Not a Betting Man

Forget about yesterday.  Don't worry about me.  Let's move on.  

It's that time in America when normal people start using the word "nil."  Perhaps they do all the time.  I don't know.  I only watch soccer during the World Cup.  I'm rather like that with all sports now.  Super Bowl, NBA Finals, NCAA Finals, World Series. . . .   But I'll say one thing in favor of soccer, though (and I'm sure American Capitalism will change this)--there aren't many commercials.  I watched the U.S./ Paraguay match last night.  Though the American commentators were irritating, the paucity of commercials was wonderful.  They do now take "water breaks" in the World Cup, though, and you know that was the advertisers' idea.  $$$$-cha-ching.  Wait and see--there will be more to come.  They ain't gonna pay those players salaries simply with profits made from just butts in the seats.  

"Why Bob. . . there's gold in them hills!"

I don't like to bet, really, but I might put money on the Spurs winning the next three games of the NBA finals.  I can see it happening.  I don't expect it, but I can see it.  I need to check the Vegas odds on this.  What would a $100 bet make me?  

I've only bet on sporting events twice in my life, both times on horses.  Well, a horse once, and a jockey the other.  I won $3.10 at the Hialeah Race Track long ago, and I lost $20 on a redheaded female jockey running in the Kentucky Derby.  

Observation: why does everyone on American television sound like they are talking to children?  Hyperventilated sing-song voices, pop-eyes. . . where did this come from?  

Except for Kaitlin Collins, Wolf Blitzer, and, well. . . many at CNN.  But not that nit Erin Burnett.  

Now "peace" in the Middle East may be at hand.  Really?  Has there ever been peace in the Middle East?  But if a deal is reached between Iran and Trump, I wonder what we will have "won"?  

We showed them, though, didn't we.  I still say Trump will be the first to use a "desperation nuke."

Other than all the things I delete from the blog, that is, in popular parlance, "all I got."  That and a painful right index fingernail that keeps hanging on.  Back in January, I believe, I reported closing my finger in the door.  It hit right on the nail bed.  Now, the new fingernail has grown beneath the old, dead one, but the old fingernail is hanging on at one tiny spot so that if I catch it on anything, I am brought to my knees.  I keep a bandaid on it to prevent this.  But yea, it took six months for the new nail to grown in.  

Just so you know.  

"What are you going to do this weekend?" people ask me.  Ha!  

"The same thing I do every day," I reply.  

"Oh. . . yea."

But I will take a long walk today coming back by way of the Boulevard to see the weekend crowds lining the street and the Western Pasture where the Farmer's Market takes place.  The breakfast restaurants will have long lines and people will be eating at sidewalk tables in that European style.  Teenage girls will line the block around the Brandy Melville store, and I might pop into the bookstore for a look . 

Tell me I don't know how to live.  

I'm still tempted to drive back out to the mall and buy those expensive but really cool round Ray-Ban sunglasses.  Here's my thinking.  If I place that bet on the Spurs before game 5 and I hit it, I can definitively afford the glasses.  Game 5 is in San Antonio, and I'd give the Spurs an 80% chance of winning at home.  Then it is back to New York for game 6.  At that point, I'd give the Spurs a 50/50 chance of winning.  If they could steal that game, the series goes back to San Antonio for game 7, and I'd say their chances of winning at home are better than 50/50.  

But don't listen to me.  I've never been lucky with money or love.  Well, that's not exactly true.  I've been very lucky in love, just not sustaining it beyond my stamped on expiration date.  But they have all been spectacular.  My luck lay in two areas--not getting fired from the factory and keeping my nose relatively clean.  

But WTF--I think I'll place that bet.