Pleasure Week 7/1 - 7/7: Matt's Guilty Pleasures

Okay, don't worry everybody, this post isn't going to be dirty. In honor of National Pleasure week, I am going to do some posts about my favorite guilty pleasures.

"Pleasure is commonly conceptualized as a positive experience, happiness, entertainment, enjoyment, ecstasy, and euphoria. ..."

For my first post, let's cover a very deep and secretive pleasure. Most men will admit to it. Some just fantasize about it, but most go all out. My first guilty pleasure has plagued me since early adulthood. I bet you can already guess it.

That's right, fantasy sports. Since my brother first introduced me to Stratomatic, I've been playing fake, simulated sports games. There's nothing like the thrill of battle that comes from whipping friends based off of the statistics of your favorite sports heroes. From stratomatic, I developed a passion for online fantasy sports leagues. Currently, I'm participating in 4 different leagues spanning 2 sports. I'll likely continue to join leagues in Fantasy football, basketball, and maybe even hockey!

It's geeky and my wife doesn't understand, but its addicting and I love it. Just recently, I estimated that I spend on average about 20 days a year playing fantasy sports. Wooha! Jesusgeek put it best in his blog when he wrote, "I've been asked, "Why do I love fantasy sports so much?" It basically boils down to the fact that I hit all three characteristics of the perfect fantasy fan: 1) I'm a control freak. This allows me to have control over my team and do with it what I wish. 2) I get to create. Any sports fan has always said, "If I owned (insert favorite team) then I would ..." Now it's our chance. The best part is we can do it for free versus paying 600 million for the team. And 3) I'm a stat geek. I love stats. 99% of all fantasy sports is all about the numbers. I played fantasy hockey a few years back for the first time. I knew and still know nothing about the sport but I won my league. How? Because I payed attention to the numbers and not the names on the jerseys."

Additional Information:
Stratomatic
Jesusgeek Blog
How to play fantasy sports

Utah National Champions....I'm not so sure but Bill is!

A rant from my friend Bill...

"I consider Utah the National Champions. They are the only undefeated team in college football in 2008. But it is not just that fact. I know, I know, I know, since the crappy BCS started there have been other teams that have finished undefeated and didn't win the title. Utah did it just 4 years ago or so themselves. But this time Utah beat one of the elite teams in a bowl game, and it wasn't a squeaker. The only reason that Alabama isn't/wasn't considered one of the 3, 4 or 5 teams that should have the right to play in the BSC title game is that their "one loss" came at the end of the season instead or earlier like the other "one loss" teams. I will never understand why an undefeated team whose only loss comes at the end of the season should automatically drop below a bunch of other "one loss" teams that are directly behind them in the standings.

But, regardless, they are ALL "one loss" teams now...Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, USC, Alabama, etc. (Texas Tech lost their bowl game). I realize that USC tromped Penn Sate and showed their worth, but they still have that one loss. And regardless of which two teams ended up in the title game, the winner would still have that one loss. Add to that the fact that Boise State lost their bowl game to end their hopes of going undefeated, we have a clear cut National Champion.

This is just my opinion. Please understand that I don't always think that the fact of simply being the ONLY undefeated team is automatically good enough to be declared as National Champons. But this time I think it is based upon the above."

Fantasy football suckiness.

Last week was my championship in fantasy football. After dominating the entire season, I dropped the fantasy championship because Brett Farve and the Jets suck. To make things worse, I actually took Thigpen (320+ yards passing) and Ginn Jr. (1 rushing TD), out of line-up and replaced them with lowly 3rd tier players from the Jets (Farve, Jones, Coles, Keller).

Sucky-suckiness!

Fantasy Football ---- Official FF Rap Song