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25 nostalgic things you remember from a specific year or decade!

Started by retrorussell, June 30, 2022, 03:32:12 AM

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retrorussell

One extra entry from 2011 that I forgot:

For a team desperately trying over the years to scratch out a win over Tom Brady and the Patriots, this victory was oh-so-sweet.  Especially after trailing by 3 scores!  That put us at 3-0 to start the season!  Of course, being the Bills, the wheels would eventually fall off and the team would go 3-10 the rest of the way, including losing 8 of the last 9.
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On to 2012:
1. A massive fight in Egypt occurs between fans of 2 football teams at Port Said Stadium; 72 are killed.
2. Explosions at a munitions dump in the Congo kill over 250.
3. Vladimir Putin is elected President of Russia.  :(
4. During the film THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, a gunman opens fire in an Aurora CO theater, killing 12.
5. The Summer Olympics are held in London.  The US tops the gold and total medal tally.  Michael Phelps wins a record 22nd medal.  7 countries win their first medals (Bahrain and Grenada win golds).
6. Hurricane Sandy strikes the Atlantic coast from the Caribbean to Canada, killing 233.
7. Barack Obama is re-elected President of the US over Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
8. Typhoon Bopha slams into the Philippines, killing over 1,000.
9. Washington State is the first modern jurisdiction to legalize possession of cannabis for personal use.
10. 28 die in an elementary school shooting at Sandy Hook, CT (the shooter commits suicide).  Most of the victims were children.
11.The Mayan Calendar predicts the world will end on 12/21/12.  Didn't happen, did it?
12. Whitney Houston's legendary voice is silenced forever when she is found dead of heart disease and drug abuse, drowned in a hotel bathtub in Beverly Hills.
13. Another Super Bowl with the Patriots and Giants, and another close shocking win by the Giants.  Peyton's brother Eli Manning wins his 2nd MVP award.
14. The Los Angeles Kings win their first Stanley Cup, at the expense of my New Jersey Devils, in 6 games. :(  After a 3-0 deficit it looked pretty bad, but with 2 consecutive wins there was a faint glimmer of hope.  But game 6 was a blowout.  Watched this in the Post Op Ward.  I kept getting put in the high maintenance sections of the hospital because of my work ethic, but I would start to get really annoyed at other employees screwing off all around me, and having supervisors that didn't care would really weigh me down.
15. The Seattle Supersonics-- eh heh, I mean, the Oklahoma City Thunder-- reach their first NBA Finals!  Unfortunately they lose in 5 games to Lebron James and the Miami Heat.  I was really pulling for OKC in this one, but boy would I come to dislike Russell Westbrook.
16. World Series: The San Francisco Giants sweep the Detroit Tigers in 4 games.  I didn't really care for either team so I don't recall the Series too well.
17. One of the greatest Portland Trailblazers ever, Damian Lillard, is drafted 6th in the NBA Draft.  I had a good feeling watching his workouts, and he certainly has not disappointed.  Other notables: Anthony Davis (#1), Bradley Beal (#3), Andre Drummond (#9), Draymond Green (#35), Khris Middleton (#39).  My Blazers also selected dud Meyers Leonard at #11.
18. The Indianapolis Colts, coming off a horrid 2-14 campaign and itching for the "Next Peyton Manning" after dealing him to the Broncos, select Andrew Luck at #1 overall in the NFL Draft after a fan-named "Suck For Luck" campaign.  Subway spokesman and way-too-often injured QB Robert Griffin III was selected 2nd.  Ryan Tannehill was taken 8th.  Bobby Wagner went to the Seahawks in the 2nd round, Russell Wilson in the 3rd, Nick Foles in the 3rd, Kirk Cousins in the 4th.
19. Ha ha-- TEBOW MANIA!!!  Tim Tebow's moment in the sun comes when he wins a playoff game for the Broncos over the Steelers with an 80 yard TD pass in OT! 
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It's funny how short his tenure was but I hated the Steelers so much.  The Broncos would get annihilated in round 2 by the Patriots.
20. A gimme 32-yard kick by Baltimore to force OT against the Patriots in the AFC Championship game goes wide left.  The laces on the football were not "out", prompting fans to recall the plotline of ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE.
21.TV debuts: AVATAR: THE LEGEND OF KORRA, ARROW, ELEMENTARY, CHICAGO FIRE, THE MINDY PROJECT, SWORD ART ONLINE, LONGMIRE, KEY AND PEELE, DUCK DYNASTY.
22. Funny episode of Key & Peele concerning 2 stupid valets going on about Liam Neeson:
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23. This was the first playoffs where the new OT rules were put in place: a FG on the first possession is not an automatic win-- the opponent gets possession and attempts to do the same (or get a TD).
24. Big movies: ARGO, LIFE OF PI, THE HUNGER GAMES, LINCOLN, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, DJANGO UNCHAINED, JACK REACHER (which I nickname "Jack Reacharound"), BOURNE LEGACY, THE AMAZING SPIDER MAN, DREDD, THE AVENGERS.
25. This great animated film JUSTICE LEAGUE: DOOM.
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"O the legend they say, on a Valentine's Day, is a curse that'll live on and on.."

Alex

Quote from: retrorussell on September 24, 2022, 04:47:31 AM

11.The Mayan Calendar predicts the world will end on 12/21/12.  Didn't happen, did it?


It didn't actually ever predict the end of the world. That was just certain people misinterpreting what it did say. A bit of mistranslation combined with opportunism.
Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

ER

What does not kill me makes me stranger.

retrorussell

2013:
1. 11/6/13: The hilarious and perhaps best-known episode of Key & Peele-- a football star WR goes overboard with his celebrations and gets penalized when the ref decides he went one "pelvic thrust" too far.
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2. A garment factory building in Dhaka, Bangladesh collapses.  1,134 die.
3. The Boston Marathon Bombing: 2 Islamist Chechnya-born brothers detonate 2 bombs at the Boston Marathon in Boston, MA.  2 die and 264 are injured.  
4. 245 die in a nightclub fire in Brazil.
5. Park Geyun-hye is the first woman President of South Korea.
6. This great song was released at the end of the year:
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I didn't even know of this song until the following year during the NBA Finals I was watching at my folks' house-- the song played during a break to commercial and I started to like it.
7. Federal recognition is granted to same-sex marriage in the US.
8. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi is deposed.  Nearly 2,700 demonstrators who strongly decried the uprising are killed by security forces.
9. Typhoon Haiyan hits the Philippines and Vietnam, killing 6,241.
10. Civil War begins in the Sudan.
11. NBA Finals: Despite a 36-point blowout courtesy of the Spurs in game 2, LeBron/Wade/Bosh/etc. and the Miami Heat prevail in 7 games.
12. SUPER BOWL XLVII: My mom watched this over at my house.  Joe Flacco and the Baltimore Ravens win the franchise's 2nd title.  Later-to-be controversial QB Colin Kaepernick and the 49ers lose a close one, after a big rally falls short.  There was a major outage with the lights and it took over a half hour to restore power.  This was the first matchup of franchises that were undefeated in the Super Bowl (Baltimore 1-0, San Francisco 5-0).  This was dubbed either the Blackout Bowl or the Har-Bowl-- the latter due to the Harbaugh brothers (Jim, Jon) coaching the teams.  I kind of rooted for the Ravens because I thought Kaepernick was way overrated (turns out I was right).
13. WORLD SERIES: David Ortiz ("Big Papi") and The Boston Red Sox win the World Series over the St. Louis Cardinals in 6 games.  I remember calling the MVP the "Most Valuable Papi".
14. STANLEY CUP: The Chicago Blackhawks, who scored 2 goals in 17 seconds towards the end of game 6, win the Cup in 6 games over the Boston Bruins.
15. The Houston Astros begin play this year as an AL team (formerly NL).
16. I was happily surprised by the Memphis Grizzlies reaching their first Western Conference Finals!  They were no match for the Spurs, however, who swept them.
17. My team, the Bills, cut their long-time starting QB Ryan Fitzpatrick (who we would dearly miss for several years) and started our 1st round pick EJ Manuel.  Yuck.. I watched the first game of the season at my brother's black belt celebration at some Lebanese restaurant.  I got severe claustrophobia from all the people in attendance, but at least I got to shake Pedro Sauer's hand.  Very, very nice man!
18. This was my last full year in the Post-Op ward.  Funny how after I left someplace that my replacement has to have help to catch up on everything.. and any nurse that complains about stupid s**t realizes too late how good they had it..
19. TV debuts: 60 MINUTES SPORTS, HOUSE OF CARDS, VIKINGS, PIERS MORGAN LIVE, BATES MOTEL, HANNIBAL, HEMLOCK GROVE, TEEN TITANS GO, AVENGERS ASSEMBLE, GET OUT ALIVE WITH BEAR GRYLLS, ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, AXE COP, SWORD ART ONLINE, HULK AND THE AGENTS OF S.M.A.S.H., TALKING BAD, PAW PATROL, SLEEPY HOLLOW, BROOKLYN NINE-NINE, THE BLACKLIST, MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D., THE GOLDBERGS, STEVEN UNIVERSE, and of course...
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20. Hit movies: FROZEN, IRON MAN 3, DESPICABLE ME 2, THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG, HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE, MONSTERS UNIVERSITY,  STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS, THE WOLVERINE, THOR: THE DARK WORLD, WORLD WAR Z, EVIL DEAD, MAN OF STEEL, FAST AND FURIOUS 6, 12 YEARS A SLAVE, DALLAS BUYER'S CLUB, GRAVITY, WOLF OF WALL STREET, BLUE JASMINE, AMERICAN HUSTLE, BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR
21. Adam Scott is the first Australian to win the Masters in golf.
22. Tiger Woods wins 2 World Golf Championships but none of the Majors.
23. Product debuts: Chromecast, iOS 7, ITunes Radio, Playstation 4, Ouya, My Little Pony: Equestria Girls.
24. A meteor explodes over Chelyabinsk, Russia and causes damage to several thousand buildings and injures 1,500 people.
25. Lance Armstrong publicly admits to doping during an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
"O the legend they say, on a Valentine's Day, is a curse that'll live on and on.."

