Limerick Friday #630: It's Been A Month And Nothing Is OK -- Day 1,800

 

While our reps cower

The tools have seized power

Brain cells are lacking

And the crimes are stacking

Locked away in the Irony Tower

For years, they've been stuck in a mire

No matter the talent they did acquire

Culture change needed

With Ben Johnson, they heeded

Did the Bears just nail a coach hire?

Ethics never matter to ESPN

Hypocrisy is a matter of when

Kirk Herbstreit crying on air?

Because OSU won the title, I swear

Journalism just died yet again

"Loudermilk" a breath of fresh air

I giggle at almost every swear

But not just raunchy and overdone

It's got a heart as big as the sun

The emotions for which I did not prepare

As winter storms clear

Spring training is here

As the Mets chase a pennant

Getting used to Soto will take a minute

For Iglesias, I do shed a tear

Last time ...

Day 1,799, Quasi-Quarantine: "As Good As Dead" Serves As Darkest Installment And Finale Of Memorable Trilogy

 

“Is it normal for one person to have this many enemies? I’m the problem, aren’t I?

“How did it get so late already?

“I understand why they all hate me.

“I might hate me too.”

The third installment in the "Good Girl's Guide to Murder" series, "As Good As Dead" is decidedly darker and more disturbing. In the follow-up to "Good Girl, Bad Blood," Holly Jackson puts Pip Fitz-Amobi into increasingly intense and no-win situations.

Our protagonist makes impossible decisions, endures self-loathing, and floats through much of the story in a dream state due to insomnia. Along the way, Jackson cleverly weaves in discussion of police misconduct and the broader problem of false confessions.

"As Good As Dead" raises a lot of troubling moral questions and ventures somewhat beyond the edges of traditional YA material, but serves as a fitting coda to an absorbing trilogy -- and a fascinating lead character.

“She cried and she let herself cry, a few minutes to grieve for the girl she could never be again.”

Day 1,798, Quasi-Quarantine: "Just Kids" A Gritty, Melancholy, Celebratory View Of 1970s NYC Art Culture

“It is said that children do not distinguish between living and inanimate objects; I believe they do. A child imparts a doll or tin soldier with magical life-breath. The artist animates his work as the child his toys.”

Gritty but emotional, "Just Kids" is the improbably tale of love between Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe as they struggle with identity and aspiration in New York City. Smith paints a compelling portrait of the journey from homelessness to fame for the duo, inseparable despite a myriad of differences.

“It was a good day to arrive in New York City. No one expected me. Everything awaited me.”

This book had been on my to-read list for years, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. Smith's combination of courage and naivete is something to behold, and her brushes with era icons like Andy Warhol lent even more depth to the story.

“I didn’t feel for Warhol the way Robert did. His work reflected a culture I wanted to avoid. I hated the soup and felt little for the can. I preferred an artist who transformed his time, not mirrored it.”

The author obscures a number of conversations early in the book related to her family and her escape to New York, but finds her voice in documenting the litany of coincidences that allowed her to find Robert, her path, and her future.

“But secretly I knew I had been transformed, moved by the revelation that human beings create art, that to be an artist was to see what others could not.”

“I learned from him that often contradiction is the clearest way to the truth.”

Melancholy, sweet, and heartbreaking, "Just Kids" has gaps like any tale of life, but is essential reading for anyone interested in the culture and climate of 1970s NYC and how cosmic twins can find one another in its shadows and alleys.

“We were as Hansel and Gretel and we ventured out into the black forest of the world. There were temptations and witches and demons we never dreamed of and there was splendor we only partially imagined. No one could speak for these two young people nor tell with any truth of their days and nights together. Only Robert and I could tell it. Our story, as he called it. And, having gone, he left the task to me to tell it to you.”

Day 1,796, Quasi-Quarantine: "Chain-Gang All-Stars" Is A Thought-Provoking Examination Of The Cyclical Connection Between Incarceration And Entertainment

 

“Sometimes I’m sure I can’t be killed. Sometimes I’m not sure if I’ve already died.”

