It's the most wonderful time of the year.....for degenerates

Let me start off by saying that i hate the title of this blog post. I mean don't get me wrong it reflects how i feel about this time of the year and all but that fact that it is even remotely associated with Christmas makes me want to puke.

Now I'm not a big holiday person. I genuinely hate opening gifts because i feel like the spotlight is on me and i never like the presents i get. It's weird because i am such a good gifter and i am so easy to read. Just get me something cool people!!! I mean that or lets just get it out there and agree to not give anything to each other. Of course my friends would never want to do that because then they would be losing out on an awesome gifting buddy whom they can get some pos gift for and always know they are getting something awesome.

I had my wife getting close to agreeing to say f the holidays and instead of participating in the Christmas shopping and exchanging and family fighting we could take our holiday budget and go to Hawaii, or Jamaica, or St. Thomas, or Catalina Island...you know somewhere much more awesome than Madison, WI in the winter.

Then she went and got pregnant. So last Christmas was, "Lets start awesome traditions for the baaaaaaaabbbbbby" Christmas. And obviously i saw the trainwreck this was turning into but the sucker in me pictured winning against the odds and it being the start of ideal holiday seasons that would last my kids entire life. We'd come together and exchange gifts and eat good food and everybody would laugh and hug and shit as the kids jokingly shook their heads every Christmas morning while mommy and daddy had one too many cocktails.

Of course as every holiday season does and as i knew this one would it turned into fighting and hurt feelings because "I got so and so this and that and they didn't send their gift on time and OMG it's f%**$# used gift cards bla bla bla." Then it was misreable out, but not because it was too cold but because it was just a mildly cold, no snow, everything is just brown and dead holiday season.

Then after all was said and done and the dust was settling on the fighting i had the pleasure of being reminded how little was left in the bank but at least i got to enjoy some time on the beach in the middle of winter and escape with a nice vaca....oh right.

So this is the time of year i enjoy. The time of the year when i and millions of other degenerates start believing we are winning sports bettors again.

It means it's the time of the year for us to not just believe we are winning sports bettors, but winning bettors at the sport in which the average joe has the least edge against the casino, football betting season is here.

It means despite the fact that 95% of the time i realize i am a horrible sports bettor. ESPECIALLY when we are talking football there will be a spot or two this season where i go on a hot streak and envision myself going on an awesome run on bodog, excuse me "Bovada" and despite their odds i cover myself in online riches only to be unable to cash out and cursing the DOJ in a one too many Ale Asylum: Contorter Porter rants on this very blog.

What can i say? Degens gonna degen

More importantly than the sports betting though it is also time for fantasy football. And you know what that means?

It means it's time for me to do an insane amount of mock drafts and completely ignore my wife and kid.

It means it's time for the Fantasy Flyers to OWN the draft and then be cursed by bad luck.

It means it's time for a certain blogger to run his mouth even as he sees his ship to fantasy football championship glory sailing away.

It means it's time to flush another season's worth of buy-ins down the toilet and just write them off as lost sports bets. YES!!!

It means it's time for me to post a lot of pictures of scantily clad women in sports gear while my wife shakes her head in disgust at all the downloaded pictures saved to my desktop.

It is indeed the most wonderful time of the year

Deadlines!!!!

Hopefully not always will.....right Theo?!?!?

I had been considering writing some posts before and during the MLB trade deadline that would have been awesome but instead i decided to become obsessed with Sid Miers Civilization V so hooray for that.

What you will undoubtedly be happy to hear is that i have decided i am restarting this blog but this time it's just going to be me rambling on once a week minimum about whatever i want to ramble about. So I'm starting my deadlines for posting a new blog post (lets say every Monday morning there will be a new post) and this first one which i am posting on Thursday is 3 1/2 days late. Yeah, awesome start Eric and we're moving on.

So here we are a few days after the trade deadline and all i have to say is GOD I HATE BEING  A CUBS FAN!!!

I mean lol at how unlucky they were again. Truth be told i still think they did alright. I mean Arodys Vizcaino has a floor of an above average closer and a ceiling of a 1 or 2 SP so I'll take that. But when you consider the plan Theo and Co. had in place it just baffles me how things could manage to go so wrong.

It was obvious the wheels were coming off when Dempster tweeted that the trade to the Braves, a team which he approved being traded to, for Randall Delgado was not official and then the Braves responded by pulling the offer off the table. Now the Cubs recovered and ended up trading Maholm and Reed Johnson for Vizcaino who before the year i liked a lot better than Delgado and whom i still like better despite the former undergoing Tommy John surgery. Still this was a classic moment where you realize things just aren't going to go the Cubs' way.

I started to get really depressed when the Cubs did nothing for a week or so thinking they had given up and we'd be stuck with all our vets and not be ramping up our minor leagues at all. When Garza got injured i considered suicide, then switching teams, but in the end the Cubs optimism came out and i thought, "Hey, the injury isn't so serious a team will probably give us less for him than before his injury but he's still a very valuable commodity.)

Then i woke up the day before the deadline and saw the Cubs had traded with the Braves except it was Maholm and Reed Johson for Vizcaino, nice. Oh look at this the Cubs traded Soto to the Rangers for some mid-range prospect, nice again.

I was hopeful the Cubs would make something happen with either Dempster or Garza with Soriano to the Dodgers for one of their top two pitching prospects but that didn't happen. In the final hour Dempster decided to quit being an asshole and accepted a trade to the Rangers in which the Cubs got a couple mid-level prospects so that'll do.

In the end Theo is still a god and i love the direction the Cubs are going. Garza didn't get moved but the Cubs have a nice problem to think about in trying to move him for some prospects over the winter or signing him long term and making him a cornerstone. It would be nice to see the Cubs unload Soriano through a waiver trade (he will obviously clear waivers due to his horrid contract) and get a meh prospect out of the deal/save a few million. It would have been nice for the Cubs to unload Lahair to ramp up the minors a bit more and give a couple young OF'ers a shot (Campana, Jackson, etc) but in the end given the obstacles it was a good deadline for the Cubs.

Thre thre thre thread saver: