Well, KU’s end-game luck had to run out eventually. After winning 15-straight games that were decided by less than 10 points, KU came up a point short in overtime in Manhattan Tuesday night. KU missed 10 free throws and 23 3-pointers. They had the ball at the end of regulation and overtime and didn’t get a shot off either time. They had the ball at the end of the first half and a chance to run out the clock.
Over the holidays I worked hard to get my Instapaper queue cleaned out, especially a whole swath of very long reads that had been sitting there for months and months. Of them, this might be my favorite, an accounting Susie Goodall’s attempt to sail around the world by herself. There are all kinds of harrowing details of her effort, but what stuck with me most was how the media framed her journey.
A little late today as I spent most of the morning running around doing things for the girls. It’s also been a rather odd start to my music year, and I’m not piling up the new music the way I normally do. More on that below. I have managed to cobble together a few songs for your listening pleasure. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Getting It Right” - Caitlin Rose and Courtney Marie Andrews Another entry in my continuing exploration of where the line between pop and country that I can tolerate lies, and this is just poppy enough for me to enjoy.
Another nail biter for KU on Tuesday, an improbable four-point win over Oklahoma after trailing by ten (and looking dead) with about 5:00 left. KU went over 11 minutes without hitting a field goal. ELEVEN MINUTES! Oklahoma was loose and focused. Then KU got a dunk. Followed by two offensive boards and a 3. Bill Self found a way to turn Oklahoma’s defensive strategy of face-guarding Gradey Dick against them and suddenly KU was scoring on every possession.
Often December is when I really pad my reading stats. There’s always at least one holiday book. I also tend to get locked into a good reading groove as the days get cold and dark and the girls are out of school. Not this December. I only finished three books last month. Despite that, I still logged 62 books for the year, which is my most since 2018. Just think if I had stayed focused last month!
It’s back to semi-normal today. L returned to school after her Christmas break. M and C still have one more week of J-term, so they go in a little later and get out a little earlier. But all three have to get up in the mornings again. Last week I had to get up to make sure C was up, so my alarm was 7:15 instead of my normal, school-day 6:55.
Back to the grind this week. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Flaw In The Design” - Home Front Holy 1983, Batman! I hope these guys dress like they’re from the original New Wave, too. “Harvard” - Briston Maroney This guy can’t help but make solid, indie-pop jams. “Kind of Light” - Bodywash Super Beach House-y without totally ripping off their sound. “God Bless the USA” - The Men This is not a remake. “Too Bored to Run” - Ryan Adams I’ve held off listening to Adams' music since the allegations that he sexually harassed/coerced many of the women he worked with.
Holiday Shit The Classics Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas, A Christmas Vacation, A Elf, A Four Christmases, B+ SNL Christmas Special, A- I did not watch this the past two years, instead catching my favorite sketches on YouTube. That was a good decision. They’ve made some updates and a couple of the new adds were quite good. Still say “Consumer Probe” needs to be dropped. SNL - Christmas in Australia, A+ This is the perfect replacement for “Consumer Probe.
UConn Women I took L and her best friend to meet some of their travel teammates at Hinkle Fieldhouse for the Butler-UConn women’s game last night. A lot of people had the same idea. I’m guessing this was Butler’s most-attended game of the year, with nearly 3,000 people showing up. A good chunk of those in the house were high school and middle school players. They were packing the hallways before and after the game, mostly to get a look at injured UConn guard Paige Bueckers.
Our holidays come to an end today. M and C go back to class tomorrow, although CHS is once again having a two-week J term filled with electives, so they don’t have “real” school for awhile. L has another week off but I will still have to start setting an alarm to make sure her sisters are awake tomorrow. A rundown of how we ended 2022 and began 2023. New Year’s Eve/The New Year Our postponed Christmas Eve family gathering was rescheduled for this night.
