I found out your Mom was pregnant the way most people find out their wives are pregnant: by opening a gift bag full of wiffleballs in a parking lot that had positive pregnancy tests hidden under them in the bottom of the bag.
You’ll soon find out that I, along with a large group of friends, have an almost unhealthy love of wiffleball and your Mom thought this would be a simple way to surprise me. Well, it worked. I was surprised, but not shocked. After all, we were trying to have you. We want a big family and you have to start early.
The day we found out you were on the way we so happened to be driving up north to Grandma’s to visit and play our annual series of wiffleball (see, told you!).
While common sense says one should wait quite a few weeks before telling anyone of your pregnancy, we just couldn’t help but spill the news to just about everyone we saw that weekend. Luckily for us everything worked out, but we don’t plan on doing this for your brother(s) and/or sister(s).
Fast forward about 20 months and you are 1 years old — the quickest 20 months of our lives.
It’s tough to write down in just a few hundred words what you mean to us. It’s also tough to remember life without you. Each day gets better and better as your personality continues to come to life. You’re already a total goofball like your Mom and I and I love it.
So, I’d simply like to say thank you for being better than I ever could have imagined on that fateful day when I thought I was just getting wiffleballs, but instead got the best gift in the entire world: you.
You are now 11 months old. The big ‘1’ is quickly approaching.
In just under 2 weeks you’ll be experiencing a variety of “firsts” as we are taking a trip to Disney World with Grandpa and Grandma and your aunts and uncle.
I’m nervous for the plane ride. I hope your ears don’t hurt too bad. I’m also nervous to see your Mom in Disney World. She loves it so much she literally will cry during the opening ceremonies each day. I picture that kind of emotion mixed in with her child’s first birthday and the universe may not be ready for what is brewing.
Your Mom suggested that instead of writing about stories over the past few weeks I tackle what kind of parent I want to be and what kind of son I want to raise. I thought about it for quite a while and two things really stuck in my head.
I apologize in advance if this sounds like the Wear Sunscreen song, but there are two things I really want to get across. And yes, that was seriously a hit song when I was a teenager.
1. My biggest hope for you is that you turn out to simply be a nice* person. It’s going to be tough. It’s not necessarily a quality that is appreciated in kids and teenagers, but as you get older and wiser you’ll find yourself gravitating towards those kinds of individuals.
* Nice in my mind means the following: golden rule, always uses blinker when changing lanes, tips well in restaurants (even when just getting carry out), honest in personal life and business, holds the door for people, stands up for people when necessary, nice to those in retail, please and thank you
2. If there is one thing your Mom and I plan to be, that is supportive. Whatever your goals in life turn out to be you can count on us being there for you. Keep in mind this excludes anything involving whales (your Mom is terrified of them – we’ll get to this some other time) and insects (this one is me, and yes, I know it’s pathetic). Sharks and snakes are fair game.
The next time I write you’ll be 1. Crazy, crazy, crazy.
You are now 10 months old, and still only have as much hair as a 10-day old.
Your body seems to take the quality over quantity approach to hair, and by quality I mean length. You have roughly five or six hairs that would almost hang over your eyes if they didn’t stick straight up in the air. Your Mom and I were both bald as babies for quite a while, so you’re out of luck. However, we have good hair genes for later in life, and believe me, you’d rather be bald now then 40 years from now.
All of a sudden you learn something we teach you almost instantly. We started slow, like what sound an elephant makes or saying “Uh-oh!” when you drop your cup. Sure enough, a few days later you would have it down (and I’m being very lenient with the word “down” — lets just say your elephant is your cheeks filling with air) and repeat along with us.
We will wait to teach you really important life lessons after your 1st birthday, like not walking in the dead of winter with just your sandals on during a blizzard. I’ll let your Mom teach you all the pros and cons of such an adventure. Here is a little spoiler:
Cons: Painful feet for days, annoyed boyfriend who has to stay up with girlfriend to make sure her feet don’t fall off.
Pros: Baby soft feet after most the skin falls off, interesting story to tell your child one day.
The cupboards have become your new playground. You would crawl right past every single toy you own and go right for the tupperware. It got to the point where I had to install hooks on the cupboards to keep you out, an experience I’m glad you are not old enough to remember. Lets just say your old man isn’t the most mechanically inclined guy in the world, and I would think twice before riding any bike I build for you.
As you can see, you remain the happiest baby in the world and we remain the happiest parents.
I struggled to keep this movie off the list. After all, it’s just a little too easy of a pick.
Air Bud is a movie about a dog that has the incredible ability to bump a basketball off his nose and place it into a basketball hoop.
