There comes a moment in every person’s life when they realize they are an old person. This moment can be different for every person.  For some people, it’s when you have a kid or a grandkid. For others it’s the first time you hear a new song and think, “I can’t believe kids listen to this garbage.” If you don’t have one of these moments that’s fine, you might think you’re still young and relevant, but eventually they will tear down your elementary school and like Bruce Willis at the end of Sixth Sense that you’ve been old the entire time.

This week they (big government/Boys and Girls Club of America) decided to channel their inner Ronald Reagan and tear down my elementary school. 

Now I haven’t been in my elementary school since I graduated in 2005, but the memories I have in that building are endless.  (Cue the Maury clip because that’s a lie, I remember less and less every day.)  What better way to pay homage to your elementary school than to blog about one memory from each grade? Most memories are either great or traumatic, and how many great things happen to you when you are between the ages 5-11?  (Especially at school?)  Answer: not a lot. So if this list seems a little heavy on the complaining side I’m sorry, it’s just what I remember.

Kindergarten: One day me and like 3 other kids just didn’t go outside for recess, and as the bell rang the teacher came in and was like, “Hey you need to go outside for recess even though it has never been established that you need to.” So as a punishment the 3 of us weren’t allowed to do “show and tell.” The theme of “show and tell” that week was something blue, I brought my blue Grover puppet, but you wouldn’t know that because I never got to tell anyone. 

First Grade: So, it was super cold one day so my mom didn’t pack my snow pants because she was planning on us having indoor recess. She was correct that we didn’t have outside recess. However the only kids that were allowed to play with the toys and whatnot for indoor recess were the kids that brought their snow pants because they were prepared or something? And I had to sit at my desk and draw. It was bullshit and I knew it back then. I cried… it was horrible. You can’t let half the kids play and the other half are just supposed to sit there quietly and watch just because their parents didn’t pack their snow pants. We shouldn’t punish kids for their parents’ decisions. (Also, don’t give kids tardies, they can’t drive it’s not their fault they are late.)

Second Grade: We were doing a unit on frogs (more specifically amphibians) and someone caught a frog.  We had it as a class pet for a couple days, and it died overnight. The next morning it smelled so bad. How do teachers get away with letting kids bring wild animals into the classroom as “pets?” I mean that thing was just sitting there for like 3 days in a glass box with no food. No wonder it died. KEEP WILD ANIMALS OUTSIDE!  (Or something.)

Third Grade: For read-a-thon this year we got beef jerky for reading books. (The greatest trade of all time if you ask me.) I made a big mistake and didn’t eat it right when I got it at school. Foolishly took it home for an after-school snack. After watching Dragon Ball Z I go looking for my beef jerky and cannot find it. I ask my mom and she goes, “Oh did you want that?”  Yeah Gail, I did. IT WAS MY BEEF JERKY AND SHE ATE IT! It was at this moment I learned life’s most valuable lesson, Beef Jerky Over Everything.

Fourth Grade: One time at lunch a kid’s thermos exploded. No explanation, it just exploded like a bomb. There was glass everywhere, it was cray cray.

Fifth Grade: We (the entire 5th grade class) played “kill the carrier” at recess and, I cannot stress this enough, everyone played. (Maybe not everyone, but at least 80%.) To no one’s surprise we got in trouble as a class and were all supposed to get tickets. The principal brought us all in the hallway and asked us who was playing. Only like 5 of us admitted to it and got tickets. (Getting a ticket meant you had to sit out one 15 minute recess, also known as the end of the world.) I believe my honesty in this situation is what will get me into heaven one day. (jk I know it’s God’s grace, but for the sake of the joke.)

What a trip huh? Turns out most of the bad things that happened at school were mainly recess related, Disney’s One Saturday Morning always made it look way better. The only part of the physical building I would like to acknowledge is the trough, which got taken out when I was in second grade. Troughs are so much more efficient. 

Side note, I should have mentioned I went to Calvin Christian Elementary. I did not realize my grade school was named after John Calvin until I was like 16. And the insane thing is they didn’t even mention TULIP once in those 6 years. 

I will leave you today with the words of my great and wise father who served on the board at (C)Alvin Christian School.

“Calvin Christian’s Campus is no more. Only the physical foundation remains, but the greater spiritual foundation is forever!”- Al Punt Text message 18:13 25, August, 2020.

In my life I have been forced into 3 camps. I don’t necessarily believe in them, it’s only because the Opposition has forced me.  The internet has forced me to be Team Kanye vs.Team Taylor. Mike Lynde has forced me to be Team Bernie vs. Team Trump. And finally my (STUPID) brother-in-law and my (IDIOTOTIC) former roommate have forced me (SMART and CAPABLE) into to Team LeBron vs. Team Jordan. Do I think LeBron is the greatest player ever? I don’t know, what I do know is he’s the greatest player I’ve seen since I started watching basketball when I was 12. In this essay I will be setting up and knocking down some Michael Jordan strawmen!

My favorite hot take in the Jordan vs Lebron debate is my father, the Big Guy aka the Colonel, is adamant that Kareem is the greatest player of all time. It’s the greatest old man take. I actually like this view, the NBA wasn’t as big when Kareem played, which works against him. One pro-Kareem argument is that the dude played for 20 years in the league and it was a good twenty years. If Kareem isn’t the GOAT, he at least has an argument for the best big man of all time. The best part of my dad’s argument is that he always brings up the UCLA freshman team beating the national champion squad.

You know what LeBron never did? WALKED AWAY FROM THE GAME FOR 18 MONTHS!!!!! Just a casual retirement when you’re 30, in your prime, and are the best player in the world at this moment, totally understandable. In my lifetime I want to be the greatest creteman who ever lived, you know what I’m not going to do?  Quit after a hundred yard pour of 12 foot walls (the equivalent to an NBA Championship) in 3 years. For being the ultimate competitor you don’t just quit. I give my parents a whoopin in Rummikub every other Sunday, when I go on a 6 game win streak and finally lose do I just quit?  No, I rearrange the whole board so that I can lay one tile and frustrate my parents so that they can’t even think! (Did I allude to both my concrete and Rummikub skills being better than Michael Jordan? Yes. Bold? Yes. True? Also Yes.)

For the “LeBron couldn’t make it in the 90’s” argument, this is the worst argument ever. LEBRON IS 6’9” 280! He is a Mack Truck driving into the lane, you think that Bill Laimbeer is gonna stop him? No way. Not now, not ever. LeBron could not only play in the 1990’s he would dominante. 

Straw man number 3, you know how I know LeBron is better than Jordan?  If 5 LeBrons played 5 Jordans, who’s winning? No doubt it’s the LeBrons.  Size, passing, rebounding, it would just be beautiful. The Jordans would all be fighting each other, getting angry at who gets the ball and the shots. Team LeBron would basically be running a three man weave scoring with ease everytime down the court. It would be tough for Team Jordan to score as they’d be constantly punching each other in the face. 

During the two second trivia presented by thefacebook we learned that Jordan and Pippen eliminated the most 60 win teams in the playoffs. You know who the only person to eliminate a 70 win team? LEBRON JAMES

Alright, enough with the strawmen, my big takeaway from this doc has been Jordan is the greatest competitor period. There is no one that will ever be like him. But with that comes the fact that he’s a real dick.  I think I would hate playing with Michael Jordan.  I would enjoy the winning for a year at least but dude did not treat his teammates the best.  Being competitive is fine, punching Steven Kerr might be crossing the line.  Earlier I said I was the Michael Jordan of concrete, I am not. I’m more like the Magic Johnson of concrete (I’m a setup guy, get the whole team involved, dominate), but I work with the Michael Jordan of concrete. Let me tell you it’s awesome to have him there because he can carry the team day in day out. However, it’s also exhausting, he’s not stopping at 5:30 on a Tuesday when you’re dead tired, he keeps going. Imagine that and he also treats you like crap it would suck. I don’t want to have the “Jordan is only a bully” take (I also don’t want this take because if MJ is a bully then so am I).  He  worked his little tookus off and only asked his teammates to do what he did, the problem with this was he’s MICHAEL JEFFERY JORDAN, Scott Burrell isn’t wired the same.

Some of my favorite parts The Last Dance, that are not Jordan related are:

• Joe Dumars punched Michael Jordan in the face in the ECF and didn’t get ejected from the game or suspended. If this happened today, the world would end.
• MJ never had to go against the Man who would be best at stopping Michael Jordan: Scottie PIppen. 
• Horace Grant goggles are the most iconic accessory in NBA history. 

• I don’t know if Jordan, Rodman, and Pippen are the biggest three of all time, but they are definitely the deepest voice three of all time. 
• They didn’t mention the most interesting part about Dennis Rodman, that he broke his penis thrice having sex. 

• The thing that they don’t mention of that era was Bill Murray was one of the best players and retired unlost and untied at the end of Space Jam. He could have been Jordan’s biggest competition.

