Fuck Fantasy Football

I know there's a Game tonight, but I have fucking crashed out in all three of my fantasy football leagues, and it's fucking demoralizing.

The one most important to me, the one I have money on, I lost last week.  It was the worst combination of my opponent overachieving and my team underachieving, and of fucking course it happens during the playoffs.  And this week my other two teams, including the one I'm commish in, fucking shat the bed.  Both of my opponents had Ashton Jeanty, who fucking went buckwild on my ass, unfortunately.  I have a ghost of a chance on one of them because I have Brock Purdy, but no, there's no hope.

Besides the league I'm commissioner in, I have not won once.  Why do I keep fucking playing?  Why do I keep fucking torturing myself with all this goddamn losing?

Checking In On How I'm Doing In Fantasy Football And ... Eesh

I was doing so, so good in fantasy football to start the year.  But then the goddamn bye weeks came and I have gone into sort of a tailspin.

I am part of three fantasy football leagues.  Ironically, I am doing the worst in the one I am commissioner for.  It is also the only one of the three where we auction, which is the format that is the most involved and, because I was the only one who fuckin' showed up for the auction, the league where I basically got to pick my own team.  And now, my own team sucks.

That's not as bad as the team in another league where I started out, like, 4-0.  I think I've lost five-of-six since then.  The absolute lowest of the low came this week, where I had three guys going in Sunday's late Games with a good chance of overcoming the deficit I had ... and I didn't.  What's worse is that I had on the bench Jayden Higgins, a Wide Receiver for The Houston Texans, who put up enough fantasy football points that, if I had put him in for either a WR or a player in one of the Flex Positions, I would have won.  That's the game of fantasy sports for you, but goddammit, I hate that.

This is the league I gamble in.  I went from cruising into the winners' bracket to fighting for my fucking fantasy football playoff life.  And that really sucks.

You know what sucks?  Being eliminated from a fantasy game because you forgot.  I entered two Eliminator fantasy games that my friend is running.  Eliminator games are games where you pick one NFL team to win every week in the regular season.  If that team loses, you're out.  The trick is that you can only pick a team once.

Very intriguing idea.  Whoever thought that up, and I think this was only this side of the millennium, needs to be in the Pro Football Hall Of Fame or something.  But if you don't put in a team every week, you are automatically eliminated.  And that's why I did, or didn't do, in the second Week of the NFL season.  I was busy and distracted, and I knew I had to do my ESPN Eliminator, and I did, but I forgot I signed up for my friend's other Eliminator game on Yahoo! Sports.  I was able to remember doing the ESPN Eliminator on my ESPN Fantasy app, but I forgot to do my Yahoo! Eliminator on my Yahoo! Sports Fantasy app.  And that is ironic also because I don't have anything going on fantasy-wise on ESPN, but all my fantasy football teams are on Yahoo! Sports.  So why didn't I just look through my fantasy teams and then go on and do the Eliminator?  Maybe because I forgot I had an Eliminator through Yahoo!  (sigh)

I used to do Eliminators with money, and I forgot to make my weekly pick, so I got eliminated in pools in which I sank money.  And that was just wasting money, so I stopped doing that.  Maybe I should just, you know, remember to do them?  Nah, I'll probably forget.

And No One Showed Up

So my fantasy auction, for the fantasy football league I run, was last night.  Since most of the other members reside in the East Coast, I have traditionally scheduled it for 6 in the evening before the start of the NFL season, just to get the very latest news in case there are late injuries or cuts or anything like that.

This is supposed to be the most exciting day for the league and its members.  But, and I don't know how or why the juice is gone (although I can speculate), fewer and fewer members have shown up for the auction.  We have dwindled in number of members too, but when the auction starts, there has been at least one other person doing it live with me.

I actually left work early for this.  What I mean is that I usually clear the deck, aka make sure there is no work that is supposed to be done before the new day left over to the new day.  It was doubly important last/Wednesday night because I go from The Third Department to The Fourth Department today/Thursday, so I would literally be leaving any stuff I was supposed to do to someone else.  I hate when I have to do stuff that should have been done the day before, and so I do my best not to do it to anyone else.  Last/Wednesday night was an exception because hey, I've got my fantasy football auction!

