Well, we won game 1, then lost game 2. Which means the all important game 3 is Tuesday at 10:30PM. It is do or die time. I am not exactly sure how they beat us. We let them score first, which seemed to whip us up into a frenzy. This caused players to freak out a little bit, and the whole game just went south from there.

I am still feeling no pressure what so ever. I want to win very badly, but I am doing a marvelous job of not having strong emotions about it. I am staying level headed. So far, I am treating the playoffs as any other game. I do not believe in bringing more than normal effort. To me, there is nothing more than normal. If you have the capacity to play better under certain circumstances, you are not playing your best until then. I see this in football almost every week. These teams get in a jam, then at the end of the game, they play this magical "2 minute offense", where magically they can play really well, and get the ball way down field, really fast, and get the game tied up. IF YOU CAN FUCKING DO THIS, DO IT FOR THE ENTIRE GAME, AND YOU WOULD NEVER FUCKING BE IN THAT POSITION IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!! It drives me nuts to think that these athletes who make millions of dollars, have secret abilities that they only use in an emergency. Fuck you. Play the whole game as if it were the Superbowl.

Another thing I hate is when a teammate is not honest with themselves and points the finger at other players, when they themselves are part of the problem. Perhaps it is a natural defense mechanism. I VERY RARELY ever criticize anyone else's game, because I know that I can always do better.

I firmly believe that I can improve my game over the next few days by studying and changing some of my pregame attitude. I will study training videos between now and the game, to remind me of some of the bad habits I need to stay away from while skating. I also have a instructional book on how to improve your attitude during the game, by helping you manage your time, and breathing methodologies to help you be ready for your shifts. Additionally, I will meditate prior to leaving for the game, and visualize the math in my mind. Just before game time, I will find a nice quiet place, and spend a few minutes alone to relax.

I think the threat of another loss is quite real, so I am going into the game with expectations that it will be incredibly difficult, and require the best performance possible.

Ok, enough rambling.

Today is what I consider to be perhaps the most important hockey game of my entire career, or close to it. Today is the first game of a 3 game series for the championship. This series is important because it comes on the heels of a fantastic season where we ended up in 1st place. It seems like when I am on a 1st place team it the regular season, the playoffs are usually a bust, or the times in the past when my teams have won the championship, we were not first place during the regular season. This happens a lot even at the NHL level.

After last season, we lost several key players, who formed another team in a higher league, and so it was hard, partly because they became friends, and partly because we had to take on a batch of new players. Anyway, so we have worked really hard to get to where we are, and now we just need the hardware to prove it. Last season, we ended up in 2nd place, and although getting a 2nd place trophy was nice, it sits on the TV and taunts me daily.

So how do I deal with the pressure of a huge game? Simple. I don't. I treat this day like any other day, and I treat this game like any other game. Our consistency is the key to our success this season, and because of it, we have enjoyed an 17-2-1 record, that's 85% wins. Our goal, is to win the best 2 out of 3 series in 2 games. I am confident that this will happen for us this season.

Go Scarecrows!

So I went to Oktoberfest on Saturday night. It was fun, but we didn't stay very long. Just long enough to get full on German food and drink quite a few German beers. We didn't visit any exhibits or anything though.

Originally I had made a note I had made a note to blog about honesty, and whether or not is really is the best policy. The problem is that I cannot recall why I made the note, so I'll just shoot from the hip. There are no lessons to be learned here and there is nothing to prove, its just a quick, simple analysis.

Should you ALWAYS tell the truth?

I'm sure that if asked, most people would probably answer yes, but secretly inside they know that is not the real answer, which in and of itself, contradictory. If your wife or girlfriend asks if her clothes make her look fat, men will probably lie. If a parent asks a child, if they broke a vase or whatnot, they will probably lie. If a criminal is on trial and they want to avoid jail, they will probably lie. I would wager that in most scenarios where the end result will be some sort repercussion when the truth is told, but only minimal risk involved when lying, that human beings would simply lie, and then justify the lie to themselves later, or never put much thought into it after the fact. It seems to me that lying is the norm, and that truly honest people are the exception.

I may one of these exceptions. I lead a fairly simple life. I go to work, do my thing, play hockey, hang out, etc... I appear to be able to go through my day to day activities not getting into scenarios where lying is even remotely necessary. The people I know consider me to be brutally honest. I see no point in beating around the bush. I am a cut to the chase kind of guy. Why waste time with this or that, when I can pretty much process everything into some sort of end game on the fly?

I would wonder what would happen if I were put into a scenario where there was minimal risk associated with lying, but heavy consequence with the truth. I wonder if I would lie. I suppose it depends on how severe the consequence. I have not needed to lie in any way shape or form about anything I suppose in well over a decade, so I may be so out of practice, that I couldn't even if I wanted to.

