I don’t spend a lot of time playing games on my iPad or iPhone. I’ll buy a handful each year and maybe get really interested in a couple of them. It’s rare that a game captures my imagination for more than a couple days. But for the last three weeks, I’ve been loving Armor Games' Kingdom Rush. I bought it despite several Internet warnings that it was hopelessly addictive. I can report, after three weeks or nearly constant play, that is absolutely true.
It’s been a big few days for C.. Last Monday she lost her first tooth, her upper left incisor. It had reached that crazy, almost sickening level of looseness when S. finally reached over and yanked it out. There was a scream of surprise then much happiness. Even more happiness the next morning when she found the Tooth Fairy’s gift. The upper right incisor looked to be about ready, too. It hung in a few more days, and when I picked C.
Yes, I’m biased, but I love Nick Collison. He’s pushing ten years in the NBA and, while he was a great college player, I’m not sure anyone expected that kind of pro career for him. And I’ve always enjoyed his thoughtful take on things. He is blogging for GQ magazine on what life is like for a role-player in the NBA. His latest entry addresses finding your niche. It’s something every player who gets drafted should read, because not everyone turns into the next LeBron.
You may recall that I took a crack at running a separate blog dedicated to my musings on Apple and technology. Like many of my Internet dreams,1 it seemed like a great idea but in practice wasn’t such a huge success. Turns out it’s hard to write every day about the same subject, especially when there are about 1000 people out there doing the exact same thing. I admire those who can find something to focus their writing each day.
There was a common theme to the basketball games I cared about over the weekend. Friday the team I covered won their game by 35 points. In an amazing comeback over the past three weeks, my teams are now up to a +7 TMF. I get to cover the #2 team in class 2A this week, so hopefully that improves some more. Saturday KU won by 33. And Sunday, in the first NBA game I’ve attended since 2003 (I think), the Pacers waxed Charlotte by 35.
This week kind of went off the rails yesterday, so I’m going to throw some bits-and-pieces that could have turned into longer, individual posts into a single grab bag to end the week. The biggest obstacle we faced this week came Thursday morning at approximately 3:30 am. I woke to hear the smoke alarms and cable backup box chirping and seeing strange flashes of light out the windows. After a few moments I realized the power had gone out.
A few weeks back we donated an aging piece of furniture to AmVets. Hopefully they’ve made good use of the ugly but insanely comfortable, 40-year-old corduroy chair that my wife was finally able to purge from our home. For some reason, M. thought of that this morning as she was getting ready for school. She asked who it was that came to pick it up. Here is our conversation, as I remember it.
Saturday was another sad night for us children of the 80s. Whitney Houston’s death wasn’t a huge surprise; we all saw the way she lived. The surprise was that this didn’t happen a decade ago. Yet it is still a little chilling when someone who was such a big part of your youth dies before we think they should. This isn’t going to be a long ode to Whitney. As a fan of Top 40 music, I liked her a lot from her debut until 1988 or so.
So S. and I are in the basement this afternoon, installing the final piece of our new entertainment system. We hear arguing upstairs. After it escalates, I head their direction to stop the nonsense. On my way up, I hear C., in tears, yelling at M.. M. responds, in her ‘I’m not really sorry’ voice, “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.” C. shrieks back at her, “THEN YOU NEED TO GET NEW EARS!
Some posts are a form of therapy for me. This is one of those. Below, I’ll explain why I didn’t watch the Kansas-Missouri game Saturday, which will also explain the why I’ve hardly watched any KU games this year. Basically, I’ve become an old man and can’t handle the highs and lows of basketball the way I used to. I want to point out this has nothing to do with this year’s team, and with the perception that this is a down year.
Indianapolis' week in the national spotlight is over, and it ends with the city looking very good. That’s the beauty of low expectations: you assume there will be snow and ice and sub-freezing temperatures and when you get sun and temps in the 50s all week, it seems like the best week ever. Downtown was flooded with friendly locals. The out-of-towners were pleased that pretty much everything worth doing was a short walk from wherever they were at the moment.
Just when you thought the Peyton Manning drama was going to fade for a few days, yesterday’s news that he has been medically cleared to play again hits and all hell breaks loose. That’s about a 2000 word post by itself, in which we could explore his motivations for having that news released during Super Bowl week, what it means for the Colts' administration, and so on. But I’ll cut to the chase: it changes nothing for the Colts.
One of the greatest of the many gifts my parents gave me was my appreciation for music. Part of my musical education was our weekly, family viewing of Soul Train. For a white kid growing up in a small, Kansas college town, the show opened my eyes to not only a different kind of music than was commonly played in Hays, KS1, but also to the broader world in general. There were people out there who looked different than me, talked different than me, dressed different than me.
By all accounts, events downtown are going swimmingly. The locals have shown up in force, setting attendance records for the official NFL events. The weather has been great. My fears, that the national press would be ripping the choice of Indy as a Super Bowl host, have so far not come to fruition. In fact, many national writers seem smitten with the city so far. But, strangely, all that is secondary to the looming resolution of the thing on most local football fans' minds.
<p>In case you’ve been wondering who this <a href=“http://www.wussy.org/">Wussy</a> band is that has topped my listening stats each of the last two weeks, here’s a mini-review of their latest album, <em>Strawberry</em>.</p> <p>I’ve been a fan of Wussy for several years. The Cincinnati band was long a staple of <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WOXY.com">WOXY</a>'s playlists back when the station was A) still in Cincy and B) still broadcasting. But until a couple weeks ago I had only listened to individual Wussy tracks rather than an entire album.
When the new Giants/Jets stadium was constructed, without a roof, and New York was awarded the 2014 Super Bowl, plenty of people talked about how great it would be if a Super Bowl was played in true winter conditions. Like a playoff game in Green Bay or Chicago, why shouldn’t the NFC championship be decided in the elements. While there were some naysayers (“Why should the title come down to a kicker slipping in icy conditions?
Greetings fellow citizens. I am here to talk about the State of the Blog. I can report that the State of the Blog is changed. Read on for the news. It’s been a whole five months or something, thus it was time to implement some changes to Ye Olde Blog. I’ve bored you in the past (if you’ve chosen to read through such posts) explaining why I changed this or that.
This is a terrific article on several levels. It examines some of the inside story of the development of the iPhone. It points out fundamental demographic advantages that China has over the U.S. And it gets into the potential moral delimma Apple, and other successful US technology companies, has when balancing profitability, share owner value, and the needs of the American worker. Though Americans are among the most educated workers in the world, the nation has stopped training enough people in the mid-level skills that factories need, executives say.
My nearly eight years as a stay-at-home parent have been filled with humorous moments that come with being the rare dad who is with his kids all day. Random kids who come up and start telling me about their potty habits. Boys who mistake me for their dad because I’m the only guy around. And, my personal favorite, kids yanking down their mothers' shirts while I’m talking to them. Friday, L.
Indianapolis is now on the clock in two ways. Sure, there’s the countdown to April’s NFL Draft. And now, with the conference championship games out of the way, the final countdown for the Super Bowl is on. In two weeks, a city where you can’t buy alcohol on Sundays1 will host America’s biggest single-day sporting event. Anyway, a couple of great games on Sunday. Perhaps not artistic masterpieces, but tremendously entertaining.