We made it. 2019 is finally over. Maybe. After all of the excitement, repetition, rioting, elections, rioting, elections, and record-breaking tsunamis of mutually respectful political discourse, it’s time to breathe a sigh of *cough*. Anyway, we can all expect a much calmer, peaceful, serene 2020 filled with nongenderly love and good will towards nongender, provided we either drop dead or take enough drugs to keep us in a persistent psychotic break with reality over the next 12 months.

Disclaimer: We make no assurance whatsoever that what we have all experienced as 2019 wasn’t in itself a species-wide psychotic break with reality to begin with.

We can begin our 2019 retelling with the story of Super Bowl LIII, defined as “being three more than 50.” LIII was the first Super Bowl where people could actually place bets without being arrested. Except for all the other Super Bowls where people placed bets without being arrested.  In a possibly related matter, 95% of all bets on the game were placed illegally anyway, for a spectacular improvement of infinite percent in terms of respect for U.S. sports betting law.

The main practical difference for bookmakers was that this time, bookies were able to lose money to bettors without having all their losses viciously confiscated by the Gaming Control Board, the government agency in charge of drinking coffee, watching porn on the taxpayer’s dime, and controlling board games. According to the New Jersey DGE, which stands for I don’t know exactly because I’m too lazy to Google it but probably something about gaming, figures showed that fans won $39,469,147 out of $34,894,900 wagered. Ecstatic about the newfound freedom to legally lose money, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Sports Betting Association of Associates Who Bet On Sports In New Jersey stated, “I guess we didn’t know exactly what we were doing so much.”