(My favorite thing that I discovered during this series is that Karl Malone is sponsored by Caterpillar, if he wasn’t a statutory rapist he’d be my favorite player.)  

In conclusion, LeBron is the greatest player I have watched. I’m sure my answer would be different if I was watching those Bulls/Jazz 83-82 battles when I was five. Michael is the most elite competitor of all time, LeBron will never come close. During the time which I’ve been an NBA fan (2004-current) Lebron has been the greatest player and whether your name is Nathan, John, or even Craig, you need to recognize this. 

At the end of the day the Jordan Lebron debate is best summed up with this five second clip from 2011’s Bad Teacher

You got anything that really just snarfs you off? We all do, snarfing is inevitable. But, do you have something that shouldn’t snarf you off but does anyway? These are called “Pet Peeves,” and, yes, I think that is the dictionary def. I have at least five things that drive me, as the kids say, “bonkers,” and I can remember at least four (jk we got all five)  of them so here we go!

Now my parents are far from perfect (they made me take them to the airport at 4 a.m. this past month), but if there is one virtue that they (mainly the Big Guy) instilled in me it’s that you don’t dribble an indoor basketball outside. The other things on this list just make me mad, but this makes me absolutely cringe. I have a nice indoor Spalding TF 1000 (TY SFCHS) and one time in college I was walking to the gym, and my friend was holding my basketball and dribbled it on the sidewalk, and I lost my shit. DO NOT DRIBBLE INDOOR BASKETBALLS OUTSIDE! It will rip up the leather and kill the life of the ball. BE A GOOD PERSON!

Number 2 shoulda been number 1 to me. If you don’t know the difference between concrete and cement then you aren’t friends with me. (I’m going to use this as an instagram caption later so don’t judge when I reuse my jokes.) Concrete is water, rock, sand and cement. It doesn’t matter if it’s hard or wet. It’s always concrete. Cement is just a powder that when mixed with the ingredients above makes concrete. My buddy (and betrayer) sent me a meme once. “Calling concrete cement is like calling cake flour.” The analogy I used for my sister-in-law (a medical doctor) is, “It’s like calling a pap smear a rectal exam, close but not really at all.” I get that both concrete and cement start with the letter “C” but, come on, know the difference!

Number 3 doesn’t happen as often to me now as a 27-year-old with no friends, but happened a lot in high school and college. People will come up to you and drop the “dude, you gotta watch this YouTube video, it’s hilarious” as they shove their iPhone in your face. Ok, first off nice to see you, too. Second, you have terrible taste in humor.  This probably won’t be super funny. And third, you are going to sit here and tell me you are better at managing my time than me? (I mean, you probably are better at managing my time, but…) You don’t get to decide if I want to watch this. I’m a stubborn grown ass man who does not like to be told what to do. 

Numero 4, pretty specific to the midwest/construction scene. People who pronounce these two words incorrectly: “wash” and “height”. If you say “warsh” you are an idiot (with the exception of my grandma, top 10 smartest people I know, and she’s 91-years-old and can do what she wants). Where are you finding that R? There is no R in wash! Also, people who pronounce height, “heighth” like they just add an extra h because they can. I mean, I’m not the best reader, but I’m not this dumb. 

Number 5, (the reason I’m writing this BP, blog post not British Petroleum) people who call themselves “creatives”. Creatives act like they are the greatest “demographic” of people that ever existed but are also severely oppressed. The nontraditional demographic I would identify with most would be Blue Collar, but I’m creative as S. Why am I not considered creative just because I’m not a writer for a TV show? That’s crap. They think that what they do is God’s gift to the earth, and they are the only ones who have ever made people feel. I’m creative even if I don’t get paid for it, but creatives don’t have a clue how to pour a foundation (total assumption by me) so who’s really bettering the world?

There once was a little boy who started a blog. Now blogs had been irrelevant for years and the cool things now were podcast(s). However, the little boy didn’t want to start a podcast because he didn’t want to be a conformist. The little boy did a wonderful job with his blog. However, he hit a rut during the Covid-19 pandemic and went over a month without posting. During this time, his brother started a popular children’s books series. The little boy quickly lost all of his friends and followers as they went to support his brother over him. His brother got picked up to write professionally and got invited onto the Ryen Russillo Podcast where he not only became best friends with the Ringer employee, but he went on to write movies with him. And this is the story of the little boy who started a blog and lost all his friends and died alone. 

Welcome to the first ever bteamballer.com book review (“Ric Reviews” for those who follow me on snapchat.). Today we’ll be looking at @colinbikesbooks. Children’s books on Twitter. 

