The Justifications of Bad Bettors

Football season is here, and, more importantly to some, so are the 5 most active months in terms of sports betting. It's no secret that football is king when it comes to sports gambling in this country, and because of that, everyone wants to get after a piece or two of the action. What's interesting is that with the wealth of information we have at our disposal today when it comes to handicapping games (weather reports, injury reports, team blogs updated round the clock, statistics out the wazoo, etc.), the harder it ultimately becomes to make a good bet, because there's simply too much information out there. Your mind can become clouded quite easily.

That being said, there is no secret formula, and if there were, it would have been discovered by now. All you can ask of yourself is to make an informed decision on which team you want to back, because, hey, it's called gambling for a reason. But what cracks me up is when people think they have everything figured out, when all they're really doing is throwing money around with nothing but hollow reasoning. Bad bettors come in all shapes and sizes, but their justifications seem to fit a select few molds.

-"They were due!" Really? Were they due? You hear this a lot when someone bets on a team thinking they're going to snap a losing streak. Chances are, they're not "due," they just stink. It works the other way too - people try to bet on a hot team to lose simply because they're "due." How many people got crushed on that thinking with the 2008 Lions or 2007 Patriots - it's like a guy who's lost 5 straight $20 dollar blackjack hands and tries throwing $100 on the next hand because his luck has eventually got to change. Obviously, streaks come and go, but if you're throwing money out there with only the logic that a team is "due" and nothing else, you might as well go play roulette. (An exception would be when a team is blatantly underperforming or overperforming its talent level, i.e. last year when the Broncos started 6-0 and the Titans started 0-6. It was clear the Broncos were not that good and the Titans were not that bad. But tread that line carefully.)

-Basing this week's game too heavily on last week's game. How many times do you hear "they're mad after getting blown out last week," or "they had an emotional win last week and this will be the letdown" from dimwits that you work with or hear on the radio. People who say this have never played real football before. It's one thing to be extra motivated for a game, but let's make something clear: you always have to be "mad" when you step on a football field. If you're not in some sort of altered mental state, you're going to the hospital. The team that's supposedly "mad" in a game after a 35-point loss was probably just as "mad" when they took the field before that very 35-point loss. I find it hilarious when uninformed people try to all of a sudden enter the psyche of a group of coaches and athletes they've never met personally. One exception is a blatantly disadvantageous travel scenario or short week, especially if team turmoil is somehow involved (i.e. 2008 Thanksgiving, the Cardinals had zero chance coming East to Philly on about two days' rest from their game that past Sunday).

-Finding asinine stats to back up whatever conclusion you want to believe in. Stats are there to allow you to draw a conclusion, not the other way around, because there are so many numbers at our hands that you can hand pick and manipulate almost any stat that supposedly supports your thinking. Covers.com, the website I like to go to for spreads and other information, has on each matchup page a sometimes-useful "trends" section and lists the ten prior meetings between the teams in question (which does you zero good if you have interconference opponents who meet every four years - yeah, those times when Miami and Minnesota met in 2006 and 2002 are really going to help me find an edge for Week 2 in 2010). Some people put so much stock in this stuff, it's amusing. I'd like to meet the guy who reads a stat like "Tampa is 6-1-1 against the spread in its last 8 daytime home games when getting 1.5 points or more" and takes something so obscure as reason enough to plunk money down on the Bucs. That guy is out there somewhere. Hell, that guy is everywhere.

-Blind faith in your own team/blind hatred for your team's rivals. Fandom and betting are a tough mix. I'm not saying you have to ever bet against your favorite team or bet for your most hated team, but money tends to stay in the pockets of those who are objective. Don't allow your biases (and we ALL have biases) to distort your vision. For instance, Dallas has opened between an 8- and 9-point favorite at home against Chicago this coming week. Does the fan in me think they can beat the Bears by double digits? Yes. But the observer in me knows the team is poorly coached, lacks discipline, and most of the time does not do the little things right. I wouldn't even bet on them this week with someone else's money. Show me a guy who bets with his heart instead of his eyes and ears, and I'll show you a guy who helped build Vegas.

In conclusion, all you can ever want is to be above .500. And yes, sometimes lucky is better than good. We're all guilty of this stuff from time to time (you're talking to a guy who once lost $50 in Vegas two years ago because he thought he had a feeling about Boof f*ing Bonser and the Twins in a late May game against the Tigers. The Twinkies only lost that game for me by about 16 runs). But, until next time, remember that there is a difference between a losing bet and a stupid bet.

Volunteer Work

***MY HAND IS RAISED***

Why do we do it?  Who is it serving?  My skepticism of volunteer work started while in high school.  I attended a Catholic high school so community service and other such volunteer work was stressed heavily.  On the surface, volunteer work appears wholesome and innocent, but leave it to us at Not As Good As You Think to shed light on the truth of the matter.  In my experience, the driving force behind most volunteers is self-serving, and the practicality of most volunteer work is questionable.

While in high school, it was impressed upon me that it is important to give back to the community.  My personal understanding of volunteer work is that it should entail donating time and effort for the benefit of others in return for NOTHING.  As I entered into my upperclass high school years (college application time), I noticed this was not the case with the abundance of volunteer work going on.  First of all, community service was mandated by my learning institution.  Technically, my community service was not volunteer work as it was not voluntary.  Let's be honest, high school students do not give a crap about giving back to the community or curing any diseases, they want that "Accepted" letter from their reach school.  Those are the letters that come in the big envelopes, as opposed to the "Rejected" letters (which tell you to fuck off in the upmost fashion) which come in standard envelopes.  High school students volunteer so they can put their work on a college application.  College students volunteer so they can pad their resume.  Most people in the workforce volunteer so they can sell themselves or their company.  You know what, I am guilty as charged.

My problem with all this volunteer work is that most of it has nil effect on the cause promoted.  If you are volunteering with the hopes of promoting yourself to some extent, that is fine as long as what you are doing yields tangible benefits to someone besides yourself.  Two old ladies sitting in lawn chairs under a tree at a par 3 of some charity event handing out sleeves of balls to players that get on the green in regulation are not helping anyone.  I have a lot of ill will towards these "volunteers" from my caddying days.  I would be sweating my glands out on a hot day, arrive at a par 3 and commence with small talk with these middle-aged petitzers who would yammer about how hot it is outside.  Typically, these women were over-privileged stay-in-bed moms married to wealthy guys.  Simply donating your time and showing up is not enough.   Look at the picture below, how many of these people are simply there taking up space?

I admit I do volunteer work for self-advancement. However, the work I do yields tanible benefits to others. Fair enough.  Don't be a walky-talky at some event.  Make sure you are doing something practical.  Build something, fix something, raise money, or give your blood.  If your volunteer work does not entail one of the above, what would you say you do here?

Analogy of the Month

America is founded upon the entitlement of its citizens to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But what is this happiness that we're supposed to be pursuing, and what measures do we take in this illustrious pursuit? And who are we ultimately trying to make happy - ourselves, or those whose opinions we value and whose approval we seek? The concept of happiness itself is both abstract, in that it means something different to everybody, and paradoxical, in that the more we strive to attain happiness, the less happy we often are.

Take a look at the everyday behavior of people and you'll notice that we bust our asses at a lot of things just so we can reach a level of acceptability - not greatness, not some kind of legendary status, but just plain acceptability. You see us get up every morning and sit in traffic like sperm cells on our way to work, only to repeat the action that night on the way home. You see people working out 5 times a week just so they can be attractive enough to avoid immediate rejection from the opposite sex. You see us throw a Prince Fielder-sized percentage of our earnings to the wind so we can have a decent place to live and a decent car to drive. Why all of this? Because we want. to. fit. in. The human race, especially in America, is constantly running on a hamster wheel, thus giving us the Analogy of the Month, the "Hamster Wheel of Happiness." You break your balls day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, just for the expectations to periodically reset themselves and force us to start over.

The general concept of happiness is that it's some sort of nirvana or utopia we're supposed to ultimately reach. So we work harder, put in more hours, put in more sweat, make an extra sacrifice or two, all in hopes that one day life will become like the bonus round at the end of the route in the old Nintendo game Paperboy. On this, look no further than Al Czervik for the appropriate wisdom - "if you keep busting your hump 16, 20 hours a day, you'll end up with a 60 million dollar funeral!"

The Hamster Wheel of Happiness is a damning course. People get on it with the best of intentions, and more often than not the chase for happiness itself becomes the very thing that beats them into a downtrodden state of self-defeat. To quote Denis Leary, happiness comes in small doses (go to the 2:20 mark of the video to be enlightened). There is no utopia. The Wizard at the end of the yellow brick road doesn't know shit. It's not about finding the dream job, it's just about finding a job you kind of like. Even the so-called "perfect job" will have its bad days and the even supposedly perfect couples will fight from time to time. Take enjoyment in the small things or else be eaten alive by the quest for the big things.

The fine line is this: assign some intrinsic value to your undertakings, or eventually you'll burn out or lose your mind. If you constantly work out in order to be in shape and be attractive by modern Western standards, then you'd better get some actual enjoyment and satisfaction out of it or you're ultimately wasting your time. That's why all the "I want a good beach body" people disappear from the gym after a month. At some point, it's got to be about the feeling you get from benching twice your weight or finishing that marathon that keeps you coming back. The same principle applies to your occupation - if there's a sense that you're making the most of your skills and providing more value than the Average Joe, then you can avoid entering Office Space mode.

