It's that time again . . .

Football season begins, which means drinking myself into oblivion with 80,000 of my closest friends every weekend. The season is a total grind - you're worn out by the time November gets around, or at least you are if you're like me (NOTE: don't be like me). This year, I'm in a bunch of confidence-type pools, so I figured I'd outline my process here, for posterity if nothing else (and so I can figure out what the fuck went wrong when I get plowed under). I generally cash in these, although I win pretty infrequently - that makes me think three things:

1 - FFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

2 - It seems pretty likely I get a good handle on the "easy" games every week, but miss (at least in the sense that I don't break away from the pack) on the go-either-way types.

3 - I'm a fucking retard who talks himself into long shots for ridiculous reasons at least once a week.

I'll start with the Thursday college games, just to get warmed up (there's no action this week in any of my pools, because the NFL hasn't started and/or the dudes running it are lazy, lazy men).

Utah St @ Utah (-21)

According to Sagarin, Utah should be a 30+ point favorite on a neutral site. USU is just awful, and Utah doesn't have any sort of reputation for starting slowly. Unless Utah slams on the breaks (or inclement weather, but it's 90 and 10% chance of rain), I'm OK with going there, even acknowledging that USU was better than their record last year, and Utah will be markedly worse. Utah

South Carolina @ NC State (-5)

Bizarre game here, and tough to get a handle on because of USC's carousel of QBs last season and NC State being, well, average. I think USC is exploitable on offense (TAKE THAT, SPURRIOR HAIR CUT!) but I can't see NCSU really dominating on the offensive side of the ball either. Both Dr. Bob and Sagarin aren't big on the -5, so I'll sit on USC and hope Stephen Garcia can complete better than 53% of his frigging passes.

Note that in a "pick-the-winner (no line)" pool, I'd likely ride NCSU here - the five points are that important. I'm in both types, so I'll probably list the results independently.

Oregon @ Boise St. (-3.5)

This game is unreal, really - it looks like the line is basically perfect. Vegas, you win again (note that it opened at 5.5 - Vegas, you're full of fucking tards, but at least the market can bail you out). Oregon has only a handful of starters returning, while Boise lost its front 7 and skill-position guys. BSU's RBs are very solid, though - possibly better than the departing Ian Johnson on a per-carry/success basis. None have proposed after a Statue of Liberty, though, so I don't know any of their names off-hand - they're numbers in a douchey spreadsheet, and will stay that way until and if they rape/rob/fail their way out of school (clearly I'm an Iowa fan).

Here's the thing - BSU is probably a .5-point favorite on neutral turf. Add 3 and get the line, right? Wrong, fuck face - Boise's something like a 5.5-point favorite at home, according to Massey (not Mark - although that would be AWESOME) and just never loses there. Oregon's not a fantastic road team, although they're very good early. I wouldn't bet this game if you gave me the money (NOTE: that's a lie), but if a pool forced me to, I'd take Boise and pray the entirely-new Oregon line can't take advantage of the mostly-new Boise front 7, because Oregon's advantage should come on the ground, at least in theory. I hate this fucking game.

Oh noes! Blog Neglect

So yeah, seems like no one has been updating this lately. I am going to try really hard to do a better job at least updating it with something once a day, even though no one reads it, nor should they.

Here is what you missed if you live under a rock like that guy in the sprint commerical:

1.) A giant headed monster who hates you broke the homerun record. I was sleeping when it happened, then when I saw the highlights on ESPN and I was just happy that Pedro Gomez could see his family again. Not really, I actually hope Pedro kills himself.

2.) The Yankees are creeping closer to the Red Sox. At the moment, four games out. We picked up Eric Gange and he promptly shit the bed and the bed next to him. I'll be over here banging my head against the wall. Feel free to join.

3.) Michael Vick continues to be fucked. Proper fucked, as he is suspended the entire year.

4.) I went home to Arizona to visit the folks. My dad has his first drink at noon. Good for him, I want to retire.

5.) I saw The Ten and Bourne Ultimatum. Matt Damon rocks some shit, and somewhere Ben Affleck masturbates while crying to an old copy of the Good Will Hunting screenplay. The Ten has flashes of brilliance followed by sheer oddness that aren't that funny. Note: Don't let anyone tell you that the prison rape sketch isn't funny. They are lying, prison rape is always hilarious.

6.) Mitt Romney is gaining steam and apparently Hil-Rod is as well. Both frighten me on some level. Sorta like those face grabbers in Aliens. I'm pretty sure Mitt Romney has some secret plan to attach to my face a lay Mormon eggs in my chest, then on election day it will explode from chest and vote republican. The horror.

More to come.....

David Carr: Sacked one last time in Houston

The Houston Texans let David Carr go after signing Stump the Schwab err Matt Schaub, the quarterback from Atlanta that doesn't have weed or herpes (as far as we know).

I feel bad for the guy. From what I can see, he was a serviceable quarterback with a pretty good arm and completion percentage who got ruined thanks to the lack of an O-line for a number of years in the joyus shitstain that is Houston. This really shows how stupid the Texans are, they probably could have gotten something for the guy but they just dumped him.

Actually I would rather have him than the fun house that is J.P. Losman. However, I speak as jaded Bills fan who rarely gets to see games thanks to living in NYC. At this point I would bring back O.J., cause come on, murderers are funny and all the games would be nationally televised. I think we could convince Marv this is a good idea. Then again I could convince Marv that I am Jim Kelly's dead autistic son, and he would believe it. Too far?