Have It Your Way (Eventually, Sort of)

I was playing poker recently at Riverwind Casino and got hungry.
Common problem, seemingly simple solution.
There are at least six different places you can eat there, most of them of the fast food variety. I believe the idea is to get you done eating quickly so you can get back to giving the casino all your money.
Riverwind has one of the most generous comp policies of anywhere around for their poker players. And when I say generous, I mean that it's absolutely terrible. Whereas most casinos give you $1 per hour, Riverwind gives you $6.60 every two days, whether you play for 20 hours or 20 minutes in that time span. So they really stick it to the regular customers, which is always a great business plan. I'm not sure where they came up with $6.60, but my guess is that they decided $6.66 would be too transparent (and $6.70 is obviously too much).
My friend Travis and I had the casino put our $6.60 comp on our players' card, and we headed to the food court to eat. We scoped out all four fast-food places and there was nobody in line at any of them. I decided on the chicken sandwich at Burger King and stepped up to place my order.
The young man behind the counter took my order, and when he gave me the total I handed him my players' card and told him there was a poker comp on it. He looked a little confused but he swiped the card and pushed some buttons on his screen, just like they all do. Then he did it again. And again. And again. And again.
Finally he got it to accept my $6.60 but couldn't figure out how to account for the remaining 30 cents on my balance. I handed him a $1 bill but he couldn't get the machine to accept the cash payment along with the comp. He mumbled a few things, snatched up my $1, gave me change and took Travis' order.
Travis handed him his card. He swiped it. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again.
Then he started hen-pecking at his screen, getting visibly agitated. Meanwhile I'm just standing there talking to Travis and waiting for my food, which I now realize is nowhere close to being ready since this one young man is the only person working.
Now the guy looks at me and says. "I need your card again. I canceled out both transactions."
I leaned over to Travis and said, "I'm glad this isn't my credit card." He swipes my card a half-dozen times before saying "F*** it," handing us both our cards and walking off.
He's gone for about a minute and returns with another employee, who must have been on his 30-minute weed break because his eyes are open the exact minimum amount possible to be considered awake.
This new guy somehow completes both comp transactions in a total of 15 seconds and walks off, never to be seen again.
Now the first guy is actually making our food. Travis and I are just standing there, waiting and talking, when the most amazing part of this story takes place.
The employee walks to the counter with a bag of food and says, "Number 53!" I assume this is my order and reach out to take the bag when a random middle-aged man walks up. The employee says, "Whopper with cheese?" and the guy takes the bag.
What?!?!?!?!?!?!?
This dude had obviously completed his order before we even walked up, and he waited that whole time without appearing near the counter or offering a single complaint during the entire ridiculous 15-minute ordeal.
I just looked at Travis and we both fell over ourselves laughing.
Now this guy gets to work on our orders, and he burns himself twice on the french fry grease, offering up a few more obscenities.
Needless to say, I wasn't exactly shocked to find that my chicken sandwich was devoid of lettuce and tomato. I thought it was also devoid of mayo, but then I peeled back the bun to find a dallop the size of my pinkie fingernail directly in the middle.
Travis summed up the situation best when, before we had received our orders, he said, "I don't think I'll be coming back here for awhile."

A 5-foot Trophy and a Cherry Vanilla Coke

Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2011 was a totally wasted day for me. Here's how it went.
12:30 p.m. -- Woke up, got around, read the paper, etc.
1-4 p.m. -- Went to Norman to hang out with some friends who were doing a fantasy football draft. I'm not in the league, so I just made fun of every pick that everyone made. While there, we decided to form another league.
4-7 p.m. -- Set up other league. Talked to wife for quite awhile but remember nothing because I was distracted by setting up the other league.
7-8 p.m. -- Drafted a team in a totally unrelated league that consists of friends from Lawton.
8-10 p.m. -- Had dinner with family, played with Addison, cleaned up the house a bit, put Addie to bed. The only two productive hours of the day.
10 p.m.-Midnight -- Drafted for league that was conceived and formed 6 hours earlier.
Midnight-bedtime -- Wrote blog about fantasy football.

I'm not sure it gets more lame than watching a fantasy football draft. And the worst part is, I enjoy fantasy baseball much more than I enjoy fantasy football.


I'm not going to write one of those trite apologist pieces about the reasons we like fantasy sports or about how much productivity is lost in the American workforce because of it. It's obvious that watching random football games is more fun if you have a rooting interest in some of the players and if you can text trash talk to your buddy 30 seconds after a touchdown. It's equally obvious that setting your lineup or making a trade proposal is more fun than whatever you do at your job.
Instead of all that, I'm just going to write about myself and my friends. (In journalism school, they teach you to cater your writing to your audience. "Myself and my friends" just about covers it!

It's all in the name

To me, the most crucial aspect of having a fantasy sports team is naming it. Having a bad team with a creative name is better than getting third place with a name that means nothing or makes no sense. 