Disclaimer: I do personally know the author so that may affect my views on him. 

About the Author: Colin Punt is a self-righteous, Liberal, pencil pushing, city planning, father of two. From what I have gathered, he is not a full time writer and only has 68 followers on Twitter. (I have 244 for those keeping track at home.) He seems like a nice enough guy, but his hair… oof. 

Description: I don’t know if the book series has an official title, but I call them “The Little Boy Who…” series. “The Little Boy Who…” is a series of moralistic stories about a little boy (possibly multiple different little boys, we don’t know) who disobeys his parents, and the ramifications that come with that. I don’t know where the motivation comes from for these stories. I assume it’s his own son, but… 

Pros: 

• Morals are good, if only the author had any. The stories do have good advice to young children, such as “listen to your parents”, “eat your dinner”, and “wear a bike helmet.” 
• The parents are always drinking wine when giving the little boy advice. I enjoy the continuity, but you have to wonder if they have, or are developing, a problem.
• Overall creative and well drawn. 
• The first documented back-to-back Gigglebees-Mac Tonight reference.

Cons: 

• The whole idea seems a little sexist to me. What? Are little boys the only ones who screw up? What about little girls? I have an idea for a spinoff called “The little girl who only loved Uncle Ric because he would let her watch Disney’s Moana on his phone.” 
• Although the morals are idealistic, the consequences of the little boy’s actions are completely fabricated. You think that because this little boy doesn’t listen to his parents he gets his butt literally chopped off? Probably not! (Speaking of literal butts, the author is an asshat.) In one of the stories, the little boy doesn’t eat his food. And, because of that, the United States Government orders a drone strike??? Ok, that one might actually be true. 
• It’s hard for me to accept the fact that my Brother is able to be creative on the internet.  This was supposed to be my thing. I have had two of my so-called “friends” tell me they think what Colin is doing is hilarious. Who’s side are you on? You know what friend One? Now I don’t feel bad I missed that block, and you got tackled and tore your ACL.  As for friend Two, I want to get invited to a college sports game with ACL boy.
  • Quick reflection of the Punt family men’s most creative moments:
    • Me – My second Christmas card 
    • Colin – This
    • Nathan – Once got put on blast by Bomani Jones.  It wasn’t creative, but it was funny to see all of sports Twitter attack him.
    • Big Al – Once got me with a “Joe Who? Joe Mama!” joke with the whole fam in the car in the Black Hills. We still talk about it to this day.

Conclusion: As the kids say, “I had no choice but to stan.” As much as I hate to see a family member getting attention that I deserve/desire, I really enjoy these videos. When it comes to my creative interests in life, one of the biggest influences has been my brother. Also, my brother has been a top 5 supporter of bteamballer.com. Support the people who support you and support the creatives in your life. I may still be the undisputed heavyweight champ of Punt family creativity, but that’s only because Colin doesn’t weigh enough.

The Punt Family added a new member this week so therefore we must officially update the Punt Family Power Rankings

1. Margot Robbie Hummel still plays for Purdue Eleanor Roosevelt Punt. Just untapped potential at this point, we can only go up, can’t wait to see all the things she will accomplish. 
2. Liza. All this kid does is eat, smile, and poop her pants. Basically me without the smiling. 
3. Charley. I got to see my favorite nephew this weekend, and he asked me to read to him, which was sweet because the other kid his age always has Lady Gaga or Pa read to her.  The bad thing is he knows I can’t read and is just rubbing it in.
4. Lydia. In terms of family members who I communicate with, Lyds is number one, but that doesn’t always work out in one’s favor. She is currently obsessed with the Lion King so to get some uncle points we always watch some clips on my phone. Now whenever she sees me it’s, “I watch The Roars on Ric’s phone?” I’m beginning to think she only loves me for my phone. (She calls the Lion King “The Roars.” It’s adorable. Also, she thinks my phone is the only one that has The Roars on it, so that’s cool at least.)

5. Me. I would have me higher, but I know at least one (more than likely, both) of my siblings would be pissed if I put myself above their kids. I may not be the most beloved family member anymore with all these grandkids, but I am still the funniest, and they can never take that away from me.

Big drop off

6. Meg. She just squeezed one out, so I don’t want to bash her after all that energy she just expended. 
7. Jacklyn. Jacklyn can bench press 135, 15Xs. I don’t know if this is true, but it sounds good.
8. Colin. My only brother and recent father of two, begs the question: What have you done for me lately?
9. Gail. Gaga has been liking all the photos in our non-iPhone family group text. I’d put her lower, but she did give birth to me. 
10. Nathan. Hog markets are down, so why wouldn’t the Naters market be down too. 
11. Big Al. I spent basically 4 straight days with him last week. He’s one of my favorite  people in the world, but still, 4 straight days with anybody will drive you mad!

