Drunken bracket, the epilogue (AKA how to turn a negative into a postive, degenerate gambler style)

I had to work a bit late last night, so by the time I got to see the game, it was already into blowout mode. Fitting. Since Michigan St. didn't win, my drunken bracket finished 8th. My sober bracket finished 10th. Middle of the pack for both. My conclusion, it doesn't make any difference if I'm drunk or sober, I'm still mediocre when picking brackets.

However, I'm not mediocre when it comes to gambling. I had two entries in our pool, at $5 a pop. There were 20 people, and it was winner take all. So if Michigan St. won, my $10 would have turned into $200. Not bad.

But deep down, I just didn't see Michigan St. winning that game. So I hedged my bets, to make sure no matter what, I was going to win a little bit of cash. And this is how I introduce my new class, Sports Gambling 101.

There were only two possibilities for this game. Either North Carolina would win, or Michigan St. would win. As I mentioned above, if Michigan St. wins, I win $200. But if North Carolina wins, I lose $10.

So I covered my bets by making a bet on North Carolina. If you ever go into a sports book in Vegas, you will see all sorts of funny symbols. It can be confusing. But that is why you are here, to learn how to read these things. In basketball and football, you will see something that looks like this...

Michigan St North Carolina
+7(-110) -7(-110) 153

The first number is the point spread. This means that the folks in Vegas expect North Carolina to win by 7 points. If you take Michigan St., you get to add 7 points to their score, and if you take North Carolina, you subtract 7 points from your score. This bet pays even money, which means if you bet $20 and win, you win $20. This is probably the most popular of the bets. But betting North Carolina on this bet wasn't the smartest move for my situation. If North Carolina wins by 3 points, I lose my bet, as well as losing my pool. Bad move.

The next number is for a straight up win. -110 means that I have to bet $110 to win $100. Now we're talking. If this were legal (ahem), I would have called my bookie and bet $110 on North Carolina to win. Let's see the possible scenarios:

Michigan St. wins - I win $200 in my pool, I lose $110 on my bet, for a net profit of $90.
North Carolina wins - I lose $10 in my pool, I win $100 on my bet, for a net profit of $90.

The last number is the over/under. This is the combined total points in the game. For the game last night, the final score was 89-72, for a total of 161 point. Since 161 is over 153, the over bet wins.

So by making that alleged bet, I win $90 no matter what happens in the game. Yeah, it isn't big money, but in case you haven't heard, the economy sucks right now, and I'll take what I can get.

Drunken bracket is still alive

Miracle of miracles. I have a chance to win my pool with my drunken bracket. I was the only one to pick Michigan St. to win it all. However, sober Umbrella doesn't see it happening.

That being said, GO SPARTANS!

drunkent bracket, what remains after the first weekend

Sorry for the slow updates. My travels through the south have slowed my blogging down to a crawl. So here is the update after the first weekend.

Drunken bracket - 49 points. A terrific second round after a horrible first round. This is good enough for 7th place.

Sober bracket - 46 points. 10th place.

So what is this telling me? I don't know yet. The real problem with my drunken bracket is my final four. No #1 seeds are there. This will be a problem, I think.

Drunken bracket, heartbroken edition

Damn. Syracuse is an absolute nightmare matchup for the Devils. The better team won this morning.

That being said, here is the drunken bracket update, from SEC country, with the remainder of the early games in progress.

37 points (1 point for first round, 2 points for second round). 8th place in my 20 person pool. Not bad.

My real bracket? 38 points. Good for 7th place.

Drunken bracket update #2

5 of 8 correct. Tied for next to last in my group. Sad thing is, I'm tied with my sober picks.

Drunken bracket update #1

After the first games, the drunken bracket has one correct pick. However, I compared my drunken bracket with my "real" bracket, and the picks are the same for the first seven games today. This means there are two early possible conclusions to this experiment...

1) Alcohol doesn't affect my thought process at all when it comes to picking teams.
2) I'm as stupid as a drunk when it comes to picking teams.

More to come.

Retarded experiments, March Madness style

As I stated earlier, I am on vacation for a bit. Since I don't have to work tomorrow, I am getting drunk tonight. And now, in the never ending quest for drunken knowledge, I am trying something new.

I decided to fill out a bracket completely hammered. I already filled one out while sober, so this will be interesting to see what happens. Can a drunk Umbrella pick as well as a sober one? I'll post my findings later, once games have actually happened.

Retarded experiments, from the archive

I have a pretty strong curiosity. I wonder about something, then obsess about it until I find an answer. Been that way my whole life. In these wonderful days of the interwebs, I can usually find an answer pretty quick. But sometimes, there are questions that mankind has yet to answer. This leads me to doing some pretty stupid things, which I like to call Retarded Experiments.

For example, one time in high school chemistry class, we were doing some experiment that involved these little beads. Calcium something-or-other. These things were super absorbent, and if you left them sitting out, they would get little pools of water around them from absorbing the moisture from the air.

So the young curious Umbrella was wondering something. No, not what would happen if you stuck them up your ass. But now that you mention it... No, I wondered what would happen if you immersed them in water. This had the potential for awesome written all over it. I asked my teacher, and he said, "Why don't you try it and see?"

Hell yeah. This is why chemistry class ruled. You could blow shit up. So I grabbed some of the beads, and put them in a beaker with some H2O (that's water for you non-geniuses).

They just sat there. No explosions. No boiling. Nothing.

That was anti-climatic. But, what would happen if you put them in hydrochloric acid? My teacher was on the other side of the room, but I'm sure he would have said, "Why don't you try it and see?" So I did.

It happened instantaneously. I didn't know so much smoke could come out of such a small beaker. Plus, it was pretty stinky. I was praying it wasn't toxic, and had to get rid of the evidence. I quickly dumped it down the sink, and turned on the water.

This just made everything worse. At this point, the gig was up. The room was full of this smoke, and we were forced to evacuate. Just one of my many one-day suspensions in the science wing of the school.

However, that's not a true Retarded Experiment. Most average people don't have access to hydrochloric acid and whatever those beads were. No, a true retarded experiment can be conducted by any idiot with an unhealthy imagination. And alcohol. Usually a lot of alcohol is involved.

The one I want to discuss happened at a tailgate. We were drinking, grilling, throwing the football, and generally having a good time. It was starting to get close to kickoff, so it was clean up time. We were getting ready to dump the coals from the grill, when I wondered...

What would happen if you put an unopened ketchup package on hot coals?

We had forgotten to bring ketchup to this tailgate, so someone had made a run and taken some from a nearby McDonalds. I asked my question aloud, and suddenly, everyone wanted to know the same thing. In my mind, I could see the ketchup getting hot, boiling, pressure building inside the packet, and then BOOM, an awesome explosion of molten ketchup flying everywhere. This was gonna rule!

Now I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid. I know that molten ketchup will probably hurt like hell. So I made sure everyone stood back a bit. I didn't want my curiosity to maim anyone but me. I threw a packet on the coals, and waited for the awesome to begin.

I waited. And waited. And waited some more. No explosion. Apparently, whatever they use to seal the package shut has a lower melting point than the boiling point of ketchup. So all it did was ooze ketchup all over the coals. You could feel the disappointment hanging in the air.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing hanging in the air. One thing I didn't account for is what ketchup burning on hot coals smells like. It's hard to describe, but my guess is that if Satan was lactose intolerant, and ate a bunch of lasagna, this is what his toilet would smell like. Horrible. Now everyone was pissed because these stink molecules were stuck in their noses.

To this day, I'm not allowed to get near the grill with ketchup. And that happened over five years ago.

