Every Christmas, my dad gives me and my brothers a handful of instant lotto scratch tickets. Over the course of the day, we dutifully scratch them off, usually to come away empty-handed. At best, maybe we win back the price of one of the tickets. It’s a nice thought, I guess, but what my dad’s gift ultimately boils down to is him handing us some stuff to throw away.

But maybe I’m looking at it all wrong. Maybe I should be more excited about winning two bucks on $25 worth of scratch-offs. Maybe I should be more like Tyler Heep from Urbandale, Iowa.

Tyler was recently the beneficiary of a winning scratch ticket, collecting a cool one dollar from the state of Iowa after collecting some spare change and using it to buy a few instant lottos. But instead of popping back inside to cash his ticket in at the local Circle K or Wawa or 7/11 or Kwik-E-Mart (I’ve never been to Iowa), Tyler did something else. He knew that despite his meager winnings, he was still a winner, and he demanded to be treated as such. So he drove down to the state’s lottery headquarters in Des Moines and requested to be treated like he’d just won the Mega Millions jackpot.

He asked to be presented with a giant check for one dollar.

To their credit, the officials at Iowa’s Lottery Headquarters obliged, providing Tyler with a huge check – complete with the words “Stinking Rich” written in the memo – and even took a photo of him standing in front of the Iowa lottery logo.

“They decided to treat me like a million dollar winner,” Heep told Iowa’s WHOtv, “The guy came down the stairs and they took me into the back room where the camera was with the Iowa Lottery logo. Sure enough, they wrote me the one dollar check and had me hold it up and took the picture.”

Satisfied, and a whole dollar richer, Tyler promptly took his winnings and converted them to… a half a gallon of gas.

Check out the local news coverage here:

“This is Scott McLane – our favorite dad, husband and coach.

Scott works full time as an engineer, and in his off-time as the volunteer soccer coach for both our children’s soccer teams. He started with them in the rec program and transitioned to the travel program.

From the very first season when they were in kindergarten (shown below) through their transition to the more competitive travel program, he has put forth the same effort and dedication to ensure each child he coaches, including our own, has fun, learns, and develops into the best player they can be.

It’s a testament to who he is because on both our daughter’s and son’s teams he has players that have stayed with him from his very first season. His dedication has extended beyond our own children and he’s actually become the president of the soccer club. He is an amazing role model.

He makes everything fun. I can’t express just how much I love him for it and how proud I am to be married to him. Oh, and his dad joke game is excellent.”

– Laura McLane

Want to share a story about fatherhood? Email [email protected]

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it a million more times – we simply do not deserve dogs. Even dogs who barely know us are more than happy to lend a helping paw, but when a dog is a treasured member of your family (and boy, do they know it), they will do quite literally anything for you.

When Cemal Senturk fell ill in early January, his loyal dog Boncuk trailed the ambulance to a nearby hospital. Upon arriving, Boncuk waited patiently outside the hospital’s doors for her owner to return. Senturk’s daughter took Boncuk home multiple times, but each day, the determined pup would run back to the hospital.

“She comes every day around 9 a.m. and waits until nightfall. She doesn’t go in,” a hospital security guard told local news station DHA. “When the door opens she pokes her head inside.”

With more self-control than most kids and a fierce determination to stay close to her human, Boncuk spent days following the same routine. She would arrive at the hospital in the early morning and stand guard near the hospital’s entrance until it became clear her owner would not be emerging that day.

Unsurprisingly, Senturk missed his beloved dog just as dearly as Boncuk missed him. After several days apart, Senturk was well enough to be discharged from the hospital. When he finally emerged six days after being admitted, his dedicated pup was beyond delighted.

“She’s very used to me. And I miss her too, constantly,” Senturk told the DHA.

Fortunately for this deeply-bonded pair, their time apart came to an end. Senturk and Boncuk returned home together, after perhaps the most heartwarming reunion of all time. Watch the video below, and give your own pup some extra scratches today.

Ryan Reynolds is well known for his potty mouth. After all, this is the guy who plays Deadpool in the filthiest comic book movies out there! He is equally well known for his sense of humor, especially when it comes to social media.

Sesame Street is not.

But the other day, the two worlds collided when a mom was watching an episode of the classic children’s show with her kid, and tweeted that Ryan Reynolds’ guest appearance made things fun for both generations.

Watching a little @sesamestreet with the kiddo, and its an episode with @VancityReynolds and the gang doing an A-Team gag. Its a delight, for both me and the kiddo. pic.twitter.com/srIyYLps2o

— False (@Felix87446772) January 24, 2021

The episode featured Reynolds dressed as the letter A for an A-Team parody, which was already the kind of thing that was firmly in an adult’s wheelhouse (I don’t know too many kids who are big fans of Hannibal, Murdoch, and B.A. Baracus!). But Reynolds took things even further with the r-rated joke he made in response to the tweet.

Referencing the outfit he was forced to wear for the segment – a giant letter A with his head squeezed into the middle – Reynolds made a subtle joke that had the grown-ups laughing, if a bit shocked.

