Little Puffy Balls

Conspiracy theorists across the globe have been analysing the comment posted earlier this week by Rap, and linking it to the lack of recent posts on this blog:

Have you ever felt so unproductive at some point in your life? Wherein all you’re doing throughout the day was tapping and swiping the screen of your phone; sugarcoating your miserable life online through filtering apps to make it look awesome; and staying up all night to surf the web without any valid reason behind but for plain vanity purposes.

Your life has become an endless scroll-react-share-comment-tweet since the invention of social media platforms. But without this breakthrough, people cannot converse as easy as a few clicks away. And your crush may message you, “hey!” all of sudden. You’ll then freak out; you’ll be at a loss for words. While your attention is on the seemingly impossible scenario, you didn’t notice that your mom is already inside your room which gives you a mini heart attack. And that’s it. That’s when the trouble starts. You’re doomed to be berated by your mom at the top of her lungs wherein every single sharp word of rampant rant she utters has 0.0001 interval in between. She’ll scold you for not doing the chores but you wouldn’t mind her at all though.

However, she figures it out and quips, “your little puffy balls have an undeniable chemistry with your phone; that’s why you got those two bags of Prada under your eyes and you flaunt them shamelessly. Bravo!”

If that’s the situation you’re usually in, you are one of the 58% of the Philippines’ growing population that spends long hours on social media. Today’s generation is gradually turning into a part of technology. They’re more afraid of network connectivity issues and low battery life than what challenges the world has stored for them from which they’ll learn. In fact, they feel pleasure every time they receive reactions and messages, and other things called “instant gratifications.”

Truly, social media has changed the way we live. But don‘t wait until the bridges between your social and personal relationships are burnt.

Every aspect in your life are at risk. There’s no application to solve the problem with which only you can deal. Set a time limit. Prioritize more important agendas and ask yourself, “do I really need social media for this?” before gluing your eyes to the screen. Otherwise, get offline and live every moment of your life. Break free from the addiction.

As is the case with almost all conspiracy theories, the suggestion neatly summed up by Jamie's follow up comment:

@ Rap's comment. With impeccable spelling and grammar like that, is it Cassini in disguise? It may explain the absence.

...is off the mark, but Rap's thoughts were well written. The days of my Mum being anywhere near my room are long gone, and she was never likely to make reference to my "little puffy balls". 

As I related to a few enquirers asking if all is well, the answer is yes and no. I'm perfectly well myself, although sliding inexorably towards old age which is at best mildly depressing, and at worst quite terrifying, a fate made all the more unsettling by the decline of my father who was earlier this year diagnosed with Alzheimers, a fate I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. 

So family has been the priority recently, with betting and blogging about betting not the priority in life that it once was. Not even close. 

Ian Erskine, who many of you will know by name, if not in person, has also been through a bad spell of family issues and other problems, but is bouncing back as reported in his latest blog post Time to Resume.

Apparently even those who should know better aren't immune to the less desirable who prey on the vulnerable in the world of betting:

I also got ripped off by a guy who claims to make money on horses to people which was partly my fault but will leave that for another blog post as this guy is bad news for people and I have been working that behind the scenes with the police also involved and need to wait for the time I can discuss that, these things do drag on.

Adding to Ian's woes, apparently the 2016-17 football season wasn't a good one for Ian:

I am well aware the last year has not been great, Will has struggled, some of the footy struggled and this game is about making money.

The reason tipsters "struggle" is because there are too many entrants in the markets these days who are far better financed and resourced than any one individual. For sure the over-rounds are so tight these days that over the course of a season, one can get lucky, maybe over the course of two or three seasons, but inevitable the laws of probability will catch up with you. 

Many of you will know that I have for many seasons been attracted to the Draw, and enjoyed the challenge of comparing my Draw selections with those of others, although there aren't too many others around. 

One such was Pete Nordsted's Draw Picks which appear to have quietly vanished in late March for some reason. If anyone knows where the full season's results can be found, I'd be interested to see them. The last reference to them is here, when they were struggling a little with an ROI well into double digits at -13.7%.

Both Ian and Pete refer to odds sheets or stats sheets. The claim by Pete is that:

These sheets contain all of the IPL matches played on the grounds since 2012 and are useful in finding trading angles particularly after the power play.

I'm not too sure what a "trading angle" is in this context, presumably it's similar to an edge, but it's a big stretch to claim that publicly available data and knowledge can possibly give you an edge over anyone else.  

Aside from my family issues, June is usually a quiet betting month anyway, with baseball the main interest, yet even with 11 winners from 13 selections (the T-Bone System had a good month, with a winning run ended at 16 last night) the profits amounted to just 0.12% of my total investment gains that month. 

That number isn't typical, with gains from more traditional investment vehicles hitting a record high at the same time as my betting was significantly reduced, but it does make it all too apparent that at my stage of life, spending too much time trying to make a few extra quid from betting isn't justifiable. 

One bit of good news from last month was the arrival of granddaughter number three, with my son's efforts from last September finally coming to fruition, albeit a little prematurely with her arrival 12 days ahead of schedule.