Nurse the Hate: The Swiss Load Out

This morning I woke up way too early after being stuck at the club last night waiting for Leo to pack up his kit.  As the guy that drives the van, I can't go anywhere until the slowest member of the band has put their gear into the cases and have them ready to be loaded.  Leo hit me last night with a fierce "Swiss Load Out".  This is a term that we adopted after a show in a little town in Switzerland (the same where we went to the "Whiskey Tek" and our song "Just The Thing" was set into motion).  The band that opened for us was a local band.  I remember them being young guys that sounded kinda like Silverchair, or what I probably think Silverchair sounds like since I don't really know for certain.  They were pretty good, and the crowd was not exactly fired up but they were at least polite in their response.

After their set ended, they broke a cardinal rule of playing a rock show.  Instead of removing their gear from the stage and allowing us to set up while they broke down out of our way, they instead stood around on the stage talking to their friends that walked up.  So we stood around and watched the clock tick.  Then they made a move that was legendary by not only not moving their gear, but going outside to smoke a cigarette.  I'm telling you, it was 45 minutes before we could even begin to set up.  This is very unlike the cold logical Swiss.  There is a reason they make watches there.  The Swiss expect shit to be on time.  We could only assume that this was some sort of passive aggressive turf war on the openers part. It was, without question, effective.  Thus, the "Swiss Load Out" was born...

So last night, Leo hits me with a Swiss Load Out.  That hurts coming from one of your own guys.  The end result was that I wound up getting home much later than planned, and didn't get the sleep necessary to try and figure these NFL games out.  I'm flying on instinct on these games.  That's not good.  Heck, Krusty sent me a text trumpeting his picks as "locks of the year", and that is based on his taking the inferior looking team.  On the surface, that seems like a doomed strategy, but it's probably about as good as anything I am about to unveil.

Today, I am taking a clearly inferior Ravens team.  This is not so much because Krusty took them.  He doesn't know anything either.  It's more that I talked myself into it after noting that the Ravens are 9-3 on the road in the playoffs against the spread.  Meanwhile, New England is 3-10 against the spread in their last 13 playoff games.  I think if you speak with anyone that is a mild sports fan, and they believe it is inconceivable that the Patriots lose in any circumstance.  That's how Vegas makes money.  They take advantage of the gaps between the perception of The Public and the reality.  I don't know how, but I'm on Baltimore +7.

All week long I have had a sneaking suspicion that Carolina is going to stay in this Seattle game.  I do not think they will win this game.  In fact, if the game starts out all wrong for them, like a couple of first quarter turnovers and a 14-0 deficit, it could really get out of hand.  There will be plenty of annoying camera shots of smug Seattle residents laughing it up.  I don't need to see that or yet another shot of the fish being tossed around the Pike Market.  Yes, you throw fish to each other.  It's swell.  Then I have to watch Carolina get killed by 30?  I am hoping for another outcome.  If the Panthers can survive that initial wave and just sort of hang around, those 11 points they are getting are too many.  Seattle has scored less than 20 points in 5 of their last 7 games, and I have to think they'll need 24 to cover an 11 point spread.  Carolina has been playing really good defense down the stretch.  I am going to bet that this will continue.  Give me the points.  Gulp.  Carolina +11.5.

Playoff record:  1-3