I remember how challenging it was to sing because the A-hole was so tight. But I pushed through because kids all over the country were counting on me. https://t.co/EiXEUjomxE

— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) January 25, 2021

Not only did my man call it “tight,” he made a crack (sorry) about “pushing through” too!

Twitter, to the complete lack of surprise of anyone who has even been on Twitter, was here for it.

Some marveled at the many sides of the man:

The speed at which you veer back and forth between filthy and wholesome is delightful.

— Marie Julianna (@MarieJulianna4) January 25, 2021

Others at his audacity:

I’ll take “Things you can’t say on Sesame Street” for $1000.

— Robin Burcell (@RobinBurcell) January 25, 2021

And a few attempted to add to the fun:

I remember how challenging it was to sing because the A-hole was so tight. But I pushed through because kids all over the country were counting on me. https://t.co/EiXEUjomxE

— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) January 25, 2021

I remember how challenging it was to sing because the A-hole was so tight. But I pushed through because kids all over the country were counting on me. https://t.co/EiXEUjomxE

— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) January 25, 2021

CNN’s Jake Tapper had the final word, with a very dad response to Reynolds’ antics:

Ryan.

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 25, 2021

Check out the segment that inspired this tomfoolery:

Disney dropped the latest trailer for “Raya and the Last Dragon” and it is truly terrific. While the first look at it didn’t give much away, this trailer gives a much deeper look at what the movie is and why it’s shaping up to be one of the more hotly anticipated releases from Disney.

The trailer has Raya, voiced by Kelly Marie Tran of Star Wars sequel fame (or infamy, depending on where you fall on The Last Jedi), putting together a team to help save humanity, partly by finding the titular last dragon. And it looks outstanding.

It’s got everything you could want, including a CON BABY, which is the type of scheming, conniving toddler parents can probably relate to. And Raya finally finds the elusive Sisu, voiced by Awkwafina.

“I’m gonna be real with you. I’m not, like, the best dragon,” Sisu tells Raya after they meet. “Have you ever done like a group project but there’s like that one kid who didn’t pitch in as much but still ends up with the same grade?”

Another key part of the trailer involves the interaction between Raya and her dad, voiced by Daniel Dae Kim. The cast also includes Gemma Chan and Sandra Oh.

The trailer is full of action and even shines through with some humor and personality, which bodes well for the March 5 release in theaters and on Disney+. It’s got some really strong Moana/Frozen vibes, so it’ll be one your kids lock into for sure.

Not that there was any shortage of tragedy in 2020, but a young girl in Massachusetts suffered a double blow last year as her dad passed away tragically at the age of 28. Just weeks later, her godfather passed away. And now, as young Lilly prepares to turn 4, her mom is doing her best to make it a birthday she’ll never forget, and thousands of strangers are answering the call.

As her mom explained in a Facebook post earlier this month, Lilly “LOVES mail.” She said Lilly loves getting the mail, loves the mailman, loves everything about it. To help Lilly celebrate her first birthday without her dad, her mom asked if people would be willing to send her a birthday card, drawing, or letter. She expected a modest response from the community at best, and to date, Lilly has received cards from all over the world ahead of her 4th birthday.

Her mom told a local news station Lilly loves being a little helper and loves ‘to do everything for everyone’ and has been thrilled at the letters she’s received so far. Shes’ received cards from nearly 40 different states and a handful of other countries, including Canada, France, and even as far as Australia.

Her mom told People “Lilly has been so excited! We have been blown away by the response and never expected this. We are just so thankful to feel so much love. It’s been overwhelming in the best way.”

Remembering passwords is one of the biggest pains of the modern era. Forgetting your Amazon, Gmail, or Netflix password can involve jumping through multiple hoops to reset, especially since two-factor authentication became a thing.

But I will never bemoan the forgotten password process again, after hearing about a Bitcoin investor who can’t remember his IronKey password. Turns out he can’t access his digital bitcoin wallet, worth a cool $220 MILLION! Plus, he’s used 8 of his 10 attempts. He only has two tries left before his IronKey hard drive encrypts forever and he permanently loses access to millions.

The story was featured in the New York Times about a German programmer, Stefan Thomas, who was paid for a project in Bitcoin in 2011. Since then, the bitcoin stock has SOARED (it’s up like 50 percent just in the last few months). He saved the password to his digital wallet on an IronKey hard drive and then wrote the password on a piece of paper. He lost that paper, which now looks like a $220 MILLION mistake.

make this into a movie where he has to retrace his steps from 10 years ago and reconnects with some long lost love that he thinks is the basis for the password but is not — he loses the money but gains something more

— Steadman™ (@AsteadWesley) January 12, 2021

A painful memory. I hope others can learn from my mistakes. Test your backups regularly to make sure they are still working. An ounce of foresight could have prevented a decade of regret.

