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The Miss Move

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The Miss Move

-By Taylor White

  For playing volleyball for 2 years this is not how I thought my game would end up. I guess I am not as good of a volleyball player as I thought I was. 

First our teachers say we can leave class early to get ready. Then we put on our jerseys on (My jersey is #34). Then we grab our bags and get on the bus. We start to leave the school. The volleyball game is 45 minutes away. I listen to music and I start to hear people talking about me. I know that they are talking about me but I act like I don’t hear. The girls on the bus look like they are playing a game of telephone by how much they are whispering to each other. 

As we are walking into the volleyball game I can hear the crowd start to yell and cheer. After me and my team start to walk on the court we start to get our gear on (knee pads and shoes). Then after that we start to warm up. I can start to tell it is not going to be a good game. The game has finally started. For some reason I am not a starter, which I normally am. I start to get upset and disappointed in myself for not being a starter. 

We are now on the second set and I get to play. I start to miss all of my serves and a lot of digs. All of my sets were double contacts. Coach takes me out and doesn’t say a word. I know that she is disappointed. I start to cry and get upset. My teammates say

  “It is okay, everyone has bad days”.

But I ignore them because I am so mad at myself.

Then my mom comes down the bleachers and asks me if I need a drink. I say no and I can tell she knows I am not okay. I watched the third set and my teammates did great. We get in a huddle and everyone says

 “You guys did great” and

“Nice teamwork”

 When the huddle is over my coach puts me in. I am glad I finally get to play. I am so glad that the coach gave me a second chance. Thank God that she believes in me. We all tell each other to call it and move our feet. The sets and passes from my teammates are great but I keep missing kills. I finally got a good pass and my teammate messed it up. Now I am mad at my teammate because that could’ve been a great point. Even though I make mistakes like that too. Now I keep messing up because of how mad I am. Our coach called a time out. Coach says

“You guys are doing great, just use more communication.”

After that we go back out and high five each other. We get back in the game and we don’t let them get in our heads. Next thing you know we get the ball back. It is my teammates turn to serve. She gets an ace. We all congratulate her and we all start to get hyped up. Our mindset is that nobody can stop us now. We all know that we have to keep going.

After that we started to sweep them off of their feet. We start taking so many points from them. It is going well but all of a sudden something terrible happens. They serve and my teammate goes for the ball and she gets injured. She starts balling and screaming for help. Everyone rushes over to see if she is okay. Our coach calls an ambulance. 2 minutes later they finally arrive and take her to the hospital. 

Everyone is worried about her and our coach is trying to figure out who will take her spot. We finally figure out who is going to play. Then our coach gets a phone call and it is our teammates’ parents. They say she is doing better but then, they told us the worst thing that could ever happen happened. She tore her ACL. After we found that out we prayed for her. 

Then we finally get back on the court and start playing again. I am a little worried but I tell myself I am going to do great. I serve first when we get back on the court and I get an ace. Someone spikes the ball and I get the dig. I am so proud of myself for it. Now it is 23-24 I set my teammate up and BAM!! She gets the spike and we win the game. My team and the crowd were cheering. Everyone was so happy. 

WE WON!!

The Worst Crash

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The Worst Crash

             By. Brien Deegan.

Weewooweewoo

The siren was the last thing he remembered after that mesmerizing day. His name was Hayden Deegan and he was only 23 years old. He was a pro motocross rider. He was driving up to the gate and his handlebars felt loose. He called his mechanic to come over but he was nowhere to be found. So he started the race.  I did not expect to end up in an ambulance.

The race went on he started to get anxious about his handlebars. He just got done with his first lap and was just starting his second lap out of a 100 lap race. He needed to go see if his mechanic was in the pits.  But for some strange reason he wasn’t there again. So he flew out of the pits and got back in the race. 

He was in last place for a bit until lap 8. He got to first place for the first time in that whole race. He was going to do a nice trick named whip when he got past by Jett Lawrence. Jett was locked in that race because, if you win, you will get 1,000,000 dollars without tax. So Hayden stopped trying to do the whip. 

Lap 21 Hayden and Eli Tomac were head to head but Eli was about to land short on a jump so he went full throttle and………. He made it and the crowd went wild. Almost everyone thought that he was going to get MVP for what he just did. 

Out of the corner of Haydens eye he saw his mechanic so he flew into the pit and got his handlebars fixed. And He went back into the race and he got a flat tire which he figured out pretty easily because he wasn’t getting enough psi. So he continued the race. He went to the pit to get some water when all of a sudden Donald trump showed up to the track and went back to track but he was just so happy that Donald Trump was there so he started to sing the National Anthem in his head. He locked back in and was in 2 place behind Eli Tomac. But tomac was getting a little swirly on a berm so Hayden got time to get to first place and he did it but Tomac crashed on the berm the black flag came out it means stop ASAP. So Hayden stopped and so did the other riders.

  He was rushed into the ambulance instantly and all had to go to the pit and then the green flag came out and the race started once again. Jett came out of nowhere and got to first place and he was on his 60th lap Hayden on the other hand was only on his 59th. Jett was very hydrated in this race which kept him good for the first part of the race and most of the race to come. Anyway Hayden came up to Jett.

Because he got done with a lap really fast. Jett was about to hit a jump when Hayden flew past him hitting a quad on the jump. Everyone was so mad because a lot of people were not wanting him to pass Jett because Jett was the best person there at that moment. So Jett went to his pits to get some performance enhancement liquid but his crew were out because he uses so much of it not many people knew he was a cheater. 

Lap 70 was when the race became the worst crash in motocross history. Jett went crazy on another berm and had to jump off the bike. He was alright but had to jump back on the bike and almost broke his throttle cable. He twisted it back so hard. He went to the pit’s to see if it broke. It wasn’t but his hand brake and foot brake did brake so he had to switch his bikes and get on his yz 250. It’s a dirt bike for those who don’t know. 

