More humpday ramblings

After last week's novel, I swear I'm going to keep things short.

The first week of the NFL season is always a learning experience.  You spend a lot of time forming opinions, 3 hours getting them blown out of the water, then the next few days trying not to overreact.  The world can be a frightening place in those moments spent realizing just how much you don't know, and judging by my 0-4 fantasy football and 7-9 picks performance, there's a whole lot I don't know.

So, I will attempt to comfort myself be reviewing what I do know.  Some of it I've known for some time, and some of it I'm just finding out now, but it all seems pretty solid.

Away we go:

It would've been hard to do, but I can't tell you how happy I am to not be invested in either the Browns or Dolphins from a fantasy perspective this season.  When Brandon Weeden got drafted, we made jokes about him having to use Super Polygrip to avoid getting his dentures rattled loose by James Harrison.  As the summer progressed, some dumbass thoughts in the vein of "well, you know, maybe that maturity will help him hit the ground running" started to creep in.  This is what heat and boredom can do to the unoccupied mind, the only thing hitting the ground is every pass he will throw on 3rd-and-8 all season.

Commercials for things like Clamato, SPAM and amaretto are utterly pointless.  Nobody has ever been sold on trying any of these things by a commercial.  The words "well, I'm not the biggest fan of tomato juice, but maybe adding in a splash of clam brine is just what it needs."  I will remained convinced until the day I die that Clamato is a way for women to avoid the taste of beer and nothing more.  And don't we only have SPAM because of World Wars?  In dire times of need, they swept up the trimmings from the slughterhouse floored, ran them through a grinder and canned it, that about right?  Pitching someone on trying this stuff would probably go about as well as my dad trying to convince me to sample a pickled turkey gizzard as a kid.  That's right, they actually sell those.  But I see commercials for both these things, as well as amaretto, which is only useful to 14-year-olds with no tolerance who steal it out of their parents liquor cabinet.  Of course the good news is, they won't miss the bottle because no one drinks that crap.

On a related note, I know that you should never consume more than two dairy-based cocktails in an evening.  Those white russians may be going down smooth, but your concocting a witches brew in your stomach my friend.  It also should go without saying that even one should not be paired with any amount of wine.  Cabernet smoothie, blech.

Sunday night football bypassing Monday night football as the premiere game of the week is the worst thing that's happened to the NFL since the Bucs changed uniforms.  I like football more than 90% of the population, but after following 10 or 12 games over 6 hours, I'm a tad footballed out.  Not to say that there shouldn't be a game on Sunday, just liked the lower-key nature of the ESPN production.  They had good games, but not necessarily the marquee.  A fantastic matchup on a Monday night was far more valuable as you slogged your way through the first day of the workweek.  The Monday games still look good this season, but lack the Sunday pizzazz.  Detroit at San Francisco and New England at Baltimore the next two Sundays versus Denver at Atlanta and Green Bay at Seattle in the Monday tilts.  It's like eating a delicious sandwich two hours after you finished a steak dinner, still good, but would've been better if you hadn't eaten since lunch.  It's football gluttony. 

(Of course they did display great brilliance in adding a full season of Thursday night games, which is liked free chips and salsa in this analogy, so I can't be too mad at them)

I helped a friend move last Saturday, which I never mind doing.  Lifting heavy objects is a talent of mine, so I'm happy to help, particularly when beer and pizza are offered as payment.  The move itself was fine, and didn't give rise to the following, rather it was a conversation about the nature of favors that got me thinking.  Shouldn't we have some system outlining the values of different acts in relation to one another?  Like 4 hours of moving is enough points to get you one weekend of dogsitting and a ride from the airport?  Or helping to dispose of a dead body is worth a lifetime of designated driving and first refusals on tickets?  Sure, you can say that friends do friends favors without the expectation of anything in return, and I'd generally agree.  But some people are just so nice about things, you don't realize that you may be taking advantage of your friendship with your repeated requests.  For the consciencious person, this could be a good barometer of that.  "Say, I was going to ask Joe to help me out rebuilding the deck this weekend, but I'd be perilous close to owning him a kidney.  Better just tackle that myself."  This idea needs more thought, perhaps we'll revisit it down the road.

A friend of mine lives in Vegas, and has been back here during the summer for work.  On Monday night, we met to watch some football.  He's headed back today, so I gave him $100 to bet on games for me, starting this weekend.  The theory is that I'll put $20 a week on a 2 or 3-team parlay, standing to profit $30-50 in each week I win.  Given my recent record in picking games against the spread, this was likely a dumb idea, but should at least provide some entertainment...for a month or so.