Daniel J Isom

  The shortest month of the year had quite a bit going on including Ben's first band concert, 2 snowstorms that granted me days off, a game day with the kids, and seeing Kansas in concert. All in all it was a pretty good month overall, but it felt almost too busy with drama practices and various doctor's appointments sprinkled on top of everything else each week. Sticking with the shortest month, this might be the shortest opening to a wrap-up post all year. Blah Blog Log Didn't find time to write anything outside of the monthly Wrap-Up post. January 2026 Wrap-Up  - A trip to Disney, a new Ryan Murphy show, and some board gaming. Bored  Board Games Between a full afternoon of games with the kids that had 9 total plays and a lot of BGA time, February had 26 games played a total of 144 times. Snow storms forced a cancellation of an in person meetup but I rescheduled it to yesterday, so March will end up having 3 in person meetups. I also have started selling some games from...

I'm a relatively new convert to TikTok, the app primarily used by those under the age of 30, and it was on there that I learned about a new comedy special from Bo Burnham on Netflix . People recorded themselves being excited to watch and then cut to being an absolute mess by the end of it. To say this piqued my interest is an understatement. Prior to watching this special, I didn't know that much about him. I was aware of him and what his schtick was, but definitely would not have considered myself a fan by any means. It's not that I didn't find his brand of comedy funny (musical/observational), I just never consumed his content. I have friends who have seen him live in person, back before his hiatus from live performances, and they really enjoy his work.   So one night after seeing multiple videos about it, I got comfortable on the couch and watched the whole thing on my phone. Since then I've watched it through 4 more times and listen to the songs on YouTube or S...

Like most of the recipes in the cookbook , this is rather simple recipe that comes together fairly quickly. Caramelizing the onions takes a bit, but that could be sped up by using the addition of sugar hack. The sauce is just a combination of starchy pasta water and Greek yogurt until you reach your desired consistency. If you don't like Greek yogurt and/or caramelized onions, I would steer clear of this one. I like Greek yogurt and use it semi often in a variety of dishes. However, every time I have caramelized onions, I'm reminded that I just don't find them that good. They're typically too sweet for me, even when I don't add sugar to encourage browning.  Throughout this cookbook, it seems that they often take classic dishes and try to turn them on their heads in some way. Often it's just replacing a ingredient or a technique, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. This Pasta with Yogurt and Caramelized Onions kind of does this by making a yogurt bas...

  August wasn't great overall. I hope I'm not losing steam. 1)  Write at least 2 blog posts each month I shared the a podcast that I really enjoy,  The Endless Honeymoon Podcast Our cherry tomato plants have gone crazy, now I just make batches of Roasted Cherry Tomato Pasta Sauce . 2)  Complete the 10 x 2 Board Game Challenge We didn't get any of our challenge games in with Shawn and Kelly and we never found time to play together. I'm starting to get concerned that we're not going to make it at this point.  3)  Bake at least 2 different baked goods each month August was an okay month for baking. I'm back into weight loss mode, so I've not been super keen on baking much because I'm usually the one who ends up eating most of it. That being said, I did work on my my bread a bit. To start the month I made peanut butter dark chocolate Oreo chunk cookies that I saw on Facebook. They turned out pretty darn good and everyone in the house who tried one seemed to...

Right about the time everything started to shut down and the world started to quarantine, I stumbled upon The Endless Honeymoon Podcast . It's hosted by Moshe Kasher and Natasha Leggero, a husband and wife who are both stand up comedians and they're both hilarious. They recently celebrated the one year anniversary of the podcast, so I thought I'd spread the word because it's one of my absolute favorites. Building off of their Netflix special, The Honeymoon Standup Special , Moshe and Natasha offer love and relationship advice to callers while also roasting them a bit. As funny as the answers to callers questions can be, the advice is always helpful and relatable to anyone who has ever been in a relationship. Sometimes they bring guests on the show to help give advice and they're almost always comedians that you've probably heard of like Patton Oswalt, Judd Apatow, and Seth Rogen. Adding one or two extra comedians to the calls often creates hysterical chaos. The ...

Aside from the baking portion of my monthly accomplishment updates, I haven't done any food related posts in a while. Today, I thought I'd also share another one of my favorite YouTube Channels, You Suck At Cooking . I stumbled upon it a couple years ago when I first started to consume a lot of YouTube content. As I've said in previous posts, I was very late to the game when it came to subscribing to channels. The nice thing about that is I normally have many hours worth of content to watch when I do find a channel I like. Since food is one of my main interests, I started watching a lot of food related channels. The name alone made You Suck At Cooking stick out immediately.  YSAC, as it's sometimes referred to, is a show about cooking (obviously) but it's got humor, original songs, montages of various animals (usually dogs), and reoccurring skits. The videos are normally less than 10 minutes long, so watching all 110 current videos wouldn't take you that long if...

I love to laugh so naturally I'm drawn to stand up comedians, sitcoms, and comedy movies. As funny as ensembles casts are on TV and in cinema, watching a single person stand up on stage telling jokes produces the best and hardest laughs from me. I'll laugh so hard that I'll cry, can't breathe, or even hurt my sides. Nobody makes that happen more than Bill Burr . His brand of angry comedy where he rants about everyday situations absolutely kills me.  Rolling Stone magazine called him "the undisputed heavyweight champ of rage-fueled humor". That couldn't be more true. Here's an example of said humor: On The PF Collective , we do a Top 5 topic every week and earlier this year we ranked the best stand up comedians; Bill was obviously my number one choice. His stand up is great but another big reason for that is his Monday Morning Podcast . Twice a week (Monday and then Thursday for the Thursday Afternoon Just-Before-Friday Monday Morning Podcast ) he...