Not A Usual February 13th Post

Today marks the twenty-third anniversary of my uncle's passing.

I always dedicate February 13th posts to him, but - as I sit here about to write whatever will come to me over the next few lines - I cannot shake off the significance of this being different from every other tribute post.

We lost my aunt last October, so I am thinking about both of them today. 

The funny thing about my tributes to my uncle is almost all of those memories had my aunt there as well. So it seems fitting to think about both of them today. Together again.

Airheads Soda? Airheads Soda!

I watched a handful of YouTube videos last night. While watching one of them, I happened to see something in the background which made me think 'I WANT THAT!' to myself.

The item of note was a can of soda (I'll refer it to that, instead of pop, for a reason you'll soon find out). It had the Airheads branding and had a predominant blue colour.

Which means a couple of things.

Blue raspberry pop  soda.

Airheads is a brand of sweets I hadn't heard of until a few years ago. I love their blue raspberry flavoured candy and chewing gum, so - as soon as I saw they're now in the carbonated beverage business - I had to do a look online.

The good news - the website I usually buy US products from has been selling the drinks. The bad - they're currently out of stock.

It looks like they launched  in the USA back in September. Along with blue raspberry are strawberry, orange and watermelon flavours.

I'd like to try all but watermelon. Blue raspberry is top of the list, however. Also - why no grape?!

Becoming intrigued after seeing these products takes me back to either 1989 or 1990 when Hubba Bubba brought out a Hubba Bubba Soda to these shores.

I looked high and low for those drinks. I managed to find some after weeks of trying. I enjoyed them, but the product didn't last long.  Even though I, just like this very moment, find myself clamouring to try Hubba Bubba Soda once again, I'm happy to have been able to have found them before they were discontinued during my childhood.

I must do the same with Airheads Soda just in case they have a similar fate.

Following The Guthrie Story

I have been gripped by the news coverage, coming out of the USA, surrounding the alleged kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie.

Guthrie is the mother of a presenter from NBC News - Suzanne Guthrie.

The mother was apparently kidnapped from her Tucson, Arizona home in the early hours of Sunday February 1st. Blood was found on her porch area and her doorbell camera had been smashed.

Ransom mail - asking for up to $6,000,000 in Bitcoin - has been sent to the family via news agencies. At least one of the requests was found to be a scam, however.

Yesterday's development saw the FBI release footage of a masked man on Nancy Guthrie's property. The images were caught using the video doorbell that was initially reported to have not been sending data to the Cloud because the owner did not subscribe to any subscription plans for the device.

The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for Nancy's return.

I fell asleep last night after seeing SWAT and bomb vehicles leaving their posts and hearing that somebody had been detained in relation to the alleged kidnapping. The first thing I did when I woke up was check to see if the person was named. Well, he was named.. but only because he had been released.

So many twists and turns to this one. 

I have seen certain social media accounts sharing similar, and some even contrasting, theories about this case. Some of those are intriguing and will make for this story to become even crazier. IF true, of course.

I don't want to be a pessimist, but Nancy Guthrie is 84 and needs daily medication. She has been gone for, is it eleven days now? It has been a race against time from the off. 

Third Talisman Book By King And Straub Publication Date Confirmed

I came across a welcome surprise when I was on social media late last night.

As you can see, the third novel in The Talisman series - written by Stephen King and the late Peter Straub - has been revealed.

Other World Than These will be published on October 6th. 

The Talisman, and its sequel - Black House, are two of the better books I have came across in my journey through Stephen King's work. I gave the first novel five stars on Good Reads while its follow-up was given four.

Peter Straub passed away almost four years ago. Stephen King has reportedly been working on the third novel after being handed notes the deceased writer had been plotting for a third collaboration.

What I have usually been doing, with new King titles, is add them to the end of my King reading list. However, I believe - considering I've already read the first two titles - I may as well move Other Worlds Than These to the front of the queue. 

But that's getting ahead of myself. There are eight months to go until this one sees the light of day.

Oh yeah - here's a coincidence for you: I started reading the next book on my journey through Stephen King's bibliography yesterday evening, which was a few hours before I came across the latest news.  

The latest book I've picked up is Lisey's Story. It starts with a widow looking after her late husband's unreleased manuscripts. I don't know what else happens because I've only read the initial chapter for now.

The Morning After Super Bowl LX

It's the morning after the Super Bowl. I was far too tired to write a post immediately after the game, which was won 29-13 by the Seattle Seahawks. So - here are my thoughts albeit not as immediate as I usually would have given.

Seattle won. I'm happy about that. I'm not happy about losing the coin toss bet and my totals wager on the Over, however!

I believe BOTH teams' defences played well. You have to be fair to the Patriots' D. They kept the team in the game longer than they should have. 

I watched the game on DAZN/NFL GamePass. It was the NBC stream, so I got to see all the US commercials during the breaks. There were some really good ones on there. I had the choice of Channel 5, Sky Sports or GamePass. If I didn't have the sub to the NFL streaming package, I would have sided with Sky. I liked the experience of seeing how they do it in the US. I might have to do it again. I'm quite surprised with myself for not having done the US stream before now.

After the trophy celebration, I switched over to the NFL Network to catch even more postgame coverage as I began to drop off to sleep.

I have to share this one: the stream cut out once. For the smallest of split seconds. It occurred at the most significant moment because it went black and came back on as Mack Hollins was holding the ball in the endzone after scoring a touchdown. 

I asked my friend, who I knew was also watching the US feed on DAZN/GamePass, if he experienced the same thing. He had.

And now it's the long road to the 2026 season. I can now finally get into a new gear in my preparation for the 2026 edition of Taylor's Pro Football Gambling Annual.

Super Bowl Coin Toss Betting And Starting A Buffalo Hunt

It's Super Bowl Sunday. The conclusion to one of the most peculiar NFL seasons I've ever experienced.

I'll get to all that by the end. First, I'll go through what I often plan around this weekend of the year.

The coin toss betting!

As usual, and for FUN ONLY, I have taken a look over the stats for the Super Bowl coin toss with the aim of having a small punt on the result.

Here are the stats you need.

1. Tails is currently leading all the Superbowls by landing thirty-one times to Heads' 28

2. In the Pacific time zone, both Heads and Tails are tied with 7 each

3. Narrowing down to the Super Bowls from the State of California, Tails has landed seven times to Heads' 6

4. Santa Clara last hosted the Super Bowl ten years ago. It was the Broncos' 24-10 win which saw Peyton Manning end his career with a second Vince Lombardi Trophy victory. The coin toss result from that result was.. Tails

So, the lean is Tails. To punctuate the decision, I have one more stat that can be shared for today and today only:

5. The New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, who will play later today, met at Super Bowl 49 in 2015. The result from that game's coin toss was.. yep, Tails. 

For what it's worth, Seattle won that call. They deferred to receive the ball in the second half but would go on to lose the game through a fluke of poor coaching decisions (if I say so myself!) late in the game.

As for tonight - I hope the Seahawks win. I like the idea of Sam Darnold finally getting a Super Bowl win after being a journeyman. It would also be fitting for him to do so on the 49ers field - where he once spent a season (and made it to the Super Bowl as a squad member). 

Darnold deserves it more than New England. However, the Patriots have an intriguing narrative of their own after having a disastrous few years and have seemingly turned everything around with Mike Vrabel coming in as head coach.

Anyway, that's enough of me writing good things about New England.

* * *

As I wrote in the opening paragraph - it has been an odd season. It was very hard to navigate through those months without Vick around. There would always be some random thing happen each week and the first thing I'd think to do would be to message her and see if she had seen or heard about it. 

It just goes to show how much her presence was a big part of my enjoyment of NFL seasons over the years.

I don't want the season to end today without acknowledging her in some way. Which kind of leads me onto something.

In May or June, I was on the Smyths Toys website looking at WWE products and came across a Ron Simmons action figure going for a relatively fair price. The figure was significant to me because it was celebrating Simmons becoming world champ - a feat he achieved on my mum's birthday. 

I ordered the figure. But, on that same day, I found the company was selling NFL 2024 sticker books and packets of stickers. I added a book and a bunch of packets to the order.

I showed Vicki the book and stickers. The plan I had was to do a special blog post on the Thursday of the season kick off with me opening every single packet and looking through everyone I found.

Unfortunately, Vick had left us by that day. I didn't feel like doing the post without her around, so kept the book and sticker packets to the side.

And there they stayed throughout the season. 

Sometime over the past week, I started taking the book out and wondering what to do with it. And then it hit me.

I have came up with an idea that will help me get through the next few weeks, and months, of no football and also celebrate Vick in a way.

As I mentioned a couple of days after Vick passed away, I decided to spend each Saturday night commemorating Vick in some way or other. I have kept to that promise for six months now. For example, on one occasion I made Buffalo chicken wings for our dinner (those who know me well will be aware that is crazy of me to go out of my comfort zone because of my inability to like food that is mega spicy!), having Diet Cokes and other random, yet fun, things I can think of to celebrate my friend.

My latest idea for these moments is to open one packet each Saturday night with the hope of finding players from the Buffalo Bills for Vick.

I started yesterday. I didn't find anything in my first expedition on this, for want of a better title: Buffalo Hunt.

One thing I was surprised at is how small the stickers are nowadays. I was stunned at their size as I thought back to all those sticker albums I tried to fill in back during my childhood.

The next three months are locked in, I look forward to sharing my findings.

Enjoy the game.

My Database And Spreadsheet Have Found A Best Bet For Super Bowl LX

I have teamed my spreadsheets and database up to take on the Super Bowl and have found one bet that was well worth a punt.

If I say so myself.

As usual, I have fired up the database with records of games dating back to the 1995 season. Of all those games, the Seahawks and Patriots have been on seven occasions with the first one, in this period, taking place in Week 6 of the 2004 season.

New England won that one with a score of 30-20 as four-point home favourites.

The Seahawks are 4-3 (57%) straight up and 4-2-1 (67%) against the spread overall from those seven meetings. So, bearing that in mind, I compared history with what my spreadsheet has calculated for the game.

It has the Seahawks winning straight up, but not covering the -4.5 spread. 

Per my own rule, from when I used to do these spreadsheets and database posts, I must pass on any spread wagers.

There is something the spreadsheets and database love, however.

The spreadsheet expects the teams to score approximately forty-eight points in total. With an Over/Under line of 45.5, it's calling for the game to go Over.

I've looked at the totals history from the seven games on the database. I couldn't believe it. the Over-Under is 7-0. Yes, one hundred percent of the results have landed with the scorelines exceeding their respective lines since 2004.

It's a bet I had to take. History told me to gamble.