As usual, this collection of links has been sitting in my queue for far too long. The two holiday-related pieces, though, were both published in the New Year, so they aren’t as old as they seem. Every Winter Olympic Event, Ranked by How Terrified I’d Be to Participate in It Has fighting the massive time difference for the third-straight Olympiad got you down? This might spice up your Winter Olympics viewing a little bit.
A Jekyll and Hyde entry today, as I have two very different games to cover. Saturday’s win against Baylor was KU’s best and most complete performance of the year. KU smacked them in the mouth from the beginning and the Bears not only never responded, they never looked interested in responding. It was as easy a win over a fellow Top 10 team as KU has had in years. And it could have been even more convincing: KU missed a boat-load of wide-open 3’s throughout the game.
Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir Officially a 2021 book, I finished this over New Year’s weekend. It was my 53rd book of 2021, just getting me over book-a-week pace for those 12 months. This treads similar territory to Weir’s excellent The Martian, again focused on a man who is stuck in space alone. This time, though, the stakes are much higher. Ryland Grace is a former teacher who finds himself alone on a spacecraft sent to another solar system in an attempt to save Earth.
Although our big winter storm was kind of a dud - I’m guessing we are in the 7-8" range instead of the 12"+ that was forecast - this is snow day number two for our girls. Which means as soon as I get this posted I’m outside for round number two of shoveling so S can head to work in a bit. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Running with the Hurricane” - Camp Cope I’ve been digging this powerful song for a couple weeks.
Chart Week: January 26, 1985 Song: “Do What You Do” - Jermaine Jackson Chart Position: #19, 14th week on the chart. Peaked at #13 the week of January 5. How do you define a single? That dilemma has long frustrated people who track the popularity of music. Over the years Billboard magazine has used a variety of definitions for how to classify individual songs on its different charts. In the current, streaming age, for example, just about every track can be considered a single the moment an album is released.
Shows and Movies Cobra Kai, season four See here. B+ Narcos: Mexico, season three A very good wrap-up to the series’ three-year look at the Mexican drug cartels of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Typically great casting and writing. This had some similar themes as season five of The Wire. It pulled in the press, which is an important part of any story of the Mexican drug wars. The most compelling angle of the season, Mexican cop Victor Tapia’s quest to find who is snatching and murdering women who work at factories near the US border, somewhat mirrored Jimmy McNulty’s search for who was murdering prostitutes in the final season of The Wire.
Bad news is supposed to come in threes. KU seemed poised to fulfill that cliché Tuesday in Ames, IA. Ochai Agbaji tested positive for Covid, taking the likely All-American out of a key road contest. Remy Martin’s knee refuses to heal, and he was ruled out of the Iowa State game as well. Throw in a game in an arena where KU is hated as much as anywhere else, against a team that believed they had beaten the Jayhawks in Lawrence a couple weeks back, and everything seemed lined up for a second-straight loss.
January 2022 Something for Kate - 54 The Beatles - 42 Phantastic Ferniture - 35 The War on Drugs - 34 Frightened Rabbit - 25 Complete stats available at my Last.fm page.
Well, for most of my friends, this was a sports weekend to forget. KU I picked a very good night to have dinner plans that interfered with me watching the KU game. Thus I was able to not see a minute of KU getting whacked by Kentucky. We left right around tip off and by the time we got to our destination, the lead was already big enough that I was saved the awkwardness of checking my phone throughout dinner.
I don’t trust the Spotify algorithm to suggest music to me very often. I make a quick pass through my Discovery Weekly and Release Radar playlists each week, but I will generally only find a song or two that are new to me and fit my tastes. Last week, though, the Discovery playlist spit out a different version of an artist I really like (Julia Jacklin). After listening to her side project’s entire album, I let Spotify suggest music to me for about an hour.
A delayed edition of Jayhawk Talk because Monday’s game against Texas Tech was far too stressful. I would complain about the rest of the season being as exhausting as the past week was for KU, but I prefer winning to losing. If that means 12 more games like the last three and a Big 12 title as reward, I guess I’m on board. I did not watch the game live. Well, 99% of it.
Chart Week: January 12, 1985 Song: “The Boys of Summer” - Don Henley Chart Position: #16, 10th week on the chart. Peaked at #5 the week of February 9. You might wonder why I spend a few hours each week listening to re-broadcasts of a 40-ish year-old radio show that features songs I can listen to literally whenever I want. The biggest reason is for the times I hear a piece of music trivia that had eluded me all of these years.
Some weekend of televised sports action! KU Hoops For the first time all year, I bailed on a game. Well, partially. After a truly atrocious first half in Manhattan, which saw them trailing Kansas State by 16, I moved the KU game over to the laptop, sat it on the coffee table, and put the Bengals-Titans game on the TV.[1] I had zero interest in the football game, but I couldn’t stand watching KU continue to play the wretched basketball they played through the first 20 minutes.
This week features a song that choked me up and an oldie I’m guessing most of you won’t remember. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Wishbone” - Husbands A cool post-post-post-post punk track by a duo from Oklahoma. With guest vocals from a third Sooner State artist. Doing my best to push emerging artists from Big 12 country! “Everything Is Simple” - Widowspeak “Everything is simple ‘til it’s not.” Damn, that kind of sums up the whole world, doesn’t it?
I guess I have to start getting used to this. Tuesday brought another ugly-ass road game for KU, this time in their visit to Oklahoma. The Jayhawks pissed away a 12-point lead in the second half, gave up a 20–2 run, saw their best player get injured early and go 34 minutes without scoring a point, made countless unforced errors while trying to come back, but, thanks to Christian Braun’s biggest shot of the year, escaped with a win.
A few good reads to jumpstart your short week. These are pretty funny. Although are we sure Pearl Jam is a sad dad band? I do shake my head at the word “crypto,” though, so they may be onto something. What Your Favorite Sad Dad Band Says About You Kevin Clark’s summary of the CFP National Title game was terrific. I loved this section, in particular, about Kelee Ringo’s pick-six that iced the game and title for Georgia.
A lot of sports notes from the weekend. I should probably split this into a couple different posts. But it is a holiday and we all have a little extra time. So one extra-large post it is! Kid Hoops L played in her first-ever AAU tournament over the weekend. Or rather it was a “shootout”: a one-day, round-robin event focused more on getting teams games than declaring a champion. Her coach told us that this was just a chance to get the girls together for the first time and get a feel for the roster.
Some terrific new songs and RIP to one of the biggest names in the history of popular music. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Wild” - Spoon Spoon never, ever release a bad single. That doesn’t mean every single is great, but they always hold my attention for a week or two. This, however, is a great single, as good as anything they’ve done in quite awhile. This is also the song that reminded me to start my Favorites of ‘22 playlist.
Chart Week: January 10, 1981 Song: “More Than I Can Say” - Leo Sayer Chart Position: #10, 16th week on the chart. Peaked at #2 for five weeks. (I will be adding an element to these posts moving forward. I’m going to copy my man Tom Breihan and rate each song using his 10-point scale.) One of the only bummers for my holiday break was that the iHeart Radio Classic American Top 40 station did not air its annual marathon of year-end countdowns.
A near disaster in the Fieldhouse last night should have most KU fans very concerned this morning. Iowa State has proven that their 12–0 start was no fluke, and new coach TJ O (I refuse to learn how to spell his last name; this is a blog not a newspaper) deserves an enormous amount of credit for turning the program around so quickly. They guard your ass off, and not a single KU player handled the pressure well.