The name should either relate to sports or pop culture. Politics is out. If it's a play on your name, it better be really good. If you're a Cowboys fan and you name your team "Cowboys," you will not be in my league next year. 

I'm going to have to look at your team name 20 times a week for the next three months every time I peek at the standings. Please put some thought into it.

Being a huge Seinfeld fan, my teams have long been named Vandelay Industries (after the fake company George Costanza created). Here's a sampling of some of my favorite pop culture team names. All of these teams are owned by friends of mine in a league that I am in. Dr. Kenneth Noisewater (from Anchorman), Wood Chippers (Fargo), Screaming Shivas (The League), Springfield Isotopes (The Simpsons) and Dunder Mifflin Dundees (The Office).

Names with sports references must be well-thought-out to avoid falling into the lame bin. Just because Tom Brady is a great quarterback and you drafted him does not mean it's OK to name your team The Brady Bunch. My friend Mandie had the opposite experience. She drafted Edgerrin James during the twilight of his career, he stunk, and she changed her team name to the Edge Haters, with a logo that was simply a picture of the running back with an X over it. Now that is a sports name with a story behind it and some personality. Mandie's won the league the past two years, so it appears there is no Edgerrin James curse.

Priorities

Most people play fantasy sports for money, but there are more important things in life than money. Like a 5-foot-tall trophy. A few years ago, I won a money league and got paid a couple hundred bucks. The next year, I won Mike Carroll's long-standing keeper league, which is not for money but includes the aforementioned 5-foot trophy. That was a much more satisfying experience.
Missy wasn't a fan of the gaudy trophy -- she made me keep it in our storage unit for the entire year I held it -- but I like knowing that under the huge placard that says FFL CHAMPIONS, there will always be a smaller placard that says Vandelay Industries, 2008. And hopefully Vandelay can snag another spot on that trophy before all of my star players get too old.

The only day all year you were allowed to smoke in the break room

One of my favorite things about fantasy sports is how it keeps you connected to old friends. When I worked at the paper in Lawton, I really looked forward to the fantasy draft because it was the only time all year that I got to see a couple of my since-departed colleagues, who always came back to draft in the old Constitution break room. (A What's up? to James Royal and Adam Calaway). Unfortunately, that league now drafts online, but the fantasy sports world is still a place to post smack talk and remain somewhat connected with friends whose lives have taken them other directions.

800 empty calories and zero regrets

After several years, it goes without saying. If one of my fantasy teams in any sport is playing against the fantasy teams owned by either Nick Livingston or Jacob Unruh, there is a Route 44 Sonic drink on the line. I prefer mine with cherry and vanilla flavoring added, which means I'm clipping those guys for 20 cents extra every time I win, while also clipping myself with a couple hundred unneeded calories. But it's always worth it, especially when I get to the end of the drink and slurp it really loudly through the straw.

By the power vested in me

I am the commissioner of the most competitive fantasy baseball league known to man. It's been around for almost 10 years, and I've kicked out everyone who fails to update their lineup on a regular basis, which is quite a chore during the long baseball season.

In a landslide, the most active player in the history of that league is Mike Carroll. If I didn't cap the number of add/drops you can make in one season, he'd be well over 100 every season. He makes 12 trade offers per week.

Last season, he reached the transaction limit with a month left in the season. That fact, and that fact alone, forced him to win the league championship for the first time. Normally, he gets frustrated if Ryan Braun goes 0-for-4 two days in a row and drops him (True story, Mike actually did drop Ryan Braun). But with no add/drops left to use, his lineup stayed the same for the final month and he ran over everyone in the playoffs.

I never miss an opportunity to get Mike riled up. If anyone else in the league makes a trade, I immediately approve the trade and the players switch teams. But every time a sucker accepts one of his trade proposals, I have to make him sweat it. Sometimes I tell him that I'm getting a lot of complaints from the other league members. Sometimes the Yahoo! rankings show a vast disparity in the talent levels of the players being traded. Sometimes I decide to put it up to a fake league vote, where the same people always disapprove of his trades. After a few hours or sometimes a couple of days, when the trade is still "pending commissioner approval," my phone inevitably blows up with a 3-text dissertation on how his trade is just as fair as the one I immediately pushed through a week before, etc. 

I have to admit that Mike got be back pretty good this past football season. I made a trade, and he took a full week to process it. By the end, I was pretty convinced that he was going to veto it, and I got pretty riled up myself. Well played, my friend.

I try to keep my obsession with fantasy sports under control. Thankfully, Aug. 31 was not a typical day for me. Those two drafts are the only two football drafts I'll do all year, and I don't spend much time looking at the league between Monday and Saturday, when I set my lineup for the week.
I'm confident that my wife would tell you I spend too much time on fantasy sports. But at least it's better than doing drugs.