I just realized as the owner of a blog that dabbles in sports discussions, I have to get some NFL playoffs predictions posted before the action begins tomorrow. Wildcard Round Houston over Cincinnati. Against another opponent, I would be tempted to pick against the sagging Texans. But the Bengals don’t have the juice to pull the upset and I think Houston might get their act together this week. Green Bay over Minnesota.
I was a doubter, a hater, a shaker of the head. When Peter King and a few other NFL analysts said the Colts had a reasonable shot at the playoffs last August, I wondered what they had ingested that had so altered their judgement. This was a team that won 2 games last year! How in the hell did people think they would win 9-10 games and have a shot at the post-season?
I finished 2012 with two books about two of my favorite teams ever. Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever - Jack McCallum. This is a perfect accounting of the perfect team: the 1992 US men’s basketball team. The long-time Sports Illustrated NBA writer goes into the history of international basketball, how pros were approved to play in the Olympics, how the Dream Team came together, and then their epic two months as a functioning unit.
2012 was an interesting year for me, reading-wise. For the first time since I can recall, I struggled to read. I went an entire calendar month - April - without finishing a book. Where I normally went from one book straight to the next, I had a hard time picking books to read. For the previous four summers I spent a lot of time with a book on the deck or in the driveway, keeping one eye on the girls while they played.
Top 10 artists for 2012, based on my Last.fm stats, which sadly, aren’t necessarily a full representation of what I listened to. Close enough for blog purposes, I suppose. Wussy - 250 The Clash - 220 The White Stripes - 219 Japandroids - 188 Jack White - 184 Frightened Rabbit - 169 Radiohead - 150 Pearl Jam - 145 Dum Dum Girls - 118 School of Seven Bells - 115
Each year, when I post something around New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day, I make the joke that it’s the Xth straight good year in my life. I say it’s a joke because let’s face it, any year where you’re still upright at the end is a good year. You can go through mistakes and missteps, tragedy and loss, but if you’re still breathing at midnight, odds are you can find a way to call it a winner.
It was a pretty memorable Christmas for the B’s. Not because there were any super special presents, although we’re having trouble forcing the girls to stop playing with their Barbie Dream House. It wasn’t because of a surprise visitor, although we did have some fun guests. Nope, it was the anticipation of the Blizzard of 2012 that really added something special that set this year apart. So a quick review of the past few days.
I wonder how many songs I listened to this year. Thing is, despite using multiple tools to track what I listen to and how often I do so, I purge so many tracks after sampling them a time or two, that I would imagine the majority of the songs I screen are buried deep in a virtual pit of 1s and 0s. So there’s no real way of knowing exactly how many individual tracks I listened to over the past 12 months.
I’ve written at least 2000 words about Newtown, but none of them have felt right to share here. I may yet post some thoughts about it, but for now let’s focus on more enjoyable stuff. So, holiday notes! Any home with girls in it will have a higher than normal amount of random glitter. Stuck to furniture, in the laundry, and just floating in the air. But this time of year, there seems to be even more.
The Favorite Songs countdown will continue over the weekend. I admit it’s hard to write after today’s events in Connecticut. I’ve never been so happy to be annoyed by my kindergartener as I am right now.
December is a big music month. There is the putting together and sharing of my favorite songs and albums of the year lists. There’s the flood of Christmas music. Combined I spend even more time than normal thinking about tunes. A few notes from the first few weeks of December. I was driving C. home from a birthday party a couple weeks back when RUN-DMC’s “It’s Tricky” came up on the iPod.
I knew it was coming. For two weeks, as rumors swirled, I expected that one night, probably late int the evening, word would come that the Royals had traded their top prospect, outfielder Wil Myers. Likely for a starting pitcher. Almost certainly for one that had value, but still was too flawed to be an ace for the Royals. So it was no surprise when, last night, as I was checking Twitter one last time before bed, the news was just breaking that Myers and others were headed to Tampa for James Shields and Wade Davis.
Many of my regular readers are on our Christmas card list. Thus, they know that we generally go with the obvious option and just slap a picture of the girls on it. Over the years, that process has become problematic. I have no idea why, but there’s something about lining up for a picture in Christmas pajamas or other holiday outfit that makes our girls lose their minds. And thus we lose ours.
Lots of sports, and sports-related things, from the weekend. Friday I had my first boys basketball game of the season. It was a 20-point loss, which is about what I expected. My team actually got as close as seven in the second half, which was not expected. Thanks to a double overtime JV game, I only had time to file a brief story, which was just fine with me. The news from the evening was my attempt at local food.
M. took another step in her religious life last night when she had her First Reconciliation. I’m told this is a big deal if you’re Catholic. In the van after school yesterday, C. asked her what it was that she would be doing later in the evening. As best as I can remember it, here is M.’s response: Well, later, next spring, there's this big thing called First Communion. And it's about getting closer to Jesus or whatever.
It was a fine Thanksgiving weekend for the B’s. As I mentioned last week, we hosted the family get-together this year. We had 16, which for our family is small, but still takes some work to prepare for. I did the bird and stuffing. I narrowly avoided disaster with the bird. My thermometer wasn’t working correctly so I guessed on when to take it out of the oven. Turns out I left it in a little too long.
I might be slipping. You’ll probably recall how I’ve generally been militant about Christmas preparations not starting until after Thanksgiving. That meant no trees up, no holiday music, no exterior decorations, and profound head shaking each time I saw a Christmas commercial before we’ve carved the first turkey of the season. This year, though, I’ve been looking forward to the Christmas season since September. In early October I found myself spending far too much time examining the holiday lighting section at Lowe’s.
How I Became a Famous Novelist - Steve Hely I knew when I picked this up that it was a novel, a satire of our current pop culture where anyone can become famous regardless of how much (or little) talent they possess. But I’ll admit, I just might have been hoping to find the secret to getting published while making my way through it. If only it was as easy as the title suggests.
An oddly busy Monday, with a couple appointments in the morning and the need to squeeze some leaf collection activities in before St. P’s lets out for the day. So I’ll try to crank out some notes here. A mixed bag of football action for me over the weekend. The two teams I care about, the Jayhawks and the Colts, got thrashed. But the games I didn’t have a vested interest in, particularly the K-State-Baylor and Stanford-Oregon games, were terrific to watch.
I am sooo reluctant to write this, but I can’t put it off any longer: the Kansas State Wildcats are the best story in sports right now. Blech. Who, even among the most optimistic of K-Staters, saw this coming? With two winnable games left, the Wildcats are almost certainly going to play in the BCS title game. If they luck out, it will be against a good, but not ready for prime time, Notre Dame team.