Live music this weekend, two sold out shows with #ChicagoFarmer at The Backroom Lounge in Riverton, IL just outside of Springfield. If you have a ticket, see you there! #LiveMusic

Laudanum dreams are the best dreams.

cookies need clothes

I like Cher!

Hardly, a day goes by.

The Long Walk. #StephenKing

> The #1 movie when you were 10 years old is how your 2026 is going to go. Released two and a half months before my 10th birthday.

y'all 👀yet? www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE-1... Helicopter doppler effect flying over downtown dogpark helicopters flying low Look out below short loop 22 seconds audio LOB phasing whoosh #helicoptercommunity #helicoptersong 🚁 If you look down you'll know #bisco

Marty gave Nancy's tavern-style frozen pizza a super high rating...he even finished a large slice on the video! For folks in MN, IA, IL, MO, SD, NE, and WI, this pizza is on sale at Hy-Vee for $6.99. Such a deal!

Workers are already adding Trump’s name to the outside if the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. Trump continues to quickly mark his territory.

Santa’s latest rebrand involved ditching the reindeer for a sustainable, free-range goose-powered chariot. This avant-garde choice sparked a minor theological debate among the elves.

> Share a magazine cover you love 📸

For those watching Fallout on Amazon, keep an eye out for a Twin Peaks rabbit egg in the Season 2 premier. #Fallout #TwinPeaks #DavidLynch

the president’s baffling decision to put a bunch of deranged plaques under every president’s picture is like a bat signal for me personally so uh here is this quiz www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

on the bright side three years from now will be boom times for businesses that specialize in removing garish brass letters from buildings

🟠 This week's Klassique Tom the Dancing Bug - A Super-Fun-Pak Comix. In fact, the FIRST Super-Fun-Pak Comix, from 1997 - www.gocomics.com/tomthedancin...

We’re completing our Six Shops Of Xmas tour at one of Peoria’s coolest and most unique shops, Moon Dancer Boutique! I stopped in and took some photos of their eclectic and unique clothing, jewelry and items for sale in there. tinyurl.com/ywcj7ncv #MBIP #Peoria #Xmas

Backyard #Astrophotography It was clear last night for a couple of hours before the clouds moved in. I was able to take a photo of the planetary nebula NGC 40 in Cepheus. I have included an enlargement to show more detail, including the hot white dwarf, which you can barely make out, at its center.

Busy day in SE Iowa!

The foreman insisted this "holiday broth" meeting go on, even as the new evidence from the coroner's report slid up behind him.

Backyard #Astrophotography I had 1 hour of clear skies before the clouds moved in last night. That was enough time to get a photo of NGC 7789, a dense open cluster in Cassiopeia. It was discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1783.

Hy-Vee had rotisserie chicken on sale, which we deconstructed into three meals: dark meat for tonight's yakisoba, the breasts for tomorrow night, and scrip-scraps for a later curry. From last night's Polish dinner to tonight's Japanese, they have something in common: comfort food loaded with umami.

The Winter Solstice approaches. Short days are great for short stories. Follow along as I post short reviews of my favorite stories in the Jan/Feb 2026 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction. @asimovssfmag.bsky.social #ScienceFiction #Fantasy

Backyard #Astrophotography It is sunny for the first time in quite a while, so I took a photo of the Sun. The ginormous sunspot group has rotated out of view and there is only a few small spots along the rim of the solar disc. #Sun #solar #sunspots.

Shmoke and rats. Like a hip hop hit from 2003.

We have been on an Eastern European kick lately. For dinner tonight: potato and cheese pierogi with butter, sautéed onions, and sliced kielbasa. We had pickled beets as well. Polish comfort food!

> Drop some WINGS 🪽🦋🖤🦇🛩️ youthfootballcoachingtips.com/single-wing-...

In the future, the college course PSY 230: Abnormal Psychology will use the vast 'wealth' of Trump video clips, news stories, and social media posts when they study personality disorders.

This is one of the most heart-warming Night Vale episodes ever; a true Holiday miracle. Give it a listen.

I just finished listening to Rachel Maddow's most recent podcast "Burn Order" about our country's shameful internment of 120,000 Japanese-Americans during WWII. "Past is prologue." "History repeats itself." "Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it." "It's in our blood."

A classic 1962 Christmas comic/humor piece from the great Al Jaffee. Courtesy of @alfreds-mad-world.bsky.social - boingboing.net/2025/12/13/a...

Hundreds of people were shunned, fired and run out of town for saying similar things --- some for simply for repeating Charlie Kirk's own words.

It was a balmy 11 degrees this morning in #Peoria; a heat wave compared to yesterday! We have to shovel out some snow that drifted onto the driveway over night.

Local woman wakes up, just can't even with today, makes oatmeal.

I need to get back to sharing the love with the other Christmas-obsessed podcasters. So I'll start with the ones I actually do listen to and enjoy. (Did I just say that out loud... ?) Mike is actually funny and a good host and has good production values. (Again... did I say that out loud?)

I love the sheer unapologetic awfulness of this. Pudding for a head. Headless goose corpse for a body. Then bottles for peg-legs along with the implements to eat him for crutches. THIS, friends, is Dr. Frankenstein's Christmas miracle.

Since Christmas is closing in on us, I’ve posted six links to Phil Spector’s “A Christmas Gift For You” today. It’s my favorite holiday album and here’s some online links to stories and information about it! tinyurl.com/kjzp69he #MBIP #Peoria #PhilSpector #Xmas

#LiveMusic today. Hopefully I-74 will be clear for our trek from Peoria to #Urbana for the People's Chorus annual holiday show at the Wesley United Methodist Church. I'll be audio recording for the organization. Doors at 4:30, music at 5:30 PM. Two sets of uplifting Holiday tunes. See you there!

We continued our #Criterion Crawl with The Breakfast Club ( d. J. Hughes 1985). How you view this film depends on your age and generation and probably changes over time.

Christmas card by Robert Dudley, The Temptation of Good Saint Anthony Noel (surrounded by enticing Christmas food, including geese, a turkey and a pudding). (5 of 5) Date: circa 1890s

seals frolic, bread browns, Cow wraps

Backyard #Astrophotography It turned crisp, cold, and very clear last night, so I thought I would take a look at the Horsehead Nebula (B33). I've only seen this visually with a 24" reflector and a dual band filter, which I used for this 1 hour shot. The Flame Nebula is in the upper left hand corner.

Not so much a Christmas card as it was a Christmas newspaper cover—specifically The Queenslander newspaper, Australia.

> Walking into 2026:

The FDA is considering adding a "Black Box Warning" on the #COVID vaccine. A Black Box warning is required on drugs which have been shown, IN MEDICAL STUDIES, to have significant and serious side effects. Adding the warning to the vaccine will result in many more deaths from COVID, which is insane.

We got about 6 inches of snow in #Peoria. After snow-blowing and shoveling, we had hot cocoa and watched a wintery short cartoon on #RiffTrax: Ted Eshbaugh's Fantasies 1932 color cartoon "The Snowman." I-74 to Urbana is totally snow covered, so we won't be seeing Sunshine Daydream tonight.

On a cold, blustery, snowy day, nothing is better than a savory lunch loaded with umami; borscht (with a dollop of sour cream) and haruski.

Glitter returns to the heat box, shoveling back to house, really chill out

Local woman wakes up, unionizes the elves, reindeer and other essential Christmas workers, makes oatmeal.