*~* Thursday, December 26, 1996 *~*

IT HAPPENED!!!!!!!!!!

I HAVE A NINTENDO 64!!!!!!! Here's the true story, which I only found out at breakfast. Two Saturdays ago Jimmy's mom heard a toy store was getting a shipment. So MY MOM, on her one Saturday off, got up at 5:30 in the morning, IN DECEMBER, and stood in line in the cold with a Wawa coffee behind about 40 people, half of them trying to get Tickle Me Elmos. The store had 12 Nintendo 64s. Mom was number 9. She says she was ready to fight somebody. She's a nurse at the VA. She takes care of guys who were in actual wars. She was not scared of 40 people and some Elmos. Lucky for everybody, she didn't have to.

Then she hid it in the trunk of her car for TWO WEEKS. I rode in that car like ten times! It was RIGHT THERE!

Christmas morning I opened it and yelled so loud Dad spilled his coffee. Chris (home for break!!!) says my voice cracked. It did not. It was a yell of joy.

Since then: Super Mario 64 for about 11 hours. I have 47 stars. Chris has 12 and says "I have a life." Dad tried it and made Mario run off the bridge into the moat eight times in a row and kept saying "How do you STOP him?"

Mike came for dinner and brought The Pie again. (Two years in a row! It's a tradition now. It's still not homemade.)

Mom, thank you. For real. Best mom in all of Gloucester County.

THE FIRST ANNUAL DAVEY AWARDS (1996)
Best Weather: The Blizzard of '96
Best Movie: Independence Day
Best Mom: Mom (for standing in line)
Best New Building: The CoreStates Center (looks great on TV)
Best Brother: TIE, Mike and Chris, because if I pick one the other one will read this
Lifetime Achievement: Chris's old Nintendo, which is retiring to the closet with honors

*~* Sunday, September 29, 1996 *~*

THE NINTENDO 64 CAME OUT TODAY!!!

I have not seen one in real life. Jimmy's cousin in Turnersville went to a store this morning and it was sold out before he got to the front. It's $199. The controller has three handles, like a trident. And Mario is in 3-D, which means he can go ANYWHERE.

I told Mom and Dad this can be my Christmas present, my birthday present, AND my high school graduation present in the year 2000, all in one. Dad said "You graduate in 2000?" and looked kind of old for a second and then went back to the paper.

Chances of getting one for Christmas, scale of 1 to 10: 3. Everybody says they're going to be impossible to find. I'm being realistic. I learned a lot from the PlayStation Campaign of 1995 (see here).

*~* Friday, September 6, 1996 *~*

I AM IN HIGH SCHOOL!!!

It's HUGE. Our whole middle school would fit in it like three times. There are seniors with BEARDS. A senior with a beard held the door for me on the first day and I said "Thank you, sir." SIR. On day one.

Mike called last Sunday to give me High School Advice. Mike's advice was: "Walk fast, like you know where you're going. Nobody bothers a guy who knows where he's going." So on Wednesday I walked really fast like I knew where I was going, and I walked directly into the wrong wing, twice, and then into a closet with a mop in it.

TOP TEN THINGS I LEARNED IN MY FIRST WEEK OF HIGH SCHOOL
10. The map they give you is a lie.
9. You get four minutes between classes. The school is a mile long. Do the math.
8. Upperclassmen call freshmen "fresh meat" and think it's the funniest thing anyone ever said.
7. The bells are REALLY loud.
6. Gym has a locker room. I don't want to talk about it.
5. The pizza is square. Nobody knows why.
4. There's a vending machine with Tastykakes in it. Best school in America.
3. Jimmy and Ant have the same lunch as me. Lunch is saved.
2. Mike's advice doesn't work.
1. I found the cafeteria on day three.

Days one and two I ate lunch in the hallway by the library because I was too embarrassed to ask where the cafeteria was. On day three I followed the smell of the square pizza. Like a cartoon. I floated.

*~* Saturday, July 6, 1996 *~*

INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!!!!!!

The movie, not the holiday. (Well, both.) We saw it Wednesday night, the day it came out: me, Jimmy, Ant, and Chris, who drove, who is the best. The aliens BLOW UP THE WHITE HOUSE. That's not a spoiler, it's in every commercial. Will Smith punches an alien right in the face. Jeff Goldblum saves the entire world with a laptop. A LAPTOP! Chris says it's "dumb but good," which is Chris's highest rating for a movie.

On the actual Fourth we went down the shore to Ocean City and walked the boardwalk, and I had pizza, caramel popcorn, a lemonade, and fudge, and then I went on a ride, and I don't want to talk about the ride. Dad made us stay for the fireworks. Worth it.

DAVE'S OFFICIAL RANKINGS: SUMMER MOVIES 1996
1. Independence Day
2. Twister (a COW flies by)
3. Mission: Impossible

Also the Macarena is everywhere. Mom did it at the barbecue. I had to leave.

*~* Wednesday, June 26, 1996 *~*

I GRADUATED FROM 8TH GRADE!!! (last Thursday)

It was in the gym and it was about a thousand degrees. I wore a tie that Dad tied because I don't know how yet. Chris came (he's home for the summer!!!) and Mike came too, in a tie, and sat with Mom and Dad. When they called my name Mike did the whistle with two fingers in his mouth that is SO loud a teacher turned around. That's a Mike move. I didn't even know he was coming.

