News Round-Up (03/18/2026)

 What is rapidly becoming my one time per month post. (Life gets busy and in the way y'all)

Some in the World are starting to say that It's time to move on, WITHOUT the United States. OK. While I'm all for more countries pitching in and, you know, paying for things, I'm not sure you really can move on sans what is still (just) the World's largest economy.  But, good luck with that.

It's always funny when the Media thinks that they have "discovered" something that's been going on for decades. They bump their chests, perform a King Kong style celebration dance and then.....disappear when the party they prefer does the same thing. We have spent decades electing a group of horrid people to rule us. Nothing will change until that key issue is fixed.

Derek Stevens Rising He's certainly having his moment in the Sun.  He's the one casino owner who I've personally met (his brother as well) and he is a personable guy.  That said, his attitude toward gaming has certainly damaged Downtown odds, if not visitor counts.

The Hollowing out of the TSA. I'm not entirely sure this is a bad thing.  There are already private groups who do a better job, probably much cheaper.  I feel for the employees, it's not their fault that our horrid rulers won't pay them, but perhaps a rethink of airport security is long overdue?

The Public Unraveling of Lina Hidalgo is a sad watch. What's worse is that she's still (sort of) in charge of Texas largest County.  In a perfect world, yes, should would have resigned when it became clear she was not up to the job.  We do not live in a perfect World unfortunately.  Hopefully, when her term is up, she can go back to community organizing and just kind of slip out of the public eye.  I think that would be better for her mentally.

Tillman wants Caesars. To be honest, it would probably be a good thing for them. Of course, the BlackJack would suck but everything else would probably improve.

Wow, The long outlived it's expiration date Chron Ed Board is REALLY mad that Whitmire has stopped speaking to them. I do think it's fair to ask, at this point, what purpose this wheezing, outdated group really serves?  Wouldn't it be better to shut it down and redeploy the resources to news?

Mea Culpa, I quit reading the Chron's restaurant section long ago, but this story, Centering on the controversy surrounding Noma's in LA peaked my attention.  The biggest issue here is that we convinced Chefs that they were Rock Stars, and they were totally unprepared to deal with the celebrity.

The Great Sort in Real Life. Single Party States are typically poorly ran, but you do understand why people would not wish to be ruled by those who do not share their values.

College Sports seems dead-set on killing itself  and They keep finding new depths in which to dig. All of these changes, like the changes to the College Football Playoff, are designed to create guardrails to protect the large conferences.  This year there was actual debate as to whether or not 17-16 Auburn deserved a bid.  In case you are wondering, the answer is "no, they were not deserving". (They should not have even been seriously considered)

I did not have The Chron pushing for the release of sex-offenders on my Bingo card of news items this week.  But here we are.

Speaking of "on my news Bingo Card" Chris Tomlinson writing a column where he doesn't know what he's talking about is always on there.  He's ostensibly the "Business Columnist" but he seems to know very little about....actual business. (Especially not the oil and gas business, which is Houston's largest industry)

This is a tragic story that also highlights why Jasmine Crockett should be allowed nowhere near the levers of power. Notice that she takes zero responsibility for hiring this man.  Incredible.

Apparently, Harris County has "solved" it's felony case backlog. Much like former Mayor Annise Parker "eliminated" the homeless problem in Houston.  By sweeping it under the rug.  In Parker's case she just relocated them, in Teare's case he just dismissed them.

A lot of us have been sounding the warning bells about the sad state of political polling for a while now. It's good to see the media finally get a clue.

And finally.....

Houston is trash(y).

Enjoy your Spring y'all.

News Round-up (11/06/2025)

 Kind of a hodge-podge in my return to this thing......

ESPN Bet is no more. DraftKings and FanDuel continue to take over the sports betting world.  Look, ESPN Bet was a bad, really bad book.  But DraftKings and FanDuel are the worst. Losing competition in the space is going to be bad for bettors as the "Bankrupt or Ban" method of bookmaking becomes commonplace.  If you're a serious bettor you should continue to keep rooting for, and patronizing Circa.

I feel for the TSA agents, I really do. I also feel for the flight controllers. But this mess is just another reason to go ahead and grit your teeth and sign up with Clear. (It's also an argument for privatizing airport security.)

Supermoons are cool. I do wonder this however: If crime rises during a full moon, does it rise even more during a Supermoon?