Nana Kwame Adjlei-Brenyah's all-too-real tale of prisoners fighting for their lives in gladiator-style made-for-TV events is both compelling and heartbreaking. "Chain-Gang All-Stars" is vividly realized, while also weaving in citations about incarceration in the United States.

“It was hard to forget the things that hurt you. You didn’t often forget the shape of your cage.”

The coerced battle to the death for "Blood Points" (value: one one-thousandth of one cent), so the sheer violence can be hard to take at times.

“Some truly didn’t think about the fact that men and women were being murdered every day by the same government their children pledged allegiance to at school.”

The book can also be difficult to follow at first as perspectives change, and the sheer number of characters can make it difficult to follow on occasion. 

“Because he was ruined he ruined and was ruined further.”

While the Thurwar-Staxxx throughline was compelling, "Chain-Gang All-Stars" may have benefited from more time dedicated to the Simon J. Craft storyline, which served to humanize the reality-show elements of the plot.

“ … As always, the massive violence of the state was ‘justice,’ was ‘law and order,’ and resistance to perpetual violence was an act of terror. It would have been funny if there weren’t so much blood everywhere.”

“The police begged again for peace as they rolled their tanks forward.”

The novel ends in a slightly ambiguous fashion befitting the overall arc of "Chain-Gang All-Stars." The overall read was brutal, but the underlying message is resonant and important.

“I thought of how the world can be anything and how sad it is that it’s this.”

Day 1,793, Quasi-Quarantine: "The Guest" Explores Concepts Of Value, Belonging Among The Insufferable 1%

 

“Hundreds of years ago, their parents might have abandoned their babies in the woods. Instead, the neglect was stretched out over many years, a slow-motion withering. The kids were still abandoned, still neglected in the woods, but the forest was lovely.”

This novel explores sexuality, caste systems, the service economy, and privilege in a way that is slightly undercut by an unreliable narrator. The protagonist of "The Guest," Alex, is a blank slate the reader can imprint any number of "struggles" onto, with the lack of an origin story guiding these examinations.

“The thrill was familiar. The giddy anxiety of watching yourself and waiting to see what you would do next.”

From kleptomania to nymphomania to impulse control, Alex resists categorization in what seems to be a highly conscious choice by Emma Kline. However, where the book's intent seems to be to portray Alex as complicated and misunderstood, the overall effect leans hard toward intentionally confusing.

“She’d been almost jealous of the people she’d known in the city who’d totally cracked up, spiraled into some other realm. It was a relief to have the option to fully peace out of reality.”

"The Guest" is undeniably engrossing, leading to a manic read that matches the story's rhythm and pace. While readers may find themselves wanting more interiority from the serial thief/sex worker Alex, Cline withholds it in a way that can foster frustration -- balanced against absorption.

“The appearance of calm demanded an endless campaign of violent intervention.”

Day 1,791, Quasi-Quarantine: All Themes Welcome In Southern Gothic Noir Entry "All The Sinners Bleed"

“The South doesn’t change … just the names and the dates and the faces. And sometimes even those don’t change, not really. Sometimes it’s the same day and the same faces waiting for you when you close your eyes.

“Waiting for you in the dark.”

S.A. Cosby continues his string of intense Southern noir novels with "All the Sinners Bleed," a worthy successor to "Blacktop Wasteland" and "Razorblade Tears." His latest features a demonic serial killer terrorizing a small community in southeastern Virginia.

“The ability of one human to visit depravity upon another was as boundless as the sea and as varied as there were grains of sand on the beach.”

The book has good pacing that is only slightly challenged by a couple of bizarre scenes that just don't work and some super-long sentences. Oddly, there were also a few too many dragon similes -- four, to be exact.

"All the Sinners Bleed" tackles racism, grief, and religious zealotry -- weighty themes that can feel overwhelming in the same tale, but coalesce fairly well in Cosby's hands. For entertainment relief, the Raleigh-based band American Aquarium gets a notable mention.

“I could also have monkeys fly out of my butt. Don’t mean I’m gonna start buying bananas for toilet paper.”

Cosby's work is intense, but not overly challenging. These days, that's a feature and not a bug, as books that demand too much mentally or emotionally can feel overwhelming.

“ … But that was the thing about violence. It didn’t always wait for an invitation. Sometimes it saw a crack in the dam and then it flooded the whole valley.”

The ending is solid and the story is timely. Cosby knows grittiness, and he nails it again in "All the Sinners Bleed."

“It occurred to him no place was more confused by its past or more terrified of the future than the South.”

Day 1,789, Quasi-Quarantine: Themes Of Love, Identity, Belonging Fuel Unforgettable "The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay"

“Joe, on the floor, was aware for a moment that he was lying on a sour-smelling oval braided rug, in an apartment recently vacated by a girl who had impressed him, in the few instants of their acquaintance, as the most beautiful he had ever seen in his life, in a building whose face he had scaled so that he could begin to produce comic books for a company that sold farting pillows, in Manhattan, New York, where he had come by way of Lithuania, Siberia, and Japan.”

Stunning in its breadth, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" pulled off the truly impressive feat of being a novel of 700 pages that left you wanting more.

“‘There is only one sure means in life,’ Deasey said, ‘of ensuring that you are not ground into paste by disappointment, futility, and disillusion. And that is always to ensure, to the utmost of your ability, that you are doing it solely for the money.’”

Michael Chabon's New York City of the 1940s is full of hope and despair, opportunity and obstacle, love and pain. The author has created vivid backdrops, rich back stories, and engrossing historical context to populate this terrain.

“The sound of their raised voices carries up through the complicated antique ductwork of the grand old theater, rising and echoing through the pipes until it emerges through a grate in the sidewalk, where it can be heard clearly by a couple of young men who are walking past, their collars raised against the cold October night, dreaming their elaborate dream,wishing their wish, teasing their golem into life.”

Chabon's prose manages to be sentimental, hysterical, beautiful, and moving all at the same time. True-to-life dialogue colors in real depth for Sam Clay and Joe Kavalieri, making them relatable and extraordinary.

“It was marvelous that in this big town he had managed to rediscover, a year later, the girl with the miraculous behind.”

“ … There was a general impression of imminent catastrophe and red lipstick.”

The author has fun with many offshoots of the main storyline, particularly with a fraught Antarctic adventure. Chabon turns Kavalier & Clay into manifestations of the comics they create -- building a stunning, accessible, and compelling novel along the way.

“He had escaped, in his life, from ropes, chains, boxes, bags, and crates, from handcuffs and shackles, from countries and regimes, from the arms of a woman who loved him, from crashed airplanes and an opiate addiction and from an entire frozen continent intent on causing his death.”

Day 1,782, Quasi-Quarantine: "The Barn" Unearths Historic Inevitability And Profound Whitewashing Of Emmett Till's Murder

 

“The more I looked at the story of the barn and came to understand the forces that moved everyone involved into the Mississippi Delta in 1955, the more I understood that the tragedy of humankind isn't that sometimes a few depraved individuals do what the rest of us could never do. It’s that the rest of us hide those hateful things from view, never learning the lesson that hate grows stronger and more resistant when it’s pushed underground. There lies the true horror of Emmett Till's murder and the undeserved gift of his martyrdom.”

Painstakingly researched, "The Barn" benefits from the unique perspective and lived experience of the author, a native Mississippian who had to leave the state to find a full education. 

“The South is built, he said, on never talking about the things right in front of your face. But the sign speaks. It cannot be ignored and here in this palace of national honor, it cannot be forgotten.”

“A cult is built on believing the absurd if the absurd justifies the cult.”

The pain and love are evident in Wright Thompson's prose, as he details the state's origin story as an inevitable path from greed to a lonely barn in the middle of nowhere.

“All of which is to say that money’s only ethic is to reproduce itself, and it keeps on moving, circling, finding the best margins. Once upon a time it found those best margins in the Mississippi Delta.”

Subtitled "A Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi," the book is propelled by powerful interviews and the weight of 345 citations. The result is an emotional, indelible look at a tragedy that has resonated over the decades.

“Rarely has a more cowardly collection of humans been put in the exact right place at the exact right moment to do maximum damage.”

