To start, the sincere part. This year, as has been true every year for as long as it matters, I’m endlessly thankful for my family– my wife, my mom, our four crazy little furry kids– and our home, a safe, peaceful place in a chaotic world. I am thankful for my job and for great co-workers and perhaps the coolest boss ever. I’m thankful for people who stand up against what is wrong.
But for fun, I wanted to make a massive list. I’m going to see if I can name 304 things I’m thankful for. In no particular order (and this is going to probably be funny and uneven):
- Julie
- My mom
- Glenn Platt and his impeccable ability to navigate academia
- Boo
- Cody, but not when he farts’
- Bath and Body Works room spray for when Cody farts
- Chewie AKA Wiggles
- Wagnar
- Mr. Robot, season 3
- Funko Pops
- Single-serving iPhone games that don’t sap all my money
- Esports
- The Miami Varsity Esports team
- Arthas, just cuz
- Hearthstone, so I can play one of our three Esports and not feel like a relic
- World of Warcraft, because I was good at it
- My book
- Dice. I just like dice.
- Rick and Morty
- Harmontown
- Harmonquest
- Rob Schrab
- Scud the Disposable Assassin
- Batman
- CM Punk
- Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn
- Rusev Day
- the fact that someone found a new shade of blue
- Chipotle
- Spider-Man
- being a teacher
- The scenic commute to Oxford
- My home
- WWE 2K18 and the fun of customizing wrestlers
- Terry Crews
- John Mulaney
- Specifically his SVU joke about Ice T
- Scratchy Lotteries
- Polar Water
- The Colts, even when they’re bad
- Peyton Manning, because once we weren’t bad
- Paul George
- The Pacers, kind of
- Reggie Miller
- March Madness and the 12 year string of steak dinners my mom owes me from losing her bracket to me
- Mindflayers
- Stranger Things
- The Punisher in his many forms
- Moon Knight
- The fact that there are decent heroes of color
- Like Luke Cage
- Black Panther
- Falcon/Captain America
- Black Lightning, I guess (did he have to be called “Black”?)
- Jax from Mortal Kombat
- Morpheus
- Warpath
- Thunderbird
- Red Wolf
- Zack de la Rocha
- the phrase “Featuring Tom Morello”
- The corgmation (a corgi-dalmation mix dog that I will one day find a pup of and call my own)
- former students doing well
- Jen, who fixes everything at work
- Bob, who is the most Bob dude I know
- Matt and Jerry, who I now think of as a duo. They pick who is the Robin
- Murali, who I am slowly learning more about
- Eric, who is sort of the stoic in the mix
- the Jims.
- the Matts.
- BVK and the fact that he just casually mentions robots every time we talk. Having a friend who just randomly mentions robots is pretty cool
- My current students, also doing well
- Garvey, who is literally the goodest of brothers
- carbonation
- Dad Rap on Pandora
- The “this is Run the Jewels” Spotify play list, the only thing I can find quickly when angst ridden and driving
- NPR podcasts so I can be an NPR guy but not listen to the actual radio
- Clicklist
- Wal-Mart Grocery
- Amazon Prime
- Netflix
- The Nerdist
- Kevin Smith
- Chairs made for tall people
- Being my dog’s one designated person who she never growls at. That’s trust.
- Pokemon, which I found late in life
- I guess I should mention Animal Crossing since we are literally all about it right now
- Did I mention Slack, because Slack helps so much
- Blizzard Inc.
- the Blizzard Man
- Little Richard’s half brother Medium Richard
- David S. Pumpkins
- The forthcoming David S. Pumpkins Funko Pop
- LED lights
- Injustice 2
- Madden. Just… Madden.
- Banksy
- Bernie Sanders
- Barry Sanders
- Larry Sanders
- Col. Sanders
- Power sanders
- the small print of Bernie Sanders wearing the Infinity Gauntlet in my office at work
- My PC
- My mac
- my other mac
- my other other mac
- my iPad
- my iPhone. I have the cool red iPhone 7plus, and I don’t plan to get an X
- The Prowler, a once obscure Spider-Man villain
- Todd McFarlane
- Seth McFarland
- The old line-up of Barenaked Ladies
- REM
- They Might be Giants
- XTC
- Moxy Fruvous
- The Pixies
- Frank Black
- The Breeders
- Grunge
- Nirvana
- Pearl Jam
- The Screaming Trees
- Soundgarden
- Alice in Chains
- the song “got me wrong” which is a great anthem
- Tool
- Calling people “tools”
- “because we’re Delta airlines, and life is a fucking nightmare…”
- “The bar is now a jet, jet, jet, jet, jet, jet, jet”
- The Bar
- the New Day
- the way the Usos say “nope!”
