The PreGame

When I was growing up, my parents would write my teachers a thank-you note at the end of every school year, a small token of gratitude for helping me with the first steps of book-learning. It’s a tradition I kept as I got older, showing my appreciation for the contribution to my education and growth as a person.

But there’s a group of teachers, some of my first, who have never received a note. Among them: an avian, an addict and a homeless fella who lives in a garbage can.

I’ve got an idea that will make me millions — if I can somehow become musically inclined enough to carry it through. More likely, I’ll probably just pay for the chance to listen if someone else manages the feat. The idea?

Kids music. For adults.

Once upon a time, a fairy tale adaptation was a tired concept for a movie.

Then theaters were flooded with movies adapted from comic books (“The Avengers”), movies adapted from action figures (“Transformers”), movies adapted from board games (“Battleship”) and movies adapted from movies adapted from comic books (this summer’s “The Amazing Spider-Man”). Now, suddenly, a fairly tale movie seems almost refreshingly simple.

I’m going to be celebrating this weekend — Big Willie style. I could do it in Miami, but I’ll probably be in a theater here, um, just the two of us.

That’s right: Will Smith is back. The third iteration of his “Men In Black” franchise hits cinemas tomorrow, and I couldn’t be more excited. It’s his first film since “Seven Pounds” in 2008, but moreso it’s the first movie since 2004’s “I, Robot” that he’s had the potential to make a rap song about (“Robots are killin’ people/What is there to do?/Detective Del Spooner/is looking out for you”).

There are a great, great deal of beer-drinkers out there whose drink choices could be likened to the innocuous, predictable game show, “Wheel of Fortune.”

That show features two hosts (Miller, Budweiser), both with subtle differences but neither particularly memorable; it trots out new variations every once in a while to spice things up (the Miller Lite Punch Top, Bud Light Platinum); and it’s consistent and easy to find. “Wheel of Fortune” serves its purpose, but at the end of the day, there’s little excitement involved outside of buying a vowel in a puzzle featuring the word “rhythm.”

It’s the time of year when robes and funny hats aren’t only worn while making that first pot of coffee. When “Pomp and Circumstance” is less about highfalutin’ and more about the soundtrack to one of the more significant processions you’ll ever watch. When the word “commencement” simultaneously means a beginning and an end, and nobody thinks that’s strange.

It’s graduation season.

“Remember, with great power … comes great responsibility.” The old guy from “Spider-Man”

For the longest time, that quote meant only that if I ever became a superhero, I would be obligated to defend New York from the Green Goblin and to keep my mask on when upside-down making out with Kirsten Dunst in the rain.

But then something sudden happened — a great change to the amount of power I wielded. Bitten by a radioactive spider? No. A letter in the mail.

My roommate and I were chosen to be a Nielsen family.

He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Or, rather, an offer better than anything else I was doing at the time.

A n extreme or irrational fear of being in high places is called acrophobia. It's a condition from which I thought I suffered most of my life.

I was wrong.

As it turns out, I'm not afraid of heights: I'm afraid of falling.

More specifically, I'm afraid of falling when the conclusion of the fall isn't assured to be a gentle one. Awareness of reliable, secure deceleration systems has allowed me to pursue feats of which I never would have dreamed as a child, like jumping out of an airplane and going off the high dive at the community swimming pool. But, hey man, I don't know about that treehouse. Or that ladder. Or any edge of any building ever.

So it was on account of that phobia (for lack of a better term, we'll call it "not wanting to die") that I felt pangs of trepidation Monday as I descended on ZipLine Hilton Head at Broad Creek Marina. I'd never been zip-lining before; I envisioned the experience to be something like swinging from vines like Tarzan, only using the contraption Kevin from "Home Alone" uses to get away from the bad guys at the end of the first movie.

I always fought the hardest for the toys on the precipice of the big, black garbage bag.