Over the weekend C. brought home a story she had written in class with instructions for the weekend. We were supposed to read it with her, then rewrite it to take out grammatical errors so she could record it in class on Monday. Which is a good thing. Her story, which was based on the Nutcracker, featured one very concerning spelling error. After Princess C.’s brother broke the Nutcracker she received for Christmas, C.
A lot of links to share since I didn’t get around to it last week. First, what major city has the most unpredictable weather? Kansas City is No. 1, with Indy four spots behind. Which City Has The Most Unpredictable Weather? Joe Posnanski had a couple fine pieces of writing over the last two weeks. This one, profiling what life is like for former NFL player Priest Holmes, is wonderful and scary.
youtu.be/bjQzJAKxT… “Do They Know It’s Christmas” - Band Aid We begin our three weeks of holiday songs with one of the more maligned songs in the modern Christmas song canon. Are the lyrics cheesy? Yes. Are some of the assertions about Africa factually incorrect? Yep? Is the drama cranked about a few notches too high? Of course. But, come on. The New Wave/New Romantic sounds defined the pop music of the first half of the 1980s.
Man, have we had trouble getting the girls to put Christmas lists together this year. In years past, we normally had detailed lists from all three well before Thanksgiving. Followed by daily updates. This year, though, has been much harder. L. gave us a list about a week ago. C. and M. both started lists, but they kept disappearing or were never handed over. One day last week, when I asked the girls if they had their lists ready, M.
Another busy month. Four books, three of them good, two very good. I’ve been saying this for years, but I really should write down my thoughts on each one when I finish them, rather than waiting until the end of the month. My apologies for the disjointed thoughts and fuzzy memories on a couple of these. The Facades - Eric Lundgren This was the one book I did not enjoy, which was a bummer.
Yes, that hallowed holiday tradition is back. It’s time for the first Holiday Jihad of 2014! This one just baffles me. Last week I added my annual bookmark for the site Christmas TV Schedule, so I can be sure to record the best shows of the season. I scrolled through to find the highlights and noticed one show in particular was hard to find. I hit Command-F[1], typed in “Grinch,” and reviewed the results.
So, I’m putting this together beginning at 10:40 Sunday night. Christmas Vacation is on TV. The tree is lit. A Bell’s Christmas Ale is at my side. Yes, it is the most wonderful time of the year. Man, the holiday weekend went by fast. It seems like minutes ago we were out to eat on Wednesday night, watching basketball on the big screens, and thinking of all that the four days ahead held.
This is better suited for a Friday Links post, but since I just saw it today and it’s relevant to tomorrow’s holiday, I thought I would go ahead and share it today. I think I had heard of this before, but never read the details. In 1939, President Roosevelt decided to change the date of Thanksgiving to add another week of Christmas shopping. The hope was that extra week would give a boost to the struggling economy.
A busy few days between get-togethers, kid activities, and prepping for Thanksgiving. How about a few notes? M. has kicked off her volleyball career. She’s been to one skills session and another evaluation session as the fourth graders at St. P’s get slotted onto the appropriate team for their first year of CYO play. I haven’t watched any of her practices, but I’m hopeful that she can hang in there and make the occasional pass or serve it over the net, rather than be fearful of the ball.
There’s a new Kingdom Rush game out, so I better share some links before I disappear into it for the next week or so. Our first article is a look into the life of a college basketball assistant coach. If you don’t get hooked up with the right guy/program, it can be a real struggle to work your way up the ladder. I’ve always found it interesting that quite a few coaches spend time in pharmaceutical sales before they dive into coaching.
youtu.be/vZEhean_R… “Slippery Slopes” - Jenny Lewis I realized last night that we are only two weeks from when I will begin unveiling my favorite songs of 2014. Although this song will not be on the list, Jenny Lewis will be making an appearance. I highly recommend the album from which this song comes, The Voyager.
There are beatdowns and there are BEATDOWNS. What Kentucky did to Kansas last night was a BEATDOWN, with an endless number of exclamation points after. And I was lucky enough to watch it in person at Banker’s Life Fieldhouse. Yay. First thing, Kentucky is really freaking good. They have length on top of length, and their only “normal” sized player is probably faster than 98% of the players who will try to check him.
Well, there’s snow on the ground. Probably as good of a time as any for my first lengthy football post of the year. Jayhawks It says a lot about the KU football program’s recent history that a win over another crappy team and a near-win against a very good team went down as the best stretch since the end of the 2008 season. So go ahead and laugh at us if your team has been a consistent winner over that span.
The college basketball season officially begins tonight. Tuesday I will be watching my alma mater take on the modern goliath of the NCAA, Kentucky, at Banker’s Life Fieldhouse. As aggravating as Kentucky is, I’ve been on record for a couple years as saying, like him or not, you have to give credit to John Calipari. There is no better recruiter in the game, as he finds every angle and uses it shamelessly.
youtu.be/TLEXHFsSz… “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” - Tears For Fears I’m not ready to give up on the music from 1985 yet, apparently. Songs From the Big Chair just got its (slightly early) 30th anniversary rerelease this week, and Tears For Fears is making the rounds to promote it. I’ll share a review of the updated album in the links, but this performance seemed like justification to throw this song out as the vid of the week.
Well, the Hinkle Fieldhouse stuff was technically a lengthy reporter’s notebook entry. But I still need to get you caught up on the last month of work. The final regular season football game I covered came over a month ago, the same night as game one of the ALCS as a matter of fact. My team was down 24–0 before the first quarter was over. It had poured rain all day and was still raining steadily with chilly temperatures.
In the first six months I lived in Indiana, back in 2003, I had a pretty solid sports run. I went to the RCA Dome for a Colts pre-season game. I went to a Notre Dame football game in South Bend. I’m told that I went to West Lafayette for a Purdue football game, although that day is rather fuzzy thanks to a huge amount of alcohol. I went to an IU basketball game in Assembly Hall.
I failed to share links last week, so I’ll do it the way I originally planned and get caught up on a Friday. Still a few baseball things to get through. I’ll begin with a tech tip that could have been very useful when the playoffs began. But save it somewhere safe for next year. Jason Snell explains how to combine the video and crowd noise of the national TV broadcasts with the audio of the local announcing team.
youtu.be/9SaHXd4Rh… “Brill Busters” - The New Pornographers We’re just about a month away from when I’ll begin unveiling my 20 favorite songs of the year. The top ten is pretty locked in. The second ten has some flux in it. And then there’s a third group of 10–15 songs that I’m still debating whether they deserve to slip into the top 20. This song falls somewhere between 15 and 35 right now.
A rash of baseball books read between games and even during commercial breaks. Wild Pitches - Jayson Stark Stark has been one of ESPN’s baseball ‘insiders’ and columnists for nearly two decades, and had been covering baseball nationally long before that. This is a collection of his favorite columns from his ESPN years. I should have read the back cover and realized that before I checked it out. I thought it would be more a collection of his thoughts on baseball with a few columns sprinkled in.