Football season started recently, which has really made me happy! Oh how I’ve missed my football.

If you have been following football, you have probably heard of a guy named Michael Crabtree.  For those of you who have not been following his situation, he is a rookie wide receiver who was the 10th player drafted in the first round of this year’s draft.  Apparently, he is a diva and thinks very highly of himself.  As he considers himself a much better player than many of the first round picks, he wants a higher salary than those players.  He was drafted by teh 49ers and has been holding out and refusing to play until his contract is settled.  He was offered $20 million with $16 million guaranteed for a five year contract.  Crabtree, through his agent, has threatened to hold out for the season and re-enter the next draft.

I am interested to see how this will play out.  First of all, I think Crabtree is a little “crabby” (hehe I know, I’m corny) and also needs to get over himself.  He has a great offer with a $20 million contract and he should consider taking it.  I’ve written about negotations before and completely fail to see Crabtree’s leverage/power in this negotiation.  Sure, he is a good player and was a first round pick, but it seems like his ego is going to hold him back.  It appears like the 49ers could offer him more money, but not as much as the other first round picks and this offer doesn’t seem like it is going to fly with him.

If I were him, I’d ask for more, but if the organization came back and said now, I’d take the offer or at least try to make a contingent offer.  For example, add another piece of compensation for my performance (ie. if I score ___ touchdowns or have ___ receiving yards, I get ___ dollars in bonus).  Right now, he is a rookie with no proven experience.  He hasn’t even played one down in the NFL, which is on a whole different level than college football.  Furthermore, by holding out for this long, it shows his attitude and his inability to cooperate with the team.  This makes him less attractive as a player.  There are also plenty of talented receivers who will enter the draft next year.  If he were to wait and re-enter the draft, it is likely that he would be selected later and probably take a pay cut.  Plus, the 49ers don’t need him.  It appears like their offense is going to be more focused on running the ball.  All in all, Crabtree should suck it up and take the contract.  His alternatives really don’t look so great.

This weekend, I went to Foxwoods Resort & Casino in CT for a good friend’s birthday party.  We went for two nights and had an awesome time going to the bars/clubs at night, relaxing by the pool during the day, doing a little gambling, and my favorite, gorging at the buffets.  This fun trip was not too expensive, but did require spending some discretionary income, which was well worth it for me since I had such a fun time.

As I said, we did some gambling during the trip as that is one of the major forms of entertainment at Foxwoods.  I am not a big gambler at all, but I do enjoy playing the games every once in a while.  It is obvious that the games are all created to favor the house (casino).  Every game has different odds and can be very fun.  I think there are some important points to understand before gambling:

1. Be prepared to lose – When you start playing any game at a casino, the odds are stacked against you.  If you want to make money by gambling, you are better off  not playing.  Unless you are an absolute professional poker player or can count cards in blackjack, you will never have the advantage.  The idea here, is that you are paying for entertainment.

2. Have a set amount you play with – It is so easy to play with more money than you should at the casino.  This is the problem many people run into which results in the loss of excessive amounts of money.  Go in with a set amount of money that you are comfortable with losing.  Once it is gone, you are finished.  It might even help to leave your ATM card at home. For me, $100-$200 is the limit.  I think to myself, I am willing to pay up to $200 for the entertainment.  Once I lose that, I am finished and not particularly unhappy (I hate to lose so it can still be upsetting) since I already determined that I was willing to lose that amount of money.

3. It is an incredibly low chance that you will win big – You always hear about how someone you know won a hundreds of dollars or even thousands at the casino.  What you don’t hear about are the 10 other times that person lost a lot of money at the casino.  People prefer to tell stories of when they win.  This gives us a false idea of how good our chances are of winning a lot at the casino.  Just keep in mind, the odds of every game are stacked against you.  The longer you play, the more likely you will lose money.

4. Be careful of being too risky – I wrote in a previous entry about the psychology of investing.  The psychology of gambling can be very similar.  People have a propensity to be more risk adverse when they are in the domain of gains.  That means when you are winning at the casino, you would probably want to take less risks because you don’t want to lose your winnings.  However, once you see those winning diminish and when you lose it all, you feel the need to play more to “win it back.”  When in the realm of losses, people are more open to risk.  This is where the casino will get you.  Since over time, the odds are in the casino’s favor, you are likely to lose all your winnings.  This will result in you wanting to play more to recover your losses.

I previously posted about the best job in the world.

Well, it looks like Thailand is going to have a similar job. Only instead of a job, its a free vacation with a chance to win a prize! Apparently, the tourism industry is not doing so well in Thailand, so this is a marketing effort to boost tourism!

I enjoy my job, but I sure as heck wouldn’t mind doing this job:

“Briton Ben Southall flew out on Wednesday to Hamilton Island, in the Great Barrier Reef, to start his six-month caretaker duties, for which he will be paid A$150,000 ($121,000).”

He gets to live at a resort and explore a tropical island and still get paid $121,000?! Wow.

What would your dream job be?