And then he saw Donald Trump in Hayden’s pits sitting on a trumpet. It’s a dirt bike for those who don’t already know. He was mad because he wanted Donald Trump to come over to his pit lane. So he went back to the track to race again when he saw Eli coming back after his crash and he was scared for him because he’s still hurt. Heyden was on a jump with every one behind him and he fell off his bike and broke his arm and his bike started to leak antifreeze on some gas that fell out of Elis bike when he crashed earlier and it started a fire and all the people behind him had to swerve out the way and they all slipped on Hayden and his bike which were both on fire and the fire grew and everyone’s bikes lit up on fire and and Jett was the first to tragically passed away then Eli got 3 degree berns from the fire.  Everyone got rushed to the hospital and all the people in the crowd started saying that it was the worst crash in motocross history and they were right. Heyden was the only one that lived out of 2. Him and Eli Heyden’s last words in the ambulance was (is this a dream mom) and it was not he didn’t say a thing after a while when he got to the hospital. And then later got a disease from all the fumes from the fire and he later got perlaza Eli on the other hand sadly passed away a year after the crash. Heyden 15 years later is married and has 3 kids and lived happily ever after.

Football

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FOOTBALL

  BY:DJX

Hi my name is Ben,I’m 23 and I’m going to tell you about my childhood and how I played football when I was a kid.

I was born in 2001,September26.

Fast forward to when I was six and I started to get interested in football and on my birthday I got a football to play with my older sister. My sister and I went outside to play catch and the football coach was walking by.

“You are good at throwing a football.” seid the coach.

“Thank you” seid Ben

“Your welcome”

“I have a question”

“What that kiddo”

“Can I join the football team for the quarterback since I’m good at throwing the ball?”

“Yauy you can. Let’s start you off at widresever so you can get used to running first.”

“Ok thank you for letting me know coach”

“Your welcome Ben.”

So the next day I was on the football team doing drills and running laps around the football field. The next day we were doing drills like the left then cut right to chech the ball in mid air to get a touchdown.

“You are good at catching the football and throwing it.” sied jem.

“Thank you for the compliment man.”

“No problem for my best friend.”

I had the best time in football and we had made it to the big leagues and we had won.That was the first big game of the year.We had to head home after the game.My mom was worried for my safety on the way home from the bus making noises when we were leaving the school.

We had another football game and we were going to the new york field to play in and we were only 9 and 10 from the age and we are in a famous football field and we are from New Jersey.We are far from home to go back right away.The coach got about 20 rooms for each on of us to be in ower own room to be in and we get to do water we want to.But we have to be quiet whal we are doing the stuff that we want to do.

It was the next day and we were on our way to New Jersey on the school bus and it should take two days to get there.Well i was wrong cuz the bus broke down and nowone had sarves for their phones.But luckily the coach had a satellite phone for just in case this happens to us on the way home.We all called ower parents to let them know that we whald be home later than planned.So instead of taking two days it whald take about three days to get home safely.

The next day we broke down again so we had to call our parents again to let them know we won’t be home as planned again. We were getting irritated.I helped with the engine.We had to tear the engine apart so we could fix it so it wouldn’t break down again.We put the engine back together and we got back on the main highway so we could get home.

The next day we had made it to the school and we had to go home.My dog was so excited to see me again,my sister was still being a jerk like she always is.The next day I was sore as can be win I woke up and thin my sister sad to take the dog out and i told her to take the cuz of how sore i was.She told on me for not taking the dog out and they said

“Why don’t you take the dog out yourself cuz your brother is to sore to get out of bed to take the dog out.” said mom

“No it’s not my chore.My chore is the dishes every other night.

“Thin dishes ant his chore if taking the dog out is so hard to do.”

“O my god I will take the dog out cuz i don’t whant to do dishes every night cuz i whant it where we swap nights.”

Like I said she is a jerk and onley thinks about herself and she stells all of my hard earned money.On a Tuesday i had to mow the lawn.I got paid by my parents to mow the lawn.I got paid $50 to mow the lawn.

We had gone back to school the next day and every one had been hanging on me all day asking me all kinds of questions like 

“Are you a football player?”

“Yes I am a football player and we won awer last game by three points.It was a close game.

THANK YOU FOR READING AND HAVE A  GOOD DAY

The Legacy of the Pitch

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The Legacy of the Pitch

B y KooKoo Boy

I was always just a normal person, except for living in the Sub-Lanes. For those who don’t understand, the Sub-Lanes is a city underneath the real world, where all of the homeless, crazy, and messed up people live.

My name’s Ryder. I was one of the homeless people who roamed around the Sub-Lanes, looking for any places to be able to sleep in or just not be with the toxic underground air, that poisons and endangers everyone who breaths it in.

Milo has been my best friend since we were around four years old. Both of us lost our parents to the guards. He’s one of the best engineers in the sublanes. One time he made a mech that could fire bolts. Even though it was only a foot tall, it was still better than most things I’ve seen anyone make before.

Anyway, I need money soon or I’m not going to be able to buy anything to survive. There’s this soccer league in the Over City, and if you win a whole bunch of games, you become a champion. It’s nearly impossible to become a champion, and only three people have ever became champions. Mr. Haddington was the first ever champion and people say he’s unbeatable, even though he’s eighty now. But also if you win, you get a grand prize of fifty million dollars, and you become famous, but I don’t really care about being famous or anything though.

I don’t really care if people say I’m bad at soccer, I just need the money. You have to win a ton of games and then win fifteen games in a row, to go to the championship match. If I lose a game, at least I tried, and I’ll still get some money.

“ Hey Milo, wanna try to compete in the big soccer league?”

“ Wait, dude you know it’s like impossible to win right?”

“ Yeah, but I don’t care. We can try and if we win we get money.”

“ Ryder, even if we did want to play we need at least eight players to complete a team. I’m not doing it. Sorry Ryder.”

“ You could become famous Milo.”

“ Are you trying to bribe me Ryder? You know I like being aknowledged for my robots and engineering skills.”

“ Come on you know you want to be known for you work.”