Beware the tendency to read too much into low-turnout elections. Outdated institutions that should be shuttered LOVE to do this.

I'm not sure how much of this is legitimate "analysis" and how much of it is wishful thinking. One thing I do know, Tomlinson is another resource the Chron should jettison and replace with news reporting resources.

Wild Goings on at Couchatta. Greed, shots fired (and, tragically, a minor's life put in jeopardy) and a whole bunch of shenanigans. Damn.

Sound cameras? As with any proposal to try and fix a societal ill through "simple" technology I find that the proposed solution is neither simple, nor is it a grand slam that it will be effective.

Menefee makes the CD 18 run-off despite having the WORST political ad in recorded history. What was he burning in that grill? Legal briefings?

Nancy Pelosi announces she's (finally) done. Well......bye.  The problem is that now the historical revisionism will commence and she'll eventually have some obscure airport in California named after her.

Tomorrow starts Flightmageddon. Supposedly both Houston airports will be affected, as will most of the major hubs in the US.  If you don't have to fly right now, probably a good idea to not. On the bright side it appears most major airlines will offer refunds.

And finally....

Jordon Bennington trying to hide the puck from Ovechkin's 900th goal is the funniest thing you'll see today.

News Round-Up (03/18/2025)

It's been a while.......

Southwest Airlines has become just like every other airline. Except without a true Business Class, terrible perks and an awful route structure.  Not a huge fan of theirs anyway, but they did sometimes fill a need. Something they no longer do.  No reason to fly them now.

Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are finally coming home. I've been watching the SpaceX launches on YouTube, good for them. While some people are wondering about their mental state they are happy they got to spend more time in Space.  They are not wired like the rest of us and that's a good thing.

Arctic Scientists Gone Wild.

Hey Alexa, Can you NOT share all of my data with your parent company? No? Seriously? Well, OK then.

Harris County is a mess. There is sure to be a lot of finger pointing but it's pretty easy to track the decline, and who was in charge when it accelerated.

Letting a politician ruin your life is a special kind of stupid. We get the governments we deserve.

More and more people are fleeing Harris County. Which is a smart idea.

Al Green spent the majority of his political career doing nothing. Then he did something silly and people are treating him like some kind of hero.  The bar is on the floor.

Brief, interesting, science aside. 

Do better people. Ruining shit, especially the shit of others, is not winning hearts and minds. Bad humanity all around.

And finally......

It takes a special kind of stupid to lose money owning a casino.  The corporations on the Las Vegas Strip seem to be trying to find bottom.

News Round-up (02/4/2025)

Love is (Not) in the air........

They say that the only way to make money in a casino is to own the casino.  The current large corporate owners of Las Vegas Casinos are on the verge of proving this wrong. From a myriad of fees to declining resort quality to a race-to-the-bottom customer service culture the current owners of Las Vegas Casino Resorts are sucking the value out of the City and, increasingly, turning people off from visiting.  Amazing.

Two of Lina Hidalgo's buddies are getting their criminal charges dismissed. What this means is open to some debate.  It's certainly good for them, and possibly good for Ms. Hidalgo but who knows really?  Paxton always seems to dance to the beat of his own drummer.

It's probably past time for the increasingly politicized "Doomsday Clock" to go the way of the Dodo. The Media loves them some of this though, like they love several other silly things.

The Return of the "Resistance" *sigh* Time is a flat circle.

Reminder:  Food Halls are just Food Courts with better marketing.  and this one is just a glorified strip mall.

Don't expect DEI to go quietly into that good night. There are a LOT of people who have a LOT of money on the line through kick-backs and consulting fees. They have a lot to lose.

Congrats to Beyoncé for finally grabbing Album of the Year at the Grammys.

The political sniping over the price of eggs ignores the fact that viruses have no party preference. It's neither Biden, nor Trump's fault, despite what the talking heads are saying.

There are several things that you can disagree with Republicans on, but DOGE should not be one of them. Reducing the size of our leviathan governments should be a priority for all. If the rent is too damn high, then the governments are too damn big.

Punxsutawney Phil don't know shit.

Always remember to take these stories from non-profit, "activist" news sites with a grain of salt. If their mission statement is to 'influence policy' then they are not a "news" organization, they are an activist site.  That doesn't mean they are wrong, but they do have an agenda.  From another perspective however, at least they, unlike legacy media, admit said agenda so there's that.