retrorussell

2014:
1. Moved to the Dialysis unit run, which now also includes cleaning the Chemo unit.  Busy run.  But I work by myself, and later in the day most of the staff (if not all) is gone.  Some seriously spoiled knucklehead nurses are lazy and entitled and I try to avoid talking to them.
2. The shot heard round the world!  My Portland Trailblazers FINALLY pass the 1st round of the NBA playoffs, with Damian Lillard burying a DEEP 3 to beat the Houston Rockets in game 6.  What a historic moment for the franchise.  This took me from a low (Houston scoring with less than a second left) to pure joy!  I was in the nursing station well after everyone had left, listening to this on streaming radio (I paid 10 to 20 bucks or so for a full season of listening to any game; great price!).
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Damian would later ask for the mic and shouted "RIP CITY!!!" (our team's catchphrase) to the crowd.
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3. My Buffalo Bills' only owner in franchise history, Ralph Wilson, dies.  Partway through the season Terry Pegula takes over ownership along with his wife Kim.  The team would have a winning record for the first time in a decade but it wasn't enough to make the playoffs, extending the playoff drought to 15 years.  Coach Doug Marrone and Bills QB Kyle Orton (who took over for struggling EJ Manuel) left the team at the end of the season.  We moved up in the draft to get WR Sammy Watkins at #4, but he never quite lived up to his abilities.
4. The Seattle Seahawks make their first Super Bowl in 9 years, and WHUPPED Peyton Manning and the Broncos to win their first title, and the city's first in 35 years.  The defense known as "The Legion Of Boom" would absolutely dominate the contest and Denver was nearly shut out.  My mom (a big Seahawk fan) and I watched it at my house.  Though I get sick of hearing about the Seahawks all the time (living in the Pacific NW) I was happy they got their first title.  It was such a whuppin' that the first score came on Denver's very first offensive play (a snap that Peyton wasn't ready for and resulted in a Seattle safety)!
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5. NBA Finals: The San Antonio Spurs get sweet revenge on the Miami Heat from last year's Finals loss and beat them in 5 games.  This was the Spurs' 5th championship and I remember really hoping they'd tie the Bulls with 6.
6. Stanley Cup: The Los Angeles Kings win their 2nd Stanley Cup, this time against the NY Rangers in 5 games.  I remember liking the San Jose Sharks team (mostly due to the cool logo of the shark biting through a hockey stick), but they had the ignominious dishonor of leading the Kings in the playoffs 3-0 and losing in 7 games.  In other news, the Columbus Blue Jackets notched their franchise's first playoff game victory.
7. The brutal terrorist regime ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND SYRIA (ISIS) takes over territories in Iraq and Syria.  They behead 3 Americans in the region and President Obama orders airstrikes and sends in troops to help Iraq and Syria retake their territories.  I remember the hilarious animated show ARCHER had a spy agency called ISIS, and had to stop name-dropping it.
8. Russia annexes Crimea, overtaking the Crimean capital under Putin's orders.
9. Outbreaks of Ebola begin in West Africa.  Over 11,000 die.
10. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappears over the Gulf of Thailand.  It has never been found.
11. The 2014 Winter Olympics are held in Sochi, Russia.  Russia wins the most medals and is tied for the most golds with Norway.
12. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych is ousted by the Ukrainian Parliament after days of unrest leading to deaths in Kyiv.
13. Korean ferry MV Sewol sinks, killing 304.
14. President Obama places sanctions on Russia for their annexation of Crimea.
15. Militants kill 300 in two cities in Nigeria.
16. An apartment building collapses in Pyongyang, N. Korea, killing almost 500.
17. Militant group ISIL kills 1,566 Shia Iraqi Air Force cadets in Tikrit, Iraq.
18. Israel strikes the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip with missiles and a ground attack, killing over 2,000 Palestinians.
19. Over 4,000 die in ISIL attacks in Irag's Sinjar district.
20. Riots erupt in Ferguson, MO after black teen Michael Brown is shot to death by white police officer Darren Wilson. 
21. The Pakistani Taliban shoots up an army school in Peshawar, killing 145.
22. Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 crashes into the Java Sea, killing all 162.
23. Hit movies: BIRDMAN, JOHN WICK, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, MALEFICENT, AMERICAN SNIPER, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, THE HOBBIT: BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES, BIG HERO 6, X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION, HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINJAY PT. 1, LEGO MOVIE, AMAZING SPIDER MAN 2
24. TV debuts: TRUE DETECTIVE (oh man.. I was mesmerized by Alexandra Daddario's topless scenes), THE FLASH, FARGO, GOTHAM, SILICON VALLEY, THE 100, HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER, BLACK SAILS, OUTLANDER, BOJACK HORSEMAN, BLACK-ISH, TURN: WASHINGTON'S SPIES, THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JIMMY FALLON, NCIS: NEW ORLEANS.
25. Famous deaths: Juanita Moore, Saul Zaentz, Russell Johnson, Riz Ortolani, Pete Seeger, Maximillian Schell, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Shirley Temple, Sid Caesar, Harold Ramis, James Rebhorn, David Brenner, Mickey Rooney, Bob Hoskins, Farley Mowat, H.R. Giger, Maya Angelou, Rik Mayall, Ruby Dee, Eli Wallach, Casey Kasem, Tony Gwynn, Bobby Womack, Meshach Taylor, Paul Mazursky, Tommy Ramone, Johnny Winter, James Garner, Mehahem Golan, Robin Williams, Lauren Bacall, Don Pardo, Richard Attenborough, Joan Rivers, Richard Kiel, Bob Crewe, Polly Bergen, George Hamilton IV, Jan Hooks, Acker Bilk, Glen A. Larson, Jimmy Ruffin, Mike Nichols, Pat Quinn, PD James, Mary Ann Mobley, Joe Cocker, Joseph Sargent, Christine Cavanaugh.
"O the legend they say, on a Valentine's Day, is a curse that'll live on and on.."