I believe I promised this for Monday, but it makes more sense to share this today. Happy 2023 to all! open.spotify.com/playlist/… “nye” - Runner “The New Year’s Resolution” - Spielbergs “New Year’s Day” - U2 “New Year’s Resolution” - Camera Obscura “New Year’s Day” - Taylor Swift “The New Year” - Death Cab for Cutie
As I do every January 1, a slightly different accounting of my listening habits. December 2022 Bing Crosby - 79 Frank Sinatra - 76 The Jackson 5 - 57 Burl Ives - 37 Otis Redding - 36 2022 The War on Drugs - 362 Gang of Youths - 326 The Beatles - 298 Eddie Vedder - 249 Wet Leg - 166 All Time [1] Frightened Rabbit - 3678 Pearl Jam - 3641 The War on Drugs - 3214 The Beatles - 2589 Ryan Adams - 2297 Checking my totals from 1/1/2022, Frightened Rabbit gained one point on Pearl Jam over the past 12 months while The War on Drugs knocked off over 150 plays from the #2 spot.
The final playlist of 2022. It will be a little different as I plan a special playlist for Monday and will hang on to new tracks until next Friday. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Man at C&A” - The Specials “Our Lips Are Sealed” - The Go-Go’s Terry Hall, one-time frontman for The Specials, died a week ago. I’ve listened to a fair amount of Specials music over the years, but his passing had me reading up on their history.
I guess if you have to go 14 years between bowl games, this is the way you want to return. Well, kind of. A win sure would have been nice. And not going down by 25 points would have made for a more interesting game. But the Kansas Football Jayhawks sure found a way to make Wednesday’s Liberty Bowl exciting. They nearly capped off a year of unforgettable KU comebacks with another epic one.
A stressful but pretty good Christmas weekend. Obviously the big issue the past several days has been the weather. We ended up only getting between 1–2” of snow Thursday, a far cry from that initial forecast of over a foot. But it was still enough, combined with the wind and cold, to make travel difficult and dangerous. Fortunately, for us, S was home before the roads got bad and the rest of us had no need to be outside of the house on Friday as the windchill dropped to over 30 below zero.
I realized after I posted my Favorite Songs of the Year that I forgot to share my Year By Year favorites playlist. So, on this very cold morning (–9, wind chill –36 as I type…), I will send you into the holiday weekend with those 21 songs, running from 2004 to the present. Merry Christmas! [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4bySVyeFTUGpGeWplD0hdN?si=4159a1aaa79d4dbc)
A few links to get your holiday weekend going. What? Some element of our annual Christmas celebrations is completely made up? Unbelievable! So, what does it mean? “Nothing,” says Holton. “It’s basically gibberish.” FWIW we saw Mele Kalikimaka displayed quite often in storefronts, etc last year when we visited Hawaii. Of course, they were probably just catering to us White Folks. Is ‘Mele Kalikimaka’ Really the Thing to Say on a Bright Hawaiian Christmas Day?
It’s been a crazy couple of days. That will happen when a massive winter storm is predicted to arrive just as the biggest holiday of the year arrives. M and C finished finals Tuesday. They seemed pleased with their performances. We’ll find out in a few weeks. L wrapped up school Wednesday. It was pretty much a useless week, as all tests and assignments were completed last week. She cracked me up by wearing a Santa hat to school each day, then again when we went to the gym on Tuesday.
What a weekend of sports at all levels! Hoo, Hoo, Who? I was unable to watch the Indiana-Kansas game live, which was a major bummer, because it was another first-rate ass kicking. One so comprehensive that I’m left wondering if IU really isn’t that good and, thus, us KU fans shouldn’t overreact to the win. Regardless, as a Jayhawk living in Hoosier-land, that was a fun ass game. I was following the score from L’s games, but because I’m a superstitious idiot, I decided I would only check the score every 15 minutes of real time so I could focus on her games.
There’s not much music left in my FPL pool, so seems like a good week to take this in a different direction. It’s been an odd weather month here in Indy so far. Not warm but not cold, generally in the upper 40s with a few days up into the low 50s. THe issue has been that we’ve been socked in by low, thick clouds for most of the past two weeks.