I saw this picture and had to comment on what it’s like when your the best at what you do. Here’s Jordan Spieth and Tom Brady with the CEO of Under Armour (and some old man) playing a casual round at Augusta. These opportunities don’t come around for the layman but when you’re Brady and Spieth, you get to do whatever the world has to offer. I’m looking forward to the Masters myself and can’t wait to get some action.
David Bowie released Hunky Dory in 1971. I’m not a massive David Bowie fan and frankly think a large majority of his songs are overrated. Rebel Rebel, Modern Love, Let’s Dance, and Heroes to name a few that don’t thrill me. When I move past those overplayed songs, I run into Hunky Dory which has taken over my listening time.
Changes – The movie the Breakfast Club opens up with this quote, “These children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds, are immune to your consultations, they’re quite aware of what they’re going through.” For a movie as iconic as the Breakfast Club, it should stand as a testament to the power of this song and Bowie. It’s a nice song that deals with one of the most common themes that everyone goes through, change. The chorus is also catchy. CH-CH-CH-CH-Changes!
Life on Mars? – If you asked me what my favorite Bowie song was, I’d tend to answer with Life on Mars? I heard Chris Martin cover it and was blown away. I’m not comparing the two versions but the song is absolutely a top 100 of all time in my book. After some research, Bowie quotes about the girl in the first verse, “I think she finds herself disappointed with reality… that although she’s living in the doldrums of reality, she’s being told that there’s a far greater life somewhere, and she’s bitterly disappointed that she doesn’t have access to it.” This goes along with her watching TV and how it’s not what she expects. He may also be asking the question, is there Life on Mars? because he wants to leave Earth.,
I would do the whole album but those 5 songs are the best and I don’t think too many people care much further. Give the album a listen to on Spotify and see if you agree with my sentiment that these songs rock. I’d also like to know if you enjoyed reading this post because I honestly enjoy listening to albums that are off the radar and hopefully bringing some new songs to people’s attention.
Feature image is definitely not a holding pattern. This is what happens when Photoshop gets in the wrong hands.
I haven’t had the time to blog the past two days with work being busy and then bowling last night. I had 4 posts over the weekend which gets people expecting more posts but it’s not feasible to crank out posts like that. I’m going to end up with about 20 for the month which is on the low side, I’ll try to pick it up.
Traffic has been higher than normal with a consistent 300+ people a day. The most realistic stats that I can get from analytics is under behavior / site content/ all pages and then see how many people land on the home page. It’s about 30+ people a day which I think is my core audience. Obviously I’d like that to grow as my website continues to improve.
You can see from the title that my life is in a holding pattern, even though I decided to create a plane crashing into the Grand Canyon. I’m using Photoshop a ton at work but it’s only cutting out stupid tools. Never any fun. What I mean by holding pattern is that the days are going by and I’m living life right, but not much is happening. Work is great. I’m in great shape. I have few, if any, serious problems but I’m not exactly grabbing life by the balls. When I do grab it, I tend to pay the consequences. So I’m making a varying effort in playing it a bit closer to the vest and seeing how that fairs. Pretty boring.
I have a few music posts lined up that I like. I have some religious thoughts that may be of interest. Brookes and I like the topic of the ocean. I can’t do much with sports with no cash in my Bovada account. I haven’t been drinking so nothing is happening to write about. Time to get a girlfriend so I can bore the shit out of her too.
By Brookes Britcher
There are generally 3 elements to success in a fantasy baseball season: (A) 1st & 2nd round draft picks, (B) identifying undervalued middle-to-late picks and (C) intelligent waiver wire workings. (B) and (C) can be a bit more dynamic and fluid. Drafting VMart or Ortiz in the late rounds paid major dividends last season. As did finding some early gems like Velasquez off the early Waiver Wire or drafting Justin Verlander late.
However, none of those moves can exist without strategy – and that begins at the top of the draft. Like some variation of the “Butterfly Effect”, the first two moves you make will ripple and determine the rest of your draft, how your team is constituted, and how often you need to dip your toes into the FA or Waiver Wire pool.
