Last January, Derek and I showed off how trendy we are by debuting our CMEpalooza serial, The CMEslinger. Despite the serial drama format losing popularity at about the same time that Grover Cleveland was first elected president (that would be 1885 for you non-history nerds), we thought it went pretty well and was fun to read and write.

You can read all of last year’s serial if you want by clicking on this link. You don’t have to familiarize yourself with the previous plot line and characters to be able to follow us this year, but it won’t hurt.

Reading it back now, it’s clear that it took us a few weeks to get the story moving and figure out how to advance the narrative while not boxing each other into a corner with our chapter-ending cliffhangers. But for a first effort, at least in my opinion, it’s wasn’t bad. There are the appropriate storytelling elements – plot, setting, characters, point of view, and conflict. We threw around just enough CME elements to keep this on-brand for our industry. And the good guy – the CMEslinger – won and rode into the sunset.

Or did he?

(Oh, the drama)

So yes, we’re giving it another go in 2026 by bringing back the CMEslinger. Here is how this will go – each Friday for the next several weeks, we will debut another chapter of the latest saga, entitled Return of The CMEslinger. One week, the chapter will be written by me, the next by Derek. It may take 6 weeks to complete this year’s story, it may take 8, it may take 10 (please don’t make it take 10). We are pretty much writing as we go, so the story is very much a work in progress. Feel free to leave us feedback and offer plot suggestions if you have any particularly dastardly tricks in mind.

And with that, we present Part 1 of the Return of the CMEslinger.

***

Part 1 (Scott)

The CMEslinger rolled over in bed and felt for the warm body he was sure would be there to greet him. Grabbing a fistful of empty covers, his weary mind took a moment to remember that he was thrice divorced and had sworn off women after Mrs. Slinger #3 broke his heart 2 years ago by skipping town with a banjo salesman.

The CMEslinger took a peek at his alarm clock.

4:19 am.

Still 3 hours until the sun peeked over the horizon outside of his Chinatown loft. The remnants of the three Pickletinis that the CMEslinger downed while chatting with Ned, his favorite bartender at The Last Straw, sloshed around in his belly.

“As Phinneas always said, ‘Getting up is the hardest thing you’ll have to do all day,’” the CMEslinger groaned as he tested his creaky knees before standing up to stretch.

He limped into the kitchen, poured himself a post-hangover red eye, added a couple of aspirin, and decided to get on with it.

The last year, well, it hadn’t been great. The CMEslinger expected to feel exhilarated after besting the men in black in the “loser leaves CME” battle, and for a short time, he did. He rented out one of his favorite neighborhood izakayas and splurged lavishly on sushi for his entire team to celebrate their victory. He spent the next several weeks taking congratulatory calls from colleagues throughout the industry who had grown tired of the man in black’s arrogance and dismissive nature.

But when the hoopla died down, the CMEslinger found himself feeling a bit empty. Unmotivated. Lost.

His work suffered. He received an ROI from a supporter noting that the proposed start date on his recently submitted letter of request of “October 41, 2035,” seemed a bit unlikely. He penned outcomes reports that were littered with grammatical and analytical errors, which were fortunately caught by his staff before they went out the door. His organization received a progress report from the ACCME for the first time in its history after a file was missing that the CMEslinger had left on his kitchen table and the site surveyor wouldn’t agree to “just overlook.”

His personal life wasn’t much better. The CMEslinger was spending too much time at The Last Straw, playing darts against himself while watching his beloved 76ers blow another fourth-quarter lead. He couldn’t sleep. He’d lost weight. He rarely got together with long-time friends, even when they made it as convenient as possible.

Yes, without the shadow of the man in black chasing him, the CMEslinger had slipped into a dangerous depression.

All of which explains why, the first time his phone rang at 6:37 am, the CMEslinger ignored it. But then it rang again. And again. And again.

Finally, the CMEslinger picked up his phone. And heard that unmistakably raspy voice on the other end.

“We’ve got a problem.”

In the Kober household, one of our favorite holiday games is unofficially called, “What day is it today?” Since we are all off from work and/or school for at least the majority of this stretch, it’s a fun game to challenge your memory.

