Here is one of the greatest things I saw over the holidays. “Euverus” used the game Cities: Skylines to test how traffic would flow at a 4-way intersection using 30 different road configurations. I love the examples with no controls, especially the little software glitches that allow vehicles to pass through each other. And some of the higher-end examples are just mesmerizing to watch. I believe we can label this as Good, Clean Fun.
Back to the sharings of the musics! open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Man Uncouth” - Line & Circle. Holy 1983! These kids clearly listened to some early R.E.M. and Smiths albums. This is some good shit. “Cut Yr Teeth” - Kississippi. There are hints of shiny, jangle pop in this song, but it never really sheds its rougher exterior to reveal that brightness. Which seems appropriate for a morning when the temperature is well below zero.
Again I’ve fallen behind on my book sharing. Here are my final four books of 2017.[1] I’ve already polished off one book for 2018 and will get to it next week. Fantasyland - Kurt Andersean I’ve mostly avoided the quick, “How Did We Get Here?” assessments of our current political state. They tend to be too depressing and infuriating for me to read. But I decided to give in and tackle this one because of a couple blurbs I read about it.
Glory be! After roughly 36 hours without either cable or internet access, our house (and neighborhood it turns out) has been reconnected! So I can finally start unloading some of the accumulated content from the past week-plus. First, Happy New Year! I hope your celebrations, large and small, were fun and safe. Let’s go back to 2017 and review how our family rolled over Christmas. Christmas Day I believe I mentioned this in my annual Christmas Spirit post, but the myth of where gifts come from was finally burst in our house this year.
We are in the full-on holiday frenzy around here. Yesterday was the girls’ final day of school of 2017. St. P’s always dismisses early on the last day before Christmas break which adds even more excitement to the day. While sitting in the parking lot at dismissal, a friend said he was taking his kids to Dairy Queen and asked if we wanted to join them. Of course my girls did!
Twenty-seventeen was solid, in music terms. It won’t go down as an all-time great one in my book, as the year lacked a legendary album (or two) and the wave of solid tunes pretty much dried up in the final quarter. And, compared to last year, not nearly as many albums stuck with me. But, as always, there were plenty of songs that I listened to a lot over the past 12 months.
OK, a quick five-minute listing of thoughts on The Last Jedi, which I saw last night. Spoiler alert! Conclusion first: The Last Jedi was very good. I had a few problems with it, but overall it was very entertaining, very well shot, had a decent story, and was worth two-and-a-half hours of my time. What I liked most: Man, was the movie action packed. The natural comparison is going to be with The Empire Strikes Back.
For a guy who doesn’t have a job, I’m insanely busy this week. Monday I had to run down to the lake house to meet with some contractors who will, hopefully, be doing some upgrades to the place before next summer rolls around. That meeting, along with spending a couple hours blowing the last of our leaves down there, took up most of the day before I got the girls home and had to drive the sports practice taxi.
It’s a special week for the Friday playlist. As some of you know, I used to do a semi-private podcast on which I played music for friends. At the end of each year, I would share my favorite songs of the previous 12 months. As the years piled up, I thought a cool way to introduce those year-end lists would be to review what my favorite songs of the previous years were.
Tonight’s the night. Last school Christmas program ever for our family. After fifteen total performances between preschool and 1st–3rd grades, L will close it out this evening when she stars as Ms. Jingle, the mayor of Jingle Bell Hills.[1] She has one of the three biggest roles and has taken to it in classic L form. She had all her lines memorized before Thanksgiving weekend was over. She’s added a little bit of flair to them over the past week.
News is hitting the Pat DiNizio, lead singer of the most excellent band The Smithereens, has died. He was 62. To me, The Smithereens were always a super cool band that bridged various gaps. They didn’t fit into standard 80s rock or pop radio, yet they weren’t a truly college rock band like R.E.M. Their music had strong elements of 60s pop (thanks to DiNizio’s obsession with The Beatles), and gritty, blue-collar, bar-band rock.
YES! Drew Magary has posted his annual holiday treat, The 2017 Hater’s Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog. As always, read with care in the office, lest you alert all your coworkers that you’re slacking off with your laughter.
A weird start to the week. I had planned on going into hermit mode for a couple days, as I had a large library book that is due Wednesday and I still had to plow through about 200 more pages of it. I tried to renew, but there’s a waiting list for it, so I endeavored to dive in and finish it up, avoiding online time as much as possible.
A quick burst of high quality new tunes over the past week. open.spotify.com/user/224a… “Entitlement Crew” - The Hold Steady. The band just completed a four-night stretch at the Brooklyn Bowl and recorded this track, along with a B side, in advance of those shows. Franz Nicolay is back with the band, which is great news! And the song is pretty good! “Passing Out” - Strand of Oaks. Tim Showalter scrapped an entire album of material before hunkering down to bang out this year’s Hard Love.
One more piece of the weekend that requires its own entry. L began her basketball season on Sunday with two games. We missed the first game, but we we landed I had a couple texts from the head coach and another parent letting me know that we lost by six and did not play well. We rolled into the gym a few minutes after the tip of their second game. Maybe we should have skipped it.
We had ourselves a good ass weekend in San Antonio! Here’s a rundown of what all we packed in. We flew down Thursday, getting in late afternoon. We went down with one of S’s partners and her husband, and met a friend of theirs who was in from Colorado for the conference. After checking into our hotel - the Grand Hyatt on the River Walk - we changed and hustled out to grab an early dinner.
Crap. I had an awfully nice playlist put together and then realized I can’t figure out how to share Spotify playlists using the WordPress mobile app. You see, the Mrs. and I flew down San Antone way yesterday so she can further her medical education over the next couple days. Expect details from the tip on Monday. Without Spotify music, these two vids seemed appropriate. youtu.be/ZJEwrw4VE… youtu.be/VGF4ibgcH… I’m off to check on the basement at the Alamo…
Dang it. Once again my slowness in writing has caused someone with a lot more readership than I have to hit the same topic. Will Leitch has a piece in New York Magazine about whether the NFL is on a downward spiral. He hits a lot of the same notes I wanted to hit in a more personal post. His piece is really good, so I do recommend reading it. But I won’t let it stop me from sharing my own thoughts.
An action-packed Thanksgiving break in our house. We kicked things off Wednesday by heading to the post office to submit passport applications for all three girls. We are going to Mexico next spring break and wanted to give their applications plenty of time to percolate through the system. We double, triple, quadruple checked that everything was in order, talked to a couple friends who had gone through the process recently, and arrived thoroughly prepared…only to discover the post office now takes reservations for the passport window and they were booked solid for the day.
Busy, busy day around here getting ready for tomorrow. All the errands have been run and (hopefully) the final trip to the grocery store completed. The girls and I are midway through our house cleaning regimen. I’m about to head outside and do some leaf blowing and grass mowing in the 90 minutes or so the thermometer might reach 40 today. With that in mind, I thought I’d just share this most excellent link with you all.