This is a bad idea. While I'm sympathetic to (some) of the arguments against mail-in ballots and other recent schemes to make voting easier (and easier to defraud the system) this is overreach and will do nothing but make it harder for many people to vote.

And finally.....

THE 2025 BIG XII FOOTBALL SHEDULE IS OUT!!!!!  First thoughts: Kansas' schedule is good, for them, as they get a lot of their big games at home. For the entire conference however the out of conference schedule closely resembles a cupcake factory.  Still, it's college football stuff in February. Yay!!!

News Round-Up (11/12/2024)

 Promising to be an "election free" zone....

Texas, pay-for-play, Michelin Guide is being revealed. Although you probably did not get an invitation to the roll-out.  My reaction is a huge "meh".  Although I was surprised to see tiny BBQ joint Brisket and Rice included in the mentions.  Have to go by there some time.

There was a time when nutritional science did discourage consumption of seed oils.  That was obviously before the "wrong" people started speaking out against them. It's amazing how politics infects seemingly everything. (And the depths to which "science" has devolved)

Just a quick reminder that we're not yet out of Hurricane Season.

For some reason I'm having a hard time getting fired up about the DC Reboot. Maybe it's because James Gunn is running things? I'm not sure.

That said. I'm not that enthusiastic about the upcoming Marvel stuff either. Disney just doesn't know what to do with it now.

I liked the Big Bang Theory, except for the horrid ending.  Yes, I would like to see a follow-up special that fixes that, but I don't think it's going to happen given the career arc of the actors. Sometimes you just have to let things be.

I am, actually, looking forward to Landman. Almost enough to get a subscription to Paramount+

I'm starting to think the Houston Texans are not all that good.  I'm also starting to think that some teams might have dodged a bullet in Bobby Slowik. They are also seemingly trying to get CJ Stroud killed.

This just in. Willie Fritz is a good coach.

It's not that he's lacking in results (he's not, HISD is actually improving) but Mike Miles might be in the running for most unlikable political leader in Houston.

If you own a home in Harris County your property taxes are going to go up, a LOT. You don't need this calculator. Rodney and Lina are going to tax you until your eyes bleed.

Sigh.

News Round-Up (09/17/2024)

Don't mess with Israel Wow.

Their problem seems to be more with them than Texas. The media loves to hold up these situations as there being something wrong with Texas.  No, clearly there is something wrong with Californians.

Nope. This artificial food trend needs to stop.

And when the plume of fire arose before them they all knew it was time to abandon LaPorte to travel to the Holy Land.

Given the growing number of people who believe property is theft. This can only end badly.

Ragweed sucks. If you're not afflicted by it, good on you. I, for one, am miserable.

I'm old enough to remember when the Chron itself gushed about Annise Parker conquering homelessness in Houston. Apparently, not so much. Of course, it was never really eradicated, just moved out of the areas where wealthy, white, liberals lived to live and play.  Our of sight, out of mind one guesses.

The story of PlazAmericas, the former Sharpstown Mall, is a rare, good story in Houston right now. In a city desperately needing something good to point to as everything is turning to shit.

In a city that cannot fund waste collection, is this really a prudent expenditure? And yes, before you say anything, I realize this is TIRZ spending, and not coming from the City Coffers. However, it should also serve as a call to re-examine TIRZ altogether.

The public battle between Hidalgo, Ellis and Garcia is about to get nasty thanks to Barbie Robinson. Rodney Ellis and Lina Hidalgo want Adrian Garcia gone so, so badly.

I had no plans to watch this show. Seems my instincts were right.

Once at the trough, always at the trough.

Could it be....Satan? Or just the horrid people that have a certain lack of moral compass that it takes to survive in American politics today?

The politicization of Science is not a good thing. In fact, it might represent the end of actual science as we know it. It will soon become weaponized.

Throwing The Acolyte into the bin.

In the final scene of The Acolyte the camera focuses on Osha and Qimir/The Stranger standing on a rocky out-cropping looking at a setting Sun. Then, inexplicably, the camera goes close-up on their hands and we witness Qimir gently grab Osha's lightsaber wielding hand in a gentle embrace. Earlier in the series Qimir states that he is "What the Jedi would call a Sith" and that he "Just wants to be free to practice the Force in his manner."