“ Ah, fine I’ll do it I guess, but you better make sure people try to hire me at an engineering buisness.”

“ Let’s go! I’ll make sure that you get into the best engineering company there is Milo!”

“ Ok let’s find some teammates Ryder!”

Me and Milo went to find some teammates. The first one was easy because we have a friend in the Sub-Lanes. Her name is Sarah. She really likes to study magic, because she wants to be a mage. To cast spells you need a tech staff, which can only be located in the best magic store in the Over City. Her parents used to live in the Over City, but then when a big attack happend, her parents house got destroyed, and they had to move to the Sub-Lanes. After Sarah of course said yes to joining us, we went to the Over City to recruit another friend. 

Her name is Chloe, and she works with the biggest names in the Over City. She’s kinda famous, but she just likes that she gets to help people. Her goal is to make peace with the entirety of the Sub-Lanes, since both sides sorta hate eachother. She is already getting good progress on her goal, since she’s already made some friends in the sub-lanes, and she’s made more allies too. It was hard to get Chloe on the team, since she didn’t want to be seen,” Not being professional.”, she said. After we gave her some confidence she said that she would join if it didn’t waste time.

Next, it was time for a hard one. Mini and Tall, the brothers from nowhere. You might be wondering why we call them the brothers from nowhere, but it’s because their brothers, obviously, but they aren’t really from anywhere, because they live in the Over City sometimes, and the Sub-Lanes for the rest of the time. They were born in the Sub-Lanes but they are welcomed in the Over City as well. Tiny was the easier of the two brothers to get on the team, because even though he liked working with Milo in engineering, he also liked soccer. Tall’s passion was being a guard in the Over City. He has his passion because when he was six, a tile fell from a building and was coming straight for him, but then a guard stepped in and caught the tile, saving Tall’s life. That’s the reason why Tall is determined to be a guard. Mini and Tall’s names are hilarious, because Tall is three feet tall, and Mini is a brick wall weighing a staggering three hundred and fifty pounds and being 7 feet tall. Mini joined the team right away, because he loves soccer, but Tall insisted that he kept training for being a guard.

“ Nope sorry buddy. Not doing it Ryder.”

That’s exactly what happened where I tried to get Milo to join earlier today.

“ Come on on lil bud.”

“ My names Tall, not lil bud!”

“ Ok you dont’ have to talk to me but at least talk to Milo.”

“ Fine. I’ll talk to him I guess if I have to.”

“ Hey Tall.”

“ What do ya want, Milo.”

“ You can join our team and play soccer with us.”

“ Why should I do that?”

“ Because we’ll have a lot of fun playing together.”

Milo is good with talking to people and persuading them. For some reason people just like to agree with him, like if they don’t they’re going to get beat up, which they won’t, because Milo’s to scrawny to hurt anyone, except for when he needs to.

“ Fine, Milo I’ll play on your team or whatever.”

“ Ok dude. That’s great. We’ll have so much fun on a team together!”

“ We better.”

With the hardest person down, all we have left is the triplets.

Two of the triplets are calm and loyal people, Tinker and Poppy. On the other hand, Spinner is probably the weirdest, craziest, and the most wild person you’ll ever see. 

Tinker’s a boy, and his passion is tinkering, obviously, but not that kind of tinkering like with gadgets and stuff. He wants to tinker with star dust. With people taking constant trips to the moon, people always bring star dust back to Earth with them, there’s a lot of star dust in magic shops. Sarah always goes in magic shops and tells me about the star dust. We plan to someday put together some money and buy Tinker a bag of stardust, even though a single bag of it is twenty thousand dollars.

Poppy is a girl who loves to experiment with bombs and explosions. As a kid, she would hold fire crackers, and whenever a stranger walked up to her, she would throw one in their face. Then they would run away in pain, and it brought joy to her, because she was independent and could protect herself. She’s been making bombs and hoping that she can make different explosions each time. She’s a very kind person who doesn’t like to upset people, so she always tries to help people. Her goal is to make every kind of explosion and sound of bombs that there is. 

Spinner is definetly something. Spinner likes to carry around his rusty sword that will probably give you tetanus and kill you if it stabs you. His goal is to rule the world, which he is definitely crazy and capable enough to do it. He’s not crazy strong or anything, but he is crazy enough to make anyone scared of him. Spinner cares about people more than most people, but he just doen’t show it a lot. Since Spinner was a little kid, he would always barge into random stores and buildings saying that he would take them over, while holding a little piece of wood with a nail in it that was taller than him.

Tinker and Poppy both said yes, and Spinner after almost cutting me with the tetanus blade of death, agreed to join us too.

“ Ok everyone, now that we’ve recruited everyone, let’s go sign up!”

“ Yeah let’s do it!”

“ Yeah let’s go!”

“ Woohoo!”

We took the longest way to the stadium, since we all wanted to chat. We were also eager to get to the stadium because we could be signing up to have fifty million dollars. 

“ Is this were we sign up Milo?”

“ Ryder are you dumb or something?”

“ Um rude. Why do you say that?”

“ Because we are standing right infront of the stadium, so of course this is where we are supposed to go!”

“ Ok geez dude.”

“ Hello sir, we would like to buy an entry ticket for the soccer league.”

“ And what is your name sir?”

“ My name’s Ryder.”

“ Ok Ryder, an entry ticket is five thousand dollars.”

“ Ok here you go sir.”

“ Here’s your ticket, and the hotel is that way, and the training facility is right next to the hotel on the left of it.”

“ Ok thank you sir.”

The reason that we had five thousand dollars is because when everyone joined our team they also chipped in four hundred bucks, which is a lot of money fore us. 

We were very surprised that we got to stay in a hotel, since none of us except Tall and Mini, but they were little kids when they went in one, and it wasn’t as big as this one. We all  headed over to the hotel and slept the rest of the night cause we were very tired. In the morning, we all ate and headed down to the training facility.