retrorussell

2015:
1. The Boko Haram terrorist group kills over 2,000 in Nigeria.
2. The Seattle Seahawks return to the Super Bowl, primed to repeat.  They very nearly win it at the end against the New England Patriots, but one of the more questionable calls in Super Bowl history results in an interception right at the goal line.  WHY would you not feed your power running back?
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My mom was over and we had Chinese takeout (I sometimes actually think it's an excellent Super Bowl dish) brought back for the big game.  I remember the lady at the counter talking about the game with me, and I predicted a 4-point Patriots win, which actually happened.  Seattle would soon after lose key players to Free Agency and the team that really should have been a dynasty was done for.
3. My Bills, though they would still miss the playoffs, made a FANTASTIC trade by shipping promising young LB Kiko Alonso to the Eagles for star RB LeSean McCoy.  He was fantastic for Buffalo for a handful of years.  We picked up QB Tyrod Taylor, who replaced the departed Kyle Orton, and was serviceable at least.  And to replace departed coach Doug Marrone came fat, bombastic Rex Ryan who helped steer 2 Jets teams to the AFC Championship.  Not so successful here.
4. The first NFL Draft not to take place in New York is held in Chicago.  Jameis Winston is taken first, and Oregon Duck Heisman winner (the first Duck to do so) Marcus Mariota is taken 2nd.  My man Stefon Diggs is taken in the 5th round somehow.
5. One team that could exceed the Bills for playoff futility: the Toronto Blue Jays.  Well, they finally got back to the playoffs.. not only doing so, but winning the AL East!  Some great players included Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, and Russell Martin.  The first round of the playoffs had us matched up against the Texas Rangers, who had gone to the World Series a couple times recently.  Punk Roughned Odor infamously punch Bautista in the face earlier in the season, but we got the last laugh, especially being down 2-0 in the series (both losses at home) before rallying to take game 7.  The Jays would lose the AL Championship to the Kansas City Royals in 6.
6. Related to #5 but I'll post it as a separate entry: The 7th inning of game 5 in the Texas series will live on in Toronto Blue Jays fans' heads forever.  In the top half, catcher Russell Martin threw the ball back to the pitcher, but it hit the tip of the batter's bat.  Odor at 3rd base ran home.  The ball was initially declared dead but during a lengthy review, the Blue Jays fans dumped beer cans and bottles onto the field and they weren't any happier when the run was allowed.  This gave Texas the lead.  Then the Jays have a monster rally off the bat of Jose "Joey Bats" Bautista (and helped by numerous Ranger errors).  I was screaming with joy!  Bautista's authoritative bat flip would endure in the minds of Jays fans forever.
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7. The Golden State Warriors win their first NBA title in 40 years.  Dynamic Duo Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson beat the Cleveland Cavaliers (who got LeBron James back) in 6 games.  I remember the Clippers getting really good this year and wanting to see them make the Finals.  They led the Rockets 3 games to 1 in the Semifinals (and they had just knocked off the defending champs, the Spurs), and then they lost 3 straight.  I watched the last game at a bar with my brother and his friends before seeing MAD MAX: FURY ROAD and was really p*ssed at the outcome.
8. The Kansas City Royals win their 2nd World Series title, in 5 games over the New York Mets.
9. STANLEY CUP: The Chicago Blackhawks beat the Tampa Bay Lightning in 6 games.
10. Jordan Spieth wins the Masters and US Open in golf.  Zach Johnson wins the British Open and Jason Day wins the PGA Championship.
11. ISIL demolishes several ancient city sites in Iraq.
12. Germanwings Flight 9525 is deliberately crashed into the French Alps, killing all 150.
13. Military terrorist organization al-Shabaab kills 148 at a college in Kenya.
14. A 7.8 earthquake in Nepal kills 9,018 across Nepal, India, China and Bangladesh.  A later 2nd quake kills 153.
15. ISIL fighters kill over 220 in Syria.
16. At least 2,200 are killed during a pilgrimage stampede in Mecca.
17. Almost 400 die in an earthquake affecting Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.
18. Celebrity deaths: Stuart Scott, Donna Douglas, Little Jimmy Dickens, Rod Taylor, Anita Ekberg, King Abdullah, Louis Jourdan, Leslie Gore, Leonard Nimoy, Anthony Mason, Mike Porcaro, Jorgen Ingmann, Cynthia Lennon, James Best, Percy Sledge, Jayne Meadows, Ben E. King, B.B. King, Anne Meara, Betsy Palmer, Christopher Lee, James Last, Ron Moody, James Horner, Dick Van Patten, Patrick Macnee, Omar Sharif, Alex Rocco, Theodore Bikel, Lynne Anderson, Rowdy Roddy Piper (my brother met him, said he was a really nice guy), Cilla Black, Yvonne Craig, Justin Wilson, Wes Craven, Dean Jones, Martin Milner, Moses Malone, Jackie Collins, Yogi Berra, Maureen O'Hara, Flip Saunders, Gunnar Hansen, Allen Toussaint, Phil Taylor, Scott Weiland, Robert Loggia, Dolph Schayes, Haskell Wexler, Lemmy, Natalie Cole, Wayne Rogers.
19. UPTOWN FUNK is the song of the year:
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20. TV debuts: EMPIRE, DAREDEVIL, KILL LA KILL, the awesome BETTER CALL SAUL (here's one of the best scenes in the series; Saul/Jimmy tries to reason with a crazed cartel lord over the lives of two skateboarding grifters)..
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..SCHITT'S CREEK, THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH JAMES CORDEN, FEAR THE WALKING DEAD, NARCOS, THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, ASH VS. EVIL DEAD, JESSICA JONES, THE LION GUARD, and the awesome F IS FOR FAMILY. (NSFW language)
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21. At MAD MAX: FURY ROAD we sat at the very front because I wanted to be right there with all the action.  However, I got numerous closeups of Immortan Joe's HEAVILY pregnant wife shoved right in my face.. ick!  My brother and his friends laughed at me squirming.  Otherwise a pretty cool flick.
22. Other top movies: STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, JURASSIC WORLD (kind of liked it; saw it with my mom), AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, THE REVENANT, FURIOUS 7, HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINJAY PT. 2, MINIONS, INSIDE OUT, FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE, TERMINATOR GENISYS, ANT MAN, PIXELS, MARTIAN, BRIDGE OF SPIES, PEANUTS MOVIE, CREED.
More later..
"O the legend they say, on a Valentine's Day, is a curse that'll live on and on.."

retrorussell

23. Compendium of 2015 commercials:
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24. My Oregon Ducks play for the national championship again, and again fall short, this time to Ohio State, this time under the College Football Playoff system.
25. 2 French Muslim terrorist brothers kill 12 office workers at a French newspaper office of the weekly magazine "Charlie Hebdo" in Paris.
"O the legend they say, on a Valentine's Day, is a curse that'll live on and on.."

ER

Memories of 1985: Festina lente.

1.   In half-day kindergarten, we watched President Reagan take his second oath of office. We also that year swapped classrooms for a day with kids in a Lutheran school down the road. We got their teacher and classroom and they got ours. They had this wicked-cool set of plastic dinosaurs I envied, sigh.

2.   When my mom played David Bowie's song When I'm Five, I'd get mad because I wasn't five anymore, I was six.  "You used to like it," she challenged. "Yeah, when I was five!"

3.   When it was in the teens-below that January, we stacked cardboard boxes in front of our windows because my dad said trapped air was a good insulator. The old furnace in our townhouse had to run all day and night to keep the internal temperature at about fifty.

4.   When we were living in our Montgomery townhouse, word got out that Bob Hope, in town for a celebrity golf event, was going to be eating at his favorite restaurant in the Midwest, the Montgomery Inn, which was within walking distance of where we lived. Mom and I strolled down to see him get out of his car and wave and walk in for lunch. The restaurant still has pictures of him on the wall from all the times he'd eat there, and the story was Mr. Hope would not only have ribs from the Inn shipped to him in California, he'd buy cases for the USO to send to soldiers overseas. Heck of a guy, him.

5.   That Memorial Day at my grandparents' house, my thirteen year old cousin Adam told me my family was so poor our grandma was supporting us. I told him that wasn't true, my dad worked, and he laughed and said I was as stupid as I was impoverished. (A definite exaggeration on the second part....) I didn't know where money came from, I just figured life was the way it was, but in truth our grandma actually was helping us out while my dad was in school. (I noticed she bought most of my clothes, for instance.) Getting married and then raising a kid when you're still in college, like my dad did, probably wasn't a road map to immediate prosperity, but when you're twenty and you fall in love with a girl you meet on a summertime overseas trip, well, what else can you do when the heart wants what it wants? When my dad got his Masters around this time, he went into a job that greatly boosted the quality of our lives, leading to new cars and a new house, though the disdain my rich cousin tossed at me that Memorial Day was the first of many slights he'd dole out over the years, (he called me "Pest") always looking down on me and my family and calling us "the poor ones."


6.   I distinctly remember my dad talking to my grandma about Mikhail Gorbachev, and saying to her, "With policies like he's got, he's going to have an 'accident'."

7.   I got chicken pox that spring. My grandpa had picked me up from kindergarten by coincidence one day and I was going to go spend the weekend with him and Grandma, but I didn't feel so well in his car. When I got to his house, my grandma had dinner ready and I didn't want any of it, and while my grandparents and my cousin Alison, who was also staying over, were in eating, I hurled in the parlor on my grandma's Persian rug, and Grandpa took me home. I broke out with bumps everywhere and stayed off school for almost two weeks, the most I'd miss til my bizarre brush with death in tenth grade.

8.   I recall Live Aid happening as a big deal but didn't watch it because we didn't have cable. I remember hearing Queen getting rave reviews for what was later dubbed the greatest live rock performance of the 20th century.

9.   I do remember hearing We Are the World playing on the radio all year though, and I thought it was a dumb, overplayed song.

10.   I was in a public restroom with my mom washing my hands when I saw a penny lying on the floor, and wanted it, but my mom said no, it's dirty, I'll give you a different penny, but even when I had her penny I still tried to go for the one on the floor.

11.   I got "grounded" from swimming for a week that summer because I jumped off the ten-foot diving board which Grandpa had beside his pool back then and which I wasn't supposed to be on. You'd think they'd have been happy I survived and proud of my courage, but noooo.

12.   Everybody in America but me saw Back to the Future. I still have never seen all of it. Ah, I swam against the current, I guess.

13.   Before Mom and I went to see my maternal grandparents that summer, she and Dad and I were in New York for a few days and I went to the top of the World Trade Center for the first time. The elevator was soooo fast my ears popped. We could look out and see they were assembling scaffolding for repairing the Statue of Liberty, which was apparently in poor shape at the time.

14.   I caught snippets of outraged talk that summer about a Belfast to Dublin train being blown up, and my maternal grandfather said they should keep their problems "up north." It was mostly nice going over in summer but especially when I was a small child there were bad things going on in the background of life, like bombings and kidnappings spoken about on the news, rarely happening where my family lived, but touching them, as it tangentially touched everyone on either side of the border in Ireland, and being aware of this going on was a sort of foundational memory from my childhood. When I was in college in the east and certain a***oles from Boston would swagger around with their IRA tattoos and beer-powered boasts about "supporting the revolution" I would get disgusted because they were as clueless as children about the misery that insane conflict brought to people's lives.

15.   That was the summer Bob Geldoff somehow became a demigod in Irish reckoning, even if he did cozy up a bit too chummily with Princes Diana for homegrown tastes. To me he's mostly just Pink Floyd, though I also don't like Mondays much.

16.   When I began first grade that fall, "all-day school," I said I didn't like lunchtime, and was told I had to go anyway, so even that young I learned the trick of fake-eating, which I have so often used in my life. I'd have much rather been allowed to go to the library during that half-hour, since being around so many people eating grossed me out. It can still weird me, honestly, but I deal with it.

17.   I don't know that I ever had a strictly normal life compared to most kids, but that fall was when two things happened that left my life forever different from almost everyone else's. The first was my parents, my grandparents on both sides, all my cousins, my aunts, my aunts' current and past husbands, some of our neighbors, my dad's friends, the priest at our parish, the place my dad used to work, got deeply investigated, and young as I was I got told all these intrusive things, like if someone asks you questions about your dad, tell immediately. If anyone seems to be following you, tell immediately. If someone wants to know what your dad does for a living, tell them he's a consultant, then report on whoever asked. A consultant, yeah. Um, I'm pretty sure my dad was doing something for the fiddle gummit, y'know?

18.   The second change that made everything different from then on was for the first time I was ID'd as (blah, sorry) "exceptionally intelligent" with the fact I was reading at a middle-school level particularly impressing the overlords of Catholic education, and was put into a special program that met an hour a day, me and a few other poor suckers It was the beginning of a lot of annoying and frequently awful special programs I'd be part of that I wouldn't recommend for any child, because it has more disadvantages than benefits to be branded that way, and the pressure they put on you is like living on the bottom of the sea.

19.   On September 11th, Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's all-time baseball hit record, 4,192 hits, leading to a long standing ovation and a live call from President Reagan, amid citywide fireworks and the honking of car horns for thirty miles around. The path to the record was closely-followed and counted-down for weeks all around town by radio and TV and a number of billboards around the city, a tally each day on our class chalkboard, even by a banner pulled by a plane. Since Pete Rose is now banned for life from baseball and not allowed in the Hall of Fame, the Reds put a rose garden outside their stadium, with 4,256 baseballs mounted on a wall, marking the number of hits Rose got in his career. But since baseball won't allow mention of Rose, that's a coincidence, I'm sure.

20.   I remember Rock Hudson dying of AIDS, and finding out that basically AIDS was a disease "certain people" caught, as it was explained to me, and I remember thinking how horrible a thing that was to be sick like that, and yet I noticed people were weird about AIDS, either making unfathomable jokes about it or going to paranoid lengths to shun it. "Never touch somebody's blood if you see it, because it might have AIDS," my mom told me, making me wonder why on earth she thought I'd have touched blood anyway. I didn't grasp most of the connotations of the stigma about the HIV-AIDS plague in the mid-'80s, just saw some actor sick with it and heard he was dead, and it seemed ghastly enough to leave an impression on me even amid a general public feeling then that people who got AIDS deserved it.

21.   I religiously watched MacGyver and thought it was a great show, and it seemed totally realistic to me at the time that someone could use a toothpick and a shoestring to hotwire a helicopter. I also liked the Twilight Zone revival, but the Serling series, which I'd watched with my dad since I was practically a toddler, was a million times better. While we watched one night my dad told me Rod Serling was only 5'4" and considered too short to be a paratrooper, but his determination to be one during WWII impressed his commander so much the rules were bent and Serling qualified. "That shows how important determination is," Dad told me.

22.   A year before Saturday mornings at 10:30 would belong to Pee-wee Herman----no arguing, no wiggle room, that half-hour was his alone---I loved Pee-wee's Big Adventure. Didn't know it yet but it was also the start of my long appreciation of Tim Burton films.

23.   Although I'd already been riding a bike for a couple years, I got this amazing thing called a pogo-ball, a sort of pogo stick magically morphed into ball form, and for a little while actually let my bike sit around while I jumped everywhere on this thing, defying predictions I was going to trip and chip my teeth.

24.   For my seventh birthday that December I got a membership to The Doctor Who Fan Club of America, which came with this pin-on diamond-shaped thing of wonder and mystery called a "thermodynamic badge" that actually changed colors while you wore it, cycling through a rainbow of swirled hues, like a giant mood ring. It was the most awesome thing I think I had ever seen, and I wore that sucker for years.

25.   I spent the night with my grandma on New Year's Eve and for the first time in my life I got to stay up past midnight and watch the ball come down in New York, and we drank fizzy apple juice for a toast to 1986, and she told me we were only fourteen years away from the 21st century, which she said, would "be here before we know it."  I told her I'd miss the 20th century, and she said, "But think of all the nice things you'll do in the 21st, Dollbaby." I only wish she could have been here for it as well.

I don't know if I can summon enough memories for 1984, but there you go, that was 1985....


What does not kill me makes me stranger.

retrorussell

2016:

1. It sure was nice to see my Blue Jays starting to get really good.  Last year was their first playoff appearance in 22 years, and they managed to get to the AL Championship!  Ditto for this year!  Though they didn't win their division this time.  They had a one game playoff with the Baltimore Orioles in a wildcard matchup.  Things were tight and the game went to extra innings.  In the bottom of the 11th O's manager Buck Showalter went with Ubaldo Jiminez instead of Cy Young candidate Zach Britton.  The decision led to this:
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Boy was I hootin' and hollerin' in the Chemo unit (thankfully all patients were gone).  This put them in the AL Division series with Texas-- a rematch of last year-- and we swept jerkface Roughned Odor and the Rangers, putting us again in the AL Championship series, this time against Cleveland, which we lost in 5.  Ah well.  The future is bright with our current team as of 2022.
2. The longest-suffering fans in nearly all of sports, the Chicago Cubs, finally got their due in the World Series with a seven-game win over the Cleveland Indians.  Yes, the same team that is now called the "Guardians" (ugh).  108 years was the longest championship drought ever!
3. I remember thinking it would be cool to call the Super Bowl "L" for 50, looking like "loser".  Well, the NFL decided to just call it Super Bowl 50.  At any rate, the Carolina Panthers (who went 15-1 in the regular season!) made their 2nd Super Bowl, this time with Cam Newton.  They didn't win this one either, as Peyton Manning and the Broncos won the franchise their 3rd Super Bowl, 24-10.  When a player gets an MVP and I didn't think they deserved it, it really annoys me.  Fortunately they didn't give it to Peyton, and he didn't play all that great (this was his last season).  One of the more memorable plays was Cam Newton backing away from the pile of players trying to recover a fumble.  I remember watching the big game at my folks' house.  The actual MVP, Von Miller, now plays for my Bills!
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4. NBA FINALS: Wow-- the city of Cleveland had been yearning for some kind of title for the past 50 some years-- the Indians and Browns certainly had opportunities over the years-- but the CAVALIERS??  Wow.. LeBron James helps knock off the mighty Golden State Warriors in 7 games with some late offense.  This Warriors team had dethroned the Chicago Bulls for best regular season record at 73-9!
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5. STANLEY CUP: The San Jose Sharks reach their first Stanley Cup Finals!  Unfortunately the Pittsburgh Penguins spoil their party in 6 games.
6. This was one of the more blah NBA Drafts in recent memory.  Ben Simmons went #1, followed by Brandon Ingram (#2) and Jaylen Brown (#3).  Others: Domantas Sabonis (#11), Pascal Siakham (#27) and Dejounte Murray (#29).  Undrafted: Fred Van Vleet.
7. The 2016 Summer Olympics are held in Rio De Janeiro.  The US wins the most golds and most medals overall. 
8. The mosquito-transferred Zika Virus outbreak is announced by the World Health Organization.
9. Ex-Bosnian-Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is sentenced to 40 years in prison for crimes against humanity and genocide during the Bosnian War.
10. I think my brother moved out of my house this year.  He got his GF pregnant and figured I didn't want kids running around my house (he was right).  I had our mutual friend Jake move in.  Kinda weird guy but we got along fine due to our love of 80s nostalgia.
11. A 6.2 earthquake kills almost 300 in Italy.
12. Business tycoon/former tv personality Donald J. Trump is elected the 45th President of the US over former Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton.
13. The VSV-EBOV vaccine is discovered to be from 70 to 100% effective against the Ebola virus.
14. A Russian Defense Ministry jet crashes into the Black Sea, killing all 92.
15. My brother got married to his GF at a restaurant his friend owned.  I hated to have to dress up, let alone be at a wedding.  At least we got to watch the NFL playoffs a bit.  I watched Minnesota lose yet another heartbreaker as Blair Walsh missed a gimme FG vs. Seattle in the Wild Card game.  And hanging out with my other brother and nephew is definitely twisted entertainment, which makes family functions more tolerable.
16. A gunman claiming to be for the Islamic State kills 49 at a gay nightclub in Orlando.
17. The first female leader for China/Taiwan is Tsai Ing-Wen.
18. Hit movies: ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY, SUICIDE SQUAD, DEADPOOL, THE HANDMAIDEN, MOANA, STAR TREK BEYOND, ZOOTOPIA, X-MEN APOCALYPSE, SAUSAGE PARTY, DOCTOR STRANGE, CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE, MOONLIGHT, LA LA LAND, FENCES, GET OUT, THE SHAPE OF WATER, COCO, THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBING, MO.
19. The film GHOSTBUSTERS is re-invented with an all-female team of Ghostbusters.  It gets overwhelmingly negative reviews.
20. TV debuts: Westworld, Stranger Things, American Crime Story, Preacher, This Is Us, Atlanta, Fuller House.
21. 2016 Super Bowl commercials:
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22. A little bit of MADDEN NFL '16:
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23. My Bills were a mess this year.. thankfully they fired coach Rex Ryan and his defensive coach brother Rob Ryan.  The final score allowed in the finale vs. the Jets was so laughably incompetent.
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24. As 2016 draws to a close on Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve, Mariah Carey has difficulty with trying to lip synch to one of her songs and has technical difficulties as well..
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25. I remember being bummed that my Portland Trailblazers had to take on the tough Los Angeles Clippers, with Blake Griffin and Chris Paul.. but in a stroke of irony the OTHER team suffered through injury problems (the Blazers' usual hangup as a franchise), as both Griffin and Paul got hurt and the Blazers would capitalize, winning the series in 6 games!  Mason Plumlee was great down the stretch.
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"O the legend they say, on a Valentine's Day, is a curse that'll live on and on.."

retrorussell

2017:
1. The International Olympic Committee bans Russia from the 2018 Winter Olympics for its state-sponsored doping.
2. A gunman dressed as Santa Claus kills 39 at an Istanbul nightclub.
3. Donald J. Trump officially becomes the first elected US President to neither have been a political office holder nor an attorney general. 
4. This woman reacting to Trump's election became an oft-used meme:

5. ISIS and ISIL terrorists claim 30 lives in Manchester and London, England.
6. Former FBI Director Rpbert Mueller conducts an investigation into the possibility of Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential Election.
7. The US Government announces it will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords.
8. ISIL destroys the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, Iraq.
9. The cholera outbreak in Yemen hits its peak with 2,000 deaths.
10. The UN continues to impose sanctions on North Korea for their nuclear arms testing.
11. Twelve years after Hurricane Katrina hit the southern US, Hurricane Harvey is just about as destructive, hitting the Houston area and causing massive flooding, with over 100 deaths.
12. The Cassini-Huygens probe is the first spacecraft to enter Saturn's atmosphere.
13. Hurricane Maria strikes the Caribbean area, causing over 3,000 deaths.
14. A shooter at a country music concert in Las Vegas kills 60.  He later commits suicide.
15. A truck bombing blast in Mogadishu, Somalia kills nearly 600 (!).
16. 26 die in a shooting at a Sutherland Springs, TX church.
17. 305 die in a Mosque attack in Sinai, Egypt.
18. The Iraqi military frees its territories from ISIS control.
19. SUPER BOWL LI: Oh man, was I pulling for the Atlanta Falcons to win the Super Bowl, and they were well on their way.. with a 28-3 lead in the 3rd quarter, they somehow totally blew it and Tom Brady and the Patriots came all the way back to win in overtime-- the first Super Bowl to require an extra session.   I think both brothers were over, my folks too, at my house with a big ol' spread as usual.  I think my sis and her hubby and maybe my nephew and his friend were over too. 
20. WORLD SERIES: The Houston Astros win their first World Series title, in 7 games over the LA Dodgers.  MVP George Springer now plays for my Blue Jays!
21. NBA FINALS: A rematch with the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers gives the Warriors a measure of revenge for the last Finals upset.  Warriors win in 5.  The Warriors swept my Blazers in the first round; one of those games I watched at a fancy steak restaurant I took my mom to for Mother's Day.
22. STANLEY CUP: The Nashville Predators made their first Stanley Cup appearance!  Alas, the Pittsburgh Penguins win their 5th cup, in 6 games.
23. Wow-- My Bills did something they hadn't been able to do for 18 years: MAKE THE DAMN PLAYOFFS!!!  This was such a big deal to the franchise-- and even though we took care of business on our end on the final day of the 2017 calendar year by beating the Dolphins, we STILL had to hope and pray that Cincinnati would somehow beat the Baltimore Ravens on the road to make it.  Things looked bleak.. but..
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The Bengals would go on to win, propelling the Bills into the playoffs vs. the Jaguars.  Kyle Williams, playing his last season, would emotionally hug his kids in the locker room as the team celebrated.
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I fell to my knees and screamed in joy as I watched the end of the Bengals/Ravens game. 
24. Movies: STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, WONDER WOMAN, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, VOL. 2, IT, SPIDER MAN HOMECOMING, THOR: RAGNAROK (excellent, hilarious movie-- my brother and I went and had a blast), JUSTICE LEAGUE, GET OUT, LOGAN (saw at the old Laurelhurst Theater with my brother Erik and his friends), ALIEN COVENANT, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES, ATOMIC BLONDE, THE KINGSMEN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE, BLADE RUNNER 2049, HAPPY DEATH DAY, THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MO, THE SHAPE OF WATER, I TONYA.
25. TV debuts: DRAGON BALL SUPER, RIVERDALE, MARVEL'S IRON FIST, BEAT SHAZAM, CASTLEVANIA, CARPOOL KARAOKE, THE ORVILLE, STAR TREK DISCOVERY, THE GOOD DOCTOR, DYNASTY, VAMPIRINA, THE INGRAHAM ANGLE.
"O the legend they say, on a Valentine's Day, is a curse that'll live on and on.."