Both scenes are not only wrong, they fly in the face of  almost 50 years of established Sith lore.

This is why I cannot stand The Acolyte, while I think it should be relegated to the dust-bin of Star Wars history never to be mentioned again.

There are other reasons I think the series was bad, the casting of the Jedi as an evil, selfish organization. (Instead of a flawed entity), Ham-fisted cameos that seemed only as vehicles to try and appease fans after shitting on them for eight episodes, clunky dialogue, a horribly paced story, and the creation of no characters that we have any reason to give the smallest of shits about.

In short, the Acolyte was story-telling of the worst kind. Not only was it heavy-handed and flew in the face of the source material, but it really gave you no reason to care. The stakes were non-existent, and it did a disservice to the Star Wars universe as a whole.

Show runner Leslye Headland should not ba allowed to be anywhere near a Star Wars project ever again. She's in the same realm as Rian Johnson.

Heck, even Johnson was somewhat better, at least he was willing to explore the Jedi as a flawed entity, instead of just a force of evil, which is how Headland chose to view them. This incessant desire to blur the line between heroes and villains is a weakness, and it's destroying the Star Wars universe.

That's not to say that heroes have to be flawless, in fact, I think heroes with issues are much better. And I think there is fertile ground to be plowed regarding the mistakes that the Jedi made leading to the rise of the Sith in the Lucas Prequals. I don't, however, think that this means you throw the baby out with the bathwater. Writing heroes in this style takes a maturity and nuance that I don't think Headland and team had. I think this type of story was beyond them.

In the end they gave us a nebulous slog of a story that left us with no players to truly care about, they turned the Star Wars world around where, suddenly, the Sith didn't want to rule the Galaxy, lacked the cruelty that they have had in almost every other Star Wars story, ever, and they reduced the Jedi to a blatant political entity where all of them were jerks, idiots, evil, or just unlikable people. There was not one Jedi in the entire series that was a decent soul.

In the end, I walked away from the series not caring what happened to any of the characters going forward. If they come out with a second series I won't watch.  I simply do not care.

I've never said that about Star Wars before.

And that might be their greatest sin of all.

News Round-Up: 06/25/2024

 All hail the Saharan Dust Gods.

Wesley Hunt likes his campaign HQ to be swanky. When one is newly elected (finally) to the ruling class it's important to let the commoners know they are being ruled.

So close Aggies. Yet so far away.

Mayor Whitmore continues to expand on his list of targets. Elephants for ALL!!!!

Was there anyone during the Turner Administration that was NOT committing some type of fraud? My Goodness the list is getting long.

No. Just No. It's wrong and I don't care where you are religiously, ideologically etc.

This is also not good. I've no problem with Scriptures being in curriculum, but you also have to include different origin stories. Well educated cannot happen without "well-rounded" education.

A more reasoned take is needed here. The goal should not be to "rein-in" cryptocurrency but, rather, to figure out to embolden the grid to "deal" with cryptocurrency. But that's not the Chron's style.

This has pissed off some. I'm not one of them (I think it's actually damned funny) but, then again, I'm not thin-skinned either. (And trust me, there's plenty of fertile ground to plow regarding how I look. Shit, "nerd" would probably be a compliment to me.}

It says a lot about the incredible incompetency of both major party Presidential candidate that neither of them is very interested in debating the other. We ware governed by idiots and fools.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE!!!! .... Oh wait. Nevermind.  Anyone else out there need freeing?

Sagging Hooters. Someone had to say it.

Unpopular Opinion Time:  I am actually enjoying The Acolyte The new Dr. Who series? Not so much. (Although the new 4th season of "The Boys" has been much fun.

This place is on my Las Vegas Pizza shops I've not yet tried but want to list.

The last bastion of indoor smoking will be casinos it seems. Your Mileage May Vary on how you view this news.

The ugliest vehicle on the road, and the most useless, sure receives a disproportionate amount of media attention. Usually none of it good. It's a vile, nasty thing.

And finally...

Some memes are neither all that clever or funny.  This is one of those.

News Round-up: 06/04/2024

Some things that peaked my interest today for which I did not think deserved an entire blog post. Not sure how frequently I'll do these. Maybe once per month or so....

Charles Butt decided to stop ice-skating uphill. This made the Chron's Austin reporter very sad.

