Monday, February 06, 2006

What a weekend


What a completely sports-sodden weekend it was. Many thanks to Mrs. Head for not stabbing me in the throat because of it.

I decided to take my first run ever at sports betting this weekend. First and foremost, let me begin by saying that (other than UFC) my knowledge of sports, especially football, would fill about 4 thimbles on a good day and this was reflected in my losing Super Bowl bet (I should have know better than to go against a team backed by Gene’s furious passion).

I allotted myself a C-note to play with for the weekend as this would be my first foray, and things began very well on Friday night with the UFC fights. I went 4/5 on my picks, my only loss being the Couture/Liddell fight. I accept full responsibility for that one in betting on who I wanted to win rather than who I knew would win. UFC fans are likely wondering just how or why in the hell I bet against Frank Mir. All I can say is this: Never underestimate a cream-puff with loads of desire. Mir has been out for a long time due to a bad motorcycle accident. Couple that with the pressure of everyone thinking he is a lock and you have the makings of an upset. You could see it on his face when he walked into the Octagon—he wasn’t sure of himself and looked like he was more concerned about taking care of his new titanium leg. That one netted me a nice profit.

Sunday brought a 5-Team basketball parlay that I hit nicely and I felt good going into the Super Bowl. Again, just like the Couture/Liddell fight, I went against the team that I just knew would win in an effort to gain some extra cash on the +150 line. Chalk that one up to simple greed seeing as how I had absolutely no prior emotional investment in either side. Lesson learned.

Please take this opportunity to once again ingest a gigantic grain of salt because I’m about to comment on a game I don’t really know too much about.

The Super Bowl officiating seemed awfully one-sided, especially giving the Steelers that first TD. Of course, Seattle fucked up plenty on their own, but they were also getting the worst of the calls as the game progressed. It seemed an awful lot like the ref’s were given a stern talking to prior to game time about the importance of The Bus’s impending retirement. If I was actually a Seattle fan, I imagine that I would be pretty hot under the collar today. As it stands, I’m simply a bit miffed because I lost my bet.

The Stones looked like a bunch of prancing corpses on the stage, but thanks to an extended pause on the DVR while preparing dinner I was able to fast-forward through most of it. The only commercial that really came out as a winner, IMO, was the Fed-Ex caveman commercial—pure gold. Again, I was disappointed to see Pepsi go the lame MTV pop-culture route this year even though I’m not surprised. Brown and Bubbly sounds a lot like a Hot Karl gone awry to me. What the hell was running through the pea-brains that approved that idea? Monkey and Jackasses deserve an honorable mention, but I didn’t think it was fantastic. I give the Super Bowl this year a solid C-. While such a grade is still a disappointment, it’s a sharp uptick from the Z- I would give for last years dismal event.

I laid a lot of bets this weekend and came out with $25 profit. Not bad for a guy who uses the sports betting logic of a girl, eh?