Summer's Almost Gone...

....and not a moment too soon. I despise the summer with every fiber of my being and have since birth. Put Casper the Friendly Ghost next to me and my skin tone makes him look like Manute Bol. On British Open Saturday it was 57 degrees and drizzling in the middle of July and I was jealous. That is the type of environment that my ancestors saw fit to evolve for. Its always been a mystery to me why people love the summer. Is there a joy in walking outside and having your nutsack stick to your leg within 30 seconds that I'm missing? Is seeing a couple of broads in bikinis really worth the miserable, sandy, overheated and overcrowded trip to the beach? See the beach girls on the internet, and see them topless. On top of all that, when the heat gets oppressive the city starts to resemble that early scene in Halloween where the looneys are all wandering around the grounds of the asylum. You can keep the summer, its the only time I fully endorse wishing one's time away.

The start of football is the modern way to tell that you've survived another one. Granted, there are bound to be a few more scorchers on the way. But with college football starting we've made it through the rough part of the trip and can see the finish line. College football has done a lot to piss me off in the last few years. The college game is supposed to be about rolling out of bed still trashed from the night before, walking straight to the fridge and slamming down a brew in two gulps before you say your first word of the day. From there you head to a tailgate or a bar for some serious day drinking, which is the best kind of drinking. But lately you've seen more and more big games being played in prime time on Saturday night, when any normal person has either passed out or graduated to shots and will be lucky to wake up with their credit card in their pocket. In similar fashion, the big bowls start so late that nobody who is employed on the east coast can stay up for the end of the games. The timing of these games might mean more ratings now but in the long term the sport will be hurt.

Regardless, these are minor qualms, onto the pick. Right after this. I used to work with a guy, The Big Man, who was a college football gambling machine. On any given Saturday if you walked into his bar (not his meaning he owned it, his meaning he owned a stool a la Norm) he would have literally thousands of dollars on the line spread throughout ten different games. Often this would result in The Big Man's net to be him paying the vig on his losses. I am of the school that you find one monster lock and take a hack at it. Its hard enough to be right vs. the bookies once, its much harder to be right twice or more, which is why bookies love teasers and parlays. So you won't see a list of 30 games picked here. What you will get is the game I love and have already put my bet in on, and the exact spread I got in at. If you go with me and lose you know I lost too. And unlike those shady 900 numbers that claim bullshit like "75% winning percentage" I not only have nothing to gain from you, I'll post my record as we go along. Obviously these are not guarantees as I have no inside info; and please don't be stupid like we once were and bet money you can't afford to lose (Woods can tell that story from junior year when he gets a chance).

Official Week One Pick is.................UCLA -17 at Stanford

Rationale: If you asked me to put a number on this game before I saw 17 I would have guessed 28. And still loved UCLA at -28. Much like their academically challenged (in terms of sneaking 85 morons past admissions) brethren at Duke, Stanford's program has degenerated to the point that they are more like a I-AA team now. UCLA is talking Pac 10 title, and will be geared up with 20 starters back from the team that beat USC last year. Look for a big time UCLA romp in this one.