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Second To None

A disappointing senior day loss to Wisconsin yesterday did have one bright spot for Fletcher Loyer.  Making six three-pointers, he surpassed Carsen Edwards to become Purdue’s all-time leader in career three-pointers made with 282.  He also became the all-time leader in career three-pointers made at Mackey Arena with 148, passing David Teague’s 146.

Finishing with 23 points, Loyer ended the game with 1,704 career points, moving him moving into fifteenth place on the Purdue’s all-time scoring list.  Loyer and Braden Smith also played in their 141st career game, tying Dakota Mathias for the most games played in Purdue history.

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Twins All Time Leaders – Through 2025

To paraphrase from a famous movie, the one constant through all the years has been baseball.  With less than a month until regular season baseball, 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 Minnesota Twins.

The Twins originated in 1901 as the Washington Senators, one of the charter members of the American League.  When Minneapolis was given an expansion team to begin play in 1961, owner Calvin Griffith requested to move the Senators to Minnesota, becoming the Twins, and to have the expansion franchise take over the Senators name in Washington.  I’ve seen 232 players don the Twins uniform in 69 games at three different stadiums, including the division-title deciding game 163 in 2008 at US Cellular Field.

Home Runs

Name Total
Oswaldo Arcia 6
Jorge Polanco 6
Jason Kubel 4
Brian Dozier 4
Torii Hunter 4
Max Kepler 4

Hits

Name Total
Joe Mauer 43
Justin Morneau 25
Trevor Plouffe 23

Runs

Name Total
Joe Mauer 19
Jorge Polanco 14
Brian Dozier 13

RBI

Name Total
Jorge Polanco 16
Justin Morneau 15
Oswaldo Arcia 14

Doubles

Name Total
Trevor Plouffe 6
Justin Morneau 5
Oswaldo Arcia 5
Joe Mauer 5
Brian Dozier 5

Triples Continue reading →

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Reds All Time Leaders – Through 2025

redsTo 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 Cincinnati Reds.

The Reds began life in 1882 as a charter member of the American Association, joining the National League in 1890.  I’ve seen 197 players don a Reds uniform in the 41 games of theirs that I’ve attended, at four separate stadiums across two states.

Home Runs

Name Total
Adam Dunn 12
Austin Kearns 3
Edwin Encarnacion 3

Hits

Name Total
Adam Dunn 24
Ken Griffey Jr. 19
Sean Casey 18

Runs

Name Total
Adam Dunn 22
Sean Casey 12
Brandon Phillips 10

RBI

Name Total
Adam Dunn 27
Ken Griffey Jr. 12
Austin Kearns 10

Doubles

Name Total
Jason LaRue 5
Adam Dunn 4
Austin Kearns 4

Triples Continue reading →

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And The Nominees Are…

Next Sunday, it will be time to play the music and to light the lights for the 98th Academy Awards.  Once again, my woeful predictions are back, despite not having seen, let alone heard of the majority of the nominated films.  But I’m not going to let that stop me, so, with less basis in fact than most years, here’s my uneducated predictions for the non-acting awards.

Best Original Screenplay

Robert Kaplow, Blue Moon
Jafar Panahi; in collaboration with Nader Saïvar, Shadmehr Rastin, and Mehdi Mahmoudian, It Was Just an Accident
Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie, Marty Supreme
Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value
Ryan Coogler, Sinners

I’ve heard of a whopping two of these films but only seen one, so I will go with Ryan Coogler and Sinners.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Will Tracy, Bugonia
Guillermo del Toro, Frankenstein
Chloé Zhao and Maggie O’Farrell, Hamnet
Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, Train Dreams

I’ve actually seen two of these films and heard of one other, so I’ll go with Bugonia.

Best Animated Feature

Arco
Elio
KPop Demon Hunters
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
Zootopia 2

Taking a shot in the dark as I haven’t seen any of these and have only heard of two of them.

Best Cinematography

Dan Laustsen, Frankenstein
Darius Khondji, Marty Supreme
Michael Bauman, One Battle After Another
Autumn Durald Arkapaw, Sinners
Adolpho Veloso, Train Dreams

Of the two of these that I’ve seen, I’m going with the more classic one.

Best Costume Design

Deborah L. Scott, Avatar: Fire and Ash
Kate Hawley, Frankenstein
Malgosia Turzanska, Hamnet
Miyako Bellizzi, Marty Supreme
Ruth E. Carter, Sinners

This seems like another win for Sinners.

Continue reading →

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Braden Watch

With nine assists in yesterday’s victory over Northwestern, Braden Smith remains in fourth place on the NCAA’s career assists chart.  With just one regular season game remaining, Smith is now ten assists away from tying North Carolina’s Ed Cota for third place and 54 away from Bobby Hurley’s record of 1076.  At his current pace of 8.7 assists per game, Smith would need over six more games to reach Hurley, meaning Purdue would need to play at least five games between the Big Ten Tournament and the NCAA Tournament.

