Why I Don't Post Sports Predictions Anymore

I saw this today, and just had to wonder how different my own predictions would have been had I, you know, posted them. As you might know, I stopped doing that a while ago, and this image to the left there probably indicates why.

I assume that I too would have picked all of the heavily-favored teams in the first round, because that is how it always is in the NBA Playoffs. Occasionally I'll pick an upset that I'm rooting for.

Such is the way it always worked. I either found a reason to support the commonly held belief or tried to think of reasons we would get a different outcome. I don't know, I guess I liked having all of my predictions recorded, but it just does not matter to me anymore.

As long as we're talking NBA Playoffs in this post, we might as well note that I have yet to watch a second of postseason basketball (hockey is on, after all). 

So what now will happen with this here blog?

That's an interesting question, and one I have not really decided any action on. Let us be honest, this blog pays nothing. It is done really only for me to share thoughts or whatever concerning my life that I guess I feel are important to commit to the internet.

I suppose that, if anything, I'd probably inclined to turn this blog into yet another vehicle to talk about my daughter, but pictures of her seem to be the sole purpose of my Instagram and Facebook accounts these days, so I don't want to feel like I'm overdoing it.

But what else am I supposed to be "blogging" about exactly? The struggles of being a freelance writer? Oh, I'm sure that would be thrilling. Guess it's on me to make that kind of shit funny.

Predictions always seemed to be the most fun when there was a variety of opinions to compare myself to, and looking at this little ESPN graphic I've included, it seems pretty evident that thrill no longer exists. Yeah, the NBA Playoffs typically don't have a lot of variety, but I still suspect many other sports have been like this. I guess I could compare this to hockey predictions, but I'm just not motivated to do that.

Look, I'm just trying to kill some time now before seeing my daughter because I'm tired of working today. That kind of thinking can't hold up because I need to keep working in order to make money. That's kind of how it works when you're a freelancer. Every minute of the day matters.

Well, kind of.

Freelancing does afford you certain freedoms. You can take days off in the middle of the week without it being too big of a deal. I sit here typing all of this now, and chances are that in a few days I will probably be regretting having not tried harder. Again, the hockey playoffs are on. I'm only human.

In case you couldn't tell, I'm typing now only to try to make the text match the length of the photo, and I know I'm going to be pissed because the way it actually displays will probably mean that the photo still extends past my text. 

Oh well. Whatever.

I wish there was some kind of random update I could throw in here about some kind of new development in my life, but the truth is that it is very quiet. There is no woman in my life, and I'm not even sure there is one who is interested in me or that I am interested in. Wait, retract that last part because I've clearly got one fantasy that I'm working on but not really ever expecting anything to come from. That should be fun.

As long as this post mentions predictions, I feel obligated to mention that my NHL bracket contest pick was the Tampa Bay Lightning to win the Stanley Cup, and of course they got swept out of the first round last night. I also picked the Penguins, who got swept too last night. So I clearly would not have been performing too well.

Like I said, I don't really have many basketball thoughts. Of course the Warriors will win it. I guess they'll beat the Bucks. Maybe I'll start caring in the next round.

Again, I just don't see the need to post my predictions anymore, even though I did once enjoy uploading team graphics and making it feel like my thoughts carried some weight. Towards the end there though, I know I was struggling to think of what I really wanted to write. Most of the time, I didn't seem to have many thoughts.

My career drifted away from sports and towards the law several years ago, and I don't see myself drifting back. I like writing about the law, and I plan to keep doing it for the foreseeable future. Maybe that's what I should start blogging about.

Truth be told, I'm just not much of a blogger anymore. Like many, I've taken a liking to Twitter, which is a different sort of beast. But sharing random thoughts there kind of eliminates my need to post fuller stories here. Sorry.

I don't know. This blog's got a lot of miles on it, so I'm sure I'll think of something down the line that I can post here. For now though, I've got very little.

Vaper's Rights

As the late, great Bill Hicks once remarked about non-smokers, "I'd quit smoking if I didn't think I'd become one of you." This sentiment perfectly embodies the struggle I've been living with for a number of years now.

The deal, you see, was that I told my wife that I'd quit smoking when I had a child. I was asked repeatedly when I'd begin making moves toward quitting once she got pregnant, but my consumption never wavered. After the daughter was born, I merely tried to hide my smoking, only adding to additional scorn from the wife that probably factored into her decision to get a divorce. 

The original idea that I'm still shocked to see how well it worked was to begin vaping. Use the vaporizer to stop using real cigarettes. At first, I thought it would never work, but sure enough, my commitment ultimately led to me going one full year without a cigarette. 

But now it seems that vaping is subject to the intense sort of public backlash one would normally associated with ... smoking cigarettes. Seriously, I'm astounded by the number of individuals who just absolutely seem to lose their shit at the sight of a vaporizer. 