Now, if this talent was used to enter the dog in various dog shows I’d think you’d have an awful movie. But, if the dog somehow is allowed to join a 10 year olds basketball team and little kids are forced to try and box out a dog — now you have one of the most awful movie ideas of all-time.
The coach is able to get the dog into the game because it doesn’t say anything about no dogs in the rule book! Brilliant!
It pains me to place such a great movie on this list, but you can’t simply ignore Edward Norton’s dunk. As he tips the ball away on game point, and stumbles down the court trying to maintain a simple dribble he jumps and the classic basketball edit is made and you see him land one of the worst dunks in movie history.
The actual scene is about 10 minutes long with tons of terrible basketball action, but the dunk is what truly puts it over the edge and all you really need to see.
Where do I even begin? In The Super, Joe Pesci stars as a slumlord forced to live in his own apartment building until it is brought up to code. For some reason he decides to play in a game of 3-on-3 basketball with some neighborhood kids.
While you would expect basketball to be taking place during this scene, Pesci’s character spends a majority of the time doing arm and finger fakes, a move I have never seen in an actual basketball game.
Pesci’s team schools the kids, hitting layup after layup and celebrating each basket like they just won the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, Pesci is wearing gloves during the entire scene.
The scene ends just as any awful movie scene should end: an incredibly unrealistic dunk. Not only do they choose to have Joe Pesci somehow dunk a basketball on a 10 foot rim, but as he jumps off the ladder that is just off camera he fails to hold on to the ball and it falls into the hoop before he grabs the rim.
Michael J. Fox stars as high school basketball player Scott Howard who suddenly turns into a werewolf, and is able to use it to his advantage as werewolf Scott Howard is 100 times more athletic than human Scott Howard.
Scott suddenly doesn’t want to win as the werewolf, and shows up to the championship game as his normal, boring non-headband wearing self. What follows is 8 minutes of awful editing, bizarre score keeping, Michael J. Fox looking down at the ball while he dribbles, and the championship decided on a free throw with no time left. A free throw? That’s how you wanted to end the movie?
3 Ninjas could make the list for a variety of “worst movie scenes”. The movie premise is three brothers learn kung-fu from their grandfather, and then proceed to beat up criminals for the next hour.
However, one scene stands alone as being the most awful and that is the two-on-two match-up between the two older brothers and the school bullies.
This scene has everything an awful basketball scene fan could ask for. We have an unrealistic opening where the two brothers spot the bullies 9 points for absolutely no reason when they are only playing to 10 — followed by them allowing the bullies to shoot uncontested on the opening play. That opening shot is of course blocked despite “Rocky” being nearly six feet away from the shooter.
We are then presented with a variety of trick shots, such as a casual no look over the shoulder shot which hits nothing but net, the free throw line hook shot, and my personal favorite of an alley-oop layup.
The pinnacle of awfulness is reached at minute 2:42 where “Rocky” jumps over the two bullies from the free throw line and throws down the dunk.
The bullies win after undercutting young “Colt” on a lay-up, picking up the loose ball and shooting a jumper to win. “Colt” and “Rocky” never call a foul and lose their bikes.
Joaquin Phoenix’s transformation from an award winning actor to giant beard growing rapper has lead many to believe he’s gone completely mad. Last night’s interview with David Letterman that is being linked all over the Internet today has solidified Joaquin’s madness in many people’s minds. But watch the last 5 seconds of the clip and you see Joaquin snap out of it, take off his shades and have a few quick kind words with Letterman.
I hate to break it to everyone: It’s all for a fake documentary.
Joaquin’s IMDB page even lists the documentary. While it says it simply is documenting his transformation, I highly doubt Casey Affleck would be following this train wreck around with a camera if it wasn’t all an act.
That being said, I love this and can’t wait for more interviews
Ah yes, 2009 is here. I think this is the year where we see no more Israel-Palestine violence. What’s that? Oh. Maybe 2010! – 2:49 AM Jan 1st
Taxes are so easy to do nowwadays — if Roseanne was a television show now, they’d be out like 5 episodes. – 8:33 AM Jan 14th
First day as President, and Obama already has new episodes of LOST starting! This guy is awesome.- 8:24 AM Jan 21st
My favorite pizza place is right next to a 24/7 Fitness. It really makes me want to change my lifestyle — and eat pizza 24 hours a day.- 8:20pm Feb 5th
Facebook: A way to communicate with all the people you gradually removed from your cellphone every time you got a new phone – 7:10am Feb 6th
D+Pad Hero is a homebrew Nintendo game that is a mix of Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution for the original NES. Its current release has four songs, and is pretty challenging but really well done.