I needed to take a crap after I punch out, then I miss my turn and have to take the long way to the library.  I have maybe two minutes to get into the library, swipe a guest pass, login, get to Yahoo! Fantasy Sports, log in there, then enter the auction.  It in fact already started with the first player, Ja'Marr Chase, having been nominated and on his way to one of my competitors.  I was about to apologize for being late until I saw that all of the icons next to all the other teams in the league were represented by the dueling circular arrows.  That means that they're not online and that the computer/algorithm is conducting the auction for that manager.

Everyone except me had that icon.  No one was at the auction except for me.

Looking on the bright side, I had budgeted 90 minutes to go through the auction, but it was over in 35.  On the down side ... well, no one gives a damn about this league anymore.  And we play for money!  It's gotten so bad that there are people who have rolling winnings and debts to the league stretching back years. I (as the commissioner) haven't sent the other managers their winnings because the other managers haven't asked for them.  In turn, I haven't asked people to settle up what they owe because ... well, I'm a toothless commissioner.  And so we just ... play, sorta.  Year after year, and although I love that we have been doing this for at least a decade, the lack of enthusiasm for our league, crystallized by everyone else no-showing for the auction ... ngl, it hurts a bit.

I think we'll just auto-pick from now on.

I'm Too Bleepin' Busy

Work is one thing.  But when I have free time after work, only for me to do other "fun" things every single day, that "fun" stuff ain't fun no more.

Case in point, the next several days:

• I have to work a Game this/Saturday afternoon in Minneapolis, plus there's an MNUFC Match in the evening I need to go to.  And I will have a couple hours to kill, so I figure I can go to a brewery, drink a beer, and work on my fantasy football stuff, which I should have sent out at least a couple weeks ago.
• Tomorrow/Sunday I get to sleep in (if my parents don't fuckin' wake me up in the goddamn morning), but I am supposed to go out to Palmer's to see Cornbread Harris in one of his final residencies before the place closes next month.  I figure it's better to see him now than one the final ones in September because I'm guessing it'll be really crowded after Labor Day.  On top of that, there's the Nine Inch Nails concert at the X in St. Paul.  I'm not a huge fan, but I still want to see him.  Moreover, many of my friends from high school love NIN, and for that reason I want to see if there's a ticket at a non-unreasonable price available.  Harris's concert is from 5 to 7; the arena show doesn't begin till 7:30, and who knows when Trent Reznor & Co. hit the stage.  So my plan, assuming I get a Nine Inch Nails ticket, is to drive all the way to downtown St. Paul in the afternoon to get a free spot (thank Buddha St. Paul doesn't enforce meters on Sundays), take the light rail westward to Palmer's, and then take it back eastward to see NIN.  Sounds like a plan ... a very long and busy one.
• I've realized that work on Mondays will be the longest just because the work in the departments I work in aren't usually worked on over the weekend.  Therefore, wherever I am, I have to deal with the work that came in Saturday as well as Sunday and, possibly, that Monday morning.  On top of that, I have gotten kind of tired of going home real late and seeing all the food my parents left for me.  It's usually a lot, and despite them repeatedly saying I don't have to eat it all, they're a bunch of damn liars, and I have to eat it all.  Finally, my wellness screening at work is Thursday, so the less shit I eat, the better.  With that being said, after work Monday I plan on going to Hooters because I have a calendar coupon where I buy ten boneless wings and get another ten for free.  But I will not drink pop.
• I have Tuesday and Wednesday off because I need to block off time to do some extra exercising before the screening.  I need to work out in the worst way.  But I will do that after eating dinner with my parents where I can control my portions.  Tuesday afternoon I plan on seeing ****e for a visit (if you know what I mean), and Wednesday I want to ... well, eat somewhere.  That and maybe hunt for this tool Mother wants me to find.
• Thursday's the start of The Minnesota State Fair, and assuming I get out at a decent time (and assuming I can find free parking somewhere), I will start my day getting my screening at work, then work, then going to The Great Minnesota Get-Together.  I love going to the Fair, but right now, that entire day seems daunting to me.

So next Friday will be my next "boring" day, where I just go to and from work.  Things might actually slow down next weekend.  But that's next weekend.  These next seven days are so might be too hectic for me to have any fun.

#MinnesotaIsLoservilleUSA

Timberwolves lost.  And they went out like bitches, too.

I am not going to single players out, although some of them didn't show up this series.  We fans always act like General Managers, thinking we should get rid of this guy, and trade for that guy.  Wanting to control people is very Republican of us -- come to think of it, that's why fantasy sports is so popular now -- but we're just fucking fans who don't know jack shit how to run a team ... which is another aspect of Republicans.  That's our emotions exploding out of us without being hindered by thinking (which is yet another trait of Republicans).  Besides, this is a team sport, so this is a team effort, or lack thereof.  Everybody in that organization is to fucking blame, every single one.

But the reckless outpouring of anger and depression, especially right now, I understand.  Everything fucking sucks.  Our best chance to finally win a goddamn championship (and yeah, yeah, fuck the Frost transphobes) in decades and we let it go, again.  Being a Minnesota sports fan is to be pummeled by defeat on a permanent basis.  It is to know pain, to be pain, to become one with pain until you look in the mirror and only see pain staring back at you.

#MinnesotaIsLoservilleUSA

I've Had A Bad Day Since, Oh, Dinner Or So

Dinner at home last night was great.  But I ate at a Brazilian steakhouse Sunday night, so I'm already full, plus I have been fat for a while, so what we had last night isn't helping the waistline.  And I won't be going to the gym anytime soon, I'm afraid.

I was leading in all three of my fantasy football teams, including the one I care about because I have money in it, the one in which I have money.  But then Monday Night Football went into Overtime and Kareem Hunt scored the Game-ending Touchdown.  My opponent had Kareem Hunt.  He came back to win.  The guy I just choked away the lead to was winless until last night.  I still lead him in the standings, but I'm next-to-last in the league.  I checked, by the way; I was good four years ago.  That's the only reason I haven't thrown myself off the roof of my house.

Just woke up from a nightmare where, for some reason, I climbed a tree, then realized I was really high up and I froze because I'm afraid of heights.  People offered to climb up to help me.  One dude tried and fell to the ground; I don't know what happened to him.  The others helped me down -- quickly, actually, so quickly that I realized when I got down on the ground that I wasn't as high up as I thought I was.  Whoops.

Oh, and today's Election Day.  Will we still have a democracy after tonight?  Who bleepin' knows?

I Suck At Fantasy Football

Of the three fantasy football leagues I'm in, I am, after Week 6 finished last/Monday night, above .500 in the one I run (which now has only six Managers after one of them, the son of my best friend, left), at .500 at the one at work, and 1-5 in the one I have cash money in.  And goddammit, I am obsessed with the league I have cash money in.  Not only because I have cash money in it, but also because I am 1-5, and have, more often than not, been awful in that league.  I have finished second once, winning $100.  But I have finished out of the money every other season, and more towards the bottom of the league than the top.

I don't know what it is.  I have one theory that since the commissioner of this league doesn't freeze free agents, every other Manager in this league scoops them up as soon as they see a player blow up and have a great game.  But I think I did that this year pretty well, and I'm still getting my ass kicked.

This week may have been a new all-time low.  My opponent had Marvin Harrison, Jr., and James Cook in his starting lineup.  Harrison left the Game in the Second Quarter Sunday after suffering a concussion and accumulating no points for the Manager.  Cook had a bad toe, and it was announced before his Game last/Monday night that he was out.  Still, the guy I was facing didn't replace Cook with anyone playing the Monday night Game.  He may have been busy, but he may have noticed it didn't matter, because he was beating the shit out of me.  Going into the Bills-Jets Game last/Monday night, he was leading me by about, I think, 104 points.  I had Josh Allen, Khalil Shakir, and Tyler Bass, but of course it didn't matter; he doubled me up, 141.32-70.50.  Two of my dudes, Allen and Bucky Irving, reached double-digit fantasy points.  Of the ten players that comprise our starting roster, seven of his reached double figures, and remember, two of his guys gave him nothing, absolutely nothing.

And here I am, completely embarrassed, again.  Why am I throwing money away at something I'm terrible at?

Got done last/Wednesday night with the fantasy football league I'm in charge of, the one with the auction and the actual gambling.  Lost someone, so we're down to six people, but at least it's an even number.