Welcome to life hacks with Eric! In this February edition, we are going to be looking at New Year’s resolutions! Since it is February, I can only assume that you have already given up on your New Year’s resolution. Well, I have a life hack to help you get well into May before you break your resolution. 

I don’t know if you knew, but I started my year off in Africa.  And while I was there, one of my co-immersion trip buddies commented on how red my skin was. We had a two minute discussion on skincare and the sun. She asked me if I used sunscreen ever.  My response was, “For about a week every June, but then I get permaburn/tan and kind of stay that way.”

Her reply (real creative here), “You should wear sunscreen.” Who do you think you are?  Gail and/or my dermatologist friend who yelled at me in church for not wearing sunscreen?  (She said my mole on my arm was normal though so, we good.) So right then and there I made my New Year’s Resolution for 2k20 to apply sunscreen twice a day on sunny days! And you know what the best part is? I’m over 50 days into the new year and I still haven’t broken it! I applied sunscreen twice a day in Uganda, but the sun hasn’t come up in South Dakota yet so I’ll be good for a while! I could go 100 days easy without breaking this, I’m great at establishing habits!

(Side story: 2017, coming off the worst year of my life, I thought it would be good if I set New Year’s Resolutions and goals. I made like 8 good ones, wrote them out and everything. Failed all but one. The only one I kept, was “eating a bag of Skittles once a month.” Now I know what you’re thinking (I use this way too much, I never want to have phrases, I’ll work on it), how is eating a bag of Skittles a resolution? Two things: First, it’s incredibly easy (like your mom). I knew I would fail most of my resolutions so I needed an easy win. Second, I wanted to stay young.  Do you ever see old people eating Skittles? No you do not, boom we just found the key to eternal life and it rhymes with former New Jersey Nets shooting guard!)

Bad transition

Now I’ve had two posts in a row where I mentioned that I don’t like sports, and at least two friends have brought this up to me and acted like I am an idiot because they think I’m lying. I’m not (lying or an idiot) and this week I was reassured why. Now this is post one on a 1000 post series about fanhood. Here is a little background for you. 

2004 – The first year I started liking college basketball and I just copied my sister’s favorite team and became a fan of the Duke Blue Devils. (Chris Duhon’s senior year, it’s either him or Caris LeVert as my favorite College basketball player of all time.) I thought this was a match made in heaven.  Private school, does it the right way, bla bla bla.

(From 2004 to 2012 I would like the records to show I had a huge hatred for the Big Ten)

March Madness 2011, Duke is playing a Tim Hardaway Jr. led Michigan team in the second round. I was so sick of watching Duke, I hated the entitlement. I hated the fake hard work. Duke won, but I couldn’t get Coach Beilein’s team out of my head. The next year Duke lost in the first round and I was done with them. I posted a video on facebook declaring my fanhood over and I was switching my allegiances to Michigan. I had become what I hated, a Big Ten Fan, but secretly it’s what I’ve wanted all along. 

(The Big 10 and I have a lot in common, we’re both big and slow, from the midwest, and we love hard work.) 

The thing that made me fall in love with Michigan basketball was the fact that Coach Beilein wouldn’t have a system and make his players fit in that system. He took players and made the team’s focus that season what his players’ strengths were.  (2013 and 2018 both national runner-up—the former, offensive juggernaut; the latter, defensive powerhouse. Love and miss you, Coach.) And then he left for the Cleveland Cavaliers, an NBA franchise that has no chance of winning until LeBron comes back for round three. Now everything that I love about Michigan basketball is gone. I’m just supposed to blindly follow Juwan Howard?  (Who I don’t think is a bad coach, just not a great one.) The worst part of this whole situation is that Beilein didn’t even last a full year in the NBA, he left for nothing. So, what is even the point of being a fan? My soul is just going to get crushed anyway. 

*Stolen take: The Cavs and Michigan should just trade coaches, Howard wants to be in the NBA and Beilein wants to be back in college.* 

Maybe the conflict is really that I am smart and sports are dumb. Allegiances to a school/team are so arbitrary, why should we be stuck with a choice we made when we were 12?  We don’t let 12 year olds vote, why should we let them pick their sports teams that they are supposed to be associated with for the rest of their lives? 

But at the end of the day, go team and go sports.

