Game On

We now know which teams will compete for the Vince Lombardi trophy in less than a fortnight.

Kansas City and San Francisco.

In a post published last week, I ranked the potential Super Bowl match-ups in the order I would like to see them. A Chiefs versus 49ers meeting was second behind what would have been a rematch of the first Super Bowl -  Kansas City versus Green Bay.

I was about to write that I don't mind the KC/SF game as I have no dog in that fight, but then I can't state that without pointing out that I predicted an NFC team would win the Super Bowl and even pointed to the 49ers as the most likely contender when I made some predictions for 2020.

Not Happy With Spreadsheet Picks For Tonight

I have placed stats into my spreadsheet to work out what it has predicted for tonight's NFL games and the results were not to my liking.

It has the favourites winning, but not covering the spread.

As for the totals, it has the Tennessee .vs. Kansas City game to have one point less than the total of 52 and the Green Bay versus San Francisco match-up to go over the total of 46.5 by one-and-half points.

I'm not comfortable betting on any of these results, but - if I were forced to pick one - I'd probably go for the Over in the GB/SF meeting.

Not that I will...

...Or will I?!

The Billionaire Strut

With Conor McGregor returning to the octagon today to fight Donald Cerrone at UFC 246, there was something I noticed on Twitter that initially bothered me. Then - upon  reflection - I think I may have been the victim of an intentional wind up.

Well, that's what I believe anyway!

Here's what happened.

A certain sports handle had a video of McGregor and other athletes doing the billionaire strut. Above it, the account said something about the strut being 'often imitated, never duplicated'.

Here's the thing. McGregor imitated the strut from WWE owner, Vince McMahon.

I looked at the many comments the tweet generated and the majority was telling the account that McMahon was the originator.

This morning, another sports handle did a similar thing. Once again, the people rabidly pointed out that McMahon started the strut and that would mean McGregor is the imitator.

It then dawned on me. Those social media accounts must know tweets like that would trigger a reaction. Therefore, it would bring more eyeballs to their handles.

Yes - I am writing about them so mission accomplished, right?

All I can do is not name any names and they haven't won completely..

I've Tried A Vegan Steak Bake

I finally tried a Vegan Steak Bake from Greggs.

All I can say is - it tasted very similar to a regular steak bake, which was quite surprising!

I wrote at the start of the year that Greggs should have named them a Fake Bake. I firmly stand by this opinion.

Rocky Johnson Passes Away

Rocky Johnson passed away yesterday.

He was a pro wrestler, but - when he was growing up - he trained to be a boxer and even sparred with eventual legends like Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.

Johnson spent most of his career working for the NWA. However, he made the move to the WWF and made history in 1983 when he and Tony Atlas won the WWF World Tag Team Championship as they were the first black tag champs.

He retired from active competition in early 1990s.

In 2008, he was inducted into WWE's Hall of Fame.

I React To A Bad Neighbours Article

I've just read a shockingly written article about Neighbours on the Mirror website.

You can tell, just by how it's written, that the reporter hasn't watched the series in many, many years and is bluffing their way through an article.

It's about the soap's thirty-fifth anniversary and notes that Jason Donovan's daughter is a cast member. However, the journo - and I use that term loosely - writes:

'she will be the third member to join the soap as her grandfather Terence had a brief stint on it'

First things first, Jason Donovan's daughter - Jemma - has been in the series for at least six months already so it's 'she is the third member' of the Donovan clan to be a part of the show.

Present tense!

But, it's the thing about Terry Donovan's 'brief stint' that gets me.

Doug Willis was a regular character on the soap from July 1990 right up until September 1994. That's not 'brief'. As I said, he was a regular.

He did make 'brief stints' in the years following, but he was a darn regular and four years in a soap is not brief!

Another one that made me roll my eyes was the line which read (punctuation and typo included):

'And fans will be elated to know that the soap's OG's Olympia Valance - who plays Paige Smith - and enise Van Outen - who plays Prue Smith - will be coming back to the show for the special event'.

The writer is evidently unaware that Denise Van Outen was only in the show recently as a guest character and must assume she was a major character when she wasn't. Plus, the hype she gave Olympia Valance's return makes me wonder whether she has confused Olympia with her bigger - and more popular - sister, Holly Valance, who starred in the series as Felicity Scully between 1999 and 2002.

I guess Holly's three years on the show was too much of a brief stint to remember.

Cold Call In January

Here's how a cold call went for me - or rather, them! - yesterday.

Me: Hello?
Them: Hello is that Mr Taylor?
Me: Yes, what do you want?
Them: I have a one question survey. It won't take more than a minute...
Me: Okay.
Them: Is your phone number xxxxxxx (he read out my number)
Me: Well, you're calling me on that number so I think that's a safe bet
Them: Is your post code XXXXXX (he read out my postcode)
Me: You said there would only be one question. That's your second. Survey over!
(I hang up)