• Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 103

    Chart Week: September 7, 1985 Song: “Cry” – Godley & Creme Chart Position: #24, 8th week on the chart. Peaked at #16 the week of October 5. Every decade is filled with unlikely hits. In the Eighties, the best way to force your way into the Top 40 was by making a video that was unique and memorable. That’s how…

  • Weekend Notes

    As has become standard so far this fall, Friday night was jam-packed with sports action from the couch. Things were ratcheted up a notch this weekend, as KU was playing, meaning I couldn’t casually watch tennis, baseball, or basketball while listening to high school football. No, this week I would be yelling at the TV while listening to the radio.…

  • Friday Playlist

    “Favourite Songs” – Maximo Park This was the week I learned that MP and bands like them – The Kooks, The Futureheads, Editors, The Wombats, Bombay Bicycle Club – were lumped into a sub-genre called “Landfill Indie” by some critics. That was not considered a term of endearment. Which bummed me out because I liked a lot of those bands…

  • D’s Notes

    I’ve been doing some blog maintenance lately, going back and adding tags to all of my nearly 3500 posts. After two weeks of work, I’m about two-thirds of the way complete. I’m not really sure why I decided to do this. Tags are hard. I tried to use them years ago and gave up because I was never sure how…

  • A Reaching For The Stars Series Update

    My momentum in this series has been off for a few months. No worries for the two or three of you who care about these posts; I’m not giving up on them! A combination of factors over the summer kept me from listening to American Top 40 very often. Less time in the kitchen, where I play the iHeart Radio…

  • Tuesday Links

    I had a couple longer posts in various states of readiness that I hoped to select from to post today. But, man, these early mornings getting up to take L to basketball wipe me out. More about that in another post. Instead of posting something longer, I’ll just share some links for now. A great story about a group in…

  • Weekend Notes

    Another weekend jam-packed with sports dominating my attention. Personally, it was a tough weekend for football. Cathedral lost Friday night against Cincinnati St. Xavier in the closing seconds of their game, 35–31. KU lost to Illinois despite dominating on defense and having an unstoppable running game they, for some reason, went away from. M’s Bearcats blew a big lead and…

  • Friday Playlist

    I’ve finally wrapped up the music projects that have been eating up a lot of my time lately. As I do, I find my new music playlist is down around 40 songs. For a good chunk of 2024 it’s been closer to 60 songs. The new tunes have definitely dried up over the past month. Hopefully just a lull before…

  • NFL Predictions

    My NFL predictions are always half-assed. Let’s see if I can make them even more half-assed (quarter-assed?) by typing them up on a morning when a chirping smoke alarm woke me up at 3:30, it took me an hour to fall back to sleep after finding/quieting the proper alarm, then I had to be up less than an hour later…

  • Reader’s Notebook, 9/4/24

    Well, August was quite a month when it came to reading. I finished seven books last month. And that was with a vacation, the Olympics, paying more attention to baseball (at least some of the time), and watching the US Open mixed in. I guess I used my free time wisely. Also I read some very enjoyable books that kept…