When I watched part of Real Genius a week ago, it got me thinking about the movies I watched the most between 1985 and 1994.[1] These were the glory days of movies on TV, a time when there was a great chance you would find one of, say, 40 different movies playing on one channel or another. There was no better way to waste time than flipping through your cable dial to find one of your favorites, then not moving until it was over.
I’ve been in a weird reading space since May began. Over that span I did not enjoy two of the books I have completed. As I mentioned in my previous RN post, I only finished Bret Easton Ellis’ The Shards because I’m stubborn. I think that effort wore me down, as shortly afterward I quit a book after struggling with it for over a week. Put all of that together and in the last four weeks I’ve only logged two books into my reading list for 2023.
Movies, Shows, etc Ted Lasso, season two Got S caught up. She enjoyed it. I don’t think my second viewing changed my opinion of it. It was funnier, deeper, and more emotional than season one. But it also lacked the magic of that first year. Season one wins in a nose because it didn’t have the two extra episodes that messed with the momentum of the rest of the season. A-
We’ve hit a cycle of boom-bust weekends that should extend at least a couple more weeks. This was one of the bust weekends. At least for four of us. M had parties all weekend, I believe she had 12 she could have attended from Friday through Sunday. We met her at one of her buddy’s on Sunday and she looked totally wiped out. So naturally we - meaning S and I and other parents who have known M for years - made fun of her for being so tired from just having fun.
The bulk of this week’s playlist is one of my dumb group of songs that share some minor trait. The music is good even if the “concept” is stupid. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Summer Breeze” - Seals and Crofts It’s summertime, bitches. “High Life” - Bloc Party “American Candy” - The High Water Marks “Ease On” - The High Violets “Standing on an Empire” - Highspire “It’s Fine” - Bethany Cosentino A bunch of songs or acts with that all contain the word high.
Some notes about the end of Ted Lasso. To reset, S had never watched the show before, so in April we watched together from the very first episode. We got caught up three weeks ago, watching the final three episodes on the nights they were released. After binging 30 or so in about 20 nights, I hated going old school and having to wait seven days for the next one.
We had our final official event at St P’s last night: the graduation of L’s 8th grade class. We got a new priest a little over a year ago after our long-time, very popular priest retired. The new guy has received a decidedly mixed reaction. As I’m not Catholic I won’t get into the details. That said, homie knocked out the Mass in 40 minutes, which I fully support. The graduation ceremony afterward went well.
It was a very busy, extra long, extra special holiday weekend. Let’s get into the details. Thursday L’s next-to-last day of middle school. She begged us to host the annual 8th grade pool party. After weeks of badgering us we relented. Not sure I would have said yes if her class was bigger, but only 28 kids seemed manageable. Everyone was well-behaved, they all got picked up on time, and I felt bad for secretly hoping it would storm and cancel the event.
I planned on taking this week’s playlist one direction, then some things happened in the music world, I realized it was a holiday weekend, and we ended our academic year, so I decided to mix things up. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Lay Low” - My Morning Jacket I watched a documentary on MMJ’s 2004 Bonnaroo performance the other night. Which means I spent the next hour listening to some of their best tracks. This seems like a good song to open any playlist with.
A very busy week around here, so not sure if I’ll get any more proper posts up until after the holiday weekend. I did run across this article this morning and it’s how I’ve been spending the last 30 minutes or so. If you’re sick of your mailbox being filled up with credit card offers, insurance spiels, and other unsolicited mailings, following these suggestions can eliminate many of them. I wish there was a way to also stop the local mailings.
Grad Week We officially have a high school graduate! The week leading up to Sunday’s graduation ceremony was jam-packed for M. Her final day of school was last Monday. They were supposed to go in for first period Tuesday but she (and most of her classmates) opted to skip that.[1] She had little activities each day but Thursday was when things really got cranking. That morning she met with a group of girls on campus to take pictures.
Quite the mixed bag this week. We’ll begin with a couple tracks that owe a huge debt to ’90s Brit Pop, hear a classic from that era, dive into some Aussie music, and then get even more eclectic. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Savior” - Siracuse I have a buddy who is super into all things Manchester. Man United. The whole music scene. But especially Oasis. The first time I heard this I sent it to him and said, “This is totally some Stephen K bullshit.
Chart Week: April 23, 1983 Song: “Whirly Girl” - Oxo Chart Position: #28, 10th week on the chart. This was its chart peak. We love to celebrate the one hit wonders that made a big impact on the charts and the culture. Toni Basil. Nena. Tommy Tutone. Artists of that nature that you still hear today. Then there are the bands that are lost to time because their sole hit barely scratched its way onto the chart and failed to register in our generational memory.
The Tech Toddler has struck again. Naturally it was McSweeney’s that called him out best. As a free speech absolutist, only death could stop me from defending the rights of Twitter users to speak without censorship. Well, either death or a request from an autocratic leader asking that I censor certain content that could be sensitive for their regime. Whichever comes first. I WILL DEFEND FREE SPEECH TO THE DEATH. OR UNTIL AN AUTOCRAT ASKS ME TO STOP I’ve earned a lot of credibility with my girls for openly enjoying Taylor Swift’s music.
Kid Hoops A great weekend for L’s team. They played in a one-day shootout Saturday about 30 minutes away from home. Our coach moved us up to the 8th–9th grade bracket, so we were worried going in. That was dumb; both teams we played were awful. The first was an all-freshman team. We hit two 3’s to open the game and never looked back. We had a running clock before halftime and won 59–5.
My Friday Playlist pool has been pretty full this year. There was a little lull in the past month where I had to do some digging to fill out the weekly lists. Suddenly, though, I am overflowing once again. When I started working on today’s edition, I had 17 songs in the queue, only two of which were older tracks. Which is a good problem, obviously, as it means extra music for you as I work to get through them all.
We are coming up on the 20th anniversary of this blog. Or at least the original site the current iteration grew from. I’m sure I’ll whip together something to commemorate the proper anniversary in June. This morning I saw an article about podcasts and got to thinking about my history with them, which was somewhat tied to my blogging history. I’m pretty sure I first learned about podcasts sometime in early 2005.
Beat the Devils - Josh Weiss The genre of alternate histories can be very fun if done right. I recently ran across a list of best recent alt history novels and was amazed by how many were centered on World War II. I guess that era has a lot of opportunities for writing about What Ifs. Or people are just obsessed with Hitler. Still. This takes a different tack, and does so well.
This weekend was certainly slower than the previous one. Doesn’t mean we didn’t pack a few things into it, one of them rather momentous. On the Road The family checked off another big milestone when C passed her driver’s test and got her license on Saturday. It has been a bit of a struggle with her; she was first eligible to get her license the week of Thanksgiving but wasn’t close to either being ready or having enough hours behind the wheel then.
The biggest signing in the history of the transfer portal (for now) requires a quick, emergency Jayhawk Talk. Thursday former Michigan big man Hunter Dickinson announced he will transfer to KU. That news immediately vaulted KU from a top 15-ish squad to a legit national title contender next season. I’ll get into the weeds on this later - there is expected to be more roster news soon - so for now I’ll focus on the three transfer players we know will be joining the Jayhawks next year.