retrorussell

2018:
1. NFL DRAFT: My Bills pick the franchise QB they've been looking for, for a LONG time-- the awesome big, strong-armed and mobile Josh Allen at #7.  I can't believe I was actually hoping for Josh Rosen, who sputtered right off the bat.  Other big names: Baker Mayfield (#1), running back Saquon Barkley (#2), Bradley Chubb (#5), Minkah Fitzpatrick (#11), Tremaine Edmunds (#16, also to my Bills), Lamar Jackson (#32), Nick Chubb (#35), Shaquille Leonard (#36), Courtland Sutton (#40), Harold Landry (#41).
2. My Bills had bumps in the road on their way to a blah season at 6-10, but Josh Allen (who took over from the awful Nate Peterman) had some great highlights.  This vault over a Vikings defender with a shocking rout on the road made the whole league take notice:
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3. This was the year my brother and my nephew and I had a bet on who would have the worst record of our 3 teams (Bears, Bills, Lions).  The loser would have to eat a Balut egg (duck embryo-- a Filipino delicacy); we couldn't find the exact thing but it was close enough.  My Bills beat the Lions to get the edge so my nephew had to gag on it; he couldn't finish. (NSFW language)
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4. My brother is full of silly ideas (among other things)-- this Christmas he had me pose in a ninja outfit in all sorts of karate-type poses for a calendar for my family members.  Though by this point I was well past my martial arts shape.  Such a dingus.  He brought a stuffed dinosaur and had me put it in a headlock for one picture.
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5. SUPER BOWL LII: The Philadelphia Eagles win their first Super Bowl title!  They knock off the mighty Tom Brady and the Patriots.  Nick Foles wins MVP.  Most everyone was over at my place; brothers, nephew, sis and her hubby, and my folks.  Can't remember what food I made for the occasion.  But I certainly enjoyed the outcome.
6. NBA FINALS: The Golden State Warriors win in yet another matchup with the Cleveland Cavaliers, this one in a sweep.  I remember there being such promise for my Portland Trailblazers in the playoffs with their first round matchup against the New Orleans Pelicans-- and they promptly s**t the bed in a sweep.
7. WORLD SERIES: A bit of controversy looms over the Series that the Boston Red Sox won in 5 games over the LA Dodgers-- it was said that the Sox stole signs from their opponents during the season.  This would continue to be an issue for Major League Baseball in later seasons, notably with the Houston Astros.
8. STANLEY CUP: The awesome Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals win their first Stanley Cup Championship, against a team playing in its very first year of existence, the Vegas Golden Knights, in 5 games.
9. Chinese scientists create the first monkey clones.
10. The 2018 Winter Olympics are held in Pyeongchang, South Korea.  Norway nabs the most medals and ties with Germany for most golds.
11. President Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to discuss nuclear disarmament.
12. 17 students and staff are shot to death by a former student at a high school in Parkland, FL.
13. Vladimir Putin is elected to a 4th term as President of Russia.
14. A protest against gun violence is conducted in several cities internationally, called March For Our Lives.
15. A sarin chemical attack in Syria kills over 70.
16. 257 die in an Algerian Air Force plane crash.
17. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are wed at St. George's Chapel in England.
18. Hundreds die in heavy flooding in Japan.
19. Over 500 die in an earthquake in Indonesia.
20. Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg protests outside the Swedish Parliament over action on climate change.
21. An earthquake/tsunami in Indonesia kills over 4,000.  Another tsunami later in the year kills over 400.
22. Hit movies: AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR, JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM (which I thought was awful and saw at the theater with my brother and nephew), BUMBLEBEE, AQUAMAN, SPIDERMAN: INTO THE SPIDERVERSE, BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY, VENOM, BLACK PANTHER, INCREDIBLES 2, HALLOWEEN, DEADPOOL 2, GREEN BOOK, A STAR IS BORN, A QUIET PLACE
23. TV Debuts: COBRA KAI, 9-1-1, YELLOWSTONE, CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER, CRAIG OF THE CREEK, THE LAST O.G., CELEBRITY UNDERCOVER BOSS, DALLAS & ROBO, DR. PIMPLE POPPER, BIG CITY GREENS, DISENCHANTMENT, TOTAL DRAMARAMA, TRANSFORMERS: CYBERVERSE, MAGNUM P.I.
24. Some 2018 commercials:
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25. The College Football National Championship is decided in overtime, in a tight contest with Alabama besting Florida 26-23.  It's the first National Championship to go to overtime.
"O the legend they say, on a Valentine's Day, is a curse that'll live on and on.."

retrorussell

2019:
1. First off-- my Blazers made their first Western Conference Finals in almost 20 years!  What a way to start things off.. Damian Lillard, the face of the current franchise (and one of their best players off all-time), sends the jawing Oklahoma City Thunder home in 5 games in round one with a near half court 3  over Paul George.  The Blazers crowd was absolutely electric in pre-pandemic form and to see Dame's teammates just mob him like that was so heartwarming.
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2. Also, this ending of the 2nd round where we took out the mighty Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets thanks to CJ McCollum's heroics:
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Unfortunately the Warriors swept us in the Western Conference Finals but it was still a sweet ride.
3. My roommate moved out to live with his sister (after his girlfriend died) and I was all by my lonesome (fine by me!).  I had a few more home improvements to make, and then I'd prep the house for a prospective renter or two.
4. My nephew and I grudgingly hopped on board for another crazy scheme dreamed up by my brother-- this was a homemade Christmas CD for my folks and numerous other people that wanted a copy.  Very silly; some of the stuff was actually pretty good (like my Burl Ives or Jimmy Durante and brother's Elvis) and some was terribly cringe.  That's my living room and me in the middle in the  video.
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5. Almost 250 die in a mine tailings dam break in Brazil.
6. President Trump and Korean leader Kim Jong-un meet for a summit again, this time in Vietnam.
7. Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 (Boeing 737) crashes shortly after takeoff; all 157 die.
8. Cyclone Idai crashes into southern Africa, killing over 1,000.
9. ISIL's final controlled territory is liberated.
10. Islamist bomb attacks kill over 250 in Sri Lanka.
11. Sudan President Omar al-Bashir is deposed in a coup after 30 years in office.
12. Boris Johnson becomes Prime Minister of the UK.
13. Monsoon flooding kills at least 227 across India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
14. Houthi militants use drones to attack oil refineries in Saudi Arabia, causing damage and production delays.  The US sends troops and military equipment to help the Saudis protect their refineries.
15. US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi begins an impeachment inquiry against Trump.
16. Greta Thunberg leads another climate change protest in Montreal with PM Justin Trudeau.
17. ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is killed during a US Special Forces operation.
18. The Taliban agrees to a temporary cease-fire in Afghanistan.
19. Protests over an extradition bill and democratic reform sweep Hong Kong.
20. SUPER BOWL LIII: The New England Patriots tie the Pittsburgh Steelers for most Super Bowl victories at six win a 13-3 victory over the LA Rams.  This would be Tom Brady's last Super Bowl appearance as a New England Patriot.
21. The NBA Eastern Conference Semi-Finals was one for the ages!  The Philadelphia 76ers gave the Toronto Raptors all they could handle.. but the ending of game 7 came on a ridiculous buzzer-beater by Kawhi Leonard.
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22. The NBA Finals featured the Golden State Warriors, who were hobbled by injuries, and the Toronto Raptors, who were the first team outside the US to appear in the Finals, and they would also be the first non-US team to win it all.
23. WORLD SERIES: WHAT A WEIRD WORLD SERIES!  This was the first to feature absolutely ZERO home wins.  All victories were by the road team.  And the former Montreal Expos, now known as the Washington Nationals, take their first title in 7 games over the Houston Astros.
24. Stanley Cup: The St. Louis Blues finally win their very first Stanley Cup title, in 7 games over the Boston Bruins.  Being as this was before the pandemic we still had a table in the conference room (before the room was converted into a Covid patient room) and I sat there watching the end of the final game.  For some odd reason the Blues team used Laura Branigan's classic song "Gloria" as their team anthem!
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25. Movies: AVENGERS: ENDGAME, THE LION KING, JOKER, ALADDIN, STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER, FROZEN II, TOY STORY 4, CAPTAIN MARVEL, PET SEMATARY, JOHN WICK 3, BRIGHTBURN, GODZILLA, DARK PHOENIX, CHILD'S PLAY, SPIDER MAN FAR FROM HOME, ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD, IT: CHAPTER TWO, RAMBO LAST BLOOD, JOJO RABBIT, EL CAMINO, ZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE TAP, TERMINATOR: DARK FATE, THE IRISHMAN, DR. SLEEP, A BEATIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, KNIVES OUT, 1917

Bonus: some tv debuts-- ROSWELL NEW MEXICO, LOVE DEATH & ROBOTS, WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS, TACOMA FD, VICTOR AND VALENTINO, THE BOYS, INFINITY TRAIN, JUDGE JERRY, EVIL, CREEPSHOW, BATWOMAN, PRIMAL, HARLEY QUINN, THE CASAGRANDES.
"O the legend they say, on a Valentine's Day, is a curse that'll live on and on.."

ER

Memories of 1984: So....very....fuzzy.

1.   My mom thought the Thriller video was too scary for me, which naturally compelled me to watch it every chance I got.