Hello, and welcome to Pacman Ricky’s writing workshop 2k20. I’m going to take you behind the curtain and show you the difficulties that come with being a self-published author. (Todd, you could learn something here, so pay attention)

The most difficult part of writing is finding that sweet spot that is a subject that I enjoy and want to write about that is also something people would actually read about. (In a shocking turn of events, my three most successful posts in terms of clicks are all about myself. Turns out the public loves me…I can get behind that.) This can be more difficult than you think. Here is a chart that demonstrates the public’s interests vs. my own personal passions.

As you can see we (the general public and I) do not have a lot in common besides ABC’s The Bachelor. Now before I sell out and change the domain name to bachelorteamballer.com, I have one last article I want to write covering a subject that I am very passionate about and the general public couldn’t give a poop about, let alone care about my opinions on it. 

THE OSCAR SHORTS!

I have been watching the Oscar-nominated short films for 4 years now. From ages 16 to 19, I wanted to be a filmmaker, the only problem was that I was not creative or ambitious. Still a lover of film (I sound like a college basketball coach describing someone as “a student of the game” – I hate that), I would like to watch all the Oscar-nominated whatnots and give an educated (or uneducated) opinions on them. However, that takes a lot of time. I thought instead if I focus on one category, short film, I can knock those out in 4 hours and I still look cultured! The live action films are usually 15-25 minutes and the animated shorts 5-10 minutes. Although they are significantly shorter than regular films, they pack in just as much drama, so they get intense in a hurry. I usually attend these by myself. I say usually because once a person asked, “Hey can I come to the Oscar shorts with you?” I told them “You aren’t going to like it.” And guess what, I was right! They asked to leave early and I said, “Sorry, bro, this is my Super Bowl, we’re sticking around till Patrick Mahones says he’s going to Disney World.”* (*not an exact quote)

Here is me giving a two sentence summary for every nominated film and the agenda/issue it brings up:

Live Action

1. Brotherhood: A Tunisian son returns to his family with his new wife after being in Syria for years. The father assumes his son was involved with ISIS and calls the cops before he can communicate with his son. In a Romeo and Juliet situation, all three of the father’s sons are taken away before he can warn them.
2. NEFTA Football Club: In a rare live action short comedy, two young brothers in Tunisia find a donkey holding a white, powdery substance. (I don’t want to just assume it’s cocaine, who knows, maybe it’s flour.) When they bring it back to their village, the older of the two tells some guys that he’ll sell it to them. When he brings the guys to where he was hiding it, it’s gone. He asks the younger brother what he did with it. The younger brother tells him he used it to make lines for the football pitch.  
3. The Neighbors’ Window: A 30ish Chicago couple with 3 kids become fascinated with watching their hot, young neighbors party and live a fun life. The young husband across the street gets cancer and dies. The 30ish lady runs into the young widower. The widower let her know that she and her husband had watched their family and were fascinated with them as well. 
4. Saria: The story is about two Guatemalan sisters who lead an orphanage escape. They are captured and tragically die in a fire. 
5. A Sister: A woman is taken into a car by a man she doesn’t know somewhere in Europe. She calls the emergency number (I believe it’s 911, but I don’t know if that’s universal). She uses code to let the dispatcher know she is in trouble. 

Animated

1. Daughter: A silent film about a dying father and his daughter’s relationship. They both remember the rocky parts, but then we see how they restored their relationship in the end. 
2. Hair Love: Dreamworks’ short about a black dad working with his pre kindergarten aged  daughter to make her hair pretty while his wife (a hairstylist) is in the hospital with cancer. 
3. Kitbull: A Disney Pixar film about a kitty and a pitbull finding love. Interspecies couples make me sick.
4. Memorable: An artist and his wife are dealing with the pain of his ever-increasing dementia.
5. Sister: A Chinese man is telling us about growing up with a sister, all to have him tell us his sister was aborted because of China’s one child policy. 

Predictions:

What I think should win Live Action: The Neighbors’ Window was my favorite: slightly humorous with a not-too-pushy of a message (also made me cry). The old couple was jealous of the youth, the young couple was jealous of the older couples established life. We need to enjoy where we are and who we are with, life is short, enjoy it. 

What I think should win Animated: I wasn’t the biggest fan of the 5 films they gave me. I hope that Kitbull doesn’t get it, but that’s my bias against Disney. (If you want me to write for you, Disney, I’ll delete this post and move straight to Orlando, I’m a total sellout.) Visually, Memorable and Daughter were beautiful. I liked Daughter a little more. Sadly, though, I don’t think it stands a chance.

