Life Update, MLB Wagers Update

 

I haven't had to go into a corporate office for about a year and a half.  This is perhaps the greatest single area of improvement I could have added in my lifestyle.  When you step away from a corporate gig, your relationship with the odd and somewhat damaged people that make up that environment becomes severed at that moment.  There is an instant adjustment where they move from major protagonists to irrelevant.  People that have power over you only because of a set of random circumstances suddenly become totally neutered.  That regional manager that occupied your thoughts creating anxiety with consistent chaotic abusive behavior is suddenly revealed to be just another chunky Mom from the 'burbs.  Right now that dull looking woman unloading a basket of plastic cooking implements at Target is someone's Hitler at a logistics company you've never heard of buried in an office park.  It's remarkable the outsized importance some of these villains have in your day-to-day drama considering how generally unremarkable they are as a whole.  If the workforce at my old job went down in a plane onto a deserted island, it would have taken about fourteen seconds for lower level employees to have gone full "Lord Of The Flies" and made most of the managerial class our slaves.  And we would have been right in doing so.  The skill set of "deferential ass kissing compliance" is not very helpful in boar hunting or shelter building.

I don't come in contact with these Corporate Beings now unless I am at a sporting event or the airport.  There is something patently ridiculous about watching men peacock around talking loudly into space to their phone mic setup about matters they consider to be great importance.  "Look, I told Phil we were going to have to move the goal posts on that initiative."  The outsized confidence and importance of being the Mid Atlantic Regional Sales Manager of TXR Inc engaged in the epic struggle of hitting deliverables to activate Q2 escalators is a real drug to these guys.  When I was in New York walking around a couple of weeks ago, it became a contest to see who was more ridiculous, the "finance Bro in action vest, stretch golf khakis and white rubber soled hybrid shoe" or "imperious yet alluring woman hiding behind designer sunglasses gliding along pretending not to notice anyone while holding her expensive coffee drink".  Pro tip:  These people aren't really doing anything but they just don't know it.  They are their own lead role in the "Wolf Of Wall Street" or "Devil Wears Prada" episode they picture themselves in.  You are a non-player character just passing through.  Fair enough.

I ran into someone I used to sell shit to in a parking lot.  They asked me what I was doing.  "Nuthin." I replied hoping to not have to try to explain what a Master of Wine was or outlining the health travails of various Whiskey Daredevils.  Luckily, like most people, he doesn't have the capacity to listen to anyone else and only wanted a jump off point to wax on about his own life.  He spent about five minutes outlining his current job, which had something to do with selling digital ads to third parties via some shifty ass platform but used so much jargon it was impossible to penetrate what it was he actually did.  I think all this jargon is used to help justify the fact that most of our lives are incredibly small and insignificant. Engaging in jargon helps to buoy up people's spirits.  Saying "I'm working with breakthrough new technology that is linking buyers and sellers across multi platform access points while scaling up real time reporting to provide instant optimization" makes a person feel a lot more important than saying "I sell ads on phones".  I had to wade through so much shit with this fucking guy that I finally just asked, "Are what you telling me is that you sell ads on people's phones?".  He finally, somewhat crestfallen, admitted "Yes".  Hey, we all have bills to pay, but I'm not one of your marks.  Save me the propaganda.  

We left the parking lot after an empty promise to "get together for lunch sometime".  I know this will never happen as I have no immediate benefit to this guy and since I got out of that game we don't really have any common points of interest besides the safety net of the NFL and perhaps a few moments of Guardians talk.  I can't imagine I could engage him in discussing the excellent Karl Ove Knausgaard novel I just finished ("The Morning Star") as the heavy themes of good/evil and the implications or lack thereof in potential post death events to the individual.  He's got optimization to do and I don't.  Side note, I had this idea while finishing the Knausgaard novel where he tackles the idea of a dreamlike post death waiting area for reassignment to a murky next destination (which might actually be a time loop of the current scenario... it's all unclear).  The thought hit me that it would be an incredible drag to find out that when you pass away you arrive at a version of a large international airport. Imagine you are trying to figure out the system and potential desirable outcomes as you fight the chaos and crowds, and then some dopey security guard type person waves you into a roped line in which you randomly get reassigned to get sent back to earth as a caterpillar or something.  Meanwhile if you had only been waved randomly to Line 3, you'd return as a tech billionaire or member of The Strokes.  See what these novels do to you?