2.   My nine-year-old cousin Dana got her ears pierced at Beechmont Mall that January with a gift certificate she got for Christmas '83, and when she came over and showed me, I wanted to get mine done too, though I'd have to wait another seven years. She had color-changing mood earrings that were cool, and when I finally got my ears pierced at thirteen, I asked if she still had those earrings, and if so, could I borrow them, and she made fun of me and was like, "Uh, nope? Lost them a century ago? Hello?" Ha, jerk.

3.   I don't know if it was because he saw the famed "1984" commercial during the Super Bowl, but my dad bought one of the original Macintosh computers soon after. He called it Lucy, which I think may have been the overall nickname for it.

4.   I found a (quarter-) baggie of marijuana stashed under a swing in our neighborhood park off Montgomery Road. I showed my friend's mom, who said, "Put it back and go play somewhere else." It seemed to make her uptight because she herded us to her car soon after and we left. Hey, never know, some reefer freak might've kidnapped us or something.

5.   Songs that played on the radio a lot that year were, well, first, often by Michael Jackson, but Prince seemed to be making headway into superstardom too. Wham's Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go was played way too much, and Born in the USA and I'm on Fire were also constantly to be heard, Billy Joel and Phil Collins were both big, and so was Madonna (whose Like A Virgin young me assumed meant something about the Virgin Mary...seriously). Late in the year Band-Aid's song about famine relief got a lot of air. Not a bad year for '80s music.

6.   We went to the Smokies that spring, and while trees were still mostly bare where we lived, down there the landscape was budding in pale green and it was beautiful. I wanted to see a bear and also a venomous snake (I actually persuaded my dad to flip over rocks to see if we could locate one), but didn't see either. We did find lots of salamanders in the creek near the cabin, which had a balcony that jutted way out over this steep, sharp hillside, so it was a few feet off the ground at the top and probably twenty feet at the edge. I had a pack of those little parachute guys Mom bought me on the way down, and I dropped them over the edge. We'd rent that cabin several more times over the years, but coming home we got pulled over by a scowling cop just on the south side of the Tennessee-Kentucky border, who made my dad open his trunk, had us get out and patted my dad down, even had him take off his shoes and shake them, checked under our seats and in our glove box and under our hood, and ordered my dad to take the hubcaps off the tires before he finally let us drive on. My dad would tell that story for years and say he got stopped for no reason at all, just a small town cop harassing passersby, hoping to find something. Back in the days before dashboard cameras and so much counter-pressure, I think police abuse must've been incredibly rampant, you know?

7.   Shortly after we came home, a woman from our church killed herself during the Lenten season, with pills and by running her car in her garage, something I was shielded from knowing until I "heard too much" when adults were talking and I was lurking. This woman's death seemed to be received more as a scandal than a tragedy. (A suicide couldn't be buried in holy ground and suicides were thought to be damned.) Having the curiosity of the young and being uninhibited by social convention, I tried to find out all I could about this hush-hush matter, as I don't think I had ever heard of suicide til then or even thought about a concept like killing yourself, but my questions were brushed off awkwardly, even by my creatively (mis)informative dad, and my grandma probably told the most to me when she said, "That lady was sick. People who are well don't do something like that." She at least seemed sympathetic to people driven to take their lives.

8.   That Fourth of July we went as usual to my grandpa's big bash, his one day of the year to throw a hugeass party, invite friends, business associates, family, neighbors, for food, music, fireworks. Scores of people came, he spent thousands on professionally-launched fireworks (he had to bribe the police every summer to get away with it) and that year I remember I walked around holding lit cigarettes to light people's firecrackers, and the idea that back then it was OK to let a five-year-old walk around with burning cigarettes is a little freaky. Second-hand smoke and burn-danger, and...just the ethics, you know? But no one seems to have thought anything of it and I spent the day walking around like a little waitress, holding out cigarettes to fire-up explosives.

9.   I was in Ireland from about the seventh or so of July til late August, and that summer we went "to the shore," which was what they called going to the beach, and while I had on little shorts and a halter top, over there it was apparently the custom for pre-school age children to be allowed to be nude when going to the shore, and on this sunny, almost warm-ish day there were all these naked toddling kids, including cousins of mine. I swear, pedos over there back then must've had it made.

10.   My Grandparents went to Los Angeles for the Olympics, which were boycotted by the Soviet East Bloc, a plus for the US medal count. They brought me home a teddy bear dressed like a Team USA sprinter.

11.   Miss America, Vanessa Williams, surrendered her crown amid scandal. I remember hearing about it but didn't care much about details til Dana said to me, "She showed her boobies and stuff." Then she tapped her flat chest and between her legs to enhance the point. It mystified me why the heck anyone would want to be seen naked, especially by strangers.

12.   I saw a black cat get run over on this busy road across town called Buttermilk Pike. I watched it try to run across the road in front of a big evangelical church, yelled "Don't do it!" and it got hit and I looked through the back window and saw it flopping around in death throes and I wailed that it was still alive, we had to help it! We drove on.

13.   I read Little House in the Big Woods that year, plodding through it for a month, and it was the first of many books I'd read in bed until I fell asleep: one of life's great pleasures.

14.   I was alone, pretending to play sand volleyball on a court at the park (same one where the pot had been), and I discovered the hard way that local cats loved to prolifically use the sand as a litter box.

15.   I started kindergarten that fall. My teacher's son was in the navy, and would send her post cards from places his ship stopped, and she had a bulletin board full of them. She gave us seeds to grow a window herb garden inside Dixie cups with our names on them, but I packed the top soil too hard on mine and my parsley didn't push through, so I did not get a gold star for the project, though did learn the importance of loose dirt.

16.   Wendy's "Where's the Beef" commercial seemed to morph to god-like heights that year, being shown constantly, and people went around (obnoxiously) quoting that line. It was even worked into the Mondale-Reagan political debates, I believe. I can't think of another ad since that took over pop culture quite so hard, so fast. Must've had subliminal sex images or something. Maybe Miss America?

17.   I liked riding my bike in the much-referenced park when He-Man and GI Joe were on in the afternoons, because so many kids were in watching TV that the place was deserted. (BTW, how could '80s people miss the gayness of the He-Man show???) There was a nice really old man who liked to sit in the park, and he'd give kids cookies from a package he kept by the newspapers he'd bring to read. His name was Mr. Burns, I kid you not, and he looked strikingly like the Mr. Burns that'd be infamous in the next decade. If that was not ironic enough, we called him Mr. Bill, after his first name. (He was a living pop culture reference point, huh?) My mom seemed to think he was OK, though, so I'd take his cookies, which I looked forward to whenever I saw him. Funny, but Mr. Bill, who sat on a kids' playground and gave them cookies seriously did also drive a van without side windows.... Poor soul checked every box, didn't he?

18.   PR reps from the L&N Railroad came to this crazy-arrogant Catholic high school down Montgomery Road called Moeller (hated rival school of that boy I fell for years later) and they brought in we elementary kids from nearby, and in the gym showed us a film about railroad crossing safety, and how dangerous it was to try to drive around those gates that come down. Gory film, actually, so I went home and happily told Mom every last gruesome detail about smashed cars and dead kids in the back seat, and people run over and flung a hundred feet by locomotives, and she said they shouldn't show that to children too young to even drive. Hey, I still remember that presentation every time I cautiously go past a railroad crossing, so mission accomplished, right?

19.   Speaking of school presentations, we went to my cousin Jared's school DARE event, because he was in the little morality play PTA put on (he portrayed a boy who got rushed to the hospital to get his stomach pumped because he took drugs to be cool) and at the same DARE event, during the days before the Presidential election, there was an impromptu mini-debate by the local Democratic and Republican parties, and what sticks in my mind now is how civil and even cordial to one another the two representatives were, both WWII-era gentlemen, and how that contrasts to the rancor in today's rancid political discord.

20.   President Reagan won reelection, and no one in my family seemed happy about that. What, were they truly shocked by the voting results or something?

21.   That Thanksgiving at my grandparents' house, my Aunt Judith told me Santa Claus would soon be checking his final list, and I confessed I didn't think I'd ever believed in Santa Claus. She said, "That's a shame for you then, hon." But I think most children are sophisticated enough to grasp how make-believe can enhance something, and understand that Santa falls in that category, and I don't know why some parents lie so hard to their children about the matter when the kids are probably just humoring them.

22.   I thought V was cool, both the movies and actually even the TV show. Space-invading reptiles as stand-ins for Nazis overrunning Reagan's America? What else could '80s viewers want? I also liked Family Ties, set in my home state, but didn't much care for its new lead-in The Cosby Show, and in those days I could opine that I thought it was silly without anyone tossing out the "R-word" which back then was still reserved for actual racism.