Of course, this whole "Hamster Wheel" stuff isn't all bad. We all have our own hamster wheels that we run on, and when approached in the right manner, our neverending plights can be the formula for success. I've been doing an inordinate amount of quoting in this post already, but this one is too good to pass up. From Andrew Grove, former CEO of Intel, via our pal Ryan's Facebook profile: “Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.” What I like about that quote so much is that Grove says it's OK to run on a hamster wheel. Those who never lull themselves into a sense of security will always be on their toes. Attack life as as series of small challenges and small rewards, and you'll gain the perspective to see the big picture.

Sh*t I Don't Understand: Extracurricular Activities

Spring is descending upon us. There are four college basketball teams left standing, and at the start of next week the sweet sound of "Play Ball!" will be heard for the first time since November 4. Springtime also brings about a period of time I like to call Application Season. Ambitious and eager high school seniors are nervously awaiting the big envelopes in the mail from colleges all around the country, while reality-bitten college seniors are attending career fairs and beefing up their resumés in hopes of getting a job that has anything to do with the stuff they've been studying for the past four years. Both groups have had hammered into their brains the importance of extracurricular activities and how they "make you stand out." In the last installment of this series for the time being, I'd like to take a look at just how hollow all this extracurricular activity BS really is.

I'll put out the caveat out there first - I know that there are plenty of people who did tons of extracurricular stuff in high school and college and actually cared about them/put a great deal of effort into them. Those aren't the people I'm talking about. I'm talking about the people who join a club just because it might look good on an application or resumé, as well as the people who actually evaluate said applications and fail to differentiate between the genuine and the bogus. Hell, we've all done it. I was in the French Club in high school, which entailed little more than signing my name on a piece of paper in French class and showing up to a 20-minute meeting 4 times a year, 3 of which I'd usually duck out of early to get to football practice or to the weight room.

That's part of my point. What does having an extracurricular activity on an application really constitute? It's impossible to tell from an evaluation standpoint. All colleges love seeing National Honor Society on applications, but all being in NHS in high school really meant was you got good (not necessarily great) grades, you were at least somewhat involved and didn't just go straight home after school every day, and you never showed up to school wasted and never got caught with weed in your car. For that you got a nice little yellow thingy to wear on your graduation gown and the right to slap a shiny "Member of National Honor Society" on your college applications. Riiiiight. I was in NHS for 3 years in high school and I think I've done more work cleaning my room than I ever did as part of that prestigious outfit. But yet, there it was in bold letters on all my applications back in the day.

What I hope is that college admissions offices and job recruiters understand is that not all activities are created equal. For instance, being on the bowling team in high school is not the same as playing a sport like football or wrestling. I shouldn't have to go further into that. In addition, some people turn themselves into flat-out hypocrites by their membership in certain clubs, like a few kids I knew who were in Students Against Drunk Driving (aka S.A.D.D.) in high school and ended up getting DUI's. I guess you weren't paying attention at those meetings, were you? But hey, maybe your days spent as a member of S.A.D.D. will score you some points with the DMV when you try to get your license back!

The extracurricular activity garbage is a flaw of a system where a large number of candidates must be considered in a small amount of time. It's impossible to personally get to know everyone who is applying to your school or your company, so you have to take as many things into consideration as you can, especially when the top factors (GPA, test scores, prior work experience, etc.) are a wash. But it doesn't sit well to think that a group of decision makers are sitting at a table somewhere saying, "OK, we're down to two candidates for this position. Applicant A and Applicant B have similar grades and numbers, but Applicant B helped start up the Scott Baio Fan Club at his college! That's got to make him a better employee than the other guy. I think we have our winner right there, our work here is done! Who's got the first round at Happy Hour?"

But I guess that's the world we live in. I pledged with a guy who treated our fraternity as just another resumé builder and pretty much disappeared once we got in. Sure, he got himself into medical school, but to me that's not worth everyone disliking you and your name being a punchline for years, even after college is over. It's a blatant insult to all the people who bust their ass in earnest to be a part of something that's going to have value for a long time. In a perfect world, there would be a way to sniff out the mere "just a name on a list" people so they could get a big F-you from prospective employers and colleges. After all, who is bound to be more of an asset to a company or a school - a person who stays on the right track and gives full effort to the things he sets his mind to, or a system-manipulating weasel who uses his peers as stepping stones? Call me idealistic but I'd rather be genuine and give my best effort at a few things than go half-ass at a bunch of activities just so I can litter my application with papier-mâché.

"I'll Text You" - The Appeal of Impersonal Communication

Ever find it funny that a phrase spoken thousands of times a day was probably hardly ever uttered as recently as 7-8 years ago? If you said "I'll text you" to someone back then, you'd have gotten an odd look in response. Same thing goes if you told someone "I'll IM you about that homework later" back in the mid-'90s or if you said "I'll email you those files you were asking for" back in the '80s. As technology continues to progress (and gain a stronger and stronger hold on our lives), our preferred methods of communication become less and less personal.