Ok, now for the real reason you guys are here: you want to know how I did on the LSAT. I would like to remind everyone that I was short on sleep and did not study. I would also like to remind everyone that I had zero intentions of actually going to law school which is good, because I only got a 136. Elle Woods got a 179, a perfect score is 180, and the lowest you can get is 120. 150 is average, and you need 145 to get into USD. I’m not even good enough for USD, that hurts.  I was in the 7th percentile, humbling to say the least. 

I try not to make excuses, but if I did, here is what they would be: One of my two favorite ice breaker questions is, “Do you think you are the smartest dumb person or the dumbest smart person?” I’ve wanted so badly to be the dumbest smart person, and I figured only smart people take the LSAT, right? If I’m in the bottom 7% of smart people, I can live with that. But you know what, I spent $200 to take a test to get into a school I don’t want to go to…not a smart person move. At the end of the day most law school students don’t know where to put Z-ties on a 4 inch offset of a T-wall, so we’ll call it even. 

Now wasn’t this fun? At the end of the day we all got what we wanted. You got to hear my LSAT score and can make fun of me the next time you see me. And I got to tell my baker’s dozen subscribers my thoughts on short films they didn’t watch! That’s even more of a win-win than having Oscar wear the baby playing saxophones as a shirt. (See how I made an Oscar from The Office reference in my Oscars blog? I might be biased, but I’m hilarious.)

It’s “The Big Game” Sunday (I don’t think I can legally say $up*r bowl because I don’t pay the NFL millions of dollars to be the official, poorly written, blog, so we’re going with the safe alternative.), and our two favorite teams are playing! The Sand Frand 49ers and the KC Chefs! I have no personal connections to either team so I couldn’t care less who wins. Although…I just bought a new Subaru this week so the liberal in me wants San Francisco to win, but the best baked beans I’ve ever had were from KC, so…who knows!

If there is one thing I’ve learned from being on Twitter for 10+ years (humble brag), it’s that no one cares about my sports opinions. So I’m going to keep my predictions short and sweet. Niners go up 17-0 in the first quarter, KC comes back and wins 34-27! Let’s see if I’m right! I probably won’t be. 😦

Ok, let’s move on to my real passion, not sports! (I’ve been hitting the exclamation points hard this post. We all know that’s not me. I’m sorry, I’ll be better)  I’ve probably only watched a total of 10 quarters of professional football this year. As I’m growing older and more mature (which in itself is debatable-Editor’s comment), I’m losing my passion for juvenile things like sports. Although I do not watch the games, I still follow sports media semi-closely so I know what’s going on, but I just don’t care. (Big time Ryen Russilo fan, huge man crush. I used promocode RYEN with the hotel tonight app so I’m really a good listener.) Ok, this paragraph is getting long, and I still haven’t gotten to my point. Today, we are going to talk about NFL jerseys and how the Chiefs and the Niners are both “A1 credit, got that filet mignon.”

So I’ve got some hot takes when it comes to jerseys, and I don’t want to give away all my secrets because I’ve got at least one more NFL jersey blog post and one college jersey blog post. But here is a little taste. 

Let’s start with the Chiefs:  Red tops, white numbers, yellow trim, bicep stripes. White pants, stripe on the side of the leg. What’s so great about these? Nothing. That’s what makes them great.  When it comes to uniforms, it’s best to follow the “keep it simple stupid” mantra. The jerseys aren’t too busy, just nice big block numbers with a tertiary color trim. The Chiefs have mainly kept the same jersey for as long as I can remember. A true thing of beauty. 

Ric Review: 👍👍

Now, let’s move on to San Francisco:  A storied franchise that should have had the same jerseys for their whole franchise history, but when they benched the greatest quarterback in NFL history for a left handed Mormon, they had to change their uniforms to let the fans know that they were in a new era. Sometime in the 2010s they switched back to the 80’s jerseys, and they look good. 

The Niners jerseys are even simpler than KC’s. Gold pants, white tops with red letters. Amazing! I know that describing things I have pictures of is not good content, but here is what makes an elite football uniform elite. The PANTS. Yellow/gold/any tertiary color pants really puts your uniform over the top. White-on-white, bad. Color-on-the same color, bad, Color-on-yellow, fantastic!

Rics Review: 👍👍

So to my knowledge, these are the jerseys the Niners wanted to wear, but the NFL put the kibosh on them because they don’t enjoy fun. It’s just a slight black shading on the numbers, and it looks so good! They might be my favorite uni’s of all time. You pair this with the gold trousers, and that’s a better combo than Taco Bell tacos and Busch Light. 