Here is how you play:

1. You wake up (some of us earlier than others. Teenagers with no school? Why bother being awake when the sun is still up?)
2. You remember that you aren’t planning on doing any work today. Yippee!
3. But then you can’t remember what you are supposed to do today. You know you are getting together with your friends from high school on Thursday and then your aunt and uncle are coming over for dinner on Saturday, but you have no idea what day of the week it is. Christmas was on, uh, Tuesday? So (counting on fingers) that would make today, um, maybe Friday? Crap, did you miss your night out with your friends?
4. You roll over and ask the wife, “Today is Friday, right?”
5. She wakes up grumpily and says, “Wrong. Check your phone.” And goes back to sleep.
6. You hop out of bed, look at your phone, and gleefully see that it is Wednesday. But which Wednesday? The Wednesday before you are getting together with your friends, or the Saturday after? You consider waking the wife again to ask but value your life too much.
7. You realize you can figure it out by turning on the TV and seeing if there is a football game on. And yes, indeed, it’s everyone favorite – the Pop-Tart Bowl on CBS. That would mean it’s, um, well, that really doesn’t mean anything right now because there is a football game on (college and/or pro) pretty much every day. Crap.
8. You go back to bed.

Especially during years like this one where Christmas and New Year’s both fell in the middle of the week, playing “What day is it today?” became particularly fun.

However, now we are all sadly back to reality. Today is most definitely Tuesday, which means it’s time to rev up the old CMEpalooza engine again. We’ll got some fun stuff on tap in the near future (including the return of everyone’s favorite CME superhero), but we’re starting things off by tapping into the creative energy of our little community to help us with our CMEpalooza Spring agenda.

Yes indeed, the planning has begun for CMEpalooza Spring (it’s on Wednesday, April 22. Save the date in your calendar if you haven’t already.) As in the past few years, we want to include a broad range of folks in the planning and development process of the CMEpalooza Spring agenda. Anyone is welcome to submit an idea for a CMEpalooza Spring session, though it would probably help if it’s a good idea (we tend to like those).

The process is fairly simple. If you have an idea for a session that you would like to lead at CMEpalooza Spring, just complete the CMEpalooza Spring 2026 Abstract Submission form by the end of the day on Monday, February 23. After that, Derek and I will review all the proposals we receive and select the best of them for inclusion in the official Spring agenda. If there are more that we like, we may hold onto some ideas for the Fall event. Maybe.

Here are a few guidelines:

1. This is a virtual conference and all sessions are done via StreamYard. No muss, no fuss.
2. Proposals will only be considered if they are submitted either via the abstract submission form or hand delivered by the Wells Fargo wagon. Choose whichever method is easier for you, but remember that Philadelphia potholes are notoriously treacherous this time of year and the Wells Fargo wagon is notoriously unreliable in the wintertime.
3. The deadline for proposals to be submitted is 6 p.m. ET on Monday, February 23.
4. We are open to pretty much any idea as long as it relates in some way to CME/CE. The more creative, the better. One of these years, Derek will realize his dream and a CMEpalooza Musical will be among the submissions. Over the holidays, Derek saw the Neil Diamond movie (which, I’m told is not about Neil Diamond but rather a Neil Diamond tribute band) and has been humming “Sweet Caroline (But I Rejected Her Grant Proposal Anyway)” round the clock.
5. Interactive formats with multiple presenters, such as panel sessions and interviews, are encouraged. If you want to figure out a unique way to incorporate our audience response platform (Poll Everywhere) into your session, that’s totally fine too.
6. Please verify the availability of all presenters for the date of CMEpalooza (Wednesday, April 22) before submitting their name in your proposal. Or at least have some sort of contingency plan if they cannot participate.
7. We don’t want to limit creativity, so there isn’t a limit on the number of proposals you can submit, but please use common sense and be reasonable. We will likely only choose one proposal for which you are listed as the lead contact, so don’t submit 10 proposals or something crazy like that.
8. We’d prefer that you not simply submit a proposal that mirrors a presentation you gave at another conference within the last 12 months. We keep a pretty close eye on our “competition,” so don’t think you’ll sneak something past us. At the very least, give your idea a unique spin.
9. We will notify you within a week of the abstract submission deadline if your proposal has been accepted or not. That will give us 8 weeks to coordinate and plan, which we hope is enough time.
10. If you have any questions, feel free to email Derek (thecmeguy@gmail.com) or Scott (scott@excaliburmeded.com), or find us at the Alliance conference in February.