Wanted to really, really prep for it, but between coming back from Las Vegas, needing to catch up on my sleep, and remembering that there were other things I needed to do, I really didn't have time, so I winged it.  Problem is, only one other guy showed up for the auction.  I think I cornered the market on studs, at least the ones I wanted.

I'm still bummed that I didn't act fast enough, and I botched, the last auction pick I made.  I wanted Zahir White of The Bastard Oakland by way of Los Angeles Raiders, but I got James Conner of The Bastard Chicago by way of St. Louis Cardinals instead.  I'm still somewhat cheesed off over that.  He is not the guy I wanted.

Got just about a full night of sleep -- and overnight, when I'm supposed to sleep -- and I realized when I was awake at a quarter to 5 that I have alumni stuff to do as well as doing my fantasy auction tonight as well as getting back to this guy about tickets to our Game as well as finding this information from a fellow alum who's coming in from California.  And I kind of need to do all this, like, right now, before I leave for work.

But I have to leave for work and I'm not done, so ... yeah.

I'm Getting Tired Of Fantasy Games

So several years ago, as I was conducting my alma mater's football Game-watching party, a person who starting coming to these events at the beginning of the season tipped me off to a fantasy football Game that his son and his friends started up.  He said it was so successful that it has become a full-time job to his son's friend.  As a courtesy but also as someone who has played fantasy football for decades now, I looked up this website, and frankly, it blew my mind.  It's chock full of, not fantasy football, but fantasy-related, gambling-adjacent games in which you pay money to win.  Think survivor pools, betting Against The Spread, etc.

It's gotten so big over the past few years that it quickly expanded to other sports, such as golf, basketball and soccer.  I in turn migrated to those offerings.  But of course it costs money to buy into these games.  And I have yet to win.  Probably not even close.  And that's because, with some regularity, I forget to play.

I stick mostly with survivor pools, where you have to pick one team each week of a league's season to win.  If you pick one that loses, you are out of the game.  Ingenious concept, and cutthroat too.  The problem is is that it's a season-long thing, and I am so busy that I have often forgotten to turn in my week's pick.  The deadline to pick a team, and rightly so, is just before the first Game of that weekend's worth of Games.  If you don't pick a team, you are automatically eliminated.

And that's what has happened to me more than once.  I don't know the exact number because I would hurl myself off a bridge if I figured it out.  But I kept absent-mindedly forgetting that I forgot inputting a team the previous season and threw my money (actually paid for my ante through PayPal) into that pool the next season, and it would be 50/50 if I would remember playing week by week.

I finally got tired of basically lighting my money on fire last week.  It was only the third Matchday of the English Premiere League, and I tossed in for the EPL survivor pool on this website.  I got busy thinking about my fantasy football drafts and auction and planning my way around the State Fair, and despite this website texting me reminders that I need to pick before I can't, it slipped my mind.  And once I realized that the first EPL Match of the weekend came and gone without me making a pick, I realized that I just threw away my money.  It's not much -- I want to say $10 -- but you could have a couple decent fast food meals with $10.  And combine that with all the other times I eliminated myself from pools simply because I forgot to make a pick before the deadline, and I mentally had it.  The past couple weeks was the start of college and pro football, and with it all these pools and pick 'em games that went along with it.  I would toss a few shekels in at least a couple of them, but not this time.  Nope -- I would just forget to play, and I would be wasting my hard-earned dollars again.

I'm just not good at remembering to come back to do these things on a regular basis, at least when it comes to quasi-gambling games online.  If there are competitions where you just make all the picks you have to make in one sitting, like the tournament for NCAA men's basketball or, just recently, the Knockout Round for the FIFA Women's World Cup, that's obviously perfectly fine.  But I get caught up with work and life and stuff, and it's not that important to me, especially when I have to tend to the fantasy football teams I've had for more than half my life.  I just wised up to the fact that I'm giving away money like this, and I feel better (at least for now) telling myself, "Enough!  What am I doing?"

And Now My Long Vacation Begins ... Sorta

I am off work until Tuesday.  But that doesn't mean I'm not working.  I was able to sign up with a study with the U., one that I had participated in in the past.  I was leaving this week open in case I could latch onto a gig working the Gophers Game, but it just so happened that the research group had spots open this week; if I couldn't make it, I would have had to wait until October.  I don't think I would be paid as much as I would have if I worked the football Game, plus I only get paid on the debit card the university issues.  But it's real nice money (today and tomorrow, a total of nine hours) for lying in a tube and doing games and mental exercises.

