Nurse the Hate: Hate Christmas Eve

A few days ago I was swimming around in the ocean with a barfing Chinese guy and monster sharks.  Now I’m hunched over a computer in the rain in Ohio trying to figure out today’s NFL action.  I need some winners.  I wildly overspent on that diving quest, not so much because of the actual logistics of the trip but that I somehow screwed up the dollar to peso conversion rate.  I was walking around Mexico making it rain, though I had no idea.  I wondered why everyone was so happy to open doors and drive taxis for me.  This is a re-creation of me haggling with a taxi driver with actual dollar values represented.

Me:  How much to go to Playa Mujeres?

Taxi driver:  $4

Me:  No, no…  Last time I got a ride here for $20.  How about $20?

Taxi driver:  OK

Me after the ride:  Thanks for the ride.  Here’s $20 and a $20 tip.

Taxi driver:  Thank you senor!  Here is my card!  You call me if you need anything!  Anything!

Me: (walking away smugly as if I just worked a deal like a Arab horse trader)

That’s what I did over and over and over.  Rumor had it I was known as “Gringo Loco”.  Now I need to figure out how to pay for that wild series of miscalculations.  For me, there is no better place to start than the Cleveland Browns.  There is a wild belief out there that the Browns will win today.  This reminds me of when people thought they would beat the Jets for the same illogical reason.  The Jets played one of the worst first halves of football in NFL history and then calmly flipped the switch to pound the Browns.  I would like to remind you that we are talking about the Jets here, a continued embarrassment in The Big Apple.  The Chargers are a legit football team.  They play everyone tough and score like crazy.  They don’t win very often, but when the Browns appear only capable of scoring 10-13 points per game, that appears like the right formula for the Chargers to win another game.  I cannot bet on San Diego -4 more aggressively.  Merry Christmas everyone.

I wish I was dancing around with Santa on the beach.  I’m not though.  I’m in the cold rain.  No one likes going into the cold rain and wind after being in the warm sunshine.  You know who is going to do that?  The Miami Dolphins with Matt Moore at QB.  The fans in Buffalo have been drunk since the workday ended yesterday at five pm.  They will have their shirts off as horrible wind and rain pelt their bodies.  Many of them will catch pneumonia and die slow horrible deaths in their beds over the holidays, just as their fathers did and their fathers before them.  Meanwhile the skill players at Miami are going to be standing around on the sideline in horrible turquoise rain parkas saying to each other “It fucking sucks here.  We gotta end this game and go back to South Beach.”   Matt Moore will be wildly overthrowing those guys as the ball sails all over the place.  I like Buffalo in a close one, which is why I am teasing them with Green Bay.

As a reader pointed out to me a couple weeks ago, only a damn jackass bets against the Packers at home in December.  I was that jackass and I lost.  I have learned my lesson friend.  I should have listened to you.  Green Bay is getting stronger in time for the playoffs, while Minnesota has been getting their dicks kicked in the dirt.  If I watch this game I will do so with the sound off as I can’t handle listening to the announcers masturbating and ejaculating while speaking about Aaron Rodgers.  I probably won’t even risk watching it as the image of Joe Buck in an elf hat having a self-administered orgasm is something that will prevent me from ever having one again myself.  It would be even worse if somehow it made me fall into some kind of “masturbatory elf fetish subculture” where I couldn’t go anywhere without my “special holiday sex hat”.  It’s too risky.  I will watch the Browns lose instead.  Green Bay +.5/Buffalo +1.5.

Season Record:  28-10