We’ve all played a little bit of soccer before, because right before I thought about joining the league, I played in a match on the street, because someone bet me ten bucks that I couldn’t beat them. I beat them 5-0 in three minutes, but I felt bad, so I told him it was beginner’s luck, and I let him keep the money. We all trained at the hotel for about a month before the first qualifying match was here. The qualifying match is where the winning team moves on to the stadium matches. There are occasions where if the losing team has a lot of talent, and they don’t want to waste the teams talent, they let them join the stadium matches aswell. We all became beasts at soccer, and I was the leader of the team, obviously.

“ Ok guys the day we’ve all been waiting for is here! We will win if we try our hardest, we will win this game!”

“ Everyone say,” We will win!”.”

“ WE WILL WIN! WE WILL WIN!”

“ LET”S GOOOOOOOOOOO!”

We stepped onto the pitch and met the opposing team. They’re team captain was a rich person whos name was Zack.

“ Hi, I heard your name is Zack. Nice to meet you.”

“ Hi poor kid. Haha we’re going to destroy you.”

“ That’s not very nice dude.”

“ Do you think I care what you think?”

“ You should! Rude.”

“ We will beat you poor kids.”

“ Nope, we will beat you!”

The match started and right away the other team took the ball and made a goal right away. The score was now 1-0 and we were not happy. Our team coordination was not very good, but it got better. After they scored another goal. The score was now 2-0, and we were ready to win this game.

“ Guys, there’s five minutes left until the game’s over! We need to win this!”

“ Let’s win this guys, so that we can accomplish our dreams later!”

We started the last five minutes with the ball and we made a miracle happen.

“ I’m passing to you, Ryder!”

“ Here, Mini. Score with your power!”

Mini launches the ball at probably fifty miles an hour. “AND HE SCORES”, the announcer says.

Now it’s 2-1 with three minutes and thirty seconds left.

“ Hey poor boy.”

“ What do you want Zack? Are you scared that we are going to beat you?”

“ Shut up, no I’m not. That’s just what I expect a non- grateful Sub-Lanes person to say.”

“ Shut it rich boy. We will beat you whether you like it or not!”

They started the final minutes with the ball and they almost wreck our chances of winning.

“ Milo take the ball!”

“ I’ll try!”

Milo misses the steal and they are now twenty feet from the goal.

“ Spinner, get the ball from them!”

“ You got it Captain!”

Spinner saves us and almost gets fouled by doing it. But, he did get the ball for us and now there’s one minute left in the game. We pass down the field, scrambling for the goal.

“ Here Milo!”

“Pass to Poppy!”

“ Take the pass Tinker!”

“ Here Sarah!”

“ Pass to Chloe!”

“ Score the ball, Tall!”

Tall winds up his tiny leg, but there’s only five seconds left! 

“ Shoot the ball Tall!”

 “ THERES FIVE SECONDS, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE!”, the announcer screams at the stadium.

He shoots the ball. It goes a little slow, but it throws the goalie off guard and he dives to the left. I see the one second fade to zero, but I look at the ball and hear the announcer say,“ HE SCORES WITH THE SLOW BALL! OH MY WHAT A COMEBACK! NOW IT’S 2-2 AND COULD THE SUB-LANES TEAM MAKE A COMEBACK IN OVERTIME?!”, the announcer yells to the whole stadium.

In over time, we start with the ball and it’s a fight back and forth with no goal made. Over time is coming to an end and we had the luck on our side, and by luck I mean the ball.

“ Ok guys let’s do this thing, AND WIN!”

We pass back and forth and then we are at the goal and we have a chance.

“ Here Ryder, Score the ball!!!”

I shoot and the goalie gets ready to block. I close my eyes…….and I SCORE!!!

“ We win guys. Let’s go!!!”

“ Let’s goooo!!!”

We move on to the stadium matches, and the team that we beat was apparently a good team that the rich people didn’t want their talent to go to waste, so they let them join the stadium rounds as well, but I don’t know how that’s fair, but I don’t care.

We train for months and keep winning matches. We became one of the best teams in the league. Now everybody knows who we are and the rich people and even Mr. Haddington says that we are the most favorited team in the entire league.

The day of the championship comes and we are all nervous, but excited. We get our uniforms and get ready to win this game. We all need to win this for our dreams.

We get onto the field and get ready. We find out that the other team is Zack’s team again. We aren’t that happy that we can’t play a different team but it’s fine, I guess.

“ THE MATCH WILL START IN TWENTY SECONDS!!!” the announcer yells at the champion stadium. Mr. Haddington walks up to me and starts talking to me.

“ Hi Ryder. I’ve heard that your team is pretty well known.”

“ Yeah haha we are.”

“ Well good luck out there and I hope you win. Not to be biased.”

“ Thanks. I hope we will win.”

The matches starts and for the first twenty minutes we score goals back and forth and the score is 5-5. 

“ Score the ball, Tall!”

“ You got it!”

Tall scores another goal and with forty minutes left the score is 6-5 and we are winning. So far we are all working great together as a team, but we aren’t winning by enough. We pass it back and forth a few more times until Zack scores a goal. Now the score is 6-6 and we aren’t doing as good as we need to, but we get ourselves together and with thirty five minutes left we score another goal. The score is 6-6, and were tied again.

The final stretch of the game comeswith five minutes left and we pass the ball a few times and each team scores a goal. Now the score is 7-7, and there is thirty seconds left. Neither of the teams can score, so we go into over time, but still, no one can score, so now we go into penalty kicks.

“ RYDER SCORES!!!”

“ ZACK SCORES!!”

We go on and the penalty score is 4-4 and we kick.

“ Come on Sarah, you can score!!!”

Sarah winds up and…GOOOAAALLLLLL!!!!!

“ Let’s go Sarah we did it!!! Now we just have to block them and we win the whole game!”

“ OK EVERYONE, THERE IS ONE KICK LEFT CAN THEY DO IT!!!”

“Zack shoots with Chloe in the goal and he…..MISSES THE GOAL!!! OH MY GOD THAT IS A WIN FOR RYDER AND THE SUB-LANES TEAM!!!”