Still, I have to get up in the morning to get there today and tomorrow/Thursday (assuming the production doesn't beg me for help Thursday; then things will get different).  I plan on going straight from the experiment on Thursday to the State Fair; hope I get Duran Duran tickets.  Friday is my off day; I will get up late, but I need to go to this bar to see if they'll let us watch our alma mater's football Game Saturday night, then I have an appointment with this allergist specialist, and I just realized that the reason I am seeing this person is because of what I think is an abscess that may or may not exist in my sinus cavity since I thought I saw it in a dental x-ray at least two decades ago.  In other words, I might not know what I'm talking about, I might not know why I am going there, and I might be wasting this person's time.  But I'm sticking with the appointment because I needed to make this at least three or four months ago.  I need to make an appointment with some allergist three-to-four months ahead of time??  It's an allergist!!

Saturday's the Game, and even though I don't think there's much to worry about, I have to worry about getting the word out about our party and then I have to file a report about it afterward.  Sunday is free until I have not one but two fantasy football drafts in the evening, and I should be taking some part of my vacation working on research.  Monday I take one final go-around at the Fair (hopefully I won't die; it'll be in the mid-to-upper-nineties on Labor Day).  And then my vacation is over!  And looking back at what I plan on doing, it's not much of a vacation!

RIP, Streak (For The Cash)

Oh yeah, I forgot this: With the end of last month, ESPN.com ended their Streak For The Cash (since re-named ESPN Streak) quasi-gambling game after 14 years.  I never won -- never came close -- but ever since I started playing (and I don't remember when) it became an occasional obsession (if there is such a thing).  It cost nothing to go to the webpage (or, later, pull it up on the ESPN Games app) and choose which team will win, or pick over or under on the number of Points scored in the First Quarter, etc.  It was fun and, whenever I wasn't losing, it was a solid diversion in my life.  (I had three pat patterns: I always bet the tennis player more people thought would win [there were percentages for each side of the this-or-that choice]; I always bet the golfer more people thought would lose, and I always bet on the UFC underdog if he or she garnered more than 20% of the vote.  Those three edicts served me well.)

Occasionally it felt like a chore, if not a pain in the ass, to remember that it hadn't been a while since I picked something, so in that sense, I was relieved to see this fantasy game taken from me.  But by the same token, I'll miss it.  Whenever I won, it made me feel good.  Sure, I felt bad whenever I chose wrong.  But I took a screenshot of my overall record, and I won (made more right choices) much more than I lost, so I got a little pep in my step way more than I felt stupid.  And for that, I will miss you, ESPN Streak (For The Cash).

Maybe I Should Just Let My Fantasy Football League Die

The fantasy football league I run, which is technically a cash league but whose members don't usually pay unless I beg and cajole, had its auction last/Wednesday night.  I was so jazzed for it.  I was afraid that I'd get so busy in The Fourth Department that I would be late for it, and when it got really crazy in the afternoon, I decided that I would just leave and leave the work till the morning.

I actually rallied to the point where I got out of there at 5 -- a half-hour later than my usual shift end, but an hour before the auction begins.  Good, I thought; I could get some fast food, bring it and have time to study before the auction begins.  Unfortunately, everybody was at Culver's for dinner that time of evening, and I waited 15-20 minutes before I got my food.  I got home in time, but only enough for me to pee, wash my hands, turn on and plug in my computer, and get to Yahoo! Sports before the clock struck 6.  No studying besides the Excel customizable cheat sheet courtesy of The Athletic.

But I made it!  And I'm going to talk to all the other guys in the league and we're going to talk shit to each other and rag on each other's bidding.  But the auction begins and there's only one other person on there with me.  All the others, at least to start the auction, have the two circular, clockwise-direction arrows, indicating they're auto-auctioning.  Two other owners quickly pop in and out, for some unknown reason.  And I know that two of the three who bothered to show up are my best friend's sons.

