Scott Desgrosseilliers

RotoExpert.com

I am part-owner and weekly columnist in the fantasy sports advice site www.rotoexpert.com that launched earlier this year.  The site aims to fill the void of fantasy sports advice on the web.  Most sites are not willing to take risks with their opinions and suggestions on how to run your team.  We got frustrated by the occasional emails from CBS Sportsline’s fantasy sports site telling us to watch a hot rookie for a few weeks before making any decisions;  In our leagues you need to have scouted and acted on any future stars months and sometimes years before they actually start contributing at the major league level.

People aren’t as unique as they think.  What’s true for one person is usually true for many others.  We realized if we thought Sportsline.com’s advice was a joke, many people in other sportsline.com leagues felt the same way.  Www.rotoexpert.com offers expert advice from playing fantasy sports for over 2 decades.

I write approximately 2 columns a week.  “The Rant” is a sports-focused column relaying my highs and lows of owning a fantasy sports team, gambling, cheering for my Boston teams, or running a fantasy sports league.  The other column I write each week varies.  Sometimes it is hard-core roto junkie advice on how to crush your opponents.  Or I might take out my frustrations at something pathetic the media is making into a controversy and call it “Ridiculous Link of the Week”.

Here are some links to the articles (you gotta love my white-man afro on the picture):

The RotoExpert.com home page

>How to deal with February, the worst month for a fantasy sports addict

>How to choose your fantasy league keepers

>Hallucinating that Manning out-dueled Brady at the Super Bowl

Dentists. Get a second opinion!

“Always get a second opinion” is one of the many pieces advice that people hear and rarely follow.  Life is too hectic and time-consuming to perform the necessary diligence on every decision.  When I go to the doctor’s, I will usually take their opinion and course of treatment, but not always.  On trips to the dentist, I have always followed the dentist’s advice – Because I had never been in need of a filling before.

I had a tooth that was a pain in my…well I was going to say pain in my ass, but it was actually a slight pain in my mouth.  Nothing I couldn’t endure, but the enamel was wearing off the top of a tooth and occasionally a stray herb or spinach leaf could get caught in it (it looks real hot when that happens).  I got a flyer in the mail with what appeared to be a nice, mom-like dentist that was within walking distance of my condo. 

I walk in there and something was off with the vibe of the place.  I realize that is a very vague statement, but you either understand what I mean by “the vibe” or you don’t.  I sit in the chair and the hygienist pulls out this thin black instrument and sticks it in my mouth.  Hmm, I don’t recall seeing this thing before in any previous trips to the dentist.  As it passes over my teeth, more often than not I hear this loud EHHHH noise, like the sound on family feud when the family guesses wrong and a big red X flashes up on the screen.  “That means you have a cavity” the hygienist tells me.  My heart sunk, I had gone 36 years without a cavity, getting old sucks!  I was also perplexed, because the cavity detection machine she was using seemed to be making loud angry noises on half my mouth! 

The dentist comes in, looks over the cavity detection machine’s readout, and tells me that I have 11 cavities!  I refused to believe it.  “How could I go from no cavities in 36 years to 11 cavities over the past year?” I exclaimed incredulously.  Her hypothesis was that perhaps I was drinking a lot of Gatorade. 

I walked out of their determined to prove this dentist wrong.  After 2 months I went to see another dentist from a friend’s recommendation.  I had only one cavity!  It still was a buzz kill ruining my perfect dental health streak.  But ten cavities had somehow disappeared from my mouth.  I told the dentist about my eleven cavity diagnosis and she was mystified and re-checked my mouth.  “I don’t know what that dentist was talking about” was her response.  I’m glad I got a second opinion on my dental work.

What It Is Like To Be Color Blind

I was truly baffled with my lady.  She was explaining to the cake baker that she needed crimson red icing on one of the wedding cake levels.  I saw that the cake book already had burgundy, red, and maroon, isn't that close enough?  She growled in disdain at my nonchalance when it hit me - I had no idea what crimson red was because I am color blind.