Regardless of your political like/dislike for Sheila Jackson Lee you should wish this on no one. Here's hoping for a full recovery. Cancer sucks.

Chris Tomlinson hates everything, has no idea how to fix anything. But he will gripe about it without fully disclosing his familial ties to the renewable energy business.

As much as they hate it, the Houston Media NEEDS the oil and gas industry. Houston as a dried-up Southern version of Detroit does not sound all that appealing.

Will the last Sylvester Turner City Employee accused of corruption please close the door on their way out. My Goodness.

Mexico in pending disarray. Too much of a thing is rarely a good thing.

I'm excited for The Acolyte tonight. Although I'm sure many won't be. This doesn't help. We'll see.

Someday this might be a full post. But, for now, I'll just say this: Casino etiquette as a whole has been non-existent since the pandemic. Blackjack has always been bad, it's gotten worse.

The electric promise is short-circuiting The cars are, for the most part, crap, ugly and not near as green as initially marketed.

"Failed Concept" is a perfect descriptor for Virgin Hotel and Casino Miss after miss after miss for this disaster.

What to Blog when there's nothing to Blog about?

Twelve years ago I could always find something on which to write a blog post. Back then I was very keyed into politics, especially the local variety, and there seemingly was always something I found interesting.

Fast Forward to today.

Don't give two shits about politics, don't vote, pretty much dislike every politician and political candidate out there, and except for a few close friends, I'm not particularly interested in debating any of the political bloggers still standing. Here's the rub though, there aren't many.  And the ones that are still standing are partisan and boring.

Mind numbingly boring.

Nor do I miss the days when a humorous blog post (usually making fun of a really bad political ad involving a motorcycle or some such) got me labeled as a "thinly veiled misogynist" or *shudder* a Teabagger. Granted, the fist insult probably involved deep research by the poster who had to determine whether they were using the words right (all three of them probably) and the 2nd was just a word thrown around to try and disparage anyone the poor second writer didn't like.  They had no clue what it meant, they just knew their political friends were using it and the Jr. High level humor made them feel wise.

From circular reasoning to begging the question the old political blogoshpere was a minefield of logical fallacies wrapped in a 5th grade writing level package. In short: It was bad. It was a little ironic that I won my one award, but shuttered my blog prior to the Houston Press releasing their issue naming me "Political blogger of the year" or something along those lines. (This was right at the tail end of their "Best of Houston" actually meaning something. In fact, it might have been the end of it meaning something.) [On another note: I miss the old Houston Press]

Political blogging became boring. Politics became boring. The Left disagreed with the Right who disagreed with others on the Right who disagreed with pretty much everyone. When it came down to it though, both sides were the same, it was just different courtiers hanging on to each side, seeking their pile of the public largesse. When it comes right down to it, the only philosophical difference between Team Red and Team Blue is who they want the government to write the checks to.

So, I bugged out, and I never looked back.

At this point you might be thinking "He's saying all of this to announce that he's dipping his toes back into the pool, that he's going to paint himself and some wonderful centrist, smarter than everyone else with a reasoned take on everything that the two parties are lacking."

Nope.

I'm not. For one, I'm not smart enough to try and solve all of the world's problems, shit, I'm not smart enough to solve my neighborhood's problems. Nor am I especially driven to try all that hard. And I'm sure as Hell not interested in talking to politicians again, or talking to political bloggers again for that matter, I'm quite content to leave them to their joyless corner of the World. Have fun kids.

The fact is that I just felt the need to write something today, and I've found that blogs are usually pretty good when there's a little bit of navel gazing going on.  I'm not sure what I'm going to write about on this thing going forward, but it will be something. I've always said that writing like this fills a creative void in my life that my job just cannot (nothing wrong with my job, but the nature of it is not creative).

I've tried to write a book, but I've neither the skill, nor the attention span to keep with it. I think I've written about one tenth of one chapter, then life gets back in the way.

So the accountant in me will continue to work at my job, and earn the money, and the failed, bad, writer in me will continue to pound away on this blog. I might touch on some current events, some sports and sports betty things, and I might just touch on the things I find absurd in this world. Trust me, there are a LOT of those things.

That's the fun stuff that I have been missing from my early days of blogging, just writing about whatever the Hell I want.  I've been meaning to get back to that, so here we go. I cannot promise a post per day or something silly like that, but I should be able to turn out at least one per every week or two. It just depends on what I find that interests me.

