All Together Now
My first book of the year was about the Beatles. So it was a nice coincidence that I was hipped to this website over the holidays. The author is ranking all the Beatles songs in order, roughly one per day. His commentary isn’t a rehash of all the commentary you’ve read a thousand times before about Beatles songs. Which makes…
Big 12 Hoops: A Very Different Year
Last day of Christmas break. The girls go back to school tomorrow. I guess the teachers need an extra day to get grades processed, settled into their classrooms, etc before beginning the second semester. Meanwhile the temperature is finally above freezing for the first time in two weeks. It might hit 60 Thursday! We may be able to see our…
Friday Time Waster
Here is one of the greatest things I saw over the holidays. “Euverus” used the game Cities: Skylines to test how traffic would flow at a 4-way intersection using 30 different road configurations. I love the examples with no controls, especially the little software glitches that allow vehicles to pass through each other. And some of the higher-end examples are…
Friday Playlist
Back to the sharings of the musics! https://open.spotify.com/user/224aiwksicafjldlua6nnpo4y/playlist/42sFTC2INbcqt6rg41nr5S “Man Uncouth” – Line & Circle. Holy 1983! These kids clearly listened to some early R.E.M. and Smiths albums. This is some good shit. “Cut Yr Teeth” – Kississippi. There are hints of shiny, jangle pop in this song, but it never really sheds its rougher exterior to reveal that brightness. Which…
Reader’s Notebook: Wrapping 2017
Again I’ve fallen behind on my book sharing. Here are my final four books of 2017.[1] I’ve already polished off one book for 2018 and will get to it next week. Fantasyland – Kurt Andersean I’ve mostly avoided the quick, “How Did We Get Here?” assessments of our current political state. They tend to be too depressing and infuriating for…
Belated Holiday Wrap Up
Glory be! After roughly 36 hours without either cable or internet access, our house (and neighborhood it turns out) has been reconnected! So I can finally start unloading some of the accumulated content from the past week-plus. First, Happy New Year! I hope your celebrations, large and small, were fun and safe. Let’s go back to 2017 and review how…
Wrapping Up (+ TWOD)
We are in the full-on holiday frenzy around here. Yesterday was the girls’ final day of school of 2017. St. P’s always dismisses early on the last day before Christmas break which adds even more excitement to the day. While sitting in the parking lot at dismissal, a friend said he was taking his kids to Dairy Queen and asked…
26 Favorite Songs of 2017
Twenty-seventeen was solid, in music terms. It won’t go down as an all-time great one in my book, as the year lacked a legendary album (or two) and the wave of solid tunes pretty much dried up in the final quarter. And, compared to last year, not nearly as many albums stuck with me. But, as always, there were plenty…
The Last Jedi
OK, a quick five-minute listing of thoughts on The Last Jedi, which I saw last night. Spoiler alert! Conclusion first: The Last Jedi was very good. I had a few problems with it, but overall it was very entertaining, very well shot, had a decent story, and was worth two-and-a-half hours of my time. What I liked most: Man, was…
FOTY
For a guy who doesn’t have a job, I’m insanely busy this week. Monday I had to run down to the lake house to meet with some contractors who will, hopefully, be doing some upgrades to the place before next summer rolls around. That meeting, along with spending a couple hours blowing the last of our leaves down there, took…