What if the tables were turned, and instead of negative consequence for lying, there was a gain, whether it be financial or otherwise? What if you went to a restaurant and when paying the bill, the cashier was about to give you your change, and then she asked, "oh, you paid me with a hundred didn't you?", when in reality you had only paid with a $20? You stand to gain a handsome profit if you lie and say yes. Would you lie and take the money? Would I? Would it be considered stealing? Maybe there is a law concerning capitalizing on someone else mistakes, I am not sure.

I am not a religious person, so any Judeo-Christian ethics type stuff is right out the door, but we do live in a society where people are expected to behave in a particular manner, and if everyone abandoned these unwritten rules, chaos would ensue, which would probably get old after a week or two. I don't know.

It is football season! To me, this marks the beginning of fall, even though in Texas it stays hot until late October. Football season is fucking AWESOME! It is the perfect time to grill and smoke food outside, drink lots of beer, brew lots of beer, etc.. But perhaps the most important thing about football season is that it is time to make $MONEY$!.

Betting on sports, particularly on football, is not rocket science, yet it never ceases to amaze me how people seem totally confused by it, so I figured I would break it down real easy like for anyone interested. there are a few types of bets. the main two are money line bets (ML), or against the spread (ATS) bets. ML bets are straight up bets on a winner for the game.

This sounds easy, but the problem is that the odds are adjusted so that if you pick the likely winner, you don't make as much profit as you would against the spread, or if you picked the underdog. For example, if Indy was playing Oakland, Indy would clearly be the favorite by quite a bit. So the odds on Indy to win straight up might be -500. What does this number mean? All wagering is based on the amount of money you have to wager to win $100. So in the example, to win $100 you would have to wager $500. Pretty shitty payoff. If you want to wager less, and know how much you would win, you simply divide 100 by the odds. In the example, if you were to wager $20, you would divide 100 by 500 which gives you .2 and multiply it by you wager. In other words, 20x.2=4, so you profit would be $4. You of course, get your original wager back, so if you bet $20 and won, you would have a total of $24. In this same example, if you bet on Oakland instead (because you were mentally retarded), your odds would be +500. So its basically just the opposite. If you wagered $100, you would win $500 profit, for a total return, including you wager, of $600.

Next we have against the spread bets. For these, a certain amount of points is given to, or taken away, from teams. If Indy was playing Oakland, the spread may be Indy -6, which would result in Oakland being a +6. For these types of bets, you pick a team (and their points), and then apply whatever the point spread is to the total score after the game. For example, if you picked Indy -6 and the score ended up being Oakland 17, Indy 31, you would then subtract 6 from the Indy score, making the score Oakland 17, Indy 25, so you would win. In other words, Indy has to win by more than 6 for your bet to still be a winner. Adversely, if you picked Oakland +6, you then get to add 6 to their score at the end of the game, and if they win after this application, then you win.

So as you can see, betting is not hard. Perhaps it just looks intimidating. I may do another small primer on more exotic bets in the future, but for now, use your newly acquired knowledge to stick it to the man, and take all his money.

Have I gotten lazy? No. I overblogged 2 weeks ago becasue I knew my schedule would be odd for a bit. I skipped work last Monday to recover from "vacation hangover". Wednesday, I worked all day, then went back in at 11p for a migration, and ended up staying until 11a Thursday. So when I went back on Friday, my whole self was out of sorts. Then I had hockey Saturday night, and Sunday is football.

It is interesting how a few changes to a normal routine can throw everything into disarray. Perhaps its possible that the effects are more profound as I get older, but I noticed the same type of phenomena when I was younger. Going to sleep at the completely wrong time seems to cause the biggest disrpuption. You ever go to bed super early one day, like in the afternoon, then wake up the night, but after its dark, and you are so disoriented you can't even figure out where you are or what day it is? It is really shitty, but at the same time it is kinda fun. It seems like eating on an altered schedule a few times in a row makes things go odd as well. Anyway, I really have nothing to offer, just offering depiction of why the blog has been sparse for a fortnight.

I am still suffering from all the wackyness, I suppose. Hopefully, I can get back to normal soon. I know next week I have one late work night, so I am not out of the woods just yet.

Perhaps I need another vacation 8->

and.... we're back!

So we had a blast in Las Vegas. We didn't do much gambling necessarily, except to kill time between shows and eating. I made a 100$ sports bet on a baseball game and lost, then bet 100$ on a football game and won, so I broke even on sports betting. I may do a post just regarding sports betting later, sop not too much on that for now.

I played an electronic version of roulette that was awesome. I started with 100$ and worked my way up to 336$, for a handsome profit of 236$, all the while drinking tons of free beer and alcohol. The next day, I blew a little over 100$ of it messing around on slots waiting for a show to start.