The other league I'm in (in which I am not the Commissioner) held its draft two days before, on Labor Night.  There were a dozen "owners" total, I think all of them showed up, and our draft got done in, say, 1:15 to 1:20.  With fewer players playing in our league, and all but two-to-four of them giving enough of damn to hop on for just a hot minute, we had no intriguing bidding wars where four, five of us would dare each other to top $70, $75, even $80 (which I "paid" for Jonathan Taylor) for three solid minutes.  We got done just under an hour when I thought we would go two.

I don't know where the hell everyone else went.  Now, of the eight of us (yeah, there are only eight now in this league), there usually are one or two people who didn't make it to previous auctions.  But this was way, way different.  We have never had an auction where so many people didn't show up.  And I don't know why.  I customarily select the night before the first Game of the NFL season -- so basically the first Wednesday in September -- to do our auction so we get the latest dirt on players, and most of them acted like they knew what day the auction was, didn't mind the time of the auction, and enjoyed themselves while we built our rosters.  But last night, our auction was a ghost town.

It felt, I'm afraid, like people just stopped caring.  They cared last Year, when we were getting out of the coronavirus pandemic, but not this Year?  It's hard to hold on to tradition, and our run is a long and a good one.  But if people in the league no longer view this as an event to look forward to ... well, then it's apparent that this fantasy football league is no longer enjoyable to them.  And if the other guys don't show up for the auction next year and the ones after that -- why should we even continue with this league any longer?

Want to note that, for the second week in a row, I am kicking ass in both of my fantasy football leagues.  It feels good to see a lead that is virtually insurmountable as I start the workweek.  And it is particularly gratifying this week because some people are calling it "Byemageddon," where six teams are taking the week off (including the Vikings), therefore fantasy football managers are scrambling to either fill their players on those bye teams with reserves or agonizing over which free agents to pick up off the waiver wire.

I have not had to do that.  (Wouldn't have done it if I had to do that; I've been busy like a dog this past week.)  Well, I needed to switch the guys who have this week off with my reserves, and my bench players have done a good job being replacements.  It almost makes me feel like I know what I'm doing in fantasy football.

I need something to feel good about myself.  And destroying all my opponents in fantasy football the last two weeks definitely works!

I Was Demoted, And It's All My Fault

Well, what I was afraid was going to happen at the end of last Vikings season happened: I was busted down from my job in the lofty studio, banished instead to the guts of the production trucks.  I knew it: My lack of attention and interest in checking out my fantasy football scores instead of what was going on during time outs did not go unnoticed, and despite what the people I worked with said, I was passed over for a guy who had never done it before.

And you know what?  It's nobody's fault but mine.  I knew I should have been more attentive.  But I didn't, and it was obvious to the decision makers, and so they went in another direction.  It's not fine with me, but like I said, it's all my fault.

Now, this might be a case where they might prefer me to stick with them in the truck and have just some other dude looking at the field.  Or, maybe they don't care.  Or, they do care, and that's why I got demoted.

Well, I guess I should be lucky I still have a satellite job in the profession.

I Hate Fantasy Football

In one of my fantasy football leagues I lost playing against Lamar Jackson, and in my other fantasy football league I lost playing with Lamar Jackson.

I hate fantasy football.

Come On, No Headphones?!

Yeah, yesterday at work wasn't as good as I hoped it would be.  Well, my supervisor said I was getting the hang of things.  I appreciate the kind words, but I don't believe that to be the case.  Things didn't come back to me as I would have liked, a product of being away from work for a whole week.  And there's no telling whether I'll be able to remember everything I did this morning when I go back, let alone next week when I'm actually doing it.

What really ticked me off was that, for today's training, I will be off on my own, I will be at the actual desk where I work for this new/Fourth Department ... and my supervisor says she wants me off my headphones for the whole day.  Dammit!  I hate it when I am doing a task that is both difficult and boring.  I need a distraction; that's why I've got a headphone jammed into at least one ear while I'm working.  But she says that at this job, I'll have to be attentive to when someone or a call approaches me.  Well, I think I can walk and chew gum at the same time.  Moreover, if it's a long day, and if I'm kind of pissed, I need to freakin' listen to something.  Hey, I'll deal with a day with no radio tomorrow, and maybe even through training.  But once I'm doing this for real, I'm putting my headphones on for real.  And if this job precludes me from doing that ... well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

I didn't really take the news I couldn't listen to anything very well.  Not the news but my reaction to that news ratcheted up the tension in me, and I wasn't good the rest of the day.  That ain't the attitude one should bring to your fantasy football auction, but I did, and (this is inside fantasy football baseball, so forgive me), I left $19 of fake money on the table.  I could have gone and bid more for one of those Wide Receivers I wanted -- D. K. Metcalf, Justin Jefferson, even Robert Woods.  If I were in a better frame of mind from work, I think I would have had a better auction.

And I'm still so frazzled at training the rest of the week that I can't even look at porn to relax, let alone masturbate to take the edge off.  Well, the former at least isn't true; I looked at porn just now on the Internet.  But touching myself before getting to the end of this hellish work week?  Ick.  I'm glad I got double-teamed by ***e* and ******e Monday night, before I started training.

May this day be less worse than the previous one.  Don't know how, but I wish it so.

Maybe I Need To Re-Think This "Risk Mitigation" Thing

I take responsibility for the choices I make when it comes to potentially contracting COVID-19.  I get that.  But I guess I still didn't really digest the possibility that, when riding from or to the Minnesota State Fair on the Park & Ride bus, even though they "strenuously encourage" all riders to wear masks, that some maskholes wouldn't.

It wasn't bad the first night, Friday, going there and back.  I saw a couple sans masks, and I made sure I stayed the hell away from them.  But on both segments there were few people riding and so I was able to keep my distance away from them.  Sunday was a different story.  I actually drove from one Park & Ride to another -- partly because the wait for the bus to the Fairgrounds at the first place was way too long -- a bus actually came but left without picking us up because I think the driver had to go on break -- but also because there were at least five people who seemed to be maskless, three of them being little shit teens.  The bus was right there when I parked at the second spot, but unfortunately a couple who sat behind me immediately pulled down their masks to begin talking.  This bus had another stop at a Park & Ride; that full bus immediately emptied by half, and so I just got up and sat two rows ahead of those damned offenders.

I was not so lucky on the way back.  Sunday night was a lot busier than Friday night -- Minnesotans finally getting up the nerve to go to The Great Minnesota Get-(Back-)Together because of the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) -- and so I actually had to wait until a second bus came to bring us back.  It was packed.  And there were these two privileged outer-ring-suburb anti-masker pricks -- I'm guessing a mother and son -- who sat in front of me.  And since they were anti-maskers of course they were talking loudly and spewing their coronavirus-tainted breath the whole goddamn ride back to my car.  If I had a piece of cable wire, I would totally have had the fucking urge to strangle them both.  If you're not going to mask up, at least shut up.

But then I thought about all the other times I've been in social settings where the risk of getting coronavirus was just as high, if not higher.  I went to eat at Hooters, for example, and I was side-eyeing these four fat dudes who I think were conducting their fantasy football draft.  Sure, none of us were wearing masks because it's a, you know, restaurant (or "breastaurant").  But I didn't trust them that they were fully vaccinated.  And I still don't.  Meanwhile, on Thursday night, in the middle of the Gophers loss to Ohio St., I sat in the middle of an SUV with a guy who I have a strong belief is also an anti-vaxxer.  (I think he also believes in QAnon, but I say that only because I caught a passing glimpse of a text and my mind started to race; I don't really know.)  He may very well have given me the 'Rona, but I don't have the urge to strangle him to death because he was nice to me, and he helped me a lot when we were working.

When it comes to avoiding getting this virus, does it really matter if I have good feelings towards a fellow co-worker, or that I wanted to eat at a place where the waitresses flash their cleavage because it's a part of their uniform?  It really doesn't.  So instead of getting selectively pissed at strangers who do the same thing around me other strangers have, maybe I need to re-think going out.  If it's going to be hard for me to calm down when I see something that I'm afraid will give me corona, I should be more cognizant of all the situations in which I could get corona, not just the situations I don't like.

But still, those two assholes ... my fucking God.

It's probably not a good idea to research your fantasy football draft the day of the draft, but that's my life in a nutshell right now.  I'm paying in $25 to do it, too.  But The Athletic is giving me this spreadsheet that is supposed to tell me which guys to draft based on our league's settings ... so I might be all good!