many good reviews St. Denis receives. I see promise, I just don’t think it’s in the league of the shows that came before it yet (The Good Place, The Office, Parks & Recreation, etc.)

B+

A Man On The Inside
Goddammit, those sons of bitches Michael Schur and Ted Danson have done it again!!! An utterly delightful show. I’m convinced if we had more people with the emotional intelligence of Schur making TV and movies and music, this country would not be the hateful mess that it is. Alas…

This show will make you laugh a lot. It will give you the feels. It will probably make you cry. It is so full of heart and life. It shines a light on a part of our world – retirement communities – that most of us spend no time thinking about until we have to. Brilliant TV. Fortunately it looks like there will be a season two. Oh, and just another reminder that Danson is the greatest comedic actor in TV history.

A+

Hit Man
I think I was confusing this with another movie – The Fall Guy probably – with a brief title that looked kind of dumb but actually got decent reviews. This was not that. Every element felt like a 75% effort: the scenes that were supposed to be funny only got ¾ of the way there. Same for the suspensful scenes. Same for the sexy scenes. Script could have used some zhooshing.

C+

Extraction 2
Like the first, an almost perfect action movie. Checks in under two hours. Minimal plot/mission, so the writers don’t have to get too cute. Then roughly 80% of it is people trying to shoot/blow each other up. Bonus for bringing in Idris Elba and setting us up for another edition in a year or so.

B+

David Letterman | The GQ Video Cover Interview
Dave is an American treasure.

Swingers
How long has it been since I watched this, in full? Twenty-ish years, I bet. It is one of those movies that faded away after I got married and had kids, as it speaks to a very different part of my life. Sure, I referenced it plenty, but even those quotes faded in time. YouTube randomly spit out an interview with Jon Favreau from when the movie was first released, which got me thinking I should watch again. I couldn’t find it on any streaming platforms we pay for so I grabbed the DVD at the library. It was one of those really poor library DVDs that seems like it was produced overseas from a bad copy. Still, it was fun to revisit Mikey, Trent, Sue, Rob, and Charles. It brought back a lot of memories from my “single days,” as I once called them to S’s great laughter.

There are so many elements that make this movie great – even with the allowance for it being nearly 30 years old and a bit out-of-date – but what stuck out to me in this viewing was how it never runs out of steam. The final 15 minutes are just as funny and well-written as the first 15.

A

Top Gun: Maverick
Oceans Eleven
The Bounty Hunter
A collection of movies we watched as a family with our Christmas guests.
Maverick remains the perfect, modern action flick. I could watch Oceans 1000 times and never get sick of it. The Bounty Hunter? Well, it was a random pick from the Netflix menu screen. Thin story, some bad acting, but it does have In Her Prime Jennifer Anniston running around for 90 minutes in a tight tank top, short skirt, and very high heels. She knew how to give the fans what they wanted.

A, A, C

English Teacher
Ahh, the series that has a limited number of episodes (eight) that are short enough (all in the 21–24 minute range) that you can knock the whole thing out in a few hours. Even better that this is super funny. That said, I don’t think this is a universal show. The humor is often dark and cutting. The main character has lots of flaws so you aren’t necessarily pulling for him. There’s a lot of culture wars content, and it definitely leans one way, which will annoy 30–40% of its potential audience. But I really enjoyed it, especially the first 3–4 episodes which were a little funnier than the back half.

B+

Shorts, YouTubes, etc

Dead on Arrival: The Soyuz 11 Disaster
Scary space shit.

Jon Favreau interview on “Swingers” (1996)
Ron Livingston on Swingers
Vince Vaughn Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters
Swingers content.

Sacha Baron Cohen Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters
The Vaughn entry above was good. This one was incredible.

Why the B–52 is outliving newer bombers
It’s absolutely wild that not only are B–52s still operational, the ones currently in service will have nearly 90 years of service logged when they are finally expected to be retired.

Dramatic low level flying bomber footage (1943)
Kind of cool.

The Oberg Color Film Footage of Pearl Harbor – December 7, 1941
This doesn’t quite live up to expectations, but still a fascinating time machine to one of the most important days of the 20th century.

How this Van Life Pioneer Set Up His Perfect Off-Grid Camper
A little different than the other Huckberry Homes vids.

A Journey Into New York’s Basketball State of Mind
Good stuff from The Ringer’s hoops crew.

Mt. St. Helens: The Gary Rosenquist, AI interpolated landslide and eruption sequence
This is when AI is cool.

2025 Moon Phases – Northern Hemisphere
2025 Moon Phases – Southern Hemisphere
Jason Kottke posted this with the observation that blew his mind, and in turn blew mine: the moon looks upside down from your normal perspective if you cross from the northern to southern hemisphere. Or vice versa. Wild!

Star Wars: rare behind the scenes “The Empire Strikes Back”
Nine-year-old me would have thought this was the coolest thing I’d ever seen.

Picking up a new car that my daughter likes
Some quick Beau Miles bullshit. Hopefully there’s more to this next month.

Car Content

I Drive The Lucid Gravity For The First Time!
Looks incredible. Get back to me when they release a vehicle that checks in at about half the cost of the Gravity.

I Drive The Audi Q6 E-Tron For The First Time! A Better Electric SUV Than Q4 & Q8
As usual, Audi does some things amazingly well, and does some other things amazingly oddly.

Photography

Rather than post all the photog stuff I watched, here are the ones that stuck out most.

Bad Weather, Good Photos?
A Day In Cincinnati
Exploring One of the World’s Most Beautiful Countries
SantaCon, London, 2024
The Most Important Kind of Photography

Podcasts

You’re Wrong About
Trying to mix up my pod routine a bit and Overcast recommended this. I listened to the episode about Dungeons & Dragons, which was fun. The host and guest made some great observations about how weird the whole satanic panic related to D&D was. D&D kids were generally good kids with good grades who liked to read, who didn’t do drugs or get into trouble. “So they must be doing something wrong, right?” seemed to be one argument against D&D. Also, all the demons and whatnot religious types complained about…were the exact things you are trying to destroy if you’re playing D&D! And lots of other just odd stuff that made a select few parents lose their minds and get media attention in the Eighties.

A-

Stats

January 1, 2025 /

As usual for the first post of the New Year, here are the artists I listened to most over the past 365, errr, 366 days. As you might expect, when Pearl Jam puts out a new album that is really good and also perform in Indy, they end up dominating.

  • Pearl Jam – 725
  • Middle Kids – 274
  • The War on Drugs – 197
  • Jack White – 188
  • Wild Pink – 170
  • Hurray For The Riff Raff – 153
  • Waxahatchee – 148
  • Crowded House – 131
  • Japandroids – 124
  • Spoon – 123

And now the all time numbers. Pearl Jam took over the top spot in 2023. The built a comfortable cushion in 2024.

  • Pearl Jam – 4604
  • Frightened Rabbit – 3908
  • The War on Drugs – 3577
  • The Beatles – 2629
  • Ryan Adams – 2364
  • The Clash – 2038
  • Crowded House – 1800
  • Radiohead – 1696
  • Bruce Springsteen – 1565
  • Bing Crosby – 1348

Complete stats available on my last.fm page.

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