Speaking of shows, we crammed in a bunch this time. here is a quick run down of them in case anyone is planning a trip out there:

Monday - Wayne Brady (The Venetian) : This was a good show, except for volume was about 150% too loud. Almost to the point of pain. I am old, but I am not that old, and I listen to heavy metal, so I am used to loud, but this was ridiculous. Wayne Brady was hilarious. It was not just comedy, it was a variety kind of show, so there was dancing and music as well. If you are just in it for the comedy, it is still good, but if you absolutely hate singing and dancing, don't go.

Tuesday - Amazing Jonathan (Sahara): As usual, this show was awesome. A lot of the same material as last year, but a few new things worked in as he prepares for his upcoming Comedy Central special. Good stuff, you can never go wrong with comedy and magic mixed together. The show is relatively cheap to attend, and every seat in the house is good.

Wednesday - Ka (MGM Grand): I had never been to a Cirque du Soleil show before, now I will see every single one of them. It was INCREDIBLE. The tickets were a little on the high side, but worth every penny. Do yourself a favor and see this show!

Friday - Love (The Mirage): This also is a Cirque show. It may have been better than Ka! It is based on the music of The Beatles, so that may be why I enjoyed it more, but again, it was truly AMAZING. I cannot really describe it in words, I could never do it justice. If you are a Beatles fan, see this instead of Ka if you have to pick one.

Friday - Hans Klok (Planet Hollywood): This show is at the Planet Hollywood, formerly The Aladdin. This show is called "The Beauty of Magic", so I expected it to be cheesy, but hey, Pamela Anderson is in the show so how bad can it be? Well, the cheesy factor was an 8 on a 1-10 scale. Hans Klok is a dutch magician, who sort of tells his life story through the show. He is "the world's fastest magician". I assume he gave himself this title, but it seems fitting because he is damn fast. His illusions are very quick. For example, he would do a switch, where he would lift up a sheet, and someone else would be there instead of him, and the sheet would only be up for maybe 1 second. Pamela Anderson does not do too much during the show, but she does jump around in skimpy clothing with her mega huge pieces all poppin out at the seams. I would say 35% of the show was dancing, not related to magic, but the tickets were really cheap, so if you want only magic, skip this one, but if you are into dancing and stuff, then by all means, check it out.

Additionally, we checked out "The Bodies" exhibit at the Tropicana, which is amazing. Some dude figured out how to put special polymers into human bodies in a vacuum, thus preserving them. http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/bodies.html It is self explanatory I guess, bunch perfectly preserved dead bodies and parts. Highly recommended, and its cheap, and you walk through at your own pace.

Also, we went to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay. This too is a go at your own pace tour, with a little audio tour device where you enter in a number on the keypad that is associated to the number on the tanks, and you listen to the tour guide that way. It was awesome as well: http://www.mandalaybay.com/entertainment/sharkreef.aspx. It too, is pretty cheap, so check it out as well.

I could go on and on about other stuff but I won't, because this is already too long. Vegas is a great place, and can be really cheap, or really expensive depending on what you do there. You can eat fast food and play penny electronic poker all week and get drunk for free, and just wander around the streets, or you can party like a rock star and spend thousands, the choice is yours.

Anyway, now I have to get back into the daily grind, which sucks balls. I prefer happy drunken Vegas fantasy land.

Woot! I am off to Vegas tomorrow morning at 8:30am. Jealous? of course you are. I will be doing 5 nights at the MGM grand. Got plenty of shows booked, except for Thursday, which of course, is NFL opening night. I will spend this evening at the sports book watching the game, and hopefully chugging free liquor. anyway, I will not be taking a computer of any sort, and I don't feel like trying to find out if I can blog through WAP, so fuck it, next post wont be until I'm back.

OK, so what the FUCK is milk. You squeeze it from a cows titty basically. Mammals produce milk from their teet to nurse their offspring. So why in the HOLY HELL would humans drink the milk from cows. Cows milk is for baby cows. I really cannot see much distinction between drinking this or drinking human milk. No, I mean milk from from some random lady's boobs. Ie, pumping lots of breast milk from women all over the world and bottling it for sale in every grocery store in the US. I bet the very thought repulses most people. When you put it into this perspective, it almost become sick and twisted, yet millions of people drink it every day. You cannot really make a case for calcium intake purposes, because you could get the same calcium from just about any mammal, of from synthetic sources. So again I ask, what the FUCK?

I suppose I should make a disclaimer stating that I think people should be free to do whatever the hell they damn well please, and I am by no means trying to be anti-milk. I simply want people to think about it.

I will footnote all of this by saying the reason I think about it in the first place, is because at a bachelor party at a strip club last night, my friend was telling me about a lactating stripper he once encountered that would squirt milk all over the place, and lick it off of herself. Is this really that bad? Would it be better if she poured "normal" cows milk on herself then licked it off? Short of meaning that she either was going to or recently had produced offspring, I think not.

Back in a week suckers!