AWOL

Soccerdude shuffles slowly and guiltily in through the door, looking down at the ground, kicking dirt up from the ground as he makes his way towards the front and towards the microphone. Pausing hesitantly in front of it, he clears his throat, looks down at the ground once more, and then starts to speak.

"I, er.."

His quiet voice hardly breaks the silence, a touch of feedback making more impact than his address.

"... I am... well, I suppose that I'm..."

"ARE YOU SORRY, SOCCERDUDE?", shouts someone from the listening throng.

Soccerdude looks up, his face wreathed in gratitude for the assistance. "Yes! That's right. I'm sorry. I've been, erm..."

And with that, his address falters yet again.

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Okay, hardly Harold Pinter is it, but you get the idea. I've been - well how shall we say? - absent without leave might be the best term. Anyway, bollocks to it. I appear to be in good company as there are a couple of other bloggers who's posts have also dried-up somewhat. I shall not bore you with any excuses. I've been trading (although not excessively) this December, but just haven't got round to blogging about it for some reason. Tough shitty titty.

Still, with the onset of the new year. Resolutions and all that, I'm sure things will take an upturn. And accompanied by some outstanding trading from all of us, I'm sure it's going to be a runaway train of success for each and every one of us in all aspects of our home, business and betting life.

...Or not as the case may be.

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Right, well I have the annual torture of the January sales tomorrow.  So it's Lakeside shopping hell for me and a good chunk of trading will be missed - including the lunchtime match between Sunderland and Spurