CBS Sunday Morning Power Rankings

Next week: Stats! Today: Potpourri This is going to sound like a humble-brag, because it is. Last Friday, I rode my bike 101 miles. A 100+ ride is called a century if you're into biking lingo. It was far from the most strenuous ride I've ever done because there was almost no climbing to speak of it. 99% of the ride was along flat trail - converted from an old railroad - rails to trails as they say. There was a climb at the end, because that's how I get back to my house. Anyway, the point isn't to brag that I do centuries. It's that the next day, I hung out with a good friend I hadn't seen in a long time - at least partly due to the pandemic. Our thing used to be tennis and I rarely get to play tennis anymore so that's what we decided to do. My 100-mile legs seemed to managed to get by ok except for the first practice rally, my feet go tangled up the first time I tried to move them and I took a spill. There were a couple minor scratches. Nothing was bruised e...

The weather is getting warm, so my weekends are increasingly being taken up with outdoor chores and activities. So the recaps are probably going to get shorter and less punctual. At least until I can cross some things off my personal to do list. I'd still like to post at least once a week though. First some frivolity. AUSTRALIAN ANIMAL POWER RANKINGS 1) Platypus If I have to explain it, you don't get it. 2) Wombat The noble wombat has cube shaped poop . In a pinch, they also make a striking figure for a tennis trophy . 3) Wallaby In a surprising upset, wallabies are like kangaroos, but smaller. And smaller things are cuter. Wallaby is also more fun to say than kangaroo. Wallabies can pause pregnancy , but I think all (most?) marsupials can do this. (Maybe? I am no expert.) 4) Pygmy possum This is the second time pygmy possums have been mentioned in this space. The smallest possums in the world testing the limits of the small = cute formula. It was thought the brush fires of 20...

I know I keep teasing Australian animals, but with Mother's Day and housework crowding my weekend, doing a deep dive into marsupials and monotremes . I do have a couple of random things to cover. I put on the Talking Heads Stop Making Sense album when I went for a run this week and I realized that Wayne Coyne and David Byrne share many commonalities. They both care very deeply that the live shows are a truly unique experience and bring a a lot of theatricality and distinct visual aesthetics to their performances. They both tend to write simple, yet not simplistic songs. Byrne has stuck mostly to his original Talking Heads new wave template, while Coyne has been all over the place, from fuzzed out psychdelia to orchestral to twee to anything and everything. You could make an argument that Wayne Coyne was the Gen X David Byrne, but the truth is that the Talking Heads do not predate the Flaming lips by all that much. You could make an argument that they are closer to being contempor...

 I know I said I was going to Australian animal rankings this week. But we're just going to jumpt straight into it. Also I go on about the Flaming Lips for awhile somewhere in there. That kind of feels like the intro had it come at the beginning.   The CBS SUNDAY MORNING POWER RANKINGS 1) David Pogue Quality goes while quantity remains. -Michel Gondry Thus spake Michel Gondry in 2003 in the introduction to his music video compilation DVD. (What an obsolete sequence of words...) I don't know if David Pogue is a fan of Michel Gondry, but he's certainly heeded the wise (?) words of the French auteur.  (I mean he's not Truffaut or Godard, but he's definitely got a distinct cinamatic perspective. And shouldn't we just natural assume that all French directors, whether of stage, cinema, or music video, are auteurs? If not, why bother being French in the first place?) I do believe Monsieur Pogue has been the most prolific Sunday Morning contributor since I start this ...