Ebay Is Addictive, The Superbowl, And Gambling

Happy post-Superbowl, everyone. Hope you all had enough time to digest that mountain of quepapas and Bud Light. With just 5 posts it's safe to say that January was a slow month for IEC so I'm pointing blame in the following directions:

1. David went back to school (I think?), remembered how to smile, and has been drawing up a storm according to all 1,3o4,244 of his Facebook updates.
2. Abel is closely monitoring the Lakers and pulling for an Artest/Ariza trade.
3. Daniel's empty promises continue to remain just that.
4. Yours truly celebrated a birthday, drank a boot of beer at a surprise party, served jury duty, sold a ton of shit on ebay, passed Dead Money on Fallout: New Vegas, and worked a billion hours as usual.

Either way, no excuses. Our collective writer's block is over and it's back to business. Or maybe not, who the hell knows.

Back to the Superbowl. Plenty of bad decisions were made on the field but the real mistakes were made in the kitchen. Watching the game gives us all an excuse to gorge once more before winter is over and pretend that words like "calories", "sodium", and "trans fat" don't exist. Shotgunning cupcakes (the act of stuffing an entire iced cupcake in your mouth and attempting to eat it quickly) imbetween eating foods like buffalo wing flavored Ruffles, turkey chili, subway 6" sandwhiches, and chicken wings is not recommended at any other time of the year. With Pepto Misol in hand, I finished off what was left in the bottle and prayed those nachos I tacked on for desert at 12:14am Monday morning would stay down.

I didn't get to watch the Superbowl last year and pig out, but the year prior I was in Las Vegas gambling away my tax return and going all in with a pair of 9s. I didn't lose a crazy amount of money, but since then I haven't gambled heavily. Last March I was in Vegas for St. Patrick's day and won $500 from a slot machine, the most I've ever won since visiting there. But playing a few hands of poker or taking a shot at the slots just doesn't match up to the fun of betting on sports, especially baseball. I'm already a fan of the game, but when you start trying to pick five winners for the same ticket for some crazy amount of money it's that much more fun. Why else would you be interested in the pitching match-up for the Pirates-Brewers game? I've been good, though. I've stayed away from old habits despite the fact that the advent of the smart phone is making matters worse. All this access to live scores and highlights wherever I go makes it easier to watch the results for instant jubilation (or humiliation).

Luckily there is eBay. It was fun watching all these auctions end while trying to find out how much someone will spend on a three-year old electric guitar (Note: It costs $90 to ship a guitar to Virginia. Not $50. Ninety fucking dollars via FedEx). Everything sold, from old video games to a GPS that became obsolete courtesy of my Droid Incredible. Throwing your old junk on eBay is a fun gamble since you never know how desperate someone is and you keep waiting to see if you might get back what you originally paid for it. There are tons of bargains too, like this Todd Marinovich signed 1992 Upper Deck All Rookie Team football card for just $12: (http://cgi.ebay.com/TODD-MARINOVICH-1992-UPPER-DECK-SIGNED-AUTO-31-RAIDERS-/130360654625?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e5a19bb21).

eBay is a decent enough gambling-like substitute that I can live with right now so wish me luck and I'll see you all next time.

- Mike O.