Merry Christmas, God bless you all, and have a wonderful New Year! I love Newgrounds!

Everyday on the way home from work I listen to the radio station 94.1 WIP. It's station dedicated to Philadelphia sports talk. On my commute home, the afternoon show is on. It was co-hosted by Jon Marks and Ike Reese. On the way home this evening I learned the Jon is leaving the show so he can spend more time with his kids. That is a decision I respect a whole ton, but I am bummed out that he's leaving. Jon Marks had a great presence on the show and he always stuck to his guns. Even when a bunch of people who called into the show who would rag on him for having the unpopular sports take, he wouldn't just cave into public pressure. He was always very down to earth, very grounded, and very realistic in his commentary. I think leaving a position to spend more time with your children is as good of a reason as any to leave, but I'll still miss him. Jon helped to make WIP's afternoon show must-listen radio. My evening commutes won't be the same. Good bye, Jon, and thanks a million for making such a great show.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Anybody know how to access a gmail account without a password or phone number? I completely forget my gmail password and my phone that Google would send the code to to reaccess the account is dead. It's and old Iphone 6s that just stopped taking charge about 2-3 weeks ago. I've tried plugging it in to charge overnight without any luck. I've ever tried letting it be charged by a wireless charger for a while, but that hasn't work either. Any ideas? Also, the new phone I got can't function unless I get a code from the phone company that was sent to me old phone. Any ideas for someone as tech illiterate as he is desperate? Please?

On the 7th of December 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked the U.S. naval base Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The attack began at 7:55am local time and resulted in the deaths of over 2400 U.S. servicemen. It was day that brought American into WWII. When making a speech before Congress requesting a declaration of war against Japan, President Franklin D. Roosevelt described that day as "a date which will live in infamy."

Today marks the 82nd anniversary of that infamous date. Most of those who have survived the attack on Pearl Harbor have passed away. Living memory of that day passes with them. But it doesn't have to pass from memeory entirely. We can look back and remember those who were there that day.

Released in 1989, Cosmic Thing is the 5th album by The B-52's and is one of my favorite albums ever. In the evening I like to read a book while listening to a record. I put on Cosmic Thing tonight, and I feel in love with it all over again. I got it from a local record a while back on an whim. I was like "The B-52's I know about them. I know Rock Lobster and Love Shack." It's easily the greates impluse buy I even made. While this album doesn't have Rock Lobster on it, it does have Love Shack along with 9 other phenomenal songs.

If happiness had a sound, it would sound like Cosmic Thing. This album has such an infectiously joyful energy throughout the whole thing. I listen to any of the songs on this album and I'm instantly put in a good mood. The muscianship on the album is great, but I want to take a moment to highlight the singing. The lead female vocalists on this album, Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, just totally crush it. They just belt it out so beatifully and with such enthusiasm that I'm blown away everytime I listen to them sing. Their singing is gorgeous.

This album means a lot to me. 5 out of my top 10 in my Spotify in 2022 were songs of this album, including the song Bushfire at #1. For my job, I had to take a test called the Series 7. It is notoriosuly difficult and I failed it the first time around, scoring a 58% when I needed a 72% to pass. If I didn't pass the second go around, I would not get the position I wanted withing the company I worked for. When I proceesed the shock of passing, I went home and played the song Deadbet Club for the rest of the day. I was really happy I wouldn't be joining that club. (I also listened to the album Wild Planet also by The B-52's the morning before the test, but that's neither here nor there.)

I take it most of you have at least heard Love Shack once. It's one of the band's most popular songs and for good reason. The songs Junebug and Roam have Pierson and Wilson just slaying it with their soaring vocals. Roam just has this energy that makes you want to go on an adventure. Dry County is such a fun lazy-day anthem. Channel Z has such a fun drive to it.

All of the songs are fantastic, but I want to really highlight the song Topaz. I consider the mark of a great album is that you can listen to it a bunch of times and still discover a new favorite song. This time around, that song was Topaz. It's a song that I can only really describe it as "romantic." Not in the lovey-dovey type of way, but in just how beautiful it is. The upbeat guitar riffs and the dreamy lyrics just make my heart swell. If I can select the song that plays when credits roll on my life, I'm choosing Topaz. It's a gorgeous song.

I just wanted to make a blog post about this album while my most recent run-through it is fresh in my mind. The B-52's are one of my favorite bands and this is my favorite album from them. I have a lot of fond memories of this album and I'm sure I'm going to make a few more. I just feel so happy when I listen to it, and I bet you'll feel the same when you listen to it.

I just finished reading the Cormac MccArthy novel Blood Meridian. This post is about my inital thoughts and will contain spoilers. For those who want to avoid spoilers or a TL;DR I do recommend the book, but it's not for the faint of heart. It's a captivating story overflowing with bloodshed and evil.