Your mileage and entertainment value may vary. At least you'll get out of it what you paid for it.

Today I left Twitter (or, X or whatever)

 I finally did it.

Today I decided to deactivate my account on Twitter (x, whatever) and I'm not going back. What was once a fun, social media website that was actually, sort of, social, has devolved into a morass of porn and bitcoin bots, trolls, and just REALLY bad actors.

I have considered this for a while now, and had almost pulled the trigger on it several time but today, after blocking my 20th bot account, I had decided that I've had enough.

No, I'm not paying $168 per year for what is basically, for me, a news aggregate, and I'm not willing to keep on operating day to day having to block someone telling me that "Lisa wait you". (If you've been on there, you know what I'm referring to.

I'm also tired of writing in 180 characters. I've noticed my writing skills slipping so I'm looking forward to writing some more long-form items here and I'm going to consider actually making good on my promise and doing some YouTube videos.  I'm going to move my cooking and beer pictures to Instagram, where there are less bots, or I'm just going to get rid of them altogether, I'm not sure yet. Maybe I'll add some posts to this blog highlighting my smoking, grilling and outdoor cooking adventures.  Who knows?

But I do know that I'm done with Twitter (X, whatever) unless it makes huge changes or something else emerges to take it's place.

Until then, I'm going to enjoy being a little less social for a while.

Las Vegas News: 07/22/2021

 All the stuff you need to know in one handy link blog.....

Employees, not public, mandated for masks in Clark County (LVRJ) - Will you be donning one just because?  I might in August out of politeness toward the employees. (if the mandate is still on)

RIP Layne Flack (LVRJ) - One of the architects of the "Poker Boom" and one of the all-time greats of poker.

For $60 Million you could own the Aztec Inn (LRVJ) - No word if there is extra charge for the stuff in the carpets.

Circa's Contest is Greatly Impacting the SuperBook's Contest. (LVSun) - Circa seems to be taking the lead on the SuperBook, which has definitely lost it's fastball of late.

Vegas' most prominent eye-sore gets (another) tentative opening date. (LVRJ) - I'll believe it when I see it.

Live Keno is rapidly disappearing (Vital Vegas) - The Griswold's are going to be gutted.

A reminder that light rail advocates NEVER give up. (LV Sun) - There are always hands out for projects such as this. And people who think it's something "world class" rather than just a cute toy.

And finally.....

Are we hitting critical mass for Las Vegas Vloggers? (FeedSpot) - At last count there were over 100 vlogs about the Resorts World opening. After watching several of them they were all the same thing. Ditto for the people who live streamed it. This will be the subject of a future blog series.

All sports: The weekly grab-bag.

So much going on in the world of sports, and sports betting, right now that I don't have time to fully dive into all of it.  So here's a mish-mash of stuff that's caught my eye. (Some will have news links, some won't)


A. There are no good college football teams out there today except for Alabama. Every team is capable of losing week-in and week out.  For those who say "Alabama hasn't played anyone yet" that's bull.  Texas A&M is a good team, Alabama made them look bad. When Bama plays good competition they're so far above them that they make them look poor.  I'm not suggesting that we gift wrap the CFP to Alabama, but right now they're clearly that much better than everyone else.

B. There's something ironic about Boston fans and media getting fired up over someone recording their team.  Nevermind that, according to the letter of the law, the Astros did nothing wrong. It's enough for Boston that someone else might have been caught doing something that might, possibly be sort-of, wrong.  They are the worst fan base in North America and it's not close.

C. The NBA is back. Adjust your television watching accordingly. (And your betting)

D. William Hill is lobbying for the power to not have their mistakes count against them.  The worst sports book operator in Las Vegas is now trying to take their fan-unfriendly policies that they enjoy in Europe and move them over to the US.  The field is already tilted in their favor, now they want to not have to pay any penalty for their own incompetence. You should never lay action with William Hill. Ever.

E. UNLV Football is struggling, again. Yes, there have been injuries, but every team has those. The fact is the team has not progressed much since Sanchez took over. As hard as it would be for the program it's time for a change at the top.

F. The Fraud Trial in College Basketball is a sham. It will lead to no meaningful change, and will possibly result in the NCAA further restricting athlete's ability to do well. If anything it's allowing the NCAA to profit more from the athlete's than they already are.