I can only conclude that this group of non-smokers suffers from the most aggressive form of small penis syndrome ever. All of these people are so miserable in their daily existence that they spend all of their time just searching for ways to prohibit others from experiencing joy so the others will hopefully be as without hope as these sad sacks. 

Whenever those smoking bans got enacted, the routine non-smoker celebration was something about how nice it was to go out for an evening and no longer smell like smoke. Wonderful. Congratulations. So with that in mind, what exactly is the issue with vaping? 

Fucking seriously. I know the science is still out on a lot of this stuff, but I'm guessing the second-hand risks are relatively minor. Not to mention that my little cloud of vapor disappears relatively quickly without leaving any lingering odor. Again, I can only conclude that the issue is that you're seeing me doing something that makes me happy, and you can't have that if you're a non-smoker because you need everybody else to be as miserable as yourself. What a sad, sad state of being. 

I vaped in the office for years without issue, despite a supposed ban being included in a handbook update. But now that we've got a new office manager that does everything by the book and even the boss sent me an IM about not vaping, I've been forced to leave my seat to vape. Of course, can't do it in the hallway either because the cute girl next door informed me the entire building is non-vaping. 

Yesterday, I was vaping at Frolic's Castle. I could tell a child was looking at me while I did this, and sure enough, a security guard approached me a short while later to inform me I could not vape in the play area. Or the entire mall. I got a particular kick out of the part where he added, "There's kids here." 
Yeah, heaven forbid a child see me vaping. I mean, nowhere near my height to be at risk of any of this supposed second-hand vaping mist/smoke/whatever exposure, but you know, just the sight of me is too much to bear. Well, for non-smokers, I mean. To most normal people, it's probably nothing particularly noteworthy. 

I've tried multiple times now to give up the real cigarettes, but every encounter with non-smokers only makes me want to double down on my commitment to the smoking community. My biggest fear about quitting smoking, after all, is becoming a non-smoker. I'd just as soon prefer to not to feel a need to openly declare an unabashed hypersensitivity to mundane things having no tangible effect on my life because that ultimately seems to be more beneficial. 
Realistically, I don't expect these non-smokers who are so consumed with enforcing indoor vaping bans to concede any ground anytime soon. So I guess I'll just be forced to try and be more discrete with my vaping. Again, chances are good you won't even notice when I do it. 

The problem exists only when one of these miserable non-smokers catches sight of me vaping. If I do this out of sight (restrooms, I've found, are ideal for this purpose), I'll privately get my relief. And all that will be left is for the miserable non-smoker to go find something else to take issue with and continue being miserable about.

Priorities

Well, we're down to a mere four teams in the NFL Playoffs, and I honestly have no idea how my predictions have fared because I honestly don't remember making many. My guess is that if I had posted them, I would've largely gone with most of the favorites and probably not done very well. That seems to be the way these things usually work.

Truth be told, the sports predictions that account for most of (if not all) of this blog's posts simply aren't all that important to me anymore. It's not that I don't still try to watch most of these regular events I rushed to post predictions for, but I've just got a lot of other things that can take precedence. Like yesterday, for example, I left a co-worker's house while the Saints trailed 17-0 to attend an AA meeting, thinking the game was nowhere near as competitive as originally anticipated.

I walked in late to said meeting because I had to listen to this happen on the radio:



In years past, missing this might have been the source of several days of regret and frustration. Now, it's almost comical. Life is funny that way.

2017 World Series Prediction: Hoping For the Best, Preparing to be Miserable

And so here we are. After what seems like multiple years of picking the Dodgers to either get to or flat-out win the World Series in the spring, that awful fucking team has finally made it. Congrats to them. And while I sit here living in the Houston area and hoping to see so many down-on-their-luck residents here find a little joy in the city's first World Series title, I know full well that I should probably expect the Dodgers to win this series in, oh, six games.

I will root like hell for the opposite. I believe I'm 4-4 on postseason picks thus far, and I truly hope I finish under .500 this year.

2017 League Championship Series Predictions: Anybody But L.A.

I wish that I had some reason to explain why I so passionately dislike the Los Angeles Dodgers, but there is no single isolated event that I can recall that led me to feel this way. The Dodgers easily swept away Arizona last round and appear to be living up to the hype thus far in the playoffs. I picked Los Angeles last year in the NLCS under the assumption that some unfortunate series of events would befall Chicago (I guess the Nationals have now taken over the seeming postseason curse).

I'm going to predict the World Series that I'm actually rooting to see, which is the Houston Astros playing the Chicago Cubs. I'm preparing for disappointment though.