Thompson takes great care to honor the memory of Emmett Till and the community that has done its best to preserve his memory, and his meticulous eye for detail makes the read both challenging and emotional -- yet instructive and beautiful.

“‘At a time when there are those who seek to ban books, bury history,’ Biden said as he made his own closing arguments, ‘we’re making it clear – crystal, crystal clear’ – the crowd’s applause stopped him for a beat – ‘while darkness and denialism can hide much, they erase nothing. They can hide, but they erase nothing.’”

Day 1,777, Quasi-Quarantine: NYC Dreams, Calculations Of Self-Worth Not Enough To Propel Highly Awaited "Entitlement"

 

“Matthew said, often, that most jobs were just sending email. The pay was good, and there were sometimes free martinis. What more could you want?”

As a follow-up to "Leave the World Behind," this book struggles to find its flow, ultimately leaving readers to wonder where the plot was left behind. Rumaan Alam goes all in on a narrator with no interiority, creating a surface-level perspective you're not sure you can trust.

“She would not allow that there was something unnatural in being her own first priority.”

“The thing that makes life interesting is that it ends. The thing that makes love worthwhile is that it’s all we’ve got.”

"Entitlement" is often confusing in what feels like an intentional way, relying on incidents that may or may not have happened and dialog that may or may not have been spoken. Alam has his moments, as Brooke casts about for meaning and worth, but the novel ultimately fades under its own weight and the one-dimensionality of its main characters.

“This is what is happening. This is what people are doing. There are men with this much money and it’s not that they control the world. They’ve defeated it. They’ve left it. They live somewhere above the rest of us and we spend our days not knowing this because if we did we would all lose our minds.”

Day 1,775, Quasi-Quarantine: Remote Scottish Island Provides Moody Backdrop For Unexpected Hope That Marks The Beautiful "Clear"

 

“I have the cliffs and the skerries and the birds. I have the white hill and the round hill and the peaked hill. I have the clear spring water and the rich good pasture that covers the tilted top of the island like a blanket. I have the old black cow and the sweet grass that grows between the rocks, I have my great chair and my sturdy house. I have my spinning wheel and I have the teapot and I have Pegi, and now, amazingly, I have John Ferguson too.”

A stark and beautiful exploration of solitude, repression, and religion, "Clear" is a masterpiece of understated intensity. Carys Davies channels inner emotion and turmoil with little to no reliance on dialogue, employing the Scottish isle as another character.

“In the old days, the minister had read to them from the Bible in a language they didn’t understand, and then shouted at them in a terrible approximation of their own tongue.”

The travails of John Ferguson, his wife, and island hermit Ivar are absorbing, ushered along by Davies's mastery of flow and rhythm. The cloistered atmosphere becomes nearly claustrophobic, as the emotional tension becomes nearly unbearable at times.

“He wanted urgently, suddenly, to know the answer, to be able to describe things as they were instead of only guessing at them.”

I will admit that I did find myself wondering why John never went back to the Barries house for supplies, food, or clues. Outside of that nit, this book was one of my top reads of the year, even though much of it took place while waiting at my son's soccer practice.

"Clear" uses few words to pack an emotional punch you'll feel for a long time after reading.

“It was as if all three were carrying inside themselves the delicate balance of what they were doing, and were afraid to disturb it in any way.”

Day 1,771, Quasi-Quarantine: "Loudermilk" Accurately Captures Writer Culture And Authenticity

“You have to have something that no one can take away from you, that you can do even if you are in prison. That’s what poetry is.”

Lucy Ives has created a hysterical tale that evokes David Foster Wallace in the competitive world of writing workshops. "Loudermilk" features memorable characters, rampant hijinks, smooth dialogue, and enough of the ridiculous to keep the pages turning.

“Not only is it too hot in this room, it also stinks of something all kinds of rank that Harry peevishly identifies as pizza farts plus Vagisil.”

Some readers may find themselves wishing for more insight into Loudermilk's motivations, and others may find Clare's narrative a bit unnerving, but much of the novel seems to revolve around intentional disorientation. Read through that lens and without the need to think too hard, "Loudermilk" is an absorbing, hilarious adventure.