The first pick of the draft is often where players make the biggest mistakes, and set their team down a poor draft process. It seems easy. Just take the best player with the best numbers available. It all depends on your league, league settings, etc., but for this discussion I’ll be entertaining a draft strategy in a H2H, Total Points / Week, Snake Draft league – the most common format available on ESPN.
THINGS TO CONSIDER WITH YOUR 1ST PICK
Position (and draft position depth).
Lineup
Multi- Category
WHO TO NOT DRAFT WITH YOUR 1st PICK
Don’t draft a 1B with your 1st pick (maybe Goldschmidt). Why would you do this? Because you want HR’s and you don’t want to worry about where they will come from later in the draft. You get to check it off your list. Until injuries happen. Then the 30-40 HR’s you were counting on are suddenly gone. Plenty of people hit HR’s – and you will most likely get next to nothing beyond that in points categories from this position. I promise, someone this year is going to hit more HR’s than someone thought. So be diligent on the FA pool. You’ll find your HR’s.WHO TO DRAFT WITH YOUR 1st PICK
I’m not going to go into numbers here as this post is already setting length records for this blog, and we all know about Google and BaseballReference at this point.
Only Arenado can plank in mid air.
If I had a Top 5 pick in a draft, these are the players I would take. Duh, huh?
#1 Arenado (3B)
#2 Machado (3B)
#3 Correa (SS)
#4 Goldschmidt (1B)
#5 Kershaw (P)
The only real advice I can provide is to draft high in the weakest positions, draft for players who can consistently impact multiple categories, take risks on players you like and enjoy watching, ride with a rookie you have a feeling about. Take Trout with your 1st pick if you’d like, but I’ll guarantee your SS or 3B productivity will suck all year.
One last thing…
NEVER draft for Steals or Saves. Outside of the “elite”, you can find them anywhere. Closers rarely finish a season, and another player will take their place. At 1 point, Steals are practically worthless. Take a player who hits doubles. Less chance of getting thrown out at 2nd for negative points.
STEAL OF THE DRAFT: Andrew McCutchen (OF) [2nd or 3rd round…] / Hunter Pence (OF) [5th or 6th round…]
A photoshop creation where I should have quit before I started.
I’ve eaten about 7 Chips Ahoy cookies today because I bought some whole milk at the store. What I like to do is stuff the whole cookie in my mouth, take a swig of milk, and it’s fantastically tasty. I don’t normally eat junk food but I’m making an exception because I hardly drank much alcohol this weekend (compared to last weekend) and didn’t get out of line. I exercised both days and will feel good starting the week. This was my intent.
I imagine most of you, ok none of you, read the other blog Sam has on his blogroll. It’s his friend from college and he writes more like an academic than a human being, but that’s coming from me, you can judge for yourself. He created a post that listed books that he’s read and recommended. In my sobriety, I decided to read one of the suggestions titled a Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (this got a please read this book).
It read it on my Kindle, so I’m not exactly certain how long it was, but I think I saw 617 pages online. Amount of pages means nothing because of font size but I started the book on Wednesday and finished it an hour ago. There were 9 chapters and I’d estimate each one took about and hour and half to finish. It’s about 12-15 hours of your time to read.
Before I go into the book, I haven’t read a fiction novel in quite some time. I’ve been bouncing between hobbies, TV series, and movies so reading was a welcomed change.
This guy was based off of Owen Meany. Know who?
My book review of A Prayer for Owen Meany is that it definitely elicits emotion. I found myself laughing at some absurdity of the characters, genuine laughter, and the end is a tear jerker even though you know what happens throughout. It was the right amount of religious talk combined with the current affairs of the Vietnam war not to put me off. I don’t mind reading opinions of religion and fate as long as it’s not forced down my throat. I was a big fan of the way “the shot” came together at the end. I’d give the book an 8/10 for its entertaining style throughout. Owen a 10/10 as a character.
