sports, money, and ocd
i've said it before. I don't much like spectator sports, but I do enjoy a wager. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before I joined the office pool and bought a bracket on sportsline.com for the NCAA championship.
Despite my last minute persusal of the standings, I managed to make some rather silly choices. I'm at about 60/40 win/lose at this point, a solid B- in betting GPA. Now I've said i like to bet, but I generally bet when I have a pretty good chance of winning. Or, I bet on incredibly dumb things, like the number of times a real estate broker says "charming" when describing an apartment the size of an outhouse, or how many people will cross at the crosswalk versus in the middle of the street.
In fact, i make mini-wagers with myself all the time. Will I see that man with no cheekbones who's reading a mystery about egypt on the #4 today? Will I manage to get out of the house in time to get across highway 9 before the morning stream of traffic starts? will I manage to avoid my boss on the elevator ride? Of course, betting with yourself is not really a lot of fun, it's more like my very own little brand of OCD. Considering I also have a symmetry OCD (can't stand to have or see one sock on, one off, can't stand to step on crack with one foot, and not the other), the wager compulsion is at least a tad more entertaining, and, let's face it, you don't go broke.
But, I do like real betting, with money, and other people too. Which is why it is good that watching most sports doesn't do much for me. The NCAA is a tad different, because watching college basketball is pretty palatable. For one thing, it goes pretty fast, unlike football. For another thing, there's always a lot of scoring. We likes fast boys and scoring. Other things i really like are boxing and horseracing. I haven't quite figured out why, perhaps I'm really an old italian man at heart, and this is the 1930s. Chi sa?
Despite my last minute persusal of the standings, I managed to make some rather silly choices. I'm at about 60/40 win/lose at this point, a solid B- in betting GPA. Now I've said i like to bet, but I generally bet when I have a pretty good chance of winning. Or, I bet on incredibly dumb things, like the number of times a real estate broker says "charming" when describing an apartment the size of an outhouse, or how many people will cross at the crosswalk versus in the middle of the street.
In fact, i make mini-wagers with myself all the time. Will I see that man with no cheekbones who's reading a mystery about egypt on the #4 today? Will I manage to get out of the house in time to get across highway 9 before the morning stream of traffic starts? will I manage to avoid my boss on the elevator ride? Of course, betting with yourself is not really a lot of fun, it's more like my very own little brand of OCD. Considering I also have a symmetry OCD (can't stand to have or see one sock on, one off, can't stand to step on crack with one foot, and not the other), the wager compulsion is at least a tad more entertaining, and, let's face it, you don't go broke.
But, I do like real betting, with money, and other people too. Which is why it is good that watching most sports doesn't do much for me. The NCAA is a tad different, because watching college basketball is pretty palatable. For one thing, it goes pretty fast, unlike football. For another thing, there's always a lot of scoring. We likes fast boys and scoring. Other things i really like are boxing and horseracing. I haven't quite figured out why, perhaps I'm really an old italian man at heart, and this is the 1930s. Chi sa?
posted by abigail at 12:41:00 PM
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