“ Let’s go guys our dreams can now be reality!!!”

( 1 YEAR LATER )

“ Hi Ryder!”

“ Hey Milo! I haven’t seen you for a long time.”

“ It’s only been a week.”

“ Still now that we are interviewed all the time it’s hard to be able to see eachother all the time.”

“ Yeah, well it’s been good seeing you and i’ve been talking to everyone and it seems like we have all accomplished our goals!”

“ Yeah, bye!”

“ Bye!”

Tinker got a bag of star dust, and is now one year older. Tall became a guard. Spinner kinda rules the world. Chloe has made peace with the Sub-Lanes. Milo and Mini have gotten into the best engineering academy kinda because they’re famous. Poppy has figured out every explosion and bomb there is. Sarah became a magic conjurer. And I have made some money, and by some I mean eight million dollars, and I am now the forth champion of the pitch.

Making it Pro

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Making it Pro

By Scarful

Hello there you should read my story. It’s about my life. I really recommend it.My name is Tanner Rock. I am a 15 year old male. My dreams are to make it pro in the NBA but I’m not very good at basketball. I recently moved to Nevada with my mom. My dad passed away when I was younger. And I wanted to make him proud and make my dream come true. But my mom is living in rough conditions. We moved so my mom could get a better job. 

On the first day of school I met a really nice kid. His name is Oliver. His dreams were also to make it pro in the NBA. But he was 10x better than me. And he said he could give me some pointers on my ball handling and shooting. After school he gave me his number to text him. I  went to his house later in the day to practice my basketball skills. We practiced for around

2 hours and his mom said,

 “Hey do you wanna stay over and have some dinner?”.

 After I ate I walked home. It wasn’t a very far walk to my house. When I arrived home I told my mom what I had done at Oliver’s house. She was really happy that I made a friend. At my old school I didn’t have that many friends. Oliver and I tried out for the high school team. We both made the team.

After my freshman year I didn’t start that much and I still wasn’t a shooter, I was more of a passer. I only scored around 30 points the whole season. But my sophomore year I scored a lot more points than I did the year before. I was averaging 19.3 points a game. My junior year I was on varsity so I didn’t play a whole bunch but I was still averaging 17.6 points a game. But my friend Oliver was doing very well; he was averaging 25.0 points a game. And in our senior year I was averaging 26.1 points a game. My last game there was a college scout and this was my chance to make a college team. I was playing really well; this game I had 23 points in the 3rd quarter and I finished out the game with 36 points. And the college scout came up to me and we were talking for a while. I made the Iowa Hawkeyes.

Oliver on the other hand he did make a college team, but he’s on the Iowa State Cyclones. We both did pretty well; our freshman year he averaged 22.4 points a game and I averaged 23.2 points a game. And through the rest of my college years I decided to go in the NBA draft.I didn’t get drafted till the 5th round. I got on the Houston Rockets.

And so did my friend Oliver. We finally got reunited. I got the starting center position at 6’8 and my friend Oliver got the starting point guard position. He’s only 6’3 but he can do everything he can drive down hill. He can shoot three pointers really well. And he’s the best at his mid range shots. We were 24 games into the season and we were doing good.

Then Oliver tore his ACL. He was out for the season and the thing that sucks is it was his rookie season. He was on pace to get rookie of the year. He was averaging 22.3 points a game more than any rookie this season. I’m only averaging 19.8 points but I was averaging 6.4 rebounds and 6.1 assists. The very next game after Oliver got injured he got my first triple double. I had 16 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists. When we were getting to the end of the season. I actually got rookie of the year with averaging 23.1 points, 8.2 rebounds and 9.0 assists. 

The thing I was the best at was tip offs. I won almost all of my tip offs besides one and I only lost because I slipped when I jumped. After the season me and Oliver would train every day with our private trainer. When the next season arrived, me and Oliver both got 21 points in our first game of the season. 

Week 8 of the season we had to go against the boston celtics they were 7-0 and we were 5-2 not off to a bad start but we didn’t have the best start to the game we were down 10 points at the end of the first quader. The score was 29 to 19. I had 3 of those points with a lay up and 0ne made free throw but Olliver didn’t have any points so he was really discouraged but when we were on the bench I had to give him a little speech so he didn’t feel down on himself. 

After that when we went in halfway through the second i gave it to Oliver on the give and go and he got his first points. After that he got hyped up and got 10 points after and at halftime the score was 56-55 we were up by 1 point. During halftime our coach gave us a pep talk. I only had 7 points so I was kind of mad. But after half i got 14 points in 4 minutes. I had 21 points going into the 4th. We were up by 5 points with 2 minutes left in the game. Then they got a lay up and a three pointer with 20 seconds left and it was 120 to 120 and then they got a layup in 5 seconds so we had 15 seconds to either get a three pointer or a layup and we gave it to Oliver then he gave it to me in the post and i passed it to Oliver in the corner for a three and he MADE IT!!! To win the game. The only team to beat the Boston Celtics was us so far. 

  At the end of the last game of the regular season I had 45 points, the most I’ve ever scored. In the off season I was working out with Oliver and I was doing squats and I tore my quad. But luckily it was right after the season was over. So I had enough time to heal. It’s gonna take around a month for my quad to heal. After the offseason was over I was all healed up and ready for my 3rd season. On the first game of the season I jumped up for a rebound and got injured. After the game I went to the hospital and I found out from the doctor that I won’t be able to play for the rest of the season. And Oliver was having the best season of his career. 48 games into the season he was averaging 25.6 points a game. After the season they ended up 72-12 and won the championship. But gladly I got a ring. 

My 4th season on my first game I didn’t do any good. I was still a little hurt from the previous season. I had 0 points in my first game. And I didn’t get too many in the first 10 games. So the Houston Rockets decided to trade me. They traded me to the pistons. I wasn’t a starter for the Pistons and barely got any playing time. And when I got in the game I wasn’t doing anything. Then the Pistons traded me the next season. Then every team that traded for me would trade me a season later then my last shot to prove I’m still good. The last game of the season I was playing for the Lakers and I got injured again. I knew my career was most likely over. And I got cut a week later and no team wanted to pick me up so I had to retire early. And Oliver went on to win 5 more championship games and be known as the GOAT.  