“Writing cannot be taught, and here is the reason why: You write, not to address the world as it is, but to create the world all over again. Truly great writing does that.”

Day 1,769, Quasi-Quarantine: Incredible Lego Typewriter Struck The Right Holiday Chord

 

Having received the Lego Typewriter (#21327) as a Christmas present nearly a year beforehand, I finally got around to building this memorable set.

Checking in at 2,079 pieces, this build was intricate, enabling movable type and an authentic touch and feel. Derived from a fan idea, this set evoked a lot of nostalgia for my college days ... I could almost taste the Vivarin and mild panic of the night before a term paper was due.

All in all, this was a challenging build, with a few difficult-to-manipulate steps. But the end result was stunning, lending a welcome addition to the office decor.

You've done it again, Lego. Damn you.

Day 1,768, Quasi-Quarantine: "Steal Like An Artist" Is Mostly A Lengthy Motivational Poster, But Manages To Stick

 

Long on inspiration, "Steal Like an Artist" is more a daily affirmation than a blueprint for creativity. Austin Kleon's whimsical, visual approach lends itself to an easy, quick read.

While some readers may be looking for more concrete and actionable guidance, those who embrace Kleon's message will find important pearls about impostor syndrome, time management, and a number of other topics.

"Steal Like an Artist" hits hardest when it nails the many reasons why we say we can't -- when the focus should always be on just seeing what happens when we try.

Limerick Friday #629: "Star Wars" Finds Balance In The Dramedy Force-- Day 1,767

"Skeleton Crew" was a delight

Livening up Tuesday night

It's "Goonies" in space

We all did embrace

I miss it already, all right

Sloppy and one-dimensional play

Crushing losses the order of the day

Injuries and missed shots every night

This is NC State's plight

The Final Four feels so far away

"Severance" back tonight

"Silo" is trying with might

It all seems must-see

Across Apple TV

Bringing great stories to light

A playoff fantasy team

Trying to hold together at the seam

Tricky to navigate

Difficult to speculate

Enter that Galfianakis math meme

Fantasies bordering the absurd

Thought you could quit with a word

But the curves didn't quit

A hold that doesn't diminish a bit

Powerless against the Jaybird

Last time ...

Day 1,766, Quasi-Quarantine: "Rules Of Civility" Mesmerizes As Coming-Of-Age Tale Set In 1930s NYC

 

“We launched ourselves into the evening like satellites and orbited the city two miles above the Earth, powered by failing foreign currencies and finely filtered spirits.”

Amor Towles's stunning debut novel (to be followed by instant classics like "A Gentleman in Moscow," "Lincoln Highway," and "Table for Two") beautiful renders a Manhattan poised between the end of the Depression and the start of the Second World War.

Katherine Kontent finds herself carried into new social stratospheres, juggling the demands of a career and struggling to find her romantic place in an unfamiliar caste.

“He looked like a man who had gained confidence through exposure to a hostile environment; like one who no longer owed anything to anyone.”

To keep the reader on their toes, the protagonist sleeps with at least three dudes in under a year, then, for good measure, had an intense lesbian encounter with an older woman who had pimped out her love -- all in the conservative year of 1938!

“One must be prepared to fight for one’s simple pleasures and to defend them against elegance and erudition and all manner of glamorous enticements.”

In important ways, the novel also works as a love letter to New York, despite its precarious situation: poised at the edge of a massive depression and unspeakable loss by so many. Towles's beautiful imagery and rhythmic pacing are perhaps never on better display than in his descriptions of the city.

“For however inhospitable the wind, from this vantage point Manhattan was simply so improbable, so wonderful, so obviously full of promise – that you wanted to approach it for the rest of your life without ever quite arriving.”

“--That’s the problem with being born in New York, the old newsman observed a little sadly. You’ve got no New York to run away to.”

“Most New Yorkers spent their lives somewhere between the fruit cart and the fifth floor. To see the city from a few hundred feet above the riffraff was pretty celestial. We gave the moment its due.”