(Spoilers Ahead)

Blood Meridian is fantastic. The story follows a charatcer named the kid. In the late 1840's, a 14-year old kid goes on an expedition in Mexico with a band of mercenaries on a mission to kill Apaches and take their scalps. The novel is unflinching in it's portral of violence. One instance has the mercinaries slaughter and entire village, with one memeber taking an infant by the ankles in each of his hands and smashing their skulls against rocks. That moment sickened me and made me put the book down... for all of five minutes. The novel's content is horrific and bloody, put it's used for artistics purpose and not just being edgy and violent for the sake of it. The journey the kid takes through Mexico is so surreal and horrendous. A moment that stuck with me was when the kid is seeking warmth underneath a burning tree at night along with a bunch of other creepy-crawley desert creatures. Another part the sticks out to me is when the mercs came across a dried lava flow with hoove marks in it. The book talks about how places like these are where vile sinners manged to escape Hell and demons with their hooved feet walk the Earth to bring them back. McCarthy's descriptions of the landscape and time of day makes it feel like some sort of dream that is equal parts horrific and gripping. The novel depicts grave evils and the darkest parts of the human condition. Speaking of evil, I want to focus on Judge Holden. The Judge is an omnipresent force in the story. From the begining when the judge sends a tent revival the kid is attending into a riotous frenzy, to the entirety of the expedition, to the end when the kid is now the man, Judge Holden is always there. He's this hairless pale thing. As I was reading, I was wondering what exactly the Judge was. There are plenty of vile people in this story, like Glanton, the judge's right-hand-man on the expeiditon. But none quite like the Judge. Is he merely human? Is he some sort of demon? The novel doesn't say but the judge's actions, mentality, and physical description makes me wonder who or what exaclty he is. At one point in the book, the Judge speak of war as this holy thing. During the expedition, he's making sketches in his note book of everything he comes across, and he says "Whatever exists without my knowledge exists without my consent." Something about that quote speaks to me as to how the Judge's evil goes down to depths that can only be described as abyssal. While the kid is the protagonist, there's an argument Judge Holden is the main character. He casts such a wide shadown over the whole story. He's a phenomenal villian. And swining back to the kid, the bulk of the horror and violence he experiences and participates in occurs when he's 14-16 years old. It's a little tragic to me that the kid is twisted by this violence, because he's so young. I remember being that age and not going through the bleak and evil he did. He's not entirely just a sweet child who stumbles into this ordeal. The novel starts out with saying the kid was born of violence when his mother dies giving birth to him. He also is described as to getting into fist fights before the meat of the story kicks off. Before he embarks on the expedition, he kills a man by stabbing him in the eye with a broken bottle. In conclusion, if your stomach can take it, you owe it to yourself to read this book. Blood Meridian in an unflinching depiciton of the absolute worst of the human condition and broods on the nature of evil. It's grisly and dark, but it's deeply compelling because of how McCarthy wields those aspects of the story so deftly as to seem effortless. I finished it up about an hour ago, and I have a small itch to read it again right here right now. If that's not a testament to the book's quality, I don't know what else to tell you. Except that you should read it.

No Shoes

No Shirt

No Service

Like any red-blooded American, I loathe the University of Michigan. I cannot stand them. However, being a red-blooded American, the loathing I feel for Ohio State is just that much greater than my loathing for Michigan. So when the Wolverines intercepted the Buckeyes wtih 25 seconds left in the game to seal a 30-24 victory, I was pretty happy. Today is the one day a year I will cheer for Michigan. Tomorrow I go back to loathing Michigan and sincerely hope they loss a grinding battle with the University of Iowa in the Big Ten championship game. But just for today I am happy Michigan won.

Throughout today and tomorrow, numerous college football rivalries will be renewed. Rivalries like Ohio State-Michigan and Auburn-Alabama will be played until there are no more people to play college football. But due to conference realignment, we'll be losing out on many historic rivalires that should be played every year.

Oregon-Oregon State play at 8:30pm EST and having been playing each other since 1894. But that ends after tonight, with no agreement in place to keep the series going after Oregon leaves the sinking ship formelry know as the Pac-12 for the Big 10. Washington is also leaving the Pac-12 and it's interstate rival Washington State for the Big 10. At least in UW-WSU's case, they have an agreement to keep the series alive until 2028. A series which began in 1900.

Earlier conference realignment stopped the University of Pittsburgh and West Virginia from playing each other every year, Pitt and Penn State don't play each other evey year. Realignment has taken a lot of the regionalism and tradition that helps make college football so magical. I doubt people get hyped up when Pitt plays Wake Forest or North Carolina State.

It's not all bad, admittedly. Conference realignment means Texas and Texas A&M play each other again starting next season in the SEC. Same goes for BYU and Utah when they both join the Big XII next year. But realignment has brought more bad then good, and has broken up many passionate rivalries that make college football so captivating. It really bums me out, and work is slow enough today that I can make a long rambly post on Newgrounds about it in between calls.

TL;DR Conference realignment and it's consequnces have taken a lot of the magic out of college football and broken up great rivalries.

Edit: Due to the BIg XII abosrbing new teams and changes to scheduling, Iowa State and Kansas State will not play each in 2027. This breaks the streak of these teams playing each other every year, which they have done since the series' inception in 1917. More proof to the pile as to why realignment stinks.