I'm getting ready to start on the second of the novel series "The Wolves of Eternity".  It's a very dense novel about a half brother leaving Chernobyl after the reactor blew. It spans from Chernobyl to modern Russia and is somehow connected to the last book.  I have no idea how he's going to do it.  The Morning Star is about a new star, like a distant sun, that suddenly appears in the Norwegian sky and people's engagement (or lack thereof) with a sudden changing environment.  It's translated from Norwegian, so there's a strange foreign feeling imparted across 800 pages of small text.  I'll get back to you on the second in the novel cycle soon.  I gotta get this MW exam in my rearview.  You should read "The Morning Star" in the meantime though.  Seriously.  Knausgaard is the real deal.

Anyway, as I drove away from the car park (my annoying seeped in UK slang kicking in) I thought about what was really important...  What's going on with my season long MLB wagers.  First of all, the Pirates are looking pretty good.  The Pirates are 23-19.  I just need 75 wins total, so that means they just have to go 52-68 or better the rest of the season for me to win.  I like how that is looking.  Their starting pitching has been good, the 8th best in MLB.  Shockingly, it's their offense which has been REALLY good, the 5th best in MLB.  This result is so much more satisfying than researching a stock price I can't tell you.  This has come together exactly as I have foreseen.  This is easily my biggest wager of the season.

Meanwhile, I am also on the Colorado Rockies to win more than 52 games.  That Rockies team is shitty, but to be below 52 games, you have to be historically bad.  The last part of the 2025 season, Colorado had become "normal shitty" instead of "historically shitty", so I liked this bet.  I made it knowing full well I would likely never bet on the team on a regular season game to win, or more accurately, never watch them play a single game during the season.  So far, so good.  I haven't watched an inning.  They are 16-26 with (as expected) the worst pitching in baseball.  That's a 62 win pace.  We are talking about them looking "sorta shitty" but let's be realistic.  The bottom could fall out at any time with these guys.  I will have to keep my eye on this one.

I am in real trouble on this "Giants win more than Guardians" bet.  I thought the Giants big money infield would spark an offense to offset a dodgy ass pitching staff.  Instead what I've gotten there has been an ice cold set of infielders but still managing to be the 11th best hitting team overall but with no power whatsoever.  They are dead last in runs.  Ouch.  Compare with the Guardians who are once again looking to be outperforming what they should be on paper with top 10 pitching, limp dick offense, and seemingly playing the Royals, Twins and Angels every series.  Right now the Guardians are up five games on the Giants, but the Giants big money infield guys started to hit last week, so maybe this will turn.  The Guardians could win the Central again, not because they are a juggernaut, but because no one else is that good either.  Seriously, the White Sox are 1.5 games back and they have as good a chance as the Tigers to win the Central.  I have my concerns here...  Still, if the Giants bats return to be just slightly below average, this one can get interesting.  Or they could blow the whole thing up.  Either.

Go Giants.

         

Fried Chicken Policy

 

A question was raised by Bobby Lanphier regarding what was the best fast food chicken quality in the USA, with a follow up question about why we never ate fried chicken in the van in all those years of driving around.  First, let’s tackle the question of fast food chicken…. I have no idea.  The last time I had fast food chicken I think I was getting tires changed at an NTB that was next door to a KFC in 2021.  You know, you see enough of those KFC ads and eventually you’re thinking “Goddamn, that looks pretty good.”  The downside is about 20 minutes later you’re driving away on those new tires with a gutful of KFC  thinking “I don’t feel so good.”.    