65 Roses (2019)

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January 17

With time tight on a Friday, I found another documentary short film to watch this morning. This one I found on a website called Shortverse and it was from 2019. The title of the film was 65 Roses.

65 Roses is a symbol adopted by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for their organization. It is based on a story of a kid who could not pronounce the name of his disease and would call it 65 Roses.

This doc featured a 14-year old girl named Yllka Leti, who lived in Prishtina, Kosovo and she had cystic fibrosis. The doc looked at the things she had to do to manage her illness and her positive attitude overall about everything. She was very uch like a 14-year old girl who had to learn about and deal with this insidious illness.

The film spoke about how she would paint and sell her paintings to help fund the medicine that she needed to take. I wish there was more about this aspect of Yllka’s life in the doc. I would have liked to have seen more of the creative flow that the young girl had because selling paintings is not an easy thing to do and if she was able to do it to a significance of helping the costs of her medicine, that is an inspirational story. All of this is here, it just was not the main focus of the doc.

I have not had much experience with the illness of cystic fibrosis. The only exposure I had to it was the character of Emma on Bates Motel, who did have cystic fibrosis. Docs like this help to provide important information to help those of use who may not know as much as we should.

Shortverse had a ton of short docs available to watch, with a variety of topics for just about anything.

Silo S2 E9

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Spoilers

“The Safeguard”

Wow. This was an intense episode of Silo. It was easily my favorite episode of season two so far. Everything is coming together into major events setting up for the season finale next week.

If I am being honest, some of this season has not caught my attention. I have always been in on everything Juliette is doing, but a lot of the political stuff from the original silo has gone over my head. However, as things ratchet up, every scenes has grown in intensity.

Silo had a LOST moment too as Juliette comes across the Others. Okay, that is not their names, but she found this handful of young adults as she was searching for Solo. The inclusion of these characters brought a anxiety level that ramped things up. Rick and Audrey are angry and spiteful… at least Audrey is. She is very much like kill first and figure it out later. We see how she was behind a lot of the missteps that happened to Juliette earlier in the series (another LOST like trope that saw the same scene from different POV).

Juliette tried to figure out the combination to the vault for Rick and Audrey. Audrey had told her that she would kill Solo when her baby cried again because the baby was hungry. This all led to the reveal of Solo’s backstory and the tragic events that led up to him being stuck in that vault on his own. The whole scene of Juliette trying to convince Solo to give her the combination was effective and suspenseful.

Lukas winding up in front of the giant AI was amazing too. What is the Safeguard? I don’t know, but I think it is safe to assume that it is a way to protect the secrets by destroying the silo. We know there are 51 other silos out there and, according to the AI, only three other people had ever gotten the instructions it was going to give to Lukas.

What side is Sims and his wife going to end up on? I don’t know but all I know is that Bernard needs to face some justice. He is such a horrible character at this point, just concerned with his own power. Unless, that is, there is something that the show has not shown us yet, which is absolutely possible. I think Bernard is going to get his because of Knox. I think Know knows that Walker is the “traitor” and that he was setting up Bernard with a fake story. Maybe I am wrong about that, but the way he spoke to Walker about the possible traitor, it really seemed as if he had figured out the truth.

The finale looks to be a huge episode. This one was easily my favorite of the year so far as every story grasped my attention and made me anxious.

Hoop Dreams (1994)

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January 12

This is one of the most recognizable, iconic documentaries of all-time and it was one of the first films I placed on the list of possible docs to watch during this Genre-ary. Hoop Dreams follows two black youths from the inner-city Chicago area on their struggles to get through high school with a dream to make it to the NBA.

The two boys were named Arthur Agee and William Gates, and, one of the things that I liked about Hoop Dreams was it was much more in depth than just basketball. It truly looked at the problems each boy faced as they navigated their way through their specific high sachools.

At first, it seemed as if they would both be going to the same high school, St. Joseph, but after their freshmen year, Arthur was behind on the tuition payment and wound up being removed from the school. William had financial issues too, but he received help from donors of the school. It was implied that William received the aid because he was seen as the stronger basketball player.

The film spent time with family members of both kids too. Arthur’s family provided the most drama as his father left during his high school years and ended up in prison. He was able to return to his family eventually and did appear to have turned a page on his criminal activities.

William went through an injury to his knee during his high school days and it was something that really caused problems for the young man. There were moments of game footage that was tough to watch as he struggled to make it through the injury.

Coach Gene Pingatore was a major character in the documentary, and he was not always portrayed in a positive light. He was that old school basketball coach in the vein of a Bobby Knight (who did cameo in the doc) and watching that today was challenging at times. Pingatore’s final meeting with a senior William was about as awkward as it could possibly be.

Hoop Dreams was a deep dive into the inner city youth whose only hope to escape came with a basketball. Both of the young men involved faced their difficulties with a differing level and reached for what they could. It was a very involved doc.

Den of Thieves: Pantera

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Den of Thieves: Pantera is the first, actual, film from 2025. I had never watched the first film and, this being a sequel, I was a little concerned about that fact.

And truthfully, I could never get into this flick. I do believe the fact that I had not seen 2018’s Den of Thieves was a big reason I could never build any connection to the film. I disliked the characters, I thought the story, with a few exceptions, was dull and boring, and I just was peeking at the time through much of the first half of the movie wishing it would get over.

I could care less about the robbery that they were setting up, but I will say that the execution of the robbery itself was my favorite part of the film. Outside of that 20 minutes or so, I really found this to be an excruciating watch.

Without spoiling it, there were no less than two… TWO… Deus ex machina endings for this movie, and I hated both twists… SO MUCH!