I got a new phone today, and after going over all the texting plan options, mobile internet packages, how to check your email and use the camera, etc. etc., I had to remind myself - "oh yeah, this thing actually calls people too." You have to admit, we love our phones in this generation. But what we love even more is using them for things other than phone calls. We hardly ever call people any more just to talk; we usually only call people or (gasp!) interact face-to-face if the situation explicitly demands it.

Between AIM, email, and texting, it's a fair estimate that we do as much non-personal communication in a given day as we do personal communication. People from our parents' generation do not comprehend why we text - after all, why not just speak to the other person directly? Well, let me take a stab at explaining why. Texting is ideal for non-urgent matters, or telling people things that they don't need to respond to. Telling someone "I'll meet you there in 10 minutes" does not require a phone call. It's also good for when you really don't have anything meaningful to say. For instance, I text funny movie or TV quotes to people all the time, just for them to read at their leisure. It's a little thing that can lighten your day up.

If it boils down to one thing, it's this - the techno-savvy generation will avoid confrontation every chance it gets. Texting avoids people being put on the spot - you can respond as quickly -or not as quickly- as you want. Emailing people at work instead of calling them keeps us from hearing an possibly agitated person on the other end (or keeps people from hearing our agitated selves on our end). Most of all, texting and emailing are a crutch. We don't have to think on our feet in texts or emails, and we don't have to worry about stumbling over our words or sounding like an idiot. Why? Because (and we ALL do this) you get to read over your texts and emails before they're sent, giving you a chance to finely tune your words like a surgeon.

We've seen countless "funny because we've all been there at some point" scenes in movies and TV shows where a guy is sitting next to the phone rehearsing his words before calling a girl to ask her out. Has it reached the point that these types of scenes are now obsolete? Would an equivalent scene now consist of a guy (or a group of girls) zeroed in on a phone screen nervously constructing the perfectly-worded text? I believe it has. And in the height of irony, we defer to impersonal communication to avoid looking stupid, but so often it renders us looking like drones attached to a tiny piece of machinery. I guess it's one battle lost and one battle won.

"Allergic? To dancing?"

I don't get it. I just do not get it. What is so much fun about dancing? And why does it become a seemingly involuntary activity when people go out? Don't get me wrong, being in a fraternity all 4 years in college with countless parties and mixers in my career, I've had more than my share of plastered fun on a dance floor. But that's a different animal. Everyone is out there for the same thing, to get as drunk as possible and hook up as often as you can (excuse me while I wipe away a tear of nostalgia), and sooner or later people are just going to start grinding all over each other. It's a four- or five-year vacation, depending on how you play your cards.

But let's take dancing at face value for a minute. You're moving your body around but not really going anywhere; you are in constant motion yet stay pretty much in the same spot on the floor. Why do people go so crazy about this? Why do we always see a bunch of girls at bars, evidently scorning men for the night and just going to town in their little circle there, acting like they just won the lottery? A theory behind that is they don't want to look too desperate so they're just going to dance "with my girls!" so it seems like they're having fun even if no males approach them that night (an outright lie). And on a side note, why do these groups of women way too often resemble a kickoff return team in terms of physical stature - i.e. there's one good looking one with a nice body (the returner) and 4-5 hulking behemoths around her (the blockers).

I'm not here to knock on dancing. I totally respect it as an art form and skill. And hey, if you've got it in the repertoire, then why not rock the hell out of it at the bar? But at the same time, oil painting is a skill and an art form, and I don't see people rocking their easels and canvasses when they go out on a Saturday night. When you get down to it, people like to dance in bars because they can get some dry humpage out of the deal, and then things go where they may. And that in itself is where the fun actually is - in getting attention or admiration from another person. Bouncing yourself around like a jackass is a means to that end for some people.

I suffer from acute White Man's Disease. Dancing is a skill that probably waved bye-bye to me sometime in the '80s. Even though you can take lessons and such, it doesn't make you "good," it just may elevate you to "doesn't suck." You're either born with the ability or you're not. So don't hold it against me if I don't see the enjoyment in dancing. It doesn't mean I don't like fun; it just means I'm self aware.

I find it funny when girls say "I can't be with a man who can't dance." Why does one particular skill become the deal breaker? You never hear a man say "I just can't be with a girl who can't hit a curveball." When you look at it that way, both statements are asinine, yet the former is somehow a belief that is accepted rather widely. Now I'd just love to meet the guy out there who keeps a wiffle ball set in his trunk and won't let a girl meet Mom unless she gets a piece of the ol' number 2. (Oh no, I think I just gave Matthew McConaughey a new movie idea.....)