2017 Division Series Predictions: Still Catching Up

Oh shit. I forgot to do this. I'm losing it, man. This site just isn't the first thing on my mind anymore. Hell, I forgot about the first pitch being thrown out. I didn't even make a graphic. Fuck.

Oh well. Let's just get right to it, in descending order of confidence here: Cleveland beats the Yankees in four, the Cubs beat the Nationals in four, the Diamondbacks beat the Dodgers in four, and I'm actually picking the Astros (already up 2-0 in Game 1, for the record) to beat the Red Sox in five games—even though I originally planned on picking Boston, but changed my mind this morning when thinking about how the whole #BostonStrong thing seemed to work out pretty well for a talented Red Sox squad a few years ago, so #HoustonStrong seems easy to buy into as well.

This will be fancier next round. Promise.

2017 Wild Card Playoff Predictions: So What, Who Cares

Let us be perfectly honest here. This blog is more than 10 years old, and the posts are all almost exclusively predictions for playoffs involving one of the four major sports. While I might have shared my personal experiences and love stories at one time or another, I don't much feel compelled to to do the same anymore—partly because I now write for a living and don't particularly feel all that compelled to do more typing once I'm done with work and partly because I'm getting divorced. Did I mention that already? No? Well, I'm getting divorced. Who knows when. As usual, it's not all that important and I'll probably be fighting the urge to write yet another love letter to whichever girl I begin sleeping with next. My assumption was that would not occur for another few years, but boy, the early adventures while getting re-acclimated to this being single again have certainly been encouraging.

What's that? Oh, yes. This post is supposed to be a blog about the first round of the upcoming MLB Playoffs. I'll spare you bogus commentary or faux insight, and I'll probably abandon pre-season predictions altogether (NHL and NBA seasons beginning soon, so sorry to those two sports for being my sacrificial lambs). Anyway, here's the hats of my predicted winners (presented, as always, in descending order of confidence):

2017 NFL Predictions: The Outlier

In case you didn't read it elsewhere, the New England Patriots—whom you might recall I correctly predicted to win the Super Bowl last year—are being picked by essentially everybody to repeat as champions. So they would seem to be the obvious choice to go with this year for me. But fuck that. We gotta have some kind of surprise.

I think the Patriots will win the AFC East yet again, with your other division winners being the Steelers, Titans, Chiefs, Cowboys, Packers, Buccaneers, and Seahawks. Your wild card teams will be, oh, let us go with the Raiders, Chargers, Giants, and Panthers. I'll go with New England going 16-0 in the regular season and beating the Steelers yet again in the AFC Championship before going on to lose yet another Super Bowl to the New York Giants, who will once again beat the Packers in another NFC Championship.

Sure, it's probably unlikely, but we need to end this Boston championship madness.

NBA Finals Prediction: Third Time's a Charm (for Some)

So here are again. Just as basically everyone expected, Cleveland and Golden State. Hoo boy, haven't these NBA Playoffs been exciting? No, they haven't? Of course they haven't. Two months delaying the inevitable is fucking boring. Sue me.

Depending on what your school of though is, you're either really looking forward to these Finals, or you gave up caring a while ago. Last year's Game 7 remains one of the greatest I've ever seen, but I simply do not see how we're going to get any kind of repeat of that.

Yes, LeBron is gonna LeBron. Still, he's only one guy. The Warriors have multiple stars. You're basically picking a team based on one man or the other based on its seeming army of weapons. I know what I'm anticipating.

NHL Stanley Cup Final Prediction: Never Mind What I Previously Said (Or Not?)

"Hey, where's that usual stupid graphic you do for these posts, D. Rock?" Well, funny you bring that up, because apparently when you buy Microsoft Office for your new laptop, it's only for a limited time and then you have to buy some new plan or something that allows you be raped once a year or assaulted to a lesser degree every month. Neat! UPDATE: Fixed, obviously.

Anyway, the graphic will have to wait until tomorrow morning when I'm at my work computer where my employer doesn't deal with bullshit like this. I'll probably regret the P.K. Subban picture I chose once again, having dismissed its poor quality initially as a non-issue, because, c'mon, the Predators will be gone in the first round.

Instead, Nashville sits here four wins away from its first Stanley Cup. That is something I believe I both predicted and said I would openly root for to happen this year after the Blackhawks got ousted. Only one little problem with that now though: The last hurdle to get over is the defending champion.

Many of us dismissed the likelihood of a Penguins repeat because the prospect of running the gauntlet again simply seemed all so unlikely, what with having to play two 100+ point teams in the first two rounds an all. But Pittsburgh hasn't shown any signs of slowdown this postseason, even with the loss of Kris Letang. So I'm having second thoughts here.

Oh, I nailed my picks last round, bringing me to 10-4 this playoff season now with three series predicted in the exact number of games.