As my title is plural, I also watched the Abyss on Brookes comment of, “you haven’t seen the Abyss?” Brookes and I have varying tastes on movies so I always like to see what he loves and then see if they fit my mold. Most often they don’t, but I think it’s more fun that way. Onward to the Abyss
Not a knock against the movie but one of my least favorite characters of all time is Gina from Scarface. How stupid can you be to let Tony stake your beauty salon? She was also Vincent’s GF in the Color of Money who I also wasn’t a fan of so I have notable disdain for Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. She also annoyed me in The Abyss. Fortunately she was saved by Ed Harris who is a cool actor in general.
The Abyss is a movie about a psycho navy seal who is hell bent on rescuing, or setting off a nuclear war head, so the Russians can’t get it. This nuclear war head happened to be on a submarine that crashed, and I’m not sure here, by some magic. In order to get the war head from the submarine, the Navy had to aboard this gas drilling company’s rig deep in the ocean. Some stuff happens on the ship with people dying and the Seal getting increasingly nervous. Lindsey (Gina from Scarface) sees some more magic, then a bizarre battle of submarine controlled ships takes place, the war head floats to the bottom of some trench, Ed Harris becomes Jesus Christ and Saves Lindsey from certain death, and then Ed Harris breathes water in order to float to the bottom to disarm the warhead. A wildly odd happy ending occurs when the magic saves the day.
I read a bit about it and the footage they got and what they put the cast through was intense. The scenes were amazingly shot, especially the under water ones. James Cameron ahead of his time obviously. The ending was a bit hokey and that kind of ruined it for me. It was entertaining but nothing to write home about. Sorry Brookes. 6/10.
THE ABYSS, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Ed Harris, 1989, TM & (c) 20th Century Fox
I was going to make this post last week so I was happy to see it on Reddit.
Good Boy, Coops.
On Friday at around 8am, the trash truck picks up the garbage. They take the garbage out of a can, dump it in the compactor, then drive away leaving the lid off the can. I’m usually out the door before they pick up the trash and this sets off one of the worst crimes to humanity I can think of. While I’m at work, people who walk their dogs throw their shit bags into my trashcan. I fucking hate it. I’m glad other people do too. Here are some of the top comments:
It is super fucking annoying when I have to pull someone else’s dog shit out of my trash can. Even worse when it’s the summer and it just marinates in there.
Damn. I wish I had written that sign. I would add to it that your dog shitting in the snow does not absolve you from picking up the turd. It is not like the shit melts when the snow does.
I agree with you. The problem is not the trash can but the recycle bin…dog shit in a plastic bag is not recyclable…the city will not empty a recycle bin which has “non-recyclables” in it. A dog shit bag placed on top of recycle bin means you are stuck with another week of a full bin. Carry your shit home or don’t own a dog if you can’t handle the responsibility
Even you you little fucker.
It’s not the end of the world, but when I have to take the trash can full of someone else’s dog’s shit, through my house and into my back patio, it shouldn’t have to be my problem. It’s why I don’t have a dog. I’m certain that it sucks having to clean up poop every day when you have a dog, and you don’t want to hold the bag of shit so it makes sense to dispose of it as quickly as possible, but why do I have to suffer? I honestly don’t know where you are supposed to throw it, but it’s not my can.
Gambling money. We’ve come to a permanent ebb. The word permanent is used loosely and should probably be changed to temporarily.
I promise you those aren’t presents.
On Thursday night I was separated from the last remains from my Bovada account. It’s nice that there isn’t a continuous counter because I’m saying I’ve only lost $600 dollars since the start of the NFL playoffs. Some would say that’s a lot of money, and they aren’t wrong, but it provided me countless hours of entertainment for the past 80+ days. If you saw a movie every other day, you’d have spent the same amount and society wouldn’t think you a degen. As such, I’m busto and deciding if I want to jump back in or take some time off.
How did such a qualified gambler like myself lose this money you ask? I’m not pointing fingers but it was definitely Adam’s mis-information that led me astray. He just liked my Venmo payment of $100 to Sam on the Sixers bet which is why I’m tearing into him. I respect the Shee’s sports information but I didn’t consider that the guy has been out of the game too long. SMU. St. Mary’s. Michigan. Purdue. With his help I lost 6 straight (2 of my own) to drain the account of $750 over the course of the tournament. Jesus.
