Reaching for the Stars, Vol. 70
Chart Week: February 16, 1980 Song: “We Don’t Talk Anymore” – Cliff Richard Chart Position: #32, 18th week on the chart. Peaked at #7 for two weeks in January. I’m guessing most, if not all, of my readers have no memory of Cliff Richard. That’s kind of crazy, because he was one of the most popular singers in the world…
Weekend Hoops Notes
Jayhawk Talk Ah, the trip to Morgantown, where so many good/great KU teams have gone and dropped total turds. It didn’t matter that this year’s WVU team is kind of bad and sitting in 10th place in the Big 12: this game should have frightened KU fans because of our past experiences there. (You could tell this West Virginia team…
Friday Playlist
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3oZS0xHvNm2kknkwx6UzUK?si=81518f5664ae4f58 “Invincible” – Eddie Vedder I included EV’s “Brother the Cloud” in last week’s playlist. That was also the release day of Ed’s solo album Earthing. Shortly after posting that PL, I virtually spun the album for the first time. And I almost haven’t stopped since. As with the first two singles, I was blown away by how unexpectedly great…
Hoops Notes
Jayhawk Talk Two more wins, one entirely too stressful, the other had too much sloppiness but 15 of the better minutes of the year to balance. Saturday against Oklahoma, KU looked slow and uninterested for much of the game. Like they saw the line was KU –10.5 and figured they would just walk onto the court and the game would…
Super Bowl Notes
A pretty decent game, unless you live in Cincinnati. And even then, it was solid until the last five minutes or so. It had a game-winning score in the final 2:00, which always elevates a game. Only one traditionally spectacular play – Tee Higgins’ 75-yard touchdown catch to open the second half – and that came because of a pretty…
Friday Playlist
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5iKy5ucUcaYRNFCz9JLYqa?si=901b0ee5a7bd445b “Brother Cloud” – Eddie Vedder I wasn’t sure about this whole “EdVed solo album” thing. And then “Long Way” was one of my favorite songs of last year. Still, I held off listening to any of the other advance singles, figuring I would wait until today when the album finally dropped to check them out. Then I heard this…
Reaching for the Stars, Vol. 69
Chart Week: February 5, 1977 Song: “Carry On Wayward Son” – Kansas Chart Position: #36, 7th week on the chart, debut week on Top 40. Peaked at #11 for two weeks in April. The world is a much smaller place today than when my generation was growing up. Thanks to cable/satellite TV, the Internet, and social media networks, trends spread…
Wednesday Links
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…
Jayhawk Talk: Win Some, Lose Some
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…
Reader’s Notebook, 2/7/22
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…