According to IMDB, “Butler returns as Big Nick (Gerard Butler), this time on the hunt in Europe for Donnie (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) who is embroiled in the dangerous world of diamond thieves and the infamous Panther mafia as they plot a massive heist of the world’s biggest diamond exchange“

I thought both Butler and Jackson Jr. were fine with their characters. i just did not care about either one. There was a scene early in the film where Nick gets drunk/stoned etc. and I thought that was so ridiculous that it completely derailed the film for me. I was having enough issues getting into the story so something like this knocked it down even more.

As I said, the actual robbery had some good tension to it, although it was very difficult to swallow. I was more able to give the leeway here because the set up to the theft was so much better than the rest of the movie. Sadly, the post robbery stuff had me rolling my eyes (including a moment that seemed to go from night to day in an instant).

I don’t know if my opinions would be different if I had seen Den of Thieves before going to the sequel, but I did not, so I can only judge this on what they gave me, and what they gave me was substandard in my thought.

2.2 stars

Edit: I went back and looked at my other reviews and I actually did see Den of Thieves in 2018. I gave it a 2.3 star rating. It shows you how memorable that first film was for me.

ReMastered: Tricky Dick and the Man in Black (2018)

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January 6th

Today’s Genre-ary documentary I found on Netflix and it was a short doc about the time Johnny Cash was asked by President Richard Nixon to come and play at the White House.

The doc gave us some basic background on both Johnny Cash and on Richard Nixon. The Nixon section was specifically focused in on the Vietnam controversies among his presidency.

The doc talked about Nixon using the “Southern Strategy” that has been well documented in Presidential politics since the sixties when the south became more of a Republican stronghold instead of a consistent Democratic voters. It brought up how Nixon used some dog whistles to bring out the “Silent majority” to support the Republican party and create a nation of divisiveness. It was very connected to the present day politics and how it has its roots in this time frame.

The doc never went into too much detail about any of the sections, as it was just under an hour long.

It was interesting seeing how Johnny Cash was affected by his own trip to Vietnam and how he made some changes to the songs Nixon had requested Cash play at the White House. Both of the songs he asked for were songs that took shots at some of the marginalized people of the time, including hippies and those on Welfare.

I liked this doc, but I really believe it could have gone into much more details about the performance and about the two figures of American culture. It touched on a lot of the issues, but it did not go into enough depth.

Dexter: Original Sin E4

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Spoilers

“Fender Bender”

The next episode of the Dexter flashback series, Dexter: Original Sin found Dex on the trail of a hired assassin who had “retired” to the Miami area. “Mad Dog,” played by Joe Pantoliano turned out to be a little more tricky than this 20-year old expected.

Dexter was on scene when they discovered the body of the judge’s kid, who had been kidnapped and had his finger sent to his parents. This story feels like the throughline for the season, while these side quests like “Mad Dog” are just to fill episodes.

When Dexter saw the kid’s dead body, he was shaken. So much so that Harry sent him off to another body instead. I’m not sure how the cantaloupes were helpful in recreating the crime. That whole thing felt odd.

We also get a flashback to when Harry had to babysit for Laura’s kids Dexter and Brian as she had to go do her undercover stuff. Laura and Harry had sparks between them, and ended up hot and heavy on the couch. I guess I did not know that Dexter had a blood brother. I do not know if the series had brought this character up before or if this is new with this series.

I really dislike this Debra version. She is such a spoiled rotten child with a lot of selfish behavior. To be fair, she does get overlooked by Harry and Dexter, but she acts out in ways that are only going to cause trouble.

This was an okay episode of the show, but felt like there was a lot of filler material in it.

2024 Year in Review: MORE TV

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So I did the Best series in four separate categories for 2024. Now I am going to do some more individual awards for TV in general.

Best Actor Drama: Colin Farrell (The Penguin)

Best Actress Drama: Anna Sawai (Shogun)

Best Supporting Actor Drama: Lee Byung-hun (Squid Game 2)

Best Supporting Actress Drama: Cristin Milioti (The Penguin)

Best Actor Comedy: Steve Martin (Only Murders in the Building)

Best Actress Comedy: Kathryn Hahn (Agatha All Along)

Best Supporting Actor Comedy: Harrison Ford (Shrinking)

Best Supporting Actress Comedy: Patti LuPone (Agatha All Along)

Best Actor Genre: Antony Starr (The Boys)

Best Actress Genre: Danai Gurira (Walking Dead: The Ones that Lived)

Best Supporting Actor Genre: Tim Robbins (Silo)

Best Supporting Actress Genre: Tanya Moodie (Silo)

Best Song: The Ballad of the Witches’ Road (Agatha All Along)

Best Makeup: The Penguin

Best Episode Drama: “A Great or Little Thing,” The Penguin

Best Episode Comedy: “Death’s Hand in Mine,” Agatha All Along

Best Episode Genre: “The Insider,” The Boys

Best Episode Animated: “Remember It,” X-Men ’97

2024 Year in Review: TV

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2024 saw me watch a lot of TV. Not only did I watch the active shows, I was doing rewatches or first time watches of classics such as The X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, Bates Motel, The Greatest American Hero, Moonlighting, Yellowjackets, and Picket Fences.

But we are not looking at those series. These are lists of the best series of the year. I decided to split them into four categories: Drama, Comedy, Genre, Animated.

Some of the categories were really difficult to rank and, of course, only feature those series that I watch. There is so much on TV these days that it is impossible to watch everything.

Let’s kick it off with:

Drama.

Drama had a top six list and featured some of the best shows of the year.

6. Bodkin (Netflix)

5. True Detective: Night Country (MAX)

4. Baby Reindeer (Netflix)

3. Squid Game 2 (Netflix)

2. The Penguin (MAX)

  1. Shogun (Hulu)

Shogun was so good that it just out distanced The Penguin, which had an amazing run on HBO Max. I just finished Squid Game 2 in time for this list.

