I will be presenting this speech about my birthday on Friday to my COM and Community Engagement class. Some of it is completely false information I fabricated about myself to fit in with the events that actually did happen the day I was born, but no one has to know that. Do you think I’ll get an A? Feel free to be painfully honest.
Intro
I. On July 31st, 1989, Hurricane Chantal tore through the Gulf of Mexico causing flash floods that destroyed around 3,000 homes and killed thirteen people.
A. Miles away in Detroit, Michigan, my mother went into labor at Sinai Hospital.
II. I would like to tell you about some of the interesting events that occurred on the day I was born, which include Hurricane Chantal, the first release of Gameboys in the United States, and Wesley Snipes’ twenty-seventh birthday.
III. It just so happens that three of my favorite things are hurricanes, video games, and Wesley Snipes; “New Jack City” is actually in my DVD player right now.
IV. Most of us have felt the impact of at least one of these things in some way during our lifetime; with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, going from Gameboys in the 90’s to Nintendo DS in the 2000’s, and I think I speak for everyone when I say we all love African American ninjas.
V. The main point of my speech is to tell you about how Hurricane Chantal, Gameboys, and Wesley Snipes impacted my entire life all because I was born on July 31st, 1989.
Body
I. Normally my birthday is one of the hottest of the year, but the day I was born Hurricane Chantal brought rain, hail, and 75 mph winds to the Midwest.
A. The hurricane developed slowly, and was traced back to a tropical disturbance in Trinidad on the 24th.
B. Although it was only a category 1 storm, Chantal did about $100 million worth of damage in Texas and Louisiana.
1. Fortunately, no one in Michigan or outlying states was injured so my parents were able to take me home with them the day after I was born, much to the dismay of my brother.
II. My older brother, Joe, didn’t want anything to do with me the day I was born or the many years that followed. I attribute this to my parents buying him a Gameboy, which made its debut in the United States on July 31st, 1989.
A. North America was the second continent to be introduced to the Gameboy, Asia being the first, and Europe the last.
B. The highest selling game for Gameboy was Tetris, developed and designed by the communist Russian Aleksei Pazhitnov (Alexey Pajitnov). He called it his Soviet Mind Game.
1. Joe’s personal favorite was Super Mario Land, while I will always prefer Tetris.
C. Eventually I somehow broke my brother’s Gameboy like I did his many other toys, so our parents gave him a Sega Gamegear, from then on Sonic the Hedgehog was all he ever played.
III. Because my entire family idolizes Wesley Snipes, I’ve known since I was old enough to comprehend that I share a birthday with him.
A. 1989 was an epic year for Wesley Snipes. Not only would he be turning twenty-seven, he would also star in his first major hit film.
1. “Major League” is a satire comedy starring Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, and Wesley Snipes that grossed nearly $50 million in domestic release.
2. The film put Wesley Snipes on the map and he would go on to be a great ninja/vampire slayer in movies such as “Blade”, “Blade II”, and “Blade: Trinity”.
B. In 2006, Snipes was charged with evading his taxes and eventually had to go to prison. However, I’m assuming it was rich man’s prison and was more like going to a rehab facility than doing hard time.
1. Even if Wesley Snipes did go to real prison, he knows Kung Fu, Jiu Jiutsu, and has a black belt in Karate, so I think he could hold his own against the other criminals.
Conclusion
I. These are the events that occurred on my birthday which are the most important to me.
II. Hurricane Chantal, the release of the Gameboy, and Wesley Snipes’ birthday.
III. Hopefully these things help you understand me better as they hold such significance to me.
A. Hurricanes are devastative yet intriguing by nature.
B. Gameboys made my brother hate me.
C. Wesley Snipes is my idol.
IV. I encourage you to think about how these events have affected your life, what if the Gameboy had never been released, or Wesley Snipes had never been born? We all could have done without the Hurricane but those sorts of things happen whether we need them to or not.
V. Had these things never occurred, we could all still be playing 8-bit games, meteorologists would have nothing to warn us about, and most importantly there would be no such thing as the Blade Trilogy.
Just to be clear, my brother and I never owned a Gameboy. In fact, my brother is only a year and a half older than me so he couldn’t have possibly been playing video games on the day of my birth… he hates me for completely different reasons. We did, however, own a Sega Gamegear and we did only ever own Sonic the Hedgehog, I also liked to pull the heads off of his G.I. Joe’s. I have never seen a Wesley Snipes film, but he sounds like a cool guy.
Joe,
Sorry I said your favorite game was Super Mario Land, but I couldn’t make myself look gay and that was the only other game that came out for Gameboy in 1989.