"Rules of Civility" somehow demonstrates Towles at his fully formed best, wielding elegant prose in service of vivid characters, an unerring sense of time and setting, and a chronology that unceasingly builds. 

Beautifully wrapped by a stellar ending, the novel is both transporting and engrossing, capturing elements of melancholy, love, and carpe diem in equal measure.

“As a quick aside, let me observe that in moments of high emotion – whether they’re triggered by anger or envy, humiliation or resentment – if the next thing you’re going to say makes you feel better, it’s probably the wrong thing to say. This is one of the finer maxims that I’ve discovered in life. And you can have it, since it’s been of no use to me.”

Day 1,765, Quasi-Quarantine: The Scooters Make A Triumphant Return To Fantasy Football Land

 

My first experience in fantasy football in a few years was a reminder of how much I missed league play. Spending 20 years in an incredibly competitive 14-team league could be really demanding and intense, so joining a relegation league on one side of a 12-team slate was a welcome re-entry to the game.

Powered by a draft-day steal (Baker Mayfield in the ninth round), a shrewd trade (picking up Sam Darnold for Tony Pollard), and a straight-up freak (Ja'Marr Chase), the Scooters won the championship. I used the cash prize to upgrade my vinyl system 👌

Continuing the season, I accepted an invitation to join a playoff fantasy football league, which is a new challenge for me. We used a spreadsheet draft (thanks, Microsoft Teams) to build a roster out of playoff teams, with the approach being that you only accrue points cumulatively from players who are still active throughout the postseason.

So we'll see how that goes, as I acquired a co-GM in my son. No matter what happens, this has been a really fun and entertaining re-introduction to fantasy football, bringing back some cool memories (and yes, a little cursing of bad luck) along the way.

Go Scooters! 🏆

Day 1,764, Quasi-Quarantine: "Among The Thugs" Stunningly Depicts Football Hooliganism

“What principle governed the British sporting event? It appeared that, in exchange for a few pounds, you received one hour and forty-five minutes characterized by the greatest possible exposure to the worst possible weather, the greatest number of people in the smallest possible space, and the greatest number of obstacles – unreliable transportation, no parking, an intensely dangerous crush at the only exit, a repellent polio pond to pee into, last minute changes of the starting time – to keep you from ever attending a match again.

“And yet, here they all were, having their Saturday.”

"Among the Thugs" progressed from a little hilarious to sort of scary to a lot sad, and Bill Buford's experience with football "supporters" in England seemed to mirror those stages.

“This was a mouth through which a great deal of life had passed at, it would appear, an uncompromising speed.”

“This bored, empty, decadent generation consists of nothing more than what it appears to be. It is a lad culture without mystery, so deadened that it uses violence to wake itself up. It pricks itself so that it has feeling, burns its flesh so that it has smell.”

Buford struggles to articulate the disenfranchisement that propels and informs the mob mentality required to lose control in so many different fashions.

“What social mutation had resulted in these bored ugly boys of the Union Jack believing they are entitled to inflict this pain, this fright?” 

Evocative of Hunter S. Thompson's "gonzo journalism," the author finds himself in the middle of the action and part of the story as he's involved in attacks, melees, brawls, and crimes. Though Buford occasionally gets perhaps a little too existential, the story was utterly captivating.

“In the vernacular of the supporters, it had now ‘gone off.’ With that first violent exchange, some kind of threshold had been crossed, some notional boundary: on one side of that boundary had been a sense of limits, an ordinary understanding – even among this lot – of what you didn’t do; we were now someplace where there would be few limits, where the sense that there were things you didn’t do had ceased to exist. It became very violent.”

By the end of the book, he is frustrated, angry, and more than a little bored with the "little shits" he encounters as part of the hooligan lad culture. Attacked by Sardinian police as part of a match march, Buford finally comes to terms with his addiction to the mob mentality and is able to end his eight-year obsession with it as this stunning -- and brave -- book ends.

“It was, I see now on reflection, not unlike alcohol or tobacco: disgusting, at first; pleasurable, with effort; addictive, over time. And perhaps, in the end, a little self-destroying.”