I’m not done yet. Losing the $100 to Sam on the Sixers winning over 27 games is a goddamn travesty. The Sixers are undoubtedly horrible. How they win these games has to stem from the other teams not taking the game seriously. The Bulls are more of a dumpster fire than the Sixers so it’s like they are stealing games at the end of the season which I’d compare to a back door cover. There’s no doubt Dario is a good player but the other team isn’t game planning for Dario Saric. He’s currently flying under the radar but once other teams realize he’s the only player on the court, they shouldn’t win another game. Shawn Long (the guy who hurt Ben Simmons) was a +32 last night. Christ.
Dipshit.
As you’ve probably heard, Louis lost to a schlep named Ross Fisher last night on the 2nd hole of the playoff. The day was going perfectly with Louis beating Masuyama, and Fisher topping Furyk, which was exactly what I needed for a playoff. Lou hit a perfect drive on 1 while Fisher hit it way right. Fisher, on a miraculous shot, put it to 15 ft and Lou chunked an 83 yard shot which was his golden opportunity. They tied the hole and on the 2nd, Fisher put an 8 iron within 15 ft while Lou once again hit a shitty approach shot, and that was all she wrote. Not only did I lose money, but the unofficially ranked #1 golfer of all time lost to some journeyman. Mother of god.
Tom, why don’t you take a break? You’re clearly not cut out for this action and your lost in your ways. As the wise Andrew Gourlay told me, and I’m paraphrasing, “the only way to get your money back…is to keep gambling.”
– Hey! Did you touch my drum set?
– Hey, knock it off!
I know you touched my drumstick, because the left one has a chip in it.
You fucking crazy, man? You sound insane, do you realize that? You should be medicated.
Fuck you, Brennan. I know you touched my drum set. I wanna hear that dirty mouth admit it.
You get out of my face, or I’m gonna roundhouse your ass.
You swear on your mom’s life that you didn’t touch it!
I don’t swear to shit!
Make my day and tell me you found it.
A completely unnecessary opening for this post. I almost always prefer Dale’s lines to Brennan’s but the, “I don’t swear to shit” is a personal favorite.
Back on topic, I’ve managed to lose my Dale’s Pale Ale shirt and I’m a bit annoyed. How do you lose a t-shirt? A jacket is one article of clothing that gets taken off with frequency and it makes sense that it gets lost more often. But a t-shirt? I’m not going topless into places. It doesn’t get removed until it arrives back home to where I went. It’s possible I made an error packing on one of my recent trips and it’s still sitting in a suitcase but I doubt it. I’ve managed to lose it.
T-shirts should be replaced. The worst T-shirt you can wear is one that has a date on it and people can be like, “wow that shirt is 10 years old.” Although I admit it must be a bit of a personal accomplishment that a t-shirt has made it so long, there is another sense that:
To each their own.
Thought this one might look good on me.
I’m not suggesting that rotating t-shirts is a huge deal. It’s about #150 on my top priority list of life but I do begin to get a feeling that I’ve been wearing a t-shirt too long. The decals start to peel. It starts smelling a bit. The fit is off because its been washed too many times. Plus I know that people have seen me in it for so long that even they begin to notice that I’ve had it since Nixon was president. This brings me to replacing the Dale’s shirt.
At this point I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that I won’t be seeing the Dale’s shirt again. I personally enjoyed my short time with the shirt and will probably be replacing it with the same exact shirt that I bought directly from the brewery. I’ll also buy a few more and here a few thoughts I have on what I may also be purchasing:
I don’t think I like the band THAT much.
Music – I’ll probably buy a band t-shirt that I like that most other people don’t. I have a Zeppelin, a Doors, and Stones shirt which are kind of played out. I own a Sublime and Nirvana shirt from Target that I will never wear again. I wouldn’t venture into the New Wave shirts because people will think you never made it to the present era like Bertam from Sandlot. Plus I took some flack when I bought a Bowie shirt which I wouldn’t want to go through again. Some alt band that’s popular that I like such as the Shins (love the new album) or Electric Guest (who no one knows about) may be possible but I don’t think so.