People hear "color blind" and assume that means I only see black and white.  That could not be further from the truth.  I can see all colors (I think), but my ability to identify the colors is very situation-dependent.  It would be more accurate for people with color blindness to be called color-challenged or that they have a color memory condition.  Because while I have no problems being called color blind, I can see the colors, I just the following scenarios where I can't identify them correctly:

• Inadequate lighting.  I once identified the tool creating the baseball foul lines as yellow when it was actually tan because the tool was in the shade.  My baseball team was in disbelief and began playing "what color is that?" about everything in the dugout.
• Distance.  From far away brown and green are really hard to tell apart.  When I get closer, I can always tell that the brown and green objects are different.
• Certain shade combinations.  Put leaves, grass, moss, dirt, and bark in the same pile, and I can see they are all different shades of some kind of green and brown, but figuring out which is which is not easy.  Light brown dirt looks like green usually.
• Weird unexplained mis-identifications.  I consistently think lime green and yellow are the same.  I often think dark blue and purple are the same.  When I was 12 I got in a huge battle with my mother over a pair of Nikes.  She kept insisting I not purchase them, but I was beyond obsessed about having my new dark blue Nike Cortez leather sneakers.  I somehow won the battle of wills.  The next day my best friend wondered why I was wearing purple Nikes to school!  I asked my mom how she could let me do this, she reminded me she kept telling me not to buy them.

In all of the scenarios above, I can see that there are differently colored and shaded objects.  I just can't figure out which of 2 similar colors to describe the object.  My brain somehow can't store or remember how light brown, brown, and dark brown are different.  So it is a more accurate description to say I am "color-challenged" since I see the color but am challenged to identify its name correctly sometimes.

Montezuma's Revenge 1, Scott 0

I wrote this as a reader service about when to go see a doctor after an overseas trip. I am currently battling Montezuma's Revenge.  Montezuma's Revenge is the term used to define when a tourist contracts a stomach parasite while visiting an overseas country.

I’ve heard stories about the water in Mexico, who hasn’t?  It seems pretty simple to drink bottled water only.  I’ve been fortunate to travel all over the world and I don’t drink the water anywhere else, and there has been nothing else to worry about.  Eating live sushi that still wiggled at the table in Hong Kong, whole shrimp from roadside stands in Thailand, gross and bland England fish and chips, and all you can eat steak feasts in Brazil, my stomach took it all.  So I go down to Mexico not worrying about a thing and come back with Montezuma's Revenge.

My trip was the best I have ever had, but I wish my reminders of it were in my head, not my stomach and butt.  I first realized something was up while still in Mexico.  Every 8 hours there was an “interesting” formation in the toilet.  But I figured it would pass when I got back to the states.

What happened back in the states was worse.  After most meals, I began to carry around what appeared to be a small baby in my stomach.  I am so glad I am not a woman!  My stomach would slowly expand until it looked like there was a bowling ball in it. Sometimes I would merely have a bowling ball belly for 3-4 hours, and then suddenly be starving.  Other times the bowling ball baby would want to be born prematurely, and I would make 8 to 20 trips to the bathroom until I “gave birth to a small brown pygmy”.

This too would pass.  And once again, it got worse.  I started to experience the following daily pattern.  Wake up feeling nauseous and not eat until 2-3pm.  Get hungry and finally give in and eat, receive massive headache, then fever.  Spend a few hours in the fetal position on my chaise lounge.  Take a bunch of ibuprofen.  Pray for a bowel movement that never comes.  Eventually get hungry again.  Fear this.  Think it must’ve finally passed. Eat and drink some wine.  Bowling ball baby appears.  Run to bathroom over and over.  Return brokenhearted and dismayed that I could not give birth to my bowling ball baby.

Heaven forbid if I drank.  The few times I had some beverages of the adult variety, I spent the next day in bed or on the couch, unable to think of much, stand up much, or eat at all.  I finally went to the doctor who put me on two antibiotics that should incinerate all bacteria in my stomach by this weekend’s trip to the Keys.

