The new year ahead

Welcome to 2024 everyone. It’s day 2 and I have aleady fallen behind on something I wanted to try out. That would be to try and write at least 500 words every day. Not focusing on clicks, or topics that will get clicks, or creating conversation or engagement. Just writing for the fun of writing. Like I did many years ago. Funny enough, writing for just fun pushed me into a career where it was about engagement, clicks and trying to stratigize what Google wanted to see. I think that is what kind of killed the buzz.

It really was about a daily journal to cut down on phone calls as I did not really like phone calls with family and friends. Posting about what I was up to was much easier. It was also before it was a thing to share everything on social media. Just like the boomerang of writing, to not writing, to writing again, social media is starting to go away from oversharing (at least that’s what I think). Sure there are endless amounts of influencers on Tik Tok and Instagram showing off their literal boring days and what they are cooking, but if you look at Facebook for example, your parents, aunts, highschool friends etc. are not sharing much anymore. Or at least what it was like several years ago.

My Favourite TV Shows of 2023

Succession was one of my favourite TV Shows of 2023.

Recently my wife was commenting on the fact that I have not added a post to Like a Dad in a long time. It’s true. I don’t think about it anymore and I forget how much fun it can be to write something. Every now and then I think about a topic that would work and then I just don’t write.

So, to get something up before the end of the year I needed a topic that was pretty easy to put together, but also one I have a lot of thoughts on.

Then I started seeing the top lists of 2023 start to surface. Of course, that’s an easy one to do. A look back at the year that was. But since I don’t really see that many movies, or have any idea what new music is, I knew there was only one source for a very detailed list.

TV shows.

Pre postseason look at my NBA predictions

Giannis Antetokounmpo

As the NBA season approaches the postseason, there are so many wild story lines happening. So, no better time to look back at my preseason predictions to see what I got right and wrong. Spoiler alert, I did not get much right.

But to be fair, few could have predicted the Sacramento Kings being awesome. Or Kevin Durant getting traded to Phoenix. The Wemby sweepstakes were not as obvious as anticipated. More teams seem to really care about the play in. And many things have aligned to make scoring at an all time high.

Will things return to the norm once we enter the playoffs? Or will the unexpected continue to happen?

Here is a review of my preseason predictions followed with how I am doing.

March Madness just isn’t the same

Watching college basketball in March is one of my favourite things to do. Every year (except for the first COVID year), the last few weeks of March and start of April are all about buzzer beaters, heartaches and watching a new batch of college kids shine or crumble under the pressures of the craziest sports tournament on the planet.

Just this past weekend I watched teams both steal and hand away games with under 10 minutes to go. While it’s hard to watch when a team messes up your bracket, it makes sense. These are essentially kids playing in front of millions of viewers. They are not professional athletes (yet) and with so few stars sticking around for more than a year, of course there will be meltdowns and brain farts.

But even with the unexpected teams moving on.

Despite the buzzer beaters and feel good stories.

To me, the tournament just isn’t the same. Maybe I am just getting old and after ## years of watching this tourney I am just getting crusty.

Revisiting my 2022-23 NBA Predictions

Now that we are over half done the 2022-23 NBA season, I thought it was a good practice to revisit my early season predictions. It’s been an odd season so far, especially from the perspective of a Toronto Raptors fan. Boy was I off. Scoring is way up, no team looks like they are unbeatable and honestly I think the biggest key to winning the title will be health.

Here are my predictions for the season with a little commentary added on how it’s going as of January 30th.