Golden Umbrella, the hangover edition (AKA meandering and slow to the point)

On the 2nd day of my unpaid vacation, I decided to be productive in a different manner, and start searching for the newest winner of the Golden Umbrella award. As painful as this process is under ideal conditions, doing it with a headache, and a hangover that got worse as the day progressed, it was a chore. Apparently my proclamation of my good health was premature. Plus, my internet decided to choose this exact time to act like a giant turd. Which reminds me...

One thing I didn't factor in is that if you spend a day intaking nothing but fluids, then the output of your body will be pretty fluid as well. I discovered this fun fact at about 1:00, 1:20, 1:45, and a few more times after that. My body obviously didn't approve of this experiment.

As for the award, I was thinking about changing it to something a little less wordy, like the Gumbies or something like that. But the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. First of all, it reminds me of a time when Eddie Murphy was still funny, which makes me depressed. Second, I absolutely HATE the trend of throwing a "-y" or a "-ie" at the end of a word, and voila, instant award name. Since we have determined through extensive scientific research that this award stands head and shoulders above all other awards out there, it should stand apart in name as well. So you're stuck with the lengthy name.

As a little look behind the curtain, here's how I try and find winners. I do searches for people's interests which would theoretically make for good writing. However, this is not the case. You would be surprised at how many people who list "being awesome" as an interest are anything but. One guy actually had "air guitar" listed as an interest right before "being awesome". Unfortunately, he didn't list irony as an interest.

So let's get to a site that is indeed "being awesome". This weeks winner is a tag team effort written by a couple of dudes named Cheez and B Harris. The blog is called Arguably Useless. First off, the banner is a pic from The Big Lewbowski, so that is a giant plus right off the bat. They discuss things like music, sports, and movies. I like all of those things. I'll even let it slide that they didn't list Nation of Millions as one of the best rap albums.

And now for the rules that we all know and love. In order to be added to my esteemed 'Winners of "Umbrella's Blogs That Don't Suck" award (AKA the Golden Umbrella)' list, you must make an acceptance speech in the comments section. I've been pleasantly surprised by the speeches so far. I shouldn't be, because this is pretty much the biggest award you can win on the interwebs. But I'm glad the winners are enjoying this prestigious award. So congratulations Cheez and/or B Harris. Here is your award. Feel free to put it on your site.

Even the Dude would be honored with this

Retarded experiments, the day after

Well that was interesting. My mother used to always say that boredom was the sign of a weak mind. In other words, find something to do. So while I was sitting at home, I decided to see what would happen if I combined an all day bender with no food. Kind of like a science experiment. It takes a lot to get me drunk. I can go all day if I maintain a steady pace, and just keep a nice buzz going. Will the lack of food change things? I would say let's go to my notes, I gave up on my notes early.

So for anyone who wants to try this at home, here are my observations. First of all, the buzz came much quicker than normal. Granted, I was drinking bourbon first thing in the morning, so I don't know if that had anything to do with it or not. However, it took quite some time before I felt shitfaced. This surprised me. It was probably about 6:00 before I really felt drunk. However, when the drunk hit, it hit hard. That was probably the drunkest I've been in several years. It's been a long time since the bed was spinning.

Interestingly, I didn't feel hungry all day. It wasn't until I went to bed that I felt hungry, but I didn't want to get up. Also, I woke up in the middle of the night starving, and with bad chest pains. I'm assuming this was some sort of indigestion. Either that, or I had a heart attack.

Amazingly, I'm not in too bad of shape today. I have a splitting headache, but after a little breakfast and coffee, I'm not on top of my game, but I'm certainly functional.

So my conclusion is that short term, it doesn't make much of a difference. However, by the end of the day, you will definitely feel the effects.

Retarded experiments

As part of the failing economy, everyone at my office is required to take 5 unpaid days off this quarter. I took one today. Because I have nothing better to do, I decided to see what would happen if I didn't eat anything all day, and drank a bunch. I'm pretty fucked up. It took me about 20 minutes to type this, including editing. I'm going to hate life tomorrow. Why did I do this? Fuck if I know.