1,076 – Bobby Hurley
1,038 – Chris Corchiani
1,030 – Ed Cota
1,020 – Braden Smith

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Fitbit 12 – Week 6

A return to seasonably appropriate weather did not stop me from reaching 30,000 steps for the third straight week.  Things got off to an ok start on Sunday, falling 29 steps away from 4000.  An increase on Monday led to 4400 steps.  A slight drop on Tuesday left me with 4100 steps.  Wednesday saw a slight increase, as I needed 14 more steps to reach 4200.  A trip to the office on Thursday left me just 6 steps shy of 4700.  Another work visit, plus a morning appointment at the doctor’s office, ended Friday a mere 5 steps short of 5400.  A cool Saturday wrapped the week up with 4400 steps.

Total steps: 31,213

Daily average: 4459

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Express Train From West Lafayette To Canton

Former Purdue quarterback Drew Brees, who led the school to their last Rose Bowl appearance in 2001, got the call to Canton last month as a member of the NFL’s Hall of Fame class of 2026.  Brees joins the hall alongside Roger Craig, Larry Fitzgerald, Luke Kuechly, and Adam Vinatieri and will be inducted August 8 in Canton, Ohio.

Receiving scholarship offers from only two schools, Brees arrived in West Lafayette as an unheralded freshman in 1997.  He became the starter the following year and, alongside head coach Joe Tiller, helped lead a resurrection of a moribund football program.  He left Purdue following the 2000 season with two NCAA records, thirteen Big Ten Conference records, and 19 program records.

His NFL career began in 2001 after being selected by the Chargers in the second round of the draft.  After backing up Doug Flutie in his rookie season, Brees became the starting quarterback for the Chargers for the majority of the following four seasons.  Following the 2005 season, Brees became a free agent and headed to New Orleans, where he became a legend.  In 2009, he led the Saints to their first Super Bowl appearance and championship in franchise history.  He retired in 2021 as a thirteen-time Pro Bowler, two-time NFL Offensive Player of the Year, the 2006 Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year, and holding eight league records and fourteen Saints franchise records.

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Book 12 (of 52) – The Book Of Lost Hours

The Book of Lost Hours – Hayley Gelfuso

As the Nazis rise to power in Germany leading up to World War II, a young girl is stranded in the time space, a vast library where the memories of the dead are bound into books.  As she grows older, she finds soldiers from different countries entering the time space to destroy certain memories, changing the collective reality along the way.  When she starts to interfere, she becomes a target, eventually getting pulled out and forced to work for the CIA in order to protect the man she loves and their secret child.

The Book of Lost Hours, the debut novel from Hayley Gelfuso, was a nominee for Favorite Science Fiction in the 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards and was a Good Morning America book club pick.  This was a fine debut from Gelfuso, who covers some of the same ground as Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library while tackling the role that government, both ours and others, plays in shaping what we eventually come to think of as history.  I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for whatever she comes up with next.

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Braden Watch

With seven assists in yesterday’s loss to Ohio State, Braden Smith has surpassed Jason Brickman and sits in fourth place on the NCAA’s career assists chart.  With two regular season games remaining, Smith is now 19 assists away from tying North Carolina’s Ed Cota for third place and 65 away from Bobby Hurley’s record of 1076.  At his current pace of 8.7 assists per game, Smith would need a nearly seven and a half more games to reach Hurley, meaning Purdue would need to play at least five games between the Big Ten Tournament and the NCAA Tournament.

1,076 – Bobby Hurley
1,038 – Chris Corchiani
1,030 – Ed Cota
1,011 – Braden Smith

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iTunes Top 200 Artists: #120-129

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 continue today with our next batch of ten artists, covering the genres of pop, alternative rock, and rap, stretching from the 1950s through 90s.

#129: The Lemonheads
iTunes stats: 83 plays
Previous ranking: #125

Formed in Boston in 1986, Evan Dando and crew added 17 additional plays to the three tracks in my collection from their 90s heyday.

#129: Dion & The Belmonts
iTunes stats: 83 plays
Previous ranking: #120

Inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2000, the 50s stars from the Bronx added fifteen new plays, dropping nine spots on the chart.

#124: Styx
iTunes stats: 85 plays
Previous ranking: #137

The group, formed in Chicago in 1972, saw a 39% increase thanks to 24 new listens over these past five years to the three tracks in my collection.

#124: The Go-Go’s
iTunes stats: 85 plays
Previous ranking: #133

The seminal female new wave band, who came out of the LA punk scene of the late 1970s, added 23 additional listens to the four tracks in my collection.

#124: The Presidents of the United States of America
Continue reading →