TV – I usually don’t venture into TV because I’m not representing fictional characters. I can’t sport a Billy Bob from Fargo shirt even though I thought he was great but people would be like WTF and it would cause more trouble than it’s worth representing.
Sports – I’m a big sports fan but not in the dedication to one team. I’m more into an overall awareness of what’s going on in as many sports as possible. If you’re wearing a team shirt, you better be able to answer some follow up questions because the worst guy is the guy who says, “I just like the shirt.”
Fucking hipster…but this is a cool shirt of the Mosaic Beer from Founders.
Alcohol – I don’t mind promoting alcohol I like to drink. There are so many craft breweries that if you find one that you particularly like, it’s a nice gesture to support their cause. It’s free advertising for them and when people ask you about it, you can say you enjoy the beer. Plus this is a decent connection to other people who also enjoy it.
So if you happen to know where my Dale’s shirt is, you’ll probably save me $30. Any other good suggestions on shirts?
It’s fair to say that last year’s WGC Dell Match Play got me into professional golf. Sure the aspect of betting and Draftkings has helped, but I was hooked when Louis went to the finals last year and I had bets to start and finish along the way. Here is the post I made last year when they were down to the final 4. Of course I lost and the Aussie to the right took it down, but it was intense the entire time.
This is truly one of my favorite events of the year and you can see my picks here. I have Louis in the finals obviously against Rory and Rory winning. This is strictly a hedge as I already have Louis as a 40-1 shot for $20. Day has been off his game and DJ is a pussy when it comes to match play even if he is the best player in the world. DJ lost to Louis last year if you were wondering. I like Spieth a lot too but he’s going to get mowed down by Louis for the 2nd year in a row. Obviously we start today with getting out of the group. Cheers to golf.
Doug Polk has created a Vlogging formula within the poker world that should not be overlooked because of how compelling the material is. He’s a high limit poker player who regards himself as the best NL Heads Up player in the world at the current time. I can’t write much on his game but I’ve been following his videos and antics for a few months now. His delivery in the Video Blog format is pretty damn good and I would copy it once I feel like putting in the time (or have any content of interest which currently does not exist). He stirs up the pot and divulges what’s actually happening in the poker world which I’m sure people dislike him for.
Anyway, he created this video called How Much Money Do Poker Players REALLY Have?
I’ll answer the question since I know you won’t watch, the answer is WAY less than you think. Aside from guys who strike it rich in big tournaments, or guys consistently beating the higher stakes online, most likely a poker player is not that wealthy. Doug makes good points like traveling costs, taxes, rake, tough games, being staked by other people, and generally having bad bankroll management that isn’t conducive to making money. A few examples:
A mid stakes, online, (2/5) grinder, who plays a million hands a year, can make 150k. A million hands is a lot of hands by the way and this was at a win rate of 3bb/hour. This number ranges depending on how good you are.Now, the point of this post was to actually look at how much money is being thrown around in High Stakes Poker. When I was in college, I couldn’t conceive how much money these guys were playing for. I thought they were playing for millions of dollars which does happen from time to time but I didn’t look that closely. These million dollar pots are the rare exceptions in televised poker. It should be noted these guys bought in for between 100k-250k in the video below.
That hand was a 575k pot in a 400/800 game. This was when High Stakes Poker was at its biggest on TV. Nowadays on the Poker Night in America, that just came to the Sugarhouse, the big game was people playing 50/100 and some players were buying into these TV games with 10k. Heck, people I know could buy into this game. These games have gotten smaller as online poker has squelched and the games fish have left the pond.
The point I’m making is that when these maniacs in High Stakes Poker, playing 10 years ago, WERE PLAYING FOR A LOT OF THEIR MONEY. I don’t know what their bankroll is, but you can tell that when guys get it all in, and it’s time to gamble, they are thinking real carefully how it will alter their current financial situation. I used to think these players bankrolls were endless, but after watching Doug’s video, you get the impressions that these guys aren’t as rich as you think. A bad day’s loss hurts the soul. Watch this video of Vanessa Selbst losing 6 figures like a noob.