Day 1,763, Quasi-Quarantine: The "12 Days Of IPA" Closes With Recognizable But Smooth Reveals

 

The first, second, and third weeks detailed the roller-coaster ride of the "12 Days of IPA" advent-calendar experience, and the final week kept to that theme, with the following reveals:

Lagunitas Brewing Beast of Both Worlds IPA

Dogfish Head 60-Minute IPA

Cycle Brewing Crank IPA

Beer aficianados will certainly recognize Lagunitas and Dogfish Head, the breweries based in northern California and Delaware, respectively. 

Beast of Both Worlds is a limited-release "bi-coastal IPA" that combines west and east coast hops in an enjoyable 8% ABV banger, while the 60-Minute IPA builds off the classic 90-Minute IPA at a drinkable 6% ABV.

Cycle Brewing is another Florida-based brewery, and the Crank IPA is an ultra-fruity 7-percenter that has a pale, hazy color and a reliance on citra hops. This was a really nice pour.

Overall, I was slightly disappointed at the lack of geographical diversity and the reliance on mainstream-ish breweries, but there were enough newcomers mixed in to make the effort worthwhile.

Here's to 2025, folks ... cheers.

Limerick Friday #628: Yellowjackets, Dolphins, And Overblown Lambs, Oh My-- Day 1,760

"Yellowjackets" had me hooked quick

A good balance of relatable and sick

Clever timeline meld

Good writing to see how they jelled

This is a show that could stick

Another lost season

Mediocrity beyond reason

But Grier remains

And Ross stains

Committing franchise treason

Season 2 came off a little poor

But "Yellowjackets" will never bore

A little neurotic

And a lot chaotic

This was not the season I hoped for

Tyreek can't play in the cold

Half the passes, he can't hold

"Cheetah," they call his loser ass

Not for his speed on the grass

But for how quick he does fold

Delusions on repeat

UNC shotguns its feet

To seem, rather than to be

Is the Tar Hole mentality

A fitting spot for Belicheat

Last time ...

Day 1,759, Quasi-Quarantine: The Holidays Mean A Puzzling Time In More Ways Than One

 

The 500-piece "Toy Workshop" from Galison was not too stressful and had some delightful images. Measuring 20 x 20 and created by Michael Storrings, this puzzle had just enough difficulty to allow for everyone to make a contribution while still making it challenging.

8.1 out of 10, would piece together while listening to Christmas music again

Day 1,757, Quasi-Quarantine: "Good Girl, Bad Blood" Is Back, With A Shift In Country And Secrets

Teen-crime aficianado Pippa Fitz-Amobi is back in the sequel to "A Good Girl's Guide to Murder," with the events of the first book propelling her into a renowned true-crime podcaster. Fortunately, living in the unluckiest and coincidental small town ever is a boon to Pip, as the disappearance of her best friend's brother gives her ripe material for new episodes and another calling toward detective work.

My edition of the book randomly moved the events from England to the United States, which was slightly jarring. But Holly Jackson's customary pacing travels well and is in full effect, as Pip, Ravi Singh, and Connor Reynolds explore their town's dark secrets and slew of shady characters. 

Suspension of disbelief is certainly required on occasion, but "Good Girl, Bad Blood" is full of fun twists and turns if you allow yourself to indulge.

Day 1,753, Quasi-Quarantine: In Surprising Twist, Scam Advent Calendar Wraps Up In Non-Terrible Fashion

 

As we know from weeks one, two, three, and four of the scam National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation advent calendar, bemused ridiculousness has been the dominant theme.

I'm happy to report that the final week of the calendar was perhaps the most coherent, revealing the following:

Day 21: Pool

Day 22: Rusty

Day 23: Moose mug

Day 24: Uncle Lewis

For the first time this month, I found these reveals to be immediately identifiable, which feels like a win.

Despite the mild uptick at the end, I still found myself missing the Star Wars Lego advent calendar. Instead of overthinking things next holiday season, I think I'll go back to the ol' standby.

Holy shit. Happy New Year. Where's the Tylenol?