23.   I used to go watch my dad's basketball games, where he played forward on a YMCA team, and honestly was better than almost anyone playing with or against him. I could get a soft drink there (something I was rarely allowed at home) and would ask for a suicide, which was all flavors mixed together, squirt by squirt. Tasted weird but it was fun. At one game my dad bloodied this guy named Ted's nose with his elbow, and then took him out for a beer afterward. They ended up friends til we moved south of the river to Burlington in '86.

24.   My dad counted Dune among his favorite books and went to see the movie late that year. We also saw Splash, which I thought was insanely stupid, Firestarter, The Never-Ending Story (had a good theme song), and The Search for Spock which established the trend of the odd-numbered Star Trek movies being drags. We was so po' that going to movies was a big treat, and getting popcorn was just.... It was genuinely appreciated, let's put it that way.

25.   I turned six, it was Christmas Eve, and as usual---as I often note---was generally told: "Here's a combination birthday and Christmas present for you!" Yeah, thanks, tightwads, gipping a little girl out of her birthday. You know, I don't think I was ever a virgin, because every year on my birthday I got screwed. (Uh, too much?)

Took me a while to think of memories worth noting, but there's 1984 in the Ellieverse.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

claws

2020: Covid & Colitis

(January - June)

1. It's been ten years since my mom passed away. Still miss her very much.
2. Reports of covid seeking in. How long until it arrives in Germany?
3. I was phoneless for two years. Finally bought a new smart phone.
4. Googled Li Wenliang. His selfie before he died haunted me for days.
5. First cases of covid in Germany. First sighting of people wearing masks.
6. (Hawaiian) Bowls are all the rage. Had to drive 25 minutes to try my first. Good stuff.
7. First of many lockdowns. Let the toilet paper madness begin.
8. My hands are sore, red, raw and cracked from constantly washing and disinfecting.
9. First case of covid in our town. Great. The young woman documents her quarantine on Instagram. of course.
10. I puked at work, and I blame my gastritis. Went home early.
11. I'm losing weight but my stomach is swelling. My doc tells me it's my gastritis.
12. I've been eating less for months. Bought two cheese burgers, only managed to finish one.

(July - December)

13. Not feeling well and the lockdowns are starting to annoy me.
14. I had to go to emergency on a Sunday out of town. It wasn't easy with all the pandemic restrictions. The doctor said I have abdominal influenza.
15. My nephew and his wife caught the covid. Both lose their sense for taste and are feeling weak. They are fine after two weeks.
16. I'm in and out of my doctor's office on a weekly basis. I continue to lose weight and my stomach continues to swell.
17. Met my older sister while shopping. She said I looked awful and should see my doc immediately. I told her I'm already doing that every week.
18. I'm at the hospital. They do a few tests before surgery. They say I have colon cancer. A young male nurse asks me if I want to see a priest. He said not to worry, it's only standard procedure. They have to ask that.
19. Surgery took 5 1/2 hours. They removed 7 1/2 liters of, well, s**t from my colon. That's why my stomach was swollen. I now have an artificial anus, yay.
20. All the doctors and nurses can't seem to handle my artificial anus. It is constantly leaking. The leaking causes infection in my surgery wound. I need a second surgery for scraping and cleaning.
21. I have three tubes coming out my stomach for drainage, a catheter for peeing, an infusion in my right arm for whatever and an artificial anus. Not feeling human.
22. Physiotherapy: I have to re-learn how to walk. Not easy with all these tubes hanging from my body.
23. New tests reveal I have colitis, and not colon cancer but both have the same symptons. They told me that after two colonoscopies.
24. After four weeks all tubes and whatever are removed and I'm free to walk and move again. Still have to stay two more weeks at the hospital because my potassium levels aren't correct. I'm driving the chief doctor crazy because nothing seems to go the normal way with me.
25. I'm the nurses' favorite patient. They constantly bring me sweet and savory pastries, candy, coffee, snacks.
26. After six weeks and just in time for Halloween I'm finally discharged. They did find a cancerous cyst in my right kidney. Surgery appointment for removal of cyst is March 2021. Surgery for removal of artificial anus is June 2021 (two surgeries, one more colonoscopy) and March 2022. Chief doc orders me to eat as much as possible to gain more weight.
27. Finally home again. Boy did I ever miss my bed. One thing I brought home from the hospital:insomnia. Can't sleep longer than two hours for the next 18 months.
28. Radiology and Nuclear medicine appointments in November.
29. I'm not allowed to lift heavy stuff, not allowed to stand or walk too much. I should rest and eat, rest and eat, rest and eat.
30. I'm baking peanut butter brownies once a week. We order döner, pizza, pasta or chinese take out once a week. I get a bag of nuggets and burgers at McD's once a week. 18 months later I now have a little gut I'm trying to reduce but damn, it's so hard to do.


Is it October yet?

Rev. Powell

Quote from: claws on October 07, 2022, 12:59:48 PM
2020: Covid & Colitis

(January - June)

1. It's been ten years since my mom passed away. Still miss her very much.
2. Reports of covid seeking in. How long until it arrives in Germany?
3. I was phoneless for two years. Finally bought a new smart phone.
4. Googled Li Wenliang. His selfie before he died haunted me for days.
5. First cases of covid in Germany. First sighting of people wearing masks.
6. (Hawaiian) Bowls are all the rage. Had to drive 25 minutes to try my first. Good stuff.
7. First of many lockdowns. Let the toilet paper madness begin.
8. My hands are sore, red, raw and cracked from constantly washing and disinfecting.
9. First case of covid in our town. Great. The young woman documents her quarantine on Instagram. of course.
10. I puked at work, and I blame my gastritis. Went home early.
11. I'm losing weight but my stomach is swelling. My doc tells me it's my gastritis.
12. I've been eating less for months. Bought two cheese burgers, only managed to finish one.

(July - December)

13. Not feeling well and the lockdowns are starting to annoy me.
14. I had to go to emergency on a Sunday out of town. It wasn't easy with all the pandemic restrictions. The doctor said I have abdominal influenza.
15. My nephew and his wife caught the covid. Both lose their sense for taste and are feeling weak. They are fine after two weeks.
16. I'm in and out of my doctor's office on a weekly basis. I continue to lose weight and my stomach continues to swell.
17. Met my older sister while shopping. She said I looked awful and should see my doc immediately. I told her I'm already doing that every week.
18. I'm at the hospital. They do a few tests before surgery. They say I have colon cancer. A young male nurse asks me if I want to see a priest. He said not to worry, it's only standard procedure. They have to ask that.
19. Surgery took 5 1/2 hours. They removed 7 1/2 liters of, well, s**t from my colon. That's why my stomach was swollen. I now have an artificial anus, yay.
20. All the doctors and nurses can't seem to handle my artificial anus. It is constantly leaking. The leaking causes infection in my surgery wound. I need a second surgery for scraping and cleaning.
21. I have three tubes coming out my stomach for drainage, a catheter for peeing, an infusion in my right arm for whatever and an artificial anus. Not feeling human.
22. Physiotherapy: I have to re-learn how to walk. Not easy with all these tubes hanging from my body.
23. New tests reveal I have colitis, and not colon cancer but both have the same symptons. They told me that after two colonoscopies.
24. After four weeks all tubes and whatever are removed and I'm free to walk and move again. Still have to stay two more weeks at the hospital because my potassium levels aren't correct. I'm driving the chief doctor crazy because nothing seems to go the normal way with me.
25. I'm the nurses' favorite patient. They constantly bring me sweet and savory pastries, candy, coffee, snacks.
26. After six weeks and just in time for Halloween I'm finally discharged. They did find a cancerous cyst in my right kidney. Surgery appointment for removal of cyst is March 2021. Surgery for removal of artificial anus is June 2021 (two surgeries, one more colonoscopy) and March 2022. Chief doc orders me to eat as much as possible to gain more weight.
27. Finally home again. Boy did I ever miss my bed. One thing I brought home from the hospital:insomnia. Can't sleep longer than two hours for the next 18 months.
28. Radiology and Nuclear medicine appointments in November.
29. I'm not allowed to lift heavy stuff, not allowed to stand or walk too much. I should rest and eat, rest and eat, rest and eat.
30. I'm baking peanut butter brownies once a week. We order döner, pizza, pasta or chinese take out once a week. I get a bag of nuggets and burgers at McD's once a week. 18 months later I now have a little gut I'm trying to reduce but damn, it's so hard to do.




Wow, I didn't know you were going through that. Hope it gets better!
I'll take you places the hand of man has not yet set foot...