That said, I’ll do what I always do which is focus on building things, e.g. @Interledger. https://t.co/pCgObeAf4Z

— Stefan Thomas (@justmoon) January 12, 2021

It’s the type of lost password nightmare that would give you enough anxiety for two lifetimes. He told the NYTimes he would lay in bed and think about it, try a new strategy, and be desperate after it failed again. He’s put the drive in a secure facility for the time being, as he tries to scheme another strategy to rescue his $200+ million bitcoin wallet.

“I got to a point where I had to let it be in the past, just for my mental health,” he said.

This is exactly why you use a simple password involving your name and jersey number from high school for every single PW ever.

Having a child diagnosed with cancer is one of the most gutting things a parent can experience. It’s one of life’s most vicious and senseless cruelties to see your kid suffer fighting a deadly disease. This is why every parent can relate to the joy and happiness when a child overcomes the disease. The story of a 4-year-old boy in Virginia was making the rounds recently for his unique celebration marking the end of his cancer battle. After he was in remission, he got to ring the bell on his firefighter dad’s fire truck.

Nolan Turner celebrated being cancer-free by donning a fire helmet and ringing the large silver bell on the fire truck outside the Children’s Hospital. He was surrounded by his parents, extended family and friends, and hospital staffers.

His teary-eyed dad told a local news station that ‘crossing the finish line is a great feeling’, he said. “It’s just so amazing watching him overcome this adversity with a smile on his face.”

Dad called his son a “true fighter”, and said Nolan wants to grow up to be a firefighter too. His dad’s firefighter buddies have been part of the support network the family was especially grateful for, and they even made several trips to his hospital while he was undergoing treatment. The boy wasn’t allowed to have any visitors outside of his parents, so the fire trucks raised ladders with signs of support for Nolan to raise his spirits.

Just a powerful and cathartic moment to see their son triumphantly ring that bell, and it’s the sort of thing that causes the allergies of any dad to act up (if you prefer a cutting onions reference, feel free to swap that in).

Thanks to our political climate, people often turn to pop culture to make sense of what’s going on in the world. Things aren’t exactly peachy these days, and thus various dystopian movies, TV shows, and books are being referenced in relation to the pandemic and our political circumstances.

As social media continues to assert its dominance, both in driving conversations and shutting down particular voices, one particular work has been getting more and more play, and that’s George Orwell’s classic tale of totalitarianism, conformity, and disinformation: 1984.

It’s a great book, in which many parallels can be found with today’s climate, regardless of your own political persuasion, but unlike other dystopian works like Brave New World or Fahrenheit 451, it hasn’t gotten a pop culture makeover in quite a while (unless you’re a theatergoer). Until now.

1984 is getting a TV adaptation, but instead of adapting straight from the novel, the planned five-part miniseries will work off of the 2013 stage play from Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan.

“As the world grapples with democracy and government in our divided age of surveillance, ‘fake news’ and truth decay, the urgency of Orwell’s masterpiece is undeniable,” the pair said in a statement (via Deadline) “The small screen feels like a natural home for his portrait of a society in which people trust their screens more than the world outside their windows.”

Apparently, that 2013 staged version has a bit of a reputation for its intense and bloody torture sequences (the book employed a very literal ‘rat in a cage,’ shouts to Billy Corgan), which caused some audience members to recoil – and made actress Jennifer Lawrence throw up during her visit to see Olivia Wilde in the Broadway production.

Whether the TV show will adhere to those levels of intensity is yet to be seen, but there’s no denying the show’s modern-day relevance, even if most of the people claiming we’re currently living under Big Brother’s watch haven’t actually read it.

It was a big day for wizardry, as The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that HBO Max is developing a live-action Harry Potter series. The beloved book franchise has spawned 10 blockbuster movies appeared headed for the streaming world for a series set in the Harry Potter world.

We’re in a full-fledged era of streaming wars, as each service tries to one-up the competition and dethrone Netflix. NBC moved The Office to Peacock, Disney+ is releasing a million Marvel and Star Wars shows, and HBO Max is getting all Warner Bros movies the same day they are released in theaters. And now, HBO Max is working to add some magic to their offerings.

Exclusive: #HarryPotter live-action TV series in early development at HBO Max https://t.co/A0nvuDhpaG pic.twitter.com/YASjFMm1Pg

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) January 25, 2021

Rumors say the project is in the very early stages and that executives are deep in conversations with several different writers exploring TV possibilities, as the project is a high priority item for HBO Max. Yet, when The Wrap contacted HBO and Warner they got this response:

“There are no ‘Harry Potter’ series in development at the studio or on the streaming platform.”

But that may be because they haven’t committed to one of the pitches they’ve been soliciting.

Or maybe it’s all a bunch of Hogwarts hogwash!

There would still be plenty of speed bumps for a future series, including a complicated rights deal with NBC that doesn’t expire for several years. Another wrinkle is the involvement of author J.K. Rowling, who still has a say in any spin-off productions. Still, with the highly popular IP, and the clear efforts from the streamer to find an angle to return the Harry Potter world, it looks like only a matter of time before wizards will become cool again.