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2025: The Year In Movies

The return of my annual long December vacation helped push up a weak first eleven months of the year, giving me my lowest total since last year.  I managed to watch 55 movies last year, my fifth consecutive year under 100, despite being home all day and not needing to bother with pesky things like a commute.  Or exercise.  Reading 66 books and watching game shows all day probably didn’t help either.

Here’s a look back at the first 50 movies I watched last year and what recollection, if any, I have of them. The films are listed in the order I saw them.

Queenpins (2021)
A pair of housewives create a $40 million coupon scam.

Blackwater Lane (2024)
A woman believes she will be the next victim of a serial killer.

MaXXXine (2024)
Mia Goth returns in this prequel to X.

Mothers’ Instinct (2024)
The friendship between two women is tested when one loses her son.

Blitz (2024)
A group of Londoners tries to survive during the German bombing during World War II.

Poor Things (2023)
Emma Stone plays a woman who has the brain of a baby transplanted into her head.

The Idea of You (2024)
A 40-year-old single mom begins an unexpected romance with the lead singer of the hottest boy band on the planet.

Back in Action (2025)
Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz star as retired CIA agents forced to come out of retirement to save their family.

Kinds of Kindness (2024)
Emma Stone reteams with writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos.

Y2K (2024)
Machines go nuts as the clock strikes midnight and the world enters the year 2000.

Continue reading →

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Fitbit XI – Week 50

Things slowed down as we saw the end of 2025 and the start of 2026, though I did barely manage to extend my streak of 30,000 step weeks to six.  Things got off to an ok start on Sunday, needing 39 more steps to reach 4000.  A slight drop on Monday left me with exactly 3800 steps.  An additional 35 steps on Tuesday would have put me at 4400.  A date with the snowblower on New Year’s Eve pushed me up to 5700 steps.  A slow New Year’s Day on Thursday left me 40 steps shy of 3600.  I had to go back to work on Friday, finishing the day 17 steps away from 4000.  Leaving the house on Saturday ended the week with 4900 steps.

Total steps: 30,347

Daily average: 4335.3

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Book 1 (of 52) – Too Old For This

Too Old For This – Samantha Downing

When a journalist shows up on her doorstep looking to make a docu-series clearing her name, retiree Lottie Jones has only one option: to kill her and make her disappear.  However, this starts the ball rolling, as the police, the journalist’s boyfriend, and her mother start poking around.  Can Lottie pull her fat out of the fire without putting further focus on herself?

Samantha Downing’s latest, Too Old for This, brings her back to my Kindle for the first time since 2022.  In this tale, Downing has you pulling for the old lady, even though she really should be the villain of the piece.  Given my enjoyment of this book, I can only hope it won’t be another 3+ years before I come across Downing’s work again.

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Top Of The Heap

With just under thirteen minutes left in the second half of Purdue’s victory over Wisconsin Saturday night at the Kohl Center, Braden Smith tied the all-time assists record in Big Ten history with a pass to Gicarri Harris, who drained a three-pointer despite being fouled on the play.  Less than four minutes later, he dished off under the basket to Oscar Cluff, who converted on the layup to give Smith sole possession of the record.  Smith finished the night with twelve assists, putting his career total at 893, three more than Cassius Winston, who toiled for Michigan State from 2017-20.

The win, giving the Boilermakers a 3-0 start in Big Ten play for just the third time under coach Matt Painter, was also the 100th victory for Purdue’s senior class, making them the eighth-fastest class in Big Ten history to reach 100 career victories with 124 career games.  Smith and the Boilermakers look to extend their records tomorrow against Washington at Mackey Arena.

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iTunes Top 200 Artists: #191-195

Music.  It is a powerful thing that brings people together, creates memories, and evokes emotions.  It is the universal language that speaks to the soul.  It forms the soundtrack of our lives.

It has now been five years since we last counted down the Top 200 artists in my iTunes library, featuring the songs I have listened to the most since 2007.  It is time to do so again, seeing which performers still resonate and if any newer ones have joined the fray.  So, without further ado, here are my most listened to artists, based on number of plays as of January 1, 2026.

We kick things off today with our first batch of ten artists, covering the genres of pop, rock, and hip-hop.  We only have one performer who is a newcomer, at least as a solo artist, to the list this week.

#195: Naughty By Nature
iTunes stats: 59 plays
Previous ranking: #182

Formed in East Orange, New Jersey in 1986, the Grammy award winners added eleven new plays to the two seminal rap tunes that grace my collection.

#195: Fall Out Boy
iTunes stats: 59 plays
Previous ranking: #194

The local band, founded in 2001 and named after a character from The Simpsons, picked up fourteen new listens spread across the two songs in my collection, one of which spent the 2015 season as the running-onto-the-field music for the White Sox.

#195: Stan Bush
iTunes stats: 59 plays
Previous ranking: #178

The star of the TransFormers: The Movie soundtrack has two tracks comprise his total, which increased by ten listens over the past five years.

#195: The Cure
iTunes stats: 59 plays
Previous ranking: #188

One of the originators of the Goth Rock scene of the early 80s, The Cure, founded in 1976 in England, use two tracks to make up their total, which increased by thirteen over five years ago.

#195: The Juliana Hatfield Three
iTunes stats: 59 plays
Previous ranking: #197

After breaking up with the Blake Babies, Juliana Hatfield put together this band in 1993 before going solo, which rises two slots on this chart after garnering fifteen new listens across its two tracks, including one from the Reality Bites soundtrack.

#195: Sixpence None The Richer
Continue reading →

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Yankees All Time Leaders – Through 2025

YankeesTo paraphrase from a famous movie, the one constant through all the years has been baseball.  With the winter meetings starting today, we continue our look at the all-time leaders in both offensive and defensive categories for all 30 teams. Today, we take a deeper dive into the New York Yankees.

The Yankees began life in 1901 as the Baltimore Orioles, moving to New York in time for the 1903 season.  I’ve seen 188 players don a Yankees uniform in the 33 games of theirs that I’ve attended live, first in 1997 and most recently this past August.

Home Runs

Name Total
Joey Gallo 4
Jorge Posada 3
Aaron Judge 3
Marcus Thames 3
Nick Swisher 3
Jacoby Ellsbury 3

Hits

Name Total
Derek Jeter 19
Jorge Posada 15
Aaron Judge 14

Runs

Name Total
Brett Gardner 13
Derek Jeter 10
Aaron Judge 10

RBI

Name Total
Jorge Posada 15
Melky Cabrera 9
Brett Gardner 8
Aaron Judge 8

Doubles

Name Total
Jorge Posada 7
Alfonso Soriano 5
Melky Cabrera 4
Aaron Judge 4

Triples Continue reading →

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Mets All Time Leaders – Through 2025

21st-CENTURY-METS_01To paraphrase from a famous movie, the one constant through all the years has been baseball.  Now that 2026 is here, we continue our look at the all-time leaders in both offensive and defensive categories for all 30 teams. Today, we take a deeper dive into the New York Mets.

The Mets began life in 1962, joining the National League following the abandonment of the New York market by both the Dodgers and Giants in 1957.  I’ve seen 174 players don the Mets uniforms in the 19 games of theirs that I’ve attended live, including Opening Day at Shea Stadium in 2003, Tom Glavine’s 300th career victory, their pennant clinching victory in the 2015 NLCS, and, most recently, in August of 2024 at Guaranteed Rate Field.

Home Runs

Name Total
Pete Alonso 3
Cliff Floyd 2
Daniel Murphy 2

Hits

Name Total
David Wright 7
Pete Alonso 7
Daniel Murphy 6

Runs

Name Total
David Wright 7
Pete Alonso 5
Daniel Murphy 4
Carlos Beltran 4

RBI

Name Total
Pete Alonso 7
Lucas Duda 6
Cliff Floyd 5

Doubles

Name Total
Carlos Delgado 3
Lucas Duda 2
David Wright 2
Jeromy Burnitz 2
Pete Alonso 2

Triples Continue reading →

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52 Books in 52 Weeks – 2026 Edition

A new year is upon us, and it is time to once again set a goal of reading a book a week for the entire year, totaling 52 books in 52 weeks.

Last year, for the fifth straight year, I completed my goal, finishing the year with 61 books read.  Prior to that, I’d had a low point of eight books back in 2010 and a high point of 66 books.

While I am hoping to have a better balance between reading time and exercise this year, I’m going to give it another go.  I’ve got plenty of new books stocked up, both in the Kindle app on my iPad and actual physical books, not to mention my handy dandy library card, so I’ve got a good pile to start with.  As a reminder, the rules I am using are:

  • You can count a book as read as long as you have completed the book in 2026 and at least 50% of that reading takes place in 2026.
  • Any book counts as long as you’re not embarrassed to count it.
  • Poetry collections do indeed count.
  • Re-reading a book is okay as long as it isn’t done this year. (Reading Twilight twice in 2026 only counts as one read).
  • Audiobooks also count.

My first book of the year looks like it will be Too Old for This by Samantha Downing.  Here’s hoping 2026 is another good year when it comes to books.

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Welcome To 2026

For the first time since 2011, I don’t have a calendar to ring in each month of the new year, so we will have to play things by ear throughout the year.  Today, we celebrate the completion of an arbitrarily selected rotation of the Earth around the sun and look forward to a new year ahead.

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2025: The Year In Books

As 2025 comes to a close, my fifth full year of remote working, I managed to once again surpass my previous records by completing a whopping 66 books, five books more than my previous high set last year and my fifth consecutive year completing the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge.  I completed the challenge in mid-October and surpassed last year’s total in early-December.  I read 25,279 pages, by far my highest total of all time and just the third time I’ve managed to surpass 20.000 pages.

Of those books, only two were non-fiction and, of the remaining 64 novels, only six were tied to a TV show, either as the source material or as a tie-in.  None of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer, with two hard covers, three paperbacks, 61 e-books and no audiobooks.  I was forced to switch my library card from the Chicago Public Library to my local library, which slowed me down a little but still led to 55 of the books I consumed throughout the year.

Over 71% of the books I read this year were by authors I had read before. The 21 authors that I read for the first time this year were:

Coco Mellors Aisling Rawle Stephen Graham Jones
Liz Moore Natalie Sue Kaliane Bradley
Max Brooks Mary Shelley Paul Tremblay
Nathaniel Hawthorne Kelly Bishop Tanya Pearson
Liane Moriarty Benjamin Stevenson Ashley Winstead
Ashley Elston Alison Espach Alice Feeney
Ali Land Lindsay Jamieson Jeneva Rose

Karin Slaughter, Laura Lippman, Kathy Reichs, Lee Goldberg, Stephen King, Emily Henry, Elin Hilderbrand, and Rebecca Forster were the authors that I read multiple titles from during 2025, accounting for nearly 35% of my total.

22 of the books I read were released this year, while none were released during the 20th century.  Two came from the 19th century, with the oldest first published in 1818.

Finally, the breakdown by month, which was fairly consistent across the entire year. Continue reading →