Thanks for coming to my ted talk, that’s it, that’s the blog post, bla, bla, bla. Have fun and be safe tonight. Go sports!

On Monday, January 13th, 2020, an incredibly jet-lagged (don’t know if it’s a word, but it is now) Ricky traveled an hour to Brookings, South Dakota to take the Law School Admissions Test! I know what you’re thinking. “Why did you do this to yourself, Eric? You aren’t smart enough to get into law school.” Well, the answer is simple. I’m here to prove the haters wrong by getting into law school!

The real pre-story is my friend from middle/high school recently got accepted to and is currently attending Drizzy Law School. Now this friend, let’s call him CBS (a reference only he will understand), wasn’t the greatest student in the world during high school, so I got this idea. If CBS can get into law school, why not Ricky? Thus, I registered for my LSAT with no intention of going to law school, and wasted $200 all because I made a fake competition with a former high school classmate .

I registered in December 2019 for the test in January 2020. I  didn’t really look at the date of the test, I just kind of assumed it would be on a Saturday. The last window pops up on the registration page saying something like, “Are you sure this date works? There’s no turning back once you click “ok.” We are going to charge you $200 dollars that you aren’t going to be able to get back.” I clicked “ok.” I knew I would be gone the first 10 days or so of the year on vacation, and this was after that, so I’d be fine. The second after I clicked “ok” I checked to make sure it was on Saturday the weekend after I got back. It wasn’t… it was the day after I got back. On a Monday, nonetheless.

Fast forward to Monday, January 13, 2020. It had taken me approximately 50+ hours to get home from vacation, traveling across multiple time zones, and the jet lag could not have been more real. So from the get-go, we were not in the right mindset to take this test. Still, we signed up, so we must persevere and finish the task. Thus, I made the hour-long drive up to my favorite college that I didn’t attend to take a test for a school I had no desire to go to.

I arrived on campus about a half hour early because I thought registration and what-not would be a real b word. The test people weren’t ready! LSAC, if you are reading this, I was not impressed with these proctors. They didn’t know what they were doing and made me nervous that my scores wouldn’t get in, and my test would be marked invalid.

While sitting outside in some lobby-type thing waiting for this hell on earth to start, some girl walks past me and sees that I have my LSAT admission ticket. This is the conversation we had:

Girl: “Oh, are you taking the LSAT too?!?”

ME: “Yep.”

Girl: “What year are you in school?”

Me: “…..I’m not in school…I’m like a real adult.”

Girl: “Nice. Are you trying to get into law school?”

(What kind of a question is this? If someone is taking the LSAT, no shit, they are trying to get into law school.)

Me: “No, my friend from high school got into law school, and I think I’m smarter than him, so I just want to get accepted, but I have no intent on actually going.”

Girl: “Oh…well, good luck.”

Me: “Thanks, you too.”

Finally, I’m walking into the test room. I only have one fear at this point, that I will have to shave my beard. The rules are very clear that on the day of the test you need to look like you do on your admission ticket. Here is a side by side comparison. (spoiler alert I don’t look the same)

Luckily, I didn’t have to shave and just took the test. I would tell you everything that was on it, but I signed an NDA, and I don’t want to break the rules of an organization that you literally have to be a lawyer to be in. So we won’t be discussing what was on the test, but I can tell you how it went…and it wasn’t good. I haven’t taken a test that’s not a buzzfeed quiz asking me “Order at McDonalds, and we’ll tell you what Disney princess you are” in 4+ years! I went in thinking, “This won’t be that bad,” but it was that bad. So, the test is five parts; three, then a break, then the last two. The first test after the break was reading comprehension. If you know me, you know reading comprehension is not my thing. At that point, I thought about making a big scene and quitting and walking out. However, I persevered and finished! ERICS ARE NOT QUITTERS!!!

Here is my post-test tweet describing my experience:

I had five people text me post tweet with the “Did you really take the LSAT?”…First off, you could have liked my tweet, ya jackwagon! I have very low self-esteem, and the only way I get any sort of validation is through social media likes (only semi joking). Yes, I did take the LSAT! Why are you surprised? I’m Eric, I’m the wildcard, I do what I want!

Ric’s Review: 👎👎 I went in as a joke/try to get into Mensa. Sadly, I don’t think I’ll become a Mensa member anytime soon (I need a 167 to get into Mensa, and there is no way in heck I’m getting that.). I’ll let you know in a few weeks what my score is.