A wild couple nights of basketball that included three extra periods to resolve two games. Because of that, a rare mash-up of college and high school notes. Jayhawk Talk From the verge of a disastrous 0–2 Big 12 start to an exhilarating win that didn’t really answer the questions thanks to a pretty amazing three minutes Tuesday night. KU’s defense completely fell apart in the second half, giving TCU layups and wide open 3’s, which the Frogs refused to miss.
My final four books of 2025, which ended up being my most prolific reading year on record. Appropriately, and I’m not making this up, I read 67 books last year. Honest to God! SIX SEVEN!!!! Cross, Sanctuary, The Devil - Ken Bruen Three more entries in Bruen’s brilliant Jack Taylor series, read over roughly a week. Somehow they are getting even darker, with a terrific twist in Taylor’s life thrown into this set.
A few more catch up posts I need to crank through before we officially turn our backs on the old year. The final quarter of 2025 ended up being my worst workout stretch of the year. Not a huge surprise, as the weather turned, I had a couple weeks of foot pain, I spent several days shuttling C back-and-forth as she battled her mystery illness,[1] and then the holidays hit. My longest stretch of not breaking a sweat before December was three days.
Shut down the blog for nearly two weeks and there’s a lot to catch up on. I’m sure none of you want to get back to work anyway, so consider this a public service on my part. Holiday Stuff It was your standard Christmas around our house. I spent nearly all Christmas Eve day prepping, making five casseroles for Christmas Day plus baked beans to take to our Christmas Eve gathering.
The Usual Suspects Elf Christmas Vacation A Christmas Story A+, A+, A+ Holiday Baking Championship Well, they did it. After how ever many years of watching these holiday baking shows - at least a decade - the Food Network finally drove me away. Following the semi-debacle that was this year’s Halloween Baking Championship, I was hoping things would return to normal for Christmas. Alas, based on the first episode it seemed like it had also been hammered into stupidity by the producers.
[open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6tvtOhBpV86iwslJC9dDey?si=bf12d86559754283) “The New Year’s Resolution” - Spielbergs I made just one resolution this year, and I already broke it. Such is life. “Fighting Back” - Voxtrot Voxtrot had a little moment during the blog rock era in the 2000s. Next month they will release their first album in 19 years. On this lead single they sound like they haven’t missed a beat in their time away. “Day In The Sun (Gettin’ wit U)” - De La Soul, Q-Tip & Yummy
For my readers who have followed me here for years - thank you all! - you know my brain works in very linear/circular ways.[1] I’m very into the rhythms of the year: the flow from week-to-week, the changing of the seasons, when school begins and ends, etc. Something was ingrained in my brain when I was young, or perhaps I was just born that way. Regardless, the end of one calendar year and the beginning of the next has always struck me as an Event, even if we rarely actually celebrate the actual arrival of the New Year anymore.
Once again we have reached the end of a calendar year and one of the greatest days of the blogging year: the unveiling of my favorite songs of 2025. This year the process was as fun as I can recall. As you know, I keep a running list throughout the year, constantly shuffling songs in and out as they catch my fancy. When fall arrived this year I wasn’t really sure about the songs I had stashed away for the final evaluation.
Time to close up Ye Olde Blogge Shoppe for the Christmas holiday. To celebrate I’m going to offer a playlist I last shared a couple years back that features some of my favorite Christmas music deep cuts. Some of these are fun, some are wonderful, all of them are terrific. Merry Christmas to all my readers! [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2ePGgAHss85zKUcdlV9ZyS?si=ed2b0abae2c94a77)
A relatively chill weekend for us without any of our football teams playing and no KU basketball. Power Out Friday morning I was jolted out of bed around 5:30 when high winds sent a tree or branch into a power line located a couple hundred feet from our back windows. The sky lit up with all the fun colors that electricity can produce. Luckily our power just blinked for a moment then functioned as normal.
I am putting the finishing touches on my Favorite Songs of 2025 list. Not sure if it will get posted before or after Christmas, but it is getting very close, my friends! For this week’s playlist I’ll share the songs that were in the running for the final list but just missed. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2KMNrynzoqZd7f55r8npoJ?si=3493579c5e214f54) “Afraid Of Guns” - Motorbike Best new music from Cincinnati I heard this year.
Chart Week: December 11, 1982 Song: “The Look Of Love (Part 1)” - ABC Chart Position: #20, 14th week on the chart. Peaked at #18 for three weeks in January 1983. As a true music geek, sometimes it really pisses me off when a band’s best song was not their biggest hit. I realize this is purely subjective; who am I to say that a single that barely cracked the Top 20 is a better track than two others that each landed in the Top 10?
Some of these I knew, some were new. I can’t believe this one was new to me. “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division was a direct response to the popular pop song “Love Will Keep Us Together” by Captain & Tennille. Very Good Music Fun Facts So fun he quickly did it again. More Very Good Music Facts The Ringer recently re-did their best TV episodes of the century list.
Winter is kind of horseshit. Talk about that and other things that happened over the past few days below. Winter Weather The biggest event of the weekend was our latest winter storm Saturday. We didn’t quite hit the predicted snowfall of 6–7 inches, but we were easily over 5” at our house. It started snowing late morning and continued all day long. Fortunately L’s game was cancelled, and we didn’t have any reason to leave the house.
Just enough songs this week to put together a playlist, with a little help from a couple seasonal tracks. This is likely the last normal FP of 2025. Also, I think I finally figured out how to embed Apple Music playlists. With Spotify becoming more and more problematic, I think it is important to offer than option even if most of my readers are on Spotify at the moment. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7po07MiDSybEPX4Ew0OlXw?si=4ce642d51d5b4f6b) “December” - Cheetah Cheetah Bison
The Poet’s Game - Paul Vidich Vidich’s books have been hit-and-miss with me, perhaps because they lean more towards proper literature than pulpy, exciting spy works. There’s a dryness and darkness to them that feels very Russian, and for me difficult to connect with. Honestly I could flip a coin on this one to determine whether it was a hit or a miss. Like his other books, it lacks that crackling energy I want from the genre.
Chart Week: December 1, 1984 Song: “Valotte” - Julian Lennon Chart Position: #18, seventh week on the chart. Peaked at #9 the week of January 12, 1985. When Julian Lennon released his first album in the fall of 1984, there was no mistaking his genetics. His voice was eerily similar to that of his late father. Hell, I was 13 years old and far from a Beatles expert, and even I was shocked at how much son sounded like dad.
A HUGE sports weekend in our house, for a lot of reasons. Border War I’ll start with the best part of the weekend, for me at least, KU pounding Mizzou in Kansas City. And Darryn Peterson was back! Well, kind of. That’s a whole other deal that I’m not going to get into today. The Tigers battled gamely for 16–17 minutes. They seemed to have momentum after a thunderous Mark Mitchell dunk forced a KU timeout.
Apologies for there not being a playlist last week. I intended to post one but didn’t get around to it before I had to take C and her friend to the airport. That leaves me with a lot to share this week. We’ll see if I am able to edit or that means you get a super-stuffed edition this week. [embed]open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Jungle Love” - The Time The great Jellybean Johnson died a week ago.
As NFL week 14 begins tonight with a massive game between Dallas and Detroit - Are the Cowboys for real? Can the Lions salvage their season? - it reminds me I’m due for my monthly collection of thoughts on the league. Sadly the NFL remains as inscrutable as it has been all season. Two weeks ago it seemed like Philadelphia had finally stopped fucking around and were ready to romp through the last third of their schedule.