Mike O'Connell

One of my least favorite things in the world is admitting I was wrong.

You know where this is going.

About a year and a half ago Disney released a new, live-action version of Aladdin, starring Will Smith (of all people) as the Genie and for the past year and a half I’ve flat-out refused to see it. Why? Simple. The cartoon version of Aladdin (1992–also Disney) is so awesome I figured nothing could ever compare.

Well, the cartoon version is still my favorite, but I must admit the 21st offering is pretty dang good as well. The music, the sets, the costumes… I even liked Will Smith. Gettin’ genie wit it.

The tale of Aladdin and his lamp and a thousand and one nights and all that has been around a long time for a reason. It’s good. And we take care with things that are good because it’s so easy to mess them up. Fearing a mess up I avoided seeing this film until my son talked me into it this past weekend. I’m glad he did. And I’ll admit… I was wrong.

First time for everything.

Trying to explain September 11 to kids born in the past decade or so is kind of like trying to explain the coronavirus to, well, kids born in the past decade or so. The world isn’t really like this, so we claim, and soon enough we’ll be back to normal.

Because that’s all any of us really wants. Just to go back to normal.

And someday we’ll talk about it like it’s ancient history.

Isn’t it pretty to think so?

When I was a kid I used to sort of hate Labor Day because it meant the end of summer.

Thirty years later I pretty much feel the same way.

Amidst a sea of darkness in this global pandemic I have found my newly-purchased second computer monitor to be a shining beacon of merriment and diversion. When it’s all over can I ever go back to one monitor?

Never again.

Of 15 games scheduled across Major League Baseball yesterday only eight of them were actually played. Of those eight games, four of them were shutouts. (What is this, 1968?)

In the remaining four games, losing teams scored 1, 3, 3, and 7 runs, for a total of 14. Considering the four zeroes, losing teams scored an average of 1.75 runs. That would be the mean. The mode was zero, the median was 0.5, and the range was 7.

Just wanted to get back in practice a little bit.