You would think, as much as I love music, that I would have some sweet set-up for listening to my tunes. A nice stereo receiver/amp with kick ass speakers and some high end headphones for use when I couldn’t crank it up to 11 You would be wrong Since going fully digital about a decade ago, I’ve relied on pretty modest listening hardware. Most of my music has poured from speakers hooked up to my rotating cast of Macs.
Telegraph Avenue: A Novel - Michael Chabon. Chabon has an impossible task. His The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is one of my all-time favorite books. I was very eager to read this, his most recent novel. But it’s hard not to want it to be as good, as powerful, and beautiful as Kavalier and Clay. And since it wasn’t, it feels like a disappointment despite being a very good book.
I’m the dickhead in the kitchen Pouring wine in your best girl’s glass With that, the first line of the lovely opening track (“Acts Of Man”) to Frightened Rabbit’s new album Pedestrian Verse, lead singer Scott Hutchison sets the stage for another epic album of wallowing in sorrow, guilt, and misery. For three verses he offers a litany of the romantic failings of men, sprinkling the mini-chorus of “Not here, not here, heroic acts of man,” between them.
It is winter, which means we spend a lot of time in our basement where it is warmer and less drafty than our family room. I, especially, tend to head down there in the evenings to watch TV, read, and relax after the girls have gone to bed. Recently M. let me know she was keeping tabs on me. “Dad, I know what you do in the basement at night,” she said, cheerfully but with a hint of accusation.
It’s been a busy two weeks out on the road. I’ve covered three girls basketball games, a boys game, and the girls state swimming championships. Oh, and there was the night I drove into the ice storm. Some notes. Saturday I covered a girls sectional championship game. It was IHS, which features the best player in the county who dropped 40 the last time I had them, going for their second sectional title in three years.
I was in Bloomington covering a high school basketball game Thursday night. By the time I did my interview, wrote, and filed my story, moderate rains had moved through B-town. To get back to the highway, I had to drive the main north-south street that runs through downtown. Along the way, one car pulled out in front of me then stopped, blocking my lane. Moments later another car slammed on its brakes when its attempt to make a left turn was blocked by a car straddling the center line.
Man. I mean seriously. WTF. OK, that’s the extent of my KU freakout. I laughed at people who were jumping off figurative ledges after the Jayhawks' home court winning streak came to an end Saturday against Oklahoma State. OSU was exactly the kind of team this year’s KU team should have fits with: more athletic at almost every position on the court. Forget the last month of pedestrian basketball by KU.
We were invited to attend Monday’s Indiana Pacers - Chicago Bulls game by friends. They got tickets from a business associate that had messed up an important transaction at an especially inopportune time. Thus, we enjoyed a fine NBA game from the comfort of row six behind the Pacers bench. Row one is the seats that are on the court, equally close to the action as the bench. Rows two and three are actually the aisle behind the bench.
Some delayed, assorted thoughts from what was a pretty super Super Bowl. I struggled with which team to pull for. I much prefer John Harbaugh to Jim. But the Ravens have Ray Lewis. I admire Joe Flacco but am in awe of Colin Kaepernick. San Francisco is one of my favorite places in the world. But The Wire took place in Baltimore. So many factors. In the end I went with my pick and leaned Niners.
Last year at this time we were enjoying a perfect mid-winter week in Indianapolis. The temperature was in the mid-40s to low 50s all week, it was dry, and the hordes who had descended upon the city delighted in their Super Bowl week experiences. As I type this as 2:18 pm on February 1, 2013 the windchill is a brisk 5°. It snowed yesterday and last night. There was a massive pileup on one local interstate yesterday.
Book-ending our vacation were L.’s first two birthday parties that were her own. She’d been to several parties over the years, but always because she was the third sister, not because it was the party of someone her age. So she was awfully excited about these two gatherings. It was funny to watch her. As one of the two or three oldest kids in her class, and a third sister, she is one of the ringleaders for all class activities.
We haven’t taken a ton of family vacations over the years. But when we have we’ve always been fortunate to have safe travels and good times at our destination. Our luck held up once again and we had a fantastic time last week on our first (and still expected to be last) trip to Disney World. I’ll do my best to sum up the week without forcing you to read for half an hour.
There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to let it rip: we’re going to Disney World tomorrow. I didn’t go when I was a kid. My parents were never in position to afford it when I was little. And I wasn’t ever into anything Disney. In fact, the contrarian streak in my personality could probably be traced back to my early loathing of Mickey and the rest of the Disney gang.
So there I was, putting my final touches on my ode to Ben McLemore when a quick check of Twitter revealed that the sports news world was exploding. There have been some crazy sports stories over the years, hell even in the last couple weeks,1 but good freaking lord, this Manti Teo thing just blows them all away. I pride myself in avoiding stories that are more celebrity gossip than real sports news but man, I am all in on this one!
Some updates from the field. My last three games, going back to the week of Christmas, have all been interesting and each related to the same school, IHS. First I had their boys playing the #1 team in Class 3A. IHS fell behind 11-0 in the first 90 seconds and I was sure it was going to be just another blowout. IHS righted the ship, though, and got it down to four points before halftime.
This has been bouncing around for a week or so, thus some of you may have seen it. But it’s sooooo great. A Chicago culture blogger finds out what happens when you besmirch an 80s pop music sensation. Would you say that to my face? Let’s find out. I’ll meet you anywhere in the city, any time. I don’t travel again until the end of the week. Let’s hash this out like men.
As a friend we were out to dinner with Saturday texted to his friends as the afternoon stretched into evening, “I’ve seen this movie before.” Straight up, the Denver Broncos' shock, double overtime loss to the Ravens was not Peyton’s fault. Sure, he threw a couple bad picks and once again looked ordinary after an other-worldly regular season. But, as was often the case when the Colts shit the bed in the playoffs, the blame lay primarily with other Broncos.
Lots of sports over the past few days. Some assorted thoughts. The NFL playoffs were almost universally awful. Let’s hope the Divisional round is better.1 In Baltimore the Colts went down by a score that made sense, 24-9, but in a manner that did not. I hadn’t seen the Ravens play in over a month, so I still thought their defense was shitty. They’re not quite back to 2000 levels, but they’ve certainly improved, and were the difference in the game.
We’re back at it. M. and C. returned to school today and L. will head back tomorrow.1 It was a pretty good break. I was worried that things would spiral out of control last week, when S. was back at work. The girls were cuh-ray-zee in the first couple days after Christmas and I wondered how they were going to tolerate another week cooped up in the house. But they regulated themselves nicely and we had a solid week.
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.