I have never had Popeye’s, Church’s and haven’t had a brush with Mr. Chicken since the early 1990s.  I cannot speak to the quality of any of these franchises and I am going to speculate that my health care professional team will not be in favor of me going on some sort of hedonistic fried chicken adventure anytime soon.    Bob feels rather strongly that Popeye’s has a surprisingly good quality piece of chicken, and who am I to question his recent experience?  Prior to his coupling with a responsible adult vegetarian, Bob knew his way around a good convenience food.  There is some experience there.  But is it the best?  I’ll never know.

This brings up the more salient point in our discussion regarding the Whiskey Daredevils aversion to eating fried chicken in the van.  To me, it’s an easy answer.  Fried chicken is greasy.  The last thing anyone wants is a greasy steering wheel, or a glistening dashboard, windshield smeared with foggy residue.  When I am looking at Bob and Leo, I am not seeing a couple of guys that would have engaged in long term planning for minimizing potential grease disaster.  These are guys more “in the moment” of their takeout meal.  Leo and my basset Marvin are synonymous for impulse based behaviors determining if they are going to eat a piece of fried chicken in the van.  But, let’s get past the initial meal itself…    

The other big concern would be maintaining a long term commitment to chicken bone removal.  You know what happens if you don’t get those chicken bones out of the van promptly?  You get mice.  You know what happens when you get mice?  You get snakes.  You want snakes in your van?  I sure as hell don’t.  Who wants to be on 71 outside of Covington with a fucking milk snake slithering past your foot at 730am?  Not me my friend!  Next thing you know you need to wait for a cold spell so the snakes become dormant as you’re taking apart the entire interior looking for snake holes.  That’s no way to live.  A van is chock full of nooks and crannies absolutely ideal for a snake to hole up in.  To keep out the snakes, you got to keep out the mice, which means no fried chicken in the van.  This has been a long term policy for a reason.

What a lot of people don’t know is this fried chicken issue is why many of rock music’s most beloved bands broke up.  Why did Zeppelin break up and the Moody Blues are probably playing a shed out there right now?  Fried chicken.  It’s well known that John Bonham and John Paul Jones would tuck into an 8 piece box at any opportunity, while Plant (a known picky eater) and Page would argue with the rhythm section at length about chicken bones laying around in Zeppelin’s buses and later planes.  What people don’t know is Zeppelin had to back out of an early Isle of Wight Festival due to Jimmy Page getting a nasty snake bite on his strumming wrist.  Unable to fully resolve this dispute, the band later broke up (with Bonham’s death allegedly also a contributing factor).  Meanwhile, The Moody Blues committed early on to a “No Fried Chicken” policy for their tour vehicles and enjoyed a career that continues to this day.  Say what you will about guitarist John Lodge, but he’s never been bitten by a snake on tour.  Look it up.

I can go on and on about various bands and their fried chicken policies.  The Beatles, as evidenced by their “Let It Be” documentary, had numerous fights about fried chicken in the studio leading Harrison (a known chicken afficionado) to become so despondent about his lack of fried chicken accessibility in the studio that eventually he lost all interest in contributing to the record.  Many people confirm that the main reason the Beatles ceased as a touring band was their inability to agree on a fried chicken policy in the van.  Harrison and Starr’s post Beatles positive relationship was largely built on their mutual love of Popeye’s Chicken.  Again, look it up.  It’s all there.

Southern Culture On The Skids, long time users of chicken as stagecraft, have a firm anti chicken policy in the van.  After searching the internet and making direct inquiries, I can report there is no evidence of Mary Huff ever being bitten by a snake in their van.  As a result, they continue to perform to engaged fans across the country.  If you look at most of the longest living bands, the one key component is a lack of snakes in their vehicles which can be directly traced back to their decision to eliminate fried chicken in the van.  While Bobby might be upset about his lack of knowledge regarding the pecking order of American chain fried chicken quality, I stand by the decision made around the turn of the century as being one of the cornerstones that keeps the Whiskey Daredevils a living breathing entity on the musical landscape in the rich tradition of chicken moderates like The Moody Blues.