August has Blown in

The year continues to march forward at such a rapid pace and things that I thought I wanted to do have been put to the back burner like playing poker and gambling at real money USA casinos.

I mean, it seems like just yesterday but I guess it was really closer to 2 months ago that I was all excited about getting back into poker (and craps) and I think that lasted all of 5 sessions before the real world bore down on me with its demands and expectations.  A wife, a kid and another on the way have all eaten into my free time more than truly expected.

I have plans, most of them unfulfilled.   Why, this past Tuesday was the PS4 release of The Last of Us and my whole goal was to pick it up and spend my two days off playing it.
Tuesday ended up with a trip to Wet n Wild, taking the kids and some of their friends along as a pre-birthday celebration.  A fun time was had by all (well, except for me because I have always hated pools).  The day was a success and I'm happy it happened.
Wednesday I started to play some of TLoU but then my 8 year old wanted to watch me play.  He can't really handle horror movies and as such I think this game is going to be too intense for him.  Plus, when he watches he thinks we should be taking turns so any time that I die he thinks he should try and I'm not willing to allow that to happen with a majority of the games that I play until he gets a little older.

However, on that same front - we have begun playing Injustice because it was put on sale on PS+ for $8.40 at one point and even though I generally don't get into fighting games that's a price that I'm willing to spend.

Next week we are leaving for California for 5 or so days and this is going to be relaxation time for papa grrouch.  We will be bringing along my wife's brother and his kid plus her sisters kid and taking the 3 of them to Disney for one day.  I feel like we'll spend about 8 grand on that trip and there is where all my poker money will have went to.  But, the rest of the time we will do a little shopping, a little sight seeing and most importantly a little beach time.  While I hate pools I absolutely love the beach.
Hopefully my sunburn from Wet n Wild will have went away by then so I'm not doubling up on the pain.

In other news I'm trying to increase my activity levels as my goal, once August 10th hits, will be to beat my step total every single day for a year (as calculated by my Fitbit).  I've also gone into a weekly competition with a guy from work who just got a Fitbit as well.  We said something minor each week so it will probably be something like the loser buys the winner a Mountain Dew.  I'll be requesting a Super Big Gulp of the Solar Flare from 7-11 which, while delicious, doesn't actually taste like a soda at all.  It tastes like fruit punch just whoring off the Mt Dew name.

And one final thought - it's almost time for football season to begin and as such I'm going to be starting a Pick-Em league made up of co-workers and friends across the states.  This will most likely be $20 to enter and I'm pretty much going to be copying Lucki Ducks format because that was pretty damn fun.
No MoJo's allowed :)

If anyone is interested please email me or post a message.  I am going to have everything set up by the end of August so we can begin week 1.

Yeah - It's That Time Again!

I really don't understand how I even exist during football's off season. It must be sheer willpower to get myself through the horrible boring months in order to get back to what I love most about life, my penis football!

My Strat-O-Matic draft officially kicks off tomorrow morning but if the guy with the #1 decides to pick today he can get the ball moving.  I currently sit with the #7 pick in the draft but I'm 98% positive that pick will be traded before the 1st pick even gets taken.  In fact, after the 1st pick gets taken I've got another trade lined up as well.  I'm looking forward to announcing them because both trades will improve the value of my team quite a bit.

In preparation for my draft (which I have not prepared for much other than what I'm doing today) I've got about 4 spreadsheets open that I'm editing and moving things around in.  I've got a spreadsheet with how my team currently looks and I've got one with how I think it might look if things fall into place.  I've also got a list of players I want to take and players I'm willing to take.
Coming into this draft my Offensive Line resembles the Pittsburgh Steelers - full of holes, but sadly I have no Pouncey to try and hold it all together.  I've gotta sure that up a bit but I just can't seem to find a place where I'm willing to draft what is available.
My defensive line is, right now, Really Awful.  Like Shitty Titty Gang Bang bad.  I've got one player who has good pass rush but can't run stop worth anything and that's it.  I need to draft a Starting Defensive End and a nose tackle.
My linebackers are looking better as I've got two Middle Linebackers who are good against the pass and run but I have ZERO outside linebackers.  My Defensive Backs will be ok.

All this was typed earlier and instead of hitting delete I'm just going to hit submit.  The draft has kicked off officially as the 1st pick was made.  I don't have a pick until the end of the 1st round but I'm looking forward to see what is available.

Good night and good blah

Scumdogs

For those of you who have never played Strat-O-Matic football it is essentially a more dorky fantasy football based off of previous seasons instead of the current season.

Strat-O-Matic (the company) does lots of research and comes out with a set of cards every year to represent the NFL teams (they also do this for Baseball - their most popular game - Hockey and Basketball as well).
It is a card and dice based game with a good amount of strategy that keeps the game fun.  There are flaws, but for the most part I really love the game.

I started playing during my college years when the league was a face-to-face league and that version of the game/league was by far my favorite game ever played.  Doing F2F you are able to create rules to suit yourself/league and of course there is the addition of staring down your opponent and trying to out play/coach them.  It's very akin to poker in that regards and I feel that if you are good at poker you actually have a good advantage playing Strat Football as well - it's all about reading people and their tendencies.  Pick up on their tells and you will have an advantage (though you still have to succumb to random chance, the luck of the die and some other things as well).

After moving to Vegas the league ended up becoming a computer league because it was getting too hard for people to travel back and forth to play games (people lived in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana). So the league evolved for everyone to keep in touch and I dropped out for a few years.

I ended up getting back into the league and my second season back is coming to an end.
The first year, the team I took over for, was pretty crappy and I was in the bottom 3rd.  However through a couple trades and draft picks and the power of Tom Brady my team is currently middle of the road and has a small possibility to squeeze into the last playoff spot (2 games to go).  Next year is going to be pretty bad other than Tom Brady though - but we'll get to that after trades and the draft is over.

Since my entire world revolves around Google, I have been using Google sites to build my teams web page.
I'm hoping to have it complete by the time the next season rolls around.  It's nothing fancy but it will work for what I want to use it for.  I don't think I particularly like Google Sites as my web builder of choice but it made it easy for me to just grab a template and start editing it as I saw fit.
It's probably been a decade since I have played with building a real website and using HTML and all that jazz and I know a ton has changed so I just didn't feel like diving into that and re-learning currently.  I'll probably get to that down the road when I feel like I have more time.

So, feel free to check out my crappy little site and look at the Las Vegas Scumdogs football team.

scumdogs.grrouchie.com

I'm working on a Logo Still - probably same guy that did my grrouchie logo.
I've got the offensive stats updated but nothing defensively yet.
I also do not have anything from the previous year up yet.

I'm hoping to do a post either before or after each game and continue to evolve the scumdogs site to something a bit better.
Either way - have at it.
Tell me what you like, what you don't like and make sure to call me a pansy for using something crappy like Google Sites instead of just using code and designing the bloody thing myself!