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.
A couple quick notes before an emergency high school basketball update. Weather We had winter storm #3 of the young season Monday evening into Tuesday morning. The heaviest snow of the event fell right during Monday rush hour, meaning both S and L had to drive home in it. They made it here safely, if slowly. Once again we were in the predicted 2–4 inches zone, with the expectation it would be on the heavier end.
Video Slow Horses, season five A bit slower to start than some previous seasons, but a pretty fantastic ending. And plenty of Roddy Ho meant this might be the funniest season so far. At least one more season to come. A- The Lowdown Lots of critical praise for this, which turned out to be pretty accurate. Other than a lull in the middle of the season, it was very good. Sterlin Harjo, who also created Reservation Dogs, was the main force behind this one.
Thanksgiving week 2025 is in the books. It was mostly good. Other than me thinking Friday was Saturday all day. Lots happened, so here’s a lengthy breakdown to wade through as you ease back into your routines. Thanksgiving We hosted this year, only having 15. We could fit everyone at one (big) table! I feel like I have the food portion of hosting down. I know how to make a decent turkey.
This whole Olivia Nuzzi thing is wild. I remember reading one of her pieces a few years back, when she first rose to prominence, and thinking she was trying too hard to make herself part of the story. Little did I know! Another example here of a writer who only dabbles in politics cutting through an issue better than the alleged experts. A guide to the absolutely ludicrous Olivia Nuzzi media scandal
HS Hoops It was a two-game weekend for CHS. Things began with a bummer when L was told on Thursday she was going back to JV (along with one other junior). She needs minutes and JV needs players. That was a rough night in our house, as you might imagine. That’s about all I’ll say on that topic for now. Friday we drove 90 minutes south to play 3A #7 Jennings County, who came in 3–0.
Between wrapping up the first pass through my Apple Music library, doing some work on my Favorite Songs of the Year list, and other random stuff, I didn’t spend as much time listening to newer music as I normally do this week. So a blend of the new and old. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “Hinge” - VILLANELLE Is this a Nirvana tribute band? The band is led by Gene Gallagher, son of Liam. And he was obviously influenced more by Kurt Cobain than his dad.
A quick (hopefully!), navel-gazey post today to share that my initial run through my entire library on Apple Music is finally complete! After transitioning over from Spotify in April, I spent several weeks attempting to recreate how I organized iTunes over 10 years ago to balance both new and old music in a daily playlist. This makes heavy use of Smart Playlists, which select music based on date added, rating, play count, and other rather granular details.
Let’s run through some quick hoops thoughts. Jayhawk Talk As expected Darryn Peterson did not play last night against Duke. As expected, Duke won comfortably. Not as expected was KU showing a lot of fight and progress from last week’s games. There was still, obviously, a big hole on offense due to Peterson’s absence. But the Jayhawks controlled the first 15 minutes of the game and were in terrific shape until first Flory Bidunga and then Tre White went to the bench with three fouls before halftime.