After, we all went for water ice. I got cherry and mango together, and Mike said "Cherry-mango. The choice of champions." So that's my flavor now. Forever.

AND TONIGHT: THE SIXERS DRAFTED ALLEN IVERSON!!!!! NUMBER ONE PICK!!! He's six feet tall, which is basically normal-person tall, and he's the fastest guy on the planet. Dad says the Sixers are "finally going to be something." Dad also says that about the Phillies every April.

*~* Saturday, June 1, 1996 *~*

8TH GRADE CLASS TRIP TO GREAT ADVENTURE!!!

The buses left at 7 in the morning. I sat with Jimmy. Ant sat behind us and kicked the seat for an hour and a half.

Things that happened:
- Batman: The Ride. Your feet hang down and there's NOTHING under them. Jimmy says I screamed "MOM." I say I screamed "MORE." We'll never know.
- A hot dog at Great Adventure costs about as much as a car.
- We got back at 9 at night and Mom was in the parking lot, and she had a hoagie waiting in the car for me, because she knows me.

*~* Saturday, April 13, 1996 *~*

WELCOME TO MY HOMEPAGE!!!!!!!

Hi! I'm Dave! I'm 14 and I'm from Sewell, New Jersey, and this is my homepage, which I made MYSELF in three nights with a big yellow book from the library that basically calls you a dummy right on the cover.

Here's what happened. In February, Dad changed his mind about AOL. (See Top Ten Uses for AOL Disks, #1. I am psychic.) Then Jimmy's cousin showed me GeoCities, where you get a FREE homepage. I picked TimesSquare because that's where the games are, and Arcade because obviously. Then you get a number, and I got 8080. You know why that's the best number? Because our ZIP code is 08080!!! Sewell, NJ 08080! It was open! It was DESTINY!!!

Why is it called "Dave's World (Not the Show)"? Because every single time I tell a grown-up my name is Dave, they go "Dave's World! Like the show!" Dave's World is a show on CBS about the newspaper guy Dave Barry. It is NOT ABOUT ME. I have never been on CBS. This is the real Dave's World.

I also pasted in my journal from Microsoft Works. The 1995 entries have their own page (click here!!!) and the new stuff goes right here.

Also on this page: the construction guy (he's working on it!!!), a marquee (learned it in one night!!!), and my e-mail (write me!!! be nice!!!).

Hi Mom. (Mom is my first visitor. She's also my second, third and fourth visitor. She keeps hitting Reload "to make sure it's still there.")

*~* Saturday, March 9, 1996 *~* (from Works)

The 8th Grade Spring Dance was last night in the gym.

I wore my good shirt and too much of the cologne Chris left in the bathroom. Jimmy said I smelled like the first floor of a department store.

Here's what I did at the dance: I stood at the wall. Jimmy stood at the wall. Ant stood at the wall until the second-to-last song and then he danced with a whole group of girls from homeroom and they LET him, which is now the biggest story of the year.

When the DJ played "Cotton Eye Joe" I did it with everybody, because that's not really dancing, it's stomping in a group. Then "Kiss from a Rose" came on and everybody paired up and I went back and held up the wall. The wall didn't fall down once. You're welcome, school.

Mom asked if I danced and I said "sort of" and she said "Well, that's a start." Mom is always saying things are a start.

(Dave from April: I'm going to dance at the next one. I'm writing it here so it's official.)

*~* Monday, January 22, 1996 *~* (from Works)

I'M 14!!!

Mom traded shifts with somebody at the hospital so she could be home this morning, and she made pork roll, egg and cheese for breakfast on a SCHOOL DAY, which has never happened in the history of this house.

Presents: money and a Sixers hat. Chris (still home, college doesn't start again till next week) took me to Wawa after school for a birthday hoagie and said "Fourteen. The worst one." Mike called after dinner and said "Fourteen. The best one." So now I don't know.

The snow from the blizzard is still piled up at the end of the driveway, except now it's gray. Dad calls it "the glacier."

Fourteen feels about the same as thirteen but taller.

*~* Tuesday, January 9, 1996 *~* (from Works)

SNOW DAY #2!!! (and probably #3, and maybe #4)

THE BLIZZARD OF '96!!! It started Saturday night and snowed ALL DAY Sunday and into Monday. Dad stuck a yardstick in the snow on the picnic table and it went past the 24. The drifts by the garage are taller than me. Our street hasn't been plowed yet. The whole development is just white, like somebody erased it.

Chris is still home from college (his break goes till the end of the month, college is the best) so we had the biggest snowball war in history, Chris against me and Jimmy. Chris won because he's 19 and he cheats. Then Dad made us all shovel the driveway, which took about a hundred years. Dad shoveled the whole time too and said "This is character building." Chris said "I have plenty of character." Dad said "Shovel."

When we ran out of milk, Dad and Chris walked up to Wawa in their boots like two guys in a movie about the North Pole, because Wawa is always open, even in a blizzard. They came back with coffee and a soft pretzel for everybody. Heroes.

The Eagles lost to Dallas this weekend. We watched with the snow coming down outside the window. It's okay. We'll always have 58-37.