Hey, it’s a start.
Congrats to the Washington Wizards for finally slaying the .500saurus Rex by beating the Portland Trailblazers last night. The last time the Wizards had a winning record was Halloween 2009, three games into the ’09-10 season. John Wall wasn’t even on the team yet, so at long last he, and the red, white and blue jerseys, can say that they’re winners. To give some perspective, here are some things that have happened in the 1,556 days since our NBA team had more wins than losses. Feel free to add anything I missed.
- The Wizards have gone 120-236. The Cubs have gone 273-375. And the New Orleans Saints, bless their hearts, have gone 54-28.
- There have been 18 no-hitters, including 5 perfect games, in MLB.
- Raphael Nadal has won 7 Grand Slam events.
- Lebron James has scored 9,196. I only include this because, as a Wizards fan, I’ve got to hold onto a little bitterness.
- Tiger Woods ran his SUV into a tree, took “an indefinite break from professional golf,” came back and started dating an Olympic skier.
- Amanda Knox was convicted, then acquitted, then convicted again.
- Washington, D.C., plus twelve other states (including California’s overturn of Prop 8), legalized same-sex marriage.
- The Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building was officially opened.
- Conan O’Brien left The Tonight Show, replaced by the previously displaced Jay Leno, who would then announce that he’s leaving in favor of Jimmy Fallon (just a couple of more weeks and the Wizards would have spent Leno’s entire second stint at or below .500).
- The Saints won the Super Bowl. Bountygate happened.
- Volcano Eyjafjallajökull tested the limits of flight planners and spell checkers everywhere.
- Deepwater Horizon caused the worst 4/20 ever.
- Operation Iraqi Freedom ended.
- As the World Turns aired for the last time.
- SpaceX officially kicked off the privately funded space era with the successful launch, orbit, and recovery of the Dragon spacecraft.
- Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed.
- Tragic shootings occurred in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Texas, Wisconson and far too many other places. George Zimmerman killed Treyvon Martin.
- Revolution hit the Middle East, starting in Tunisia and lead to the over throw of the government(s) in Egypt.
- A Space Shuttle launched for the last time.
- There were massive earthquakes in Haiti, New Zealand and Japan, the latter resulting in a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
- Osama bin Laden was killed by US special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Turns out he had lots of porn on his computer. A few months later, Muammar Gaddafi joins him. No word on Gaddafi’s porn.
- I got married.
- We felt a freakin’ earthquake in DC.
- Wall Street got Occupied, a movement that quickly spread to other cities.
- The Costa Concordia ran aground, killing 15 people.
- A five foot tall prehistoric penguin was discovered.
- Encyclopedia Britannica stopped producing a printed version.
- James Cameron got down…way, way down, all the way to Challenger Deep, the deepest point on earth. Several months later, Felix Baumgartner went way, way up…and then all the way back down.
- My wife and I bought a house.
- NASA dropped Curiosity, a car sized robot explorer, onto the the surface of Mars. Actually, they didn’t drop it, so much as they gently lowered it from a hovering rocket platform!!!
- Facebook went public.
- Voyager 1 became the first man-made object to leave the solar system and is now hurtling through interstellar space.
- Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney to win his second term as POTUS. The same day my wife told me she was pregnant.
- “Gangnam Style” came and went.
- Lance Armstrong admitted he was a dope(r).
- In a rather stunning turn of events, we got a new Pope and it turns out that he’s kind of awesome.
- Oscar Pistorius became an Olympic hero, then an accused murderer.
- Scientists successfully connect and share information between the brains of two rats, setting the groundwork for the Jaegers that will eventually save humanity from the Kaiju.
- A giant tarantula, with a nearly 8″ (20cm) leg span, was discovered in Sri Lanka. I marked Sri Lanka off the list of places I will ever visit.
- My wife and I had a baby.
- Two states, Colorado and Washington legalized recreational pot. Later, NFL teams from those states meet in the Super Bowl. Coincidence?
