A Tale of Two Kickers

It was the best of times (Vanderbilt's Carey Spear missed a game tying 27 yard field goal to seal the Arkansas win).  It was the worst of times (Murray State's Brandon Potts missed a game tying extra point to seal the Eastern Kentucky win).  It is a far, far harder thing to make a kick, than I have ever done; it is a far, far bigger shame to miss, than I have ever known.

Congrats, I guess

I announced that I would be supporting Texas in the World Series before it began.  Unfortunately I had to watch game 3 with my favorite Cardinals fan.  Due to my love for my brother, I secretly switched my allegiance to St Louis.  Baseball teams that I root for have a history of losing, so for Joshua's sake I kept it a secret.  Take that baseball gods!

Cheering for the Cardinals is very difficult for me, so it is probably best that I was doing it in secret.  It is not because have anything against the city of Saint Louis or any players. Part of my reason is that this was the Cardinals eleventh World Series title.  That is more than any team deserves.

The biggest obstacle to me cheering for St Lou is their manager Tony La Russa.  He is the best manager in baseball, but he is also a great big jerk.  Though I suspect that if he was the Cubs manager, I might be able to overlook that.  I read Three Nights in August and still don't like him.  For those of you unfamiliar with him, I can best sum him up like this.  He is one of those people who like animals better than humans.

So congratulations to Joshua for making that wise decision to be a Cardinals fan twenty some years ago.

Retirement

Once upon a time, There was a blog published at this website. Readers would stop by about every third day and find a new post. Technically, that's not true. I was never able to reach my goal of averaging a post every three days except for March and June.

Back in the day, even if I didn't already have a topic in mind, I would open up my laptop and stare at the screen for so long that words would eventually spill from my mind onto the Internet. Lately I have waited until I have a fully formed post in my head. Then I would hope that the thoughts made it to the web through osmosis. So far, that plan has been unsuccessful.

I have been letting too many time consuming activities get in the way of blogging, particularly Batman Arkham Asylum and Lego Star Wars. Or it may just be that my muse has left the country and moved to Texas.

Since I am unable to sustain the level of excellence that I expect from this blog, I am going to shut it down. Once again, I have been defeated by my own mediocrity. I have never felt less pompous.

Thank you for all your devotion to this blog. I hope that this announcement doesn't leave any of you suicidal. You can still follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

His Pompousness, Shane Samples

ps. Oh crap! I just realized that today isn't April 1. I am actually going to have to follow through on this. Oh crap! Think. Think. Think. Got it! Happy October Fool's Day!

Best Trade Ever

On Saturday night I put my television's split screen capabilities to good use.  I watched game one of the ALCS and the Auburn at Arkansas football game.  I did not want to take time from watching the games to cook supper.  Lucky for me, I received divine inspiration to order a pizza.  It had been far to long since I had eaten pizza, so I considered this the best idea ever.  Thankfully, I was not inspired to eat a bagel.  I went to the pizza hut dot com and found out that they had a $10 for any pizza special.  I should have remembered about that special because of this great commercial.

I picked out my favorite toppings, sausage, bacon, green peppers, red onions, and pineapple.  The pizza was as delicious as I had hoped.  I ate half of it for supper.  I probably could have had another piece but decided to save the other half for another meal.

Sunday night after church, my friends and I went to Larry's Pizza.  Larry's is much different than Pizza Hut, so I didn't mind having pizza two days in a row.  I ate my fill from the pizza buffet, but I stopped before making myself sick.

Monday night I ate the second half of the Pizza Hut pizza.  Even though it was left over and the third day in a row for pizza, it was still better than having Reggie Bush on my fantasy team.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

I have been so busy watching all this great playoff baseball that I have failed to write about it.  The last time that I wrote about baseball was back in July.  The Cubs were terrible, so I moved my allegiance to the Pirates.  At the time Pittsburgh was 49-44, half a game out of first place.  For the rest of the season the Pirates went 23-46 and finished 24 games out of first.  Meanwhile Chicago went 33-33 from that point and finished one game behind Pittsburgh with a 71-91 record.