When you return from a foreign country, watch your stomach reaction after eating.  If you find you look like you will give birth after each meal, get checked for Montezuma's Revenge.

Mirage VIP Super Bowl Party

I wake up with frayed nerves from 3 nights and days and nights of Vegas.  The oxygen pumped into the casinos kept you up all night when you arrived.  The flashing lights of the slots, clink of chips, and screams of agony and ecstasy at the craps kept you up through the days.  Red bull and vodka made sure you were at a perpetual mild jitter.  Gorging on the buffet gives you occasional meat sweats.  All  I want to do is sleep the day away.  But wait, it’s the Super Bowl in Vegas.  VIP party at Mirage!  My spirits begin to lift…

The day beings with gambling line analysis over brunch.  Multiple sports book proposition bet booklets lay strewn across the room.  I grab one and begin doing “astute analysis” on bets that have no rhyme or reason.  Of course Gostkowski will have more points than Kobe Bryant will have 3-pointers, that’s a LOCK!  I begin to feel better.  Everyone agrees that Eli Manning will go down as the worst quarterback in Super Bowl history.  I start thinking on ways to capitalize this, before I smartly realize that I am over-thinking things.  Just bet on the Patriots and win some easy money!  I cannot believe how much my gambling experience and maturity is going to pay off this year.  I try not to get too greedy, but it is such an easy bet, I decide a big bet on the Pats will lift me out of most of my losses on the weekend, sweet!

I put on my admission bracelet.  The adrenaline starts to pump as we walk through the Mirage to the back convention hall where the VIP party is hosted.  I feel like I am walking through the Super Bowl tunnel out onto the field. Everyone is yakking about the game with strangers in nervous excitement.  Even though there is seating for 1000 people, there is a long line before the doors open.  The clock strikes 2pm and the doors open, it is as though the gates have opened for the Kentucky Derby and we are horses, because it is a sprint for the tables.  The tables are first come first serve and the location of your table can make or break the event.  Tommy from our group sprints into the lead and snares a key table spot.  On a corner, and an aisle, with enough distance from all of the massive projection TV screens that we do not have to crane our necks in any direction in order to have a full 100” screen view of the game. 

A waiter greets us and takes multiple drink, beer bucket, and shot orders.  The Mirage Super Bowl Party is open bar, full waitstaff, cheerleaders everywhere.  There are so many bars and waiters it is impossible not to be double-fisting drinks.  8 long food buffets are setup with choice chow and no wait times.  Foosball, pool, ping pong, and air hockey tables are nearby to kill time before kickoff, not to mention numerous betting windows.  It is the perfect setup for watching the Super Bowl.  But its not the setup that makes the Mirage Super Bowl Party the ultimate place to watch the game.

Picture your favorite experiences at sold out movie theatres for comedy or horror shows.  The surround sound and large screen makes you feel like you are in the situation with the movie characters.  The audience is laughing or screaming together at the same time.  You find that your reaction to the audience, which you were a part of, causes an additional laugh.  At the Mirage VIP Super Bowl Party, there are 1,000 degenerate gamblers in the same room.  They are eating and drinking at a vicious pace.  So much money is on the game that the gambling windows inside the room have windows just for $1,000 minimum bettors.  Everyone in the place has completely overdid their partying.  Who can still party 4 days in a row in their 30s, 40s, and 50s?  The frayed, gnawed hysteria of high stakes betting done by people who need to win money and are still partying wayyyy past their bedtimes makes for a frenetic rippling buzz in the room.  Emotions are exaggerated with numerous screams and cheers each play.  There are bets on the coin toss, the first score, the last score, almost every play has ungodly amounts of money on it.  I know I exchanged tense moments while we waited for confirmation that the first punt went less than 43 yards, and then jumped in the air and hugged people when it was confirmed to be less than 43 yards, the table had just won $200!  Take the best movie at a sold out theatre, multiply that by 10, and you have the Mirage VIP Super Bowl Party.