I think that about covers it. We especially want to encourage people who have never presented at CMEpalooza to submit a proposal. We are always happy to have new faces at CMEpalooza. Maybe you are intimidated by getting up in a front of a room full of your colleagues and presenting material — not a problem with CMEpalooza. Maybe you are worried that your idea would be too “out there” for a traditional conference — not a problem with CMEpalooza. Maybe you are just too lazy to want to put together a slide deck for a presentation — so are we, which is why we often encourage our panelists to use few (if any) slides.

It’s not the trying that’s hard.

Click here for the CMEpalooza Spring 2026 Abstract Submission form

Some of you who have been reading the blog for a while now may have noticed that I enjoy making lists, particularly “Top 5” lists of things I do or don’t like. This has been a lifetime passion of mine, even as a kid. I can’t tell you how excited a young Derek was to bring home a brand-new copy of The Baseball Book of Lists from Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach, DE, in 1983 and spend the entire day poring over its contents.

What 10-year-old wouldn’t be mesmerized by lists such as “Rod Carew’s 10 Toughest Pitchers to Hit” and “William Shakespeare’s 15 Best Baseball Quotes” and “Morganna the Kissing Bandit’s 5 Best Kissers?” (side note: No, I am not making that up. Morganna the Kissing Bandit was a real person who would travel around to various baseball parks to sneak out onto the field and kiss unsuspecting players. The 70s and 80s were wild, man.)

For a number of years, around this time of year I would put together my Top 5 Best Holiday Songs list, which usually consisted of some combination of Springsteen’s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Wham!’s Last Christmas (there will be no Last Christmas slander on this website), and The Waitresses Christmas Wrapping. I stopped making this list about five years ago when I had the sudden epiphany that the best holiday song was, of course, Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song, and everything else was a distant second place. This remains correct. Nothing has happened to change my mind since.  You may not want to admit it, but you know I’m right.

Much more fun is making a list of the Top 5 Worst Holiday Songs. It feels a little mean spirited to call any of these songs “worst” (though they deserve it), so I’m updating the title to the Top 5 Holiday Songs That Make Me Change the Station or Skip Ahead When They Come On. It’s a bit long, but I think effectively communicates the purpose of the list. All of these songs are very popular and have probably made the writers and performers a ton of money, so I don’t feel bad critiquing them. So, without further ado, here are the Top 5 Holiday Songs That Make Me Change the Station or Skip Ahead When They Come On:

5. Do They Know It’s Christmas? — Band Aid. The song itself is not too bad, maybe even kind of catchy. It’s on this list entirely because of the line Bono sings midway through, “”Well tonight, thank God it’s them instead of you!” Yeesh. Condescending and tone deaf. Deserves a permanent spot on this list.

4. Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time — Paul McCartney. Awful from the very first synthesized note. The worst earworm you can imagine. It should probably be #1 on this list, but I can’t do that to a Beatle.

3. Dominick the Donkey — Lou Monte. Holy crap is this song annoying. Yet, somehow, it is not the most annoying song on the list because song #2 exists.

2. I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas — Gayla Peevey. If nails scratching a chalkboard could be made into a holiday song, it would be this. A weird song made even less tolerable by the annoying voice singing it.

1. The Christmas Shoes — NewSong. Mawkish, self-congratulatory, poverty porn schlock. Other than that, it’s not bad.

Oh, I also updated the CMEpalooza Archive with all the sessions from CMEpalooza Fall 2025. Now you can spend your holiday break enjoying all your favorite CMEpalooza videos. You’re welcome!