Woods' Crash

I was possibly one of the early bunch of people to find out that Tiger Woods had been involved in a car accident yesterday.

A reporter made the announcement on Twitter quite a while before the major news players began to run with the story. 

It was a peculiar experience because there was a plethora of people claiming that it was 'FAKE NEWS' when it actually wasn't.

As for Tiger Woods - he is apparently awake and responsive now after having surgery on his legs. 

I see sports reporters saying that they're praying for him and are sure he can come back to win another Major. 

Those reporters are clowns and not looking at the bigger picture.

How about wishing he could come back and be a father to his children? 

That should be the focus. Real-life should always overrule sports. 

Zeros To Heroes 2021

There is a reminder on my phone that is set to go off on June 4th. It is going to tell me 'Don't forget to do a Zeros to Heroes blog post for the 2021 NFL season'.

I don't need that reminder now.

The reason why is because you are currently reading the Zeros To Heroes blog post for the 2021 NFL season.

For those unaware of what I am going on about, here's what I do. 

As I prepare for the upcoming season, I take a look at all of the teams that have finished at the bottom of their respective divisions and see if they have appointed a new head coach. If they have, I have a bet on them.

For 2021, there are five teams that qualify under my rules. Those franchises are: Atlanta Falcons, Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars, New York Jets and Philadelphia Eagles.

What I usually do is place the teams into a multiples bet. I have done that once again. This time, they're all in a 25p a line Lucky 31 which comes to £7.75. 

As well as the Lucky 31, I have also put £4 on each team individually.

The selections, along with their prices, are:

Atlanta Falcons to win NFC South 9/1
Detroit Lions to win NFC North 22/1
Jacksonville Jaguars to win AFC South 13/1
New York Jets to win AFC East 13/1
Philadelphia Eagles to win NFC East 13/5

I am planning to write a reminder when we're nearer to the season. If I forget, the next post about this betting idea will be a look back to see how it fared once the season has concluded.

An Offer I Certainly Can Refuse

I keep seeing commercials on TV for an app in which you can scan ISBNs and barcodes to see how much you can sell unwanted books and CDs.

After seeing the ad enough times, I decided to try the app out. I knew just the book to try out.

Gary Hart's autobiography - one of my favourite wrestling books - has sort of become a collectors item because it is no longer in print. If you look at Amazon.com you'll see that third party sellers are trying to sell copies for ridiculous amounts of money.

You'll see, in the image below, that one chancer is hoping to sell a new copy for $1,353.99. On top of that, there are four used copies starting from $950.

Knowing that the book is rare, and that people are asking silly money for it, I thought I'd test the app to see what the offer would be. I had, and still have, no intention of selling the book - I just wanted to see what price I would get from my scan.

Well..

As you can see - I was offered an insulting thirty-four pence.

Sure, I wasn't expecting a range at the equivalent of $950-$1,353.99. However, I was expecting something higher than 34p!

I will forever be wary of these companies. The offer should have been a lot fairer than 34p based on how rare the title is.

The book came out in 2009. You can read what I thought of it in THIS POST.

Looking Back At 'Looking Back'

Remember yesterday when I wrote about Oasis' Don't Look Back In Anger being twenty-five years old on February 19th and spent a line or two writing about a picture of Kurt Cobain that was on the wall in one of the classrooms I attended?

Well - I had no idea that yesterday would have been Kurt Cobain's fifty-fourth birthday, so I thought it was quite a coincidence that I wrote about him on the day.

Funny how things work out, isn't it?

Looking Back

Yesterday was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the release of Oasis' Don't Look Back In Anger.

A lot of people were talking about it on Twitter and I thought I'd have a listen to it again.

Back then, I wasn't keen on Brit Pop. However, if a soundtrack of certain parts of my life were to be published - and bearing in mind you'd need to have a mixture of tracks - there would be no argument from me: this has to be one of the songs on it.

Like I said - I wasn't keen on Brit Pop back then. The majority of my friends liked it, though.

That line in the song which goes 'please don't put your life in the hands of a rock 'n roll band who'll throw it all away' is still powerful. Even now.

At sixth form, one of my classrooms had a wall with a piece of paper with a picture - or drawing - of Kurt Cobain on it. That line from Don't Look Back In Anger was written underneath. 

Every time I hear it, I think of that picture.

Every time I read, or see, news of members of bands passing away, or even just leaving the groups, I think of the line. And then I recall the picture on that wall. 

Wentz To The Colts

One of the things I feared would happen during the NFL off-season happened yesterday.

The Philadelphia Eagles traded quarterback Carson Wentz to the Indianapolis Colts.

As part of the deal, Philadelphia will get a third round pick in the 2021 draft. The team will also pick up a second round pick in the 2022 draft if Wentz plays seventy-five percent of the team's snaps in the 2021 season or if he is in seventy percent of the snaps and the Colts make the playoffs.

To be fair, a third round pick (as well as the likely second-rounder based on how Wentz performs) - for someone who was a second overall pick in the 2016 draft - looks good on paper.

But 'on paper' is the operative part of the sentence as I do not rate this player highly at all.

Neither does Philadelphia. Evidently.

His 2020 campaign was a disaster. He threw sixteen touchdowns, but also had fifteen interceptions. He was benched in favour of Jalen Hurts and apparently was regarded as a locker-room 'cancer'.

The good news - if you can call it that - is Wentz performed okay in the seasons when Frank Reich was his offensive co-ordinator in Philly. 

Reich is the current head coach of the Colts, so even though I wouldn't call it a 'perfect landing spot', it is a move that makes sense.

With that said - I was disappointed with some of Reich's calls in the team's loss to Buffalo in the playoffs, so he's skating on thin ice with me.

This move is definitely a gamble. For both men.

Speaking of gambles - when I first started hearing reports that Wentz could be on his way to Indy - or Chicago - I placed £5 in two bets on him being the starter for either team.

I look to have a return of £9 if he starts for the Colts on day one of the 2021 season.  I would have made a little bit more had a trade to Chicago transpired.

The concern I now have is whether the injury-prone Wentz starts the first regular season game for Indy when the season starts in September.

Thelma Barlow Is Not Almost 100

There's an advert I keep seeing online that bugs me.

It has a picture of Thelma Barlow, who played Mavis Wilton in Coronation Street, and it states that 'Thelma Barlow At Almost 100 Will Break Your Heart'.

I didn't follow the link to read the article because there's something I know for sure. 

It's click bait.

No way is Thelma Barlow 'at almost 100'. Unless you want to consider being ninety-one years old to be 'almost 100'.