- Kenny Omega and his obsession with video games
- Austin Creed and his videos about video games
- People who post Harmonquest to YouTube so I don’t have to join a new service after I joined SeeSo just to see it last year
- Larry Lessig
- Jean Baudrillard
- People who think they understand Baudrillard and try to tell me I got him wrong
- textual evidence to prove 141
- Illidan Stormrage
- the Hearthstone deck I call “Shatter Machine” (it’s a Razakas Priest)
- The fact that all my hearthstone decks are named after wrestling finishing moves
- The fact that I still don’t have one called “The Rock Bottom”
- the Stone Cold Steve Austin podcast
- Being from a family with questionable substance use (other than my mom, who always did fine) but being able to drink A beer
- My wife teaching me what a good beer is
- My wife tolerating that my favorite is still a boring ass Yungling
- Jon Snow
- Boba Fett
- Luigi, who deserves more respect
- Luigi’s side-eye in Mario Cart
- Wolverine
- Patrick Stewart
- The Velveteen Dream vs. Aleister Black feud
- Chris Jericho and his list
- Talk is Jericho
- Hollywood Babble-on
- The dude I call “Sleepy Guy” and his podcast, Sleep with Me
- My car, Harvey Dent
- the long story behind why my car is called Harvey Dent
- The rise of nerds
- The proliferation of game stuff I can find everywhere now
- Geek Fuel
- Loot Crate
- Pro Wrestling Crate
- my Funko crate rotation
- masks. OMG masks, y’all
- things that glow in the dark
- things made of artisan wood
- anything where someone subs steak for another ingredient
- cheese
- Jungle Jims
- the huge cheese at Jungle Jims
- Cheese-fest
- Huge TVs
- My Xbox One Pro controller. So pricey–so worth it.
- black lights
- Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake doing the history of rap
- Don’t go rounin’ roun’ to Re-Ro
- Zorn, even if it was cancelled
- Bob’s Burgers
- Making the burgers in the Bob’s Burgers book
- Brooklyn 99
- The Lonely Island
- Keenan Thompson
- “I’m REBA!”
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force
- Kanye West Tweets
- Mean Tweets
- Shower Thoughts
- How Finn Balor is over in spite of… well… everything
- Flip Gordon
- Flip Gordon’s theme song
- That Flippy thing Flip Gordon does
- Pentagon Junior
- Pentagon Dark
- Penta El Cero M
- Lucha Underground
- Rey Mysterio
- Our wedding cake topper, which sits by my TV so I can see it every day
- sneakers
- Hello Kitty, because she makes Julie happy
- She Ra, same reason
- Skeletor… LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER
- Blade
- Blade Trinity
- Wesley Snipes quotes
- Darth Vader
- Radicalizing service
- Things that involve Texts this weekend
- There being more, like, places
- backing up, so I can run that bitch over again
- the McDonalds and Barnes and Noble firing skits from SNL
- The Wishing Boot
- Dan Harmon singing Johnny Cash songs
- Dan Harmon as Liam Neeson in The Grey
- Jeff Davis going nuclear on Toby Keith
- Kumail
- TED talks
- Pecha Kucha
- Dungeons & Dragons
- hardcore role-playing (in games)
- the WWE network
- Michael Jordan
- Kobe Bryant
- Bo Jackson
- Deion Sanders
- Deon Cole
- Hannibal Burress
- Broad City
- South Park
- The Daily Show when it still had Jon
- Last Week Tonight
- MSNBC for trying so hard
- Al Sharpton
- Corey Booker
- Barack Obama
- Duvall Patrick
- Julian Castro
- Elizabeth Warren
- Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump
- Larry David as Bernie Sanders
- Larry David as Kevin Roberts. I got that bitch a donut.
- Chance the Rapper for being Delightful
- Donald Glover, same.
- Connor 4 Real
- the Ice Cube lyric “life ain’t a track meet/it’s a marathon…”
- Pretty much everything Killer Mike has ever rapped
- That I made it to 304 days on this blog
- Lists
- WordPress
- Easy list entries when I’m running out of steam
- The Batman Who Laughs
- Batman: The Killing Joke
- Dark Knight Returns
- The Christian Bale Batman trilogy
- Liam Neesons!
- Key
- Peele
- Key & Peele
- Too Much Tuna
- Bobby Bottleservice and Peter Paparazo
- Golden Girls re-runs
- Buffy
- Angel
- Spike as a character
- Joss Whedon, even if he is now a jerk
- Cabin in the Woods
- The Usual Suspects, even if Spacey is now a turbo jerk
- 90s Alternative radio being a thing
- the Darwin Awards
- The Onion’s version of former VP Joe Biden who had a Firebird he washed shirtless
- The State
- The Kids in the Hall
- The Boyz in the Hood
- 2Pac
- The Digital Underground
- Todd McFarlane’s run on Amazing Spider-Man
- Silent Bob
- Westworld
- The ‘Nard Dog
- The Boondocks
- Snoop Dogg and Larry King at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles
- Anderson Cooper
- Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
- Conan O’Brien
- Minty, who fell on the ground, for just a moment or twooooo
- American Dad
- American Girls
- American Woman
- The Marvel Cinematic Universe
- the TV series Dollhouse
- Sportscenter
- Booty-Os
- Lunch Money Lewis
- Mystery packed vinyl figures
- Bananas
- Smoothies
- the song Smooth by Santana and Rob Thomas
- Ben Folds
- the number 8. Not on this list, as such– just the number 8