4 Hard Downs: ACC Champ Predictions, Father's Day and Tyra Banks
First show goes live June 13th and don't let me down like ANTM contestants
Whew buddy, sorry for not putting up more content last week but your boy was fully underwater. Two swim meets, Field Day at school plus a parade for the retiring principal at my kid’s school and the end of your party. All of which were on two days, no spacing just a full Monday and Thursday. So, school in the morning, back home for a second to prep for swim meet and then swim meet.
Did y’all know these things go until 10pm?
I did, I do not think my wife did.
We’ll talk about this more on the podcast this week.
School is out, we had two birthday parties this weekend and I will be at Charles Entertainment Cheese twice in 13 days once I go to the next birthday party we have on the schedule.
So, let’s go ahead and SPOT THE BALL!!!
1st Down: Chuck-E-Cheese Is Broken
This place is basically a digital kid casino but the kids have no idea that you have to get tickets. When you go to a party they get one or two hours of unlimited taps but they are wasting time on games that don’t give out tickets.
Driving Game
Shooting Game
Carnival Game(s)
Grabber Machine Game
The whole point of going to see Mr. Cheese is to get the stuff. Without tickets you don’t have a physical record of how much you did or what games give you the most tickets.
To put this dilemma in perspective:
I grew up very close to a Chuck-E-Cheese. I rarely touched Pop-A-Shot or Skee-Ball. I did not play video games, those were Dave & Busters or arcade fare. Ballpit was for suckers (doesn’t exist any more). I played the dinosaur game where you tried to flip your tokens in and at the minimum always got 10 tickets.
No non-ticket games were played.
Now, with just the tap “credit card”, they are making money because the kids don’t even know which machines give tickets, don’t know or think about how many tickets they have.
Yet, they’re having fun, so what’s the difference, it is truly just a completely new and unique experience. We went there to get prizes. They go to have fun with their friends. I guess that’s probably better, it just was wild to take it all in, again.
They’ve also turned the Rock-afire Explosion into the houseband but they don’t actually play the animatronics. Just have there heads go to side-to-side.
There is a person in a Chuck E. Cheese costume who mimes talking to a videoboard with a scripted birthday message. And I appreciated the employees brilliance because they absolutely waited until the 2 parties were both done with their Dippin’ Dots so they only had to do it once; not one for each party.
Genius.
2nd Down: ACC Champion Prediction Show
I told y’all I was back at it for the Bleacher Report app and the first show is at 5pm on Thursday, talking ACC Title Predictions.
As I am putting together my preview spreadsheets it really feels insane trying to track players from the portal, especially through summer and post spring. Cam Ward at Miami and DJ Uiagalelei at Florida State are the headliners. Riley Leonard has left Duke to go to Notre Dame.
We haven’t even talked enough about Grayson McCall to NC State.
But there are so many other roster moves that don’t make headlines, they just were here and now there. You look at Louisville’s portal class. You look at Syracuse, yes I know Kyle McCord is going there now, but whew the rest of those dudes going are going to activate a lot faster.
Oh and by the way Cal’s portal class is also filled with guys from major hitters as is SMU’s class of incoming transfers.
It is going to be a wild world. We’ll talk about it on the B/R show Thursday, but also on the podcast because 30 minutes before going to a swim meet isn’t enough time.
3rd Down: Putting Together My Tyra List
We’ve all seen the clip:
Every year I have what is basically a Tyra list. This year is rough, honestly because I don’t know who I’m supposed to like or not like or even care about. I’m pretty impartial but so far here is who I have:
Kaelen Deboer the Alabama head coach who lost a chunk of his roster
UCLA who a lot of people think is going to just tank it in the Big Ten
Texas, honestly, first year in the SEC and I guess we’ll see
Notre Dame continuing their independence, it doesn’t offend me, I like it
Sherrone Moore in his first season as Michigan’s first black head coach
Grayson McCall in what feels like year 10 of school at NC State
We’ll get into more as we get closer to the season, these were the first 6 that came to mind.
4th Down: Do Nothing For Father’s Day
Not a joke.
Let your dad or husband pick his Father’s Day.
I’m sending my dad a card and will do a whiskey dropoff.
That’s it.
No brunch, no dinner. Go play golf and just relax.
We’re coming up on Father’s Day and just let him do his own shit. I know on Father’s Day I don’t want to go to the pool. I know on Father’s Day I do want to make dinner, something fancy. I know on Father’s Day I am going to run at least a 5k. I know on Father’s Day I will pack the pool stuff and they can go because I’m not.
As we talk about on Hand In The Dirt coming out Wednesday, there is a difference between desire and expectations.
And you just live with it.
Cheers!!!