Comedy

4. The Bear (Hulu)

3. Shrinking (Apple TV +)

2. Agatha All Along (Disney +)

  1. Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)

This was probably the hardest one to judge. When I split these categories apart, I thought that Agatha All Along would be a shoo-in for Comedy winner, because I loved that show so much. However, Looking over the list of comedies, Only Murders in the Building jumped out at me and regulated Agatha into the second slot. This was an outstanding season of OMitB too with Steve Martin doing some excellent work with his grief over the death of his friend and stunt double Sazz. Number three is Shrinking and that is a genius show too. Harrison Ford is perhaps the biggest scene stealer on this list. The Bear is here because the Emmys list it as a comedy, but it is a stretch to call it that in my opinion.

Genre

#6. Walking Dead: The Ones Who Lived (AMC +)

#5. Echo (Disney +)

#4. Silo (Apple TV +)

#3. Fallout (Prime)

#2. Skeleton Crew (Disney +)

#1. The Boys (Prime)

The Boys had another great season with Butcher on the edge of death, Homelander in full revenge mode and everyone else trying to survive. Skeleton Crew has been extremely fun so far giving us some of the best Star Wars TV we have had in years. Fallout was a fantastic video game adaptation and Silo is top notch sci-fi on Apple TV +. Echo was better than a lot of people gave it credit for and it was nice seeing Rick and Michonne reunite.

Animated

#5. Masters of the Universe: Revolution (Netflix)

#4. Creature Commandos (MAX)

#3. What If…? (Disney +)

#2. Batman: Caped Crusader (Prime)

#1. X-Men’97 (Disney +)

X-Men ’97 was an amazing surprise. It had no right to be as good as it was. The old X-Men series was okay, but this took everything great about it and mixed it with amazing characterization and storytelling. And “Remember It” is one of the best episodes of TV this year, not just animated TV. Batman: Caped Crusader was another great series on Amazon with a new take on Batman and his rogue’s gallery. What If was a bit of a step down but still fairly entertaining and had a great Agatha/Kingo episode. Creature Commandos has been okay for me as some of the humor does not work for me. Masters was a good follow up from Kevin Smith.

Squid Game S2 E6, E7

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Spoilers

“O X”

“Friend or Foe”

I finished up the second season of Squid Games on Netflix late last night and I have thoughts.

First, it sure ended at a strange place. It almost felt like this was a first part of a season like they did for Stranger Things and Cobra Kai. I have not heard any info on a second part to season two though. Perhaps it is just setting up for season three instead. If so, then season two would absolutely be the Empire Strikes Back of the Squid Games as things went oh so wrong for our heroes (PS… just looked at the end of the episode and it says season three will be back in 2025 so there is that.)

Gi-hun’s whole plan to take it to the people running the show by hijacking guns from the guards was wild and was never going to work. The pink suits had such a huge number of people that the handful of rebels were just not going to get through. However, it got fairly far and might have had a chance if they did not have a rat inside their team. Of course, that is In-ho, 001, who had been inside the game manipulating the situation. His eventual betrayal ended the uprising and led to the unfortunate death of Jung-bae. I had seen a spoiler about a death in the final episode that was shocking and this was the one. For a minute, I actually thought it was going to be Gi-hun instead. That would have been a shocker.

Defying all odds, Geum-ja has survived. I was sure she was going down after her son Yong-sik had changed his vote from X to O. I thought he was going to have to pay for his choice with his mother, but she continues to fight on. It did look like she was a goner during Mingle, but she was thankfully saved.

Speaking of Mingle, that was another game that was intense and very difficult to watch at times. The way alliances were tossed aside by some compared to those that were going out of their way to try and help the others.

Seeing Thanos get his final payment at the end of season six was very satisfying, and of course, brutal. Fork to the neck is not something I expected to see.

For a season that I was not sure was needed, this was a very tense and exciting seven episodes.

Squid Game S2 E3, E4, E5

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Spoilers

“001”

“Six Legs”

“One More Game”

The first two episodes of the season were character beats, setting up the characters we would be following in the Squid Game and developing them some. I found those episodes to be of great importance because we jump full into the games in episodes 3, 4, & 5.

The games themselves are always the most intense, stressful parts of this show. Even the Red Light, Green Light, which we saw in the first season and we know what to expect, was just insanity when it comes to execution. The show did a great job of giving us something different for us to stress over. In this case, Gi-hun taking the lead and almost directing traffic, despite several of the contestants not believing him or wanting to follow what he said. When Gi-hun ran back out to save the guy who had been shot in the leg, we saw what a heroic figure he had become from his days of season one.

The other characters all elicited some emotion from us as viewers, both positively and negatively. I hate Thanos, even if he does some funny things. I love Geum-ja. She is the ultimate mother figure in the games and she must be protected. There will be a time, I am sure, that the show will want to rip out hearts out and it will kill her. I do not want that to happen.

Player 001 turned out to be In-ho aka the Front Man (Captain). Much like last season, number 001 is a traitor, a man from behind the scenes inserting himself into the game. In this case, we are aware of the treachery unlike last year. In this case, In-ho is also a former winner of the Squid Game and his presence is curious. He sure seemed as if he was working with the group during the six-legged pentathlon.

By the way, that six-legged pentathlon was both the most invigorating and exciting game and the most stressful and horrendous game played. Watching the group of five try to make it through five children’s games in five minutes was unbelievably tense and suspenseful. It was also hard for the second game.

The show has done a tremendous job of building mood during the two votes we have had to try and end the games. The first vote coming down to the final player, 001, who voted to continue, and the second vote being more weighed toward the stay and do one more game.

I am afraid a bunch of the characters whom stated that they will play one more game and then leave are going to find their votes a tragic mistake.

I really thought doing a second season of this show was going to be a mistake, especially since the creators of the show had not intended on continuing the show past season one. However, this has been exceptional so far and it has taken an extra step in its exploration into human nature. It does not feel like a repeat of what happened in season one, and even when something similar happens, it is done in a totally different manner. The writing has been great so far as they have created a bunch of characters that I really want to see survive, even though I know they will not.

There are only two episodes left in this season, which I have heard ends in a cliffhanger, so I am excited about wrapping it up.