G. The UFC is a dysfunctional mess right now. No longer a draw for their actual fights, they're having to rely on WWE style theatrics to juice numbers.  Their days as a major player are closer to being finished than they are starting.

H. HUGE WEEK for Michigan. Beat Sparty.

I. The Raiders last years in Oakland could be BRUTAL Especially if rumors Gruden is going to blow the team up are true.

J. The Las Vegas Golden Knights won last night 4-1 at the Fortress. The team finally looked something like the fast skating, goal-scoring machine we saw last year.  If you're a Knights fan (and as you know this blog is) then this was a welcome sight.  Up next: A win streak?  Let's hope.



the FIVE coming tomorrow.....

The Public Money: Same Blog, New Name

Just some random housekeeping here as I never was a big fan of "Sharp Like a Marble" (the real phrase is "sharp as a marble" but there was already a blog with that name) so I've changed it to.....


"The Public Money"

If you have any experience in betting, at all, you know that the public money is often the side that you want to be opposite of.  It's the money that provides the financing for all of the beautiful (and not-so-beautiful) casinos around the world.

The public bets with its heart, not with its mind. It believes in luck and "hot" tables and doesn't understand that each roll of the dice is an independent event. The public believes they are "due" and that whomever the favorite is would be "the team Vegas thinks will win".  Of course none of this is true.

The house believes in mathematics. As do the true "sharps" (not the touts, although they believe in another set of math which we'll explore later), as do I, and as should you.

No other big changes, except that I've added a 3-card poker hand up top that I've actually won with before.  Because, you know......luck.

From the Waiver Wire: News, notes & other stuff (Labor Day Weekend Edition)

A lot of ground to cover:

J.J. Watt gets paid. - The best player on the Texans roster (and quite possibly, the best defensive player in the league) gets paid like it. Yes, there are people (mainly in Houston's media and among the usual idiots who grouse about anything) who don't like this deal but I would argue it had to get done. We can go back and forth about the ethics of someone who plays a game making $100 Million until the contract kicks in but it won't change the fact that JJ received market value.

The NFL's "homophobia" is a red herring. - The real problem here is that Sam is not talented to justify putting up with all of the distractions. In part, he brought this on himself by dabbling with the reality series and generally making a hash of it PR wise.  True, ESPN shares some of the blame for making up stories where none existed but, at the end of the day, players like Sam are a dime a dozen and it's not unusual to see them NOT get selected to a practice squad.  It's less homophobia than it is the reality of life in the NFL.

So goes Bo.  - The Astros are a long-running mess and (apparently) this issue has been brewing for a while. As is their wont, Houston's sports media is suddenly bursting at the seams with anecdotal evidence regarding the issues with both Porter and (Astros GM) Lunhow. The question now being: Why weren't these issues reported before? For all of the homer stories reporting that the Astros are "doing it the right way" the preponderance of evidence is suggesting they are not.

The keys to the Carr - I guess that about does it for the career of Matt Schaub.  With Derek Carr taking over in Los Angeles you have to think they'll just keep Matt Schaub around long enough to ensure they have a back-up in case the kid starts off slowly.  If Derek Carr has even a modicum of success it wouldn't surprise me to see Schaub cut from the roster before season's end. You don't pay $8MM for a back-up after all.

Making his Case. - Congratulations go out to Case Keenum who gets a 2nd chance and a new lease on his NFL life with the St. Louis Rams.  Will he succeed?  I don't know. I think he's too slow through his progressions to ever really be a viable NFL quarterback but I do wish him well.

Yup, they Cooged it. - The University of Houston football program can't seem to get out of its own way. Every time there are signs of promise they tend to fail in a spectacular manner. This trait has become known as "Cooging it" amongst some of the alumni.  On Friday, the Cougars Cooged it badly, losing to UT-San Antonio 27-7 in a game that wasn't that close. Coach Tony Levine is receiving support from some of the more clueless members of local alt-media but that's mainly because (oddly) they like his interviewing style.

In reality, the Coogs have a head coach who doesn't appear to be a viable College head man and a roster that's got talent at spots, but huge gaping holes at spots as well.  This, and they seem to be totally overmatched on the sideline. For UofH to win consistently they need to return to their short-passing game which finds WR's in space and allows them to make plays.  They also need to remember how to play defense.

It's the basics that the team failed at on Friday and that's almost all on the coaching staff.