When the playoffs started, Tampa became my new favorite team.  Sadly, they lost to Texas, but on the bright side, the Yankees lost to Detroit.  Now I am rooting for Milwaukee.  I feel a little guilty that I am not pulling for Saint Louis since so many of my friends and family are Cardinal fans.  Plus there is the subplot that St. Louis and Milwaukee both have free agent to be first basemen, and I don't know how much winning or loosing the World Series will influence them into resigning with their current teams.  I really want one of them to play for Chicago next season.

Pujols is a better player, but I would rather have Fielder.  He is four years younger and hits from the left side, which would help balance the mostly right handed Cubs lineup.  Also, I think that Pujols is more likely to resign with St. Louis and not go to the highest bidder.  I would not be opposed to bringing Pena back at first for less money than those two, if the money saved was used to resign Ramirez and get some pitching help.

Thanks for Nothing Chris

Monday will be the five hundred nineteenth anniversary of the day that Christopher Columbus brought smallpox to this hemisphere.  Every year the USPS closes their offices to celebrate this holiday.  Some times they let me have a day off work to celebrate also.  As I was leaving work Wednesday morning, I checked the holiday schedule to find out if I would be working that day.  Monday is my normal day off, so my holiday falls on Saturday.  To my surprise, only four people were scheduled to work their Saturday holiday.  I knew that whichever supervisor had made out the holiday schedule had made a mistake.  I was worried about who would cover my job while I wasn't there, for about a second.  Then I started planning how I would spend my unexpected day off.  My usual agenda on long weekends is to go to Clinton.  Since I will be going there in a couple of weeks, I decided to stay home.  I spent the next two days planning all those things that I could do with a longer weekend.  This morning at 6:15, fifteen minutes before my holiday would begin, my supervisor told me that I would be working tonight after all.  I was not surprised, but I was disappointed that I had wasted two days anticipating that I would be off work.  I hope that the plans that I made will inspire me to waste less of the time off work that I actually have.

ps. I found an earring at my house this morning.  If no one claims it, I will have to get an ear pierced.

Almost a Hundred Thousandaire

The first two installments of my Hundred Thousandaire series are the third and fourth most viewed posts that I have written.  In Former Hundred Thousandaire, I gave an accounting of how I spent my ESPN winnings.  In Potential Hundred Thousandaire, I told the tale of how a financial broker promised to turn my small pile of coins into a mountain of cash.  Here is the dramatic conclusion to the Hundred Thousandaire Trilogy.

ESPN has changed some of the rules for Streak for the Cash since I won last April.  Instead of giving away $100,000 every month, the monthly winner gets $50,000.  If the winning streak is 27 or longer, the winners gets the second $50,000.  When no one's streak reaches 27, the $50,000 bonus rolls over to the next month.  It was August before anyone reached the magic number 27.  That player won $50,000 plus 8 months worth of bonuses for a total of $450,000.

On September 22 a player won his 27th game, guaranteeing that someone would win the full $100,000.  He lost on Sept 25 leaving the door open for someone to catch him.  Another player got his 26th win on Sept 24.  His winning percentage was .745 at that time. Winning percentage is used as the tiebreaker.  His percentage was better than the .696 winning percentage of the guy with 27 wins.  So he only needed just one more win to get the tie at 27 instead of having to go for 28.  His 26th win was a Georgia Tech football game.  He had 6 days to find the game that gave him the best chance at claiming his prize.  Finally on Sept 30, he picked the Yankees to beat the Tigers in the first game of the ALDS.  Unfortunately for him, the game was rained out.  By the time the game was suspended, there were no games left to choose.  He was stuck at 26 with no chance of extending his streak.

I also picked the Georgia Tech game that day, though my streak at the time was just 2.  I won 10 more games after that win.  Any of those would have been good enough to garner him $100,000.  I think that not picking a game before the 30th will haunt him for the rest of his life.  I still have not forgiven Big Erv for beating Ricky Ro last year to end my streak, and I won the money.  I can't imagine how hard it would be to get that close and loose because of rain.  I mentioned that I won 10 games in the last week, but I left out the part where I also lost 5 games.  Even so, I would rather lose on a complete game 4 hitter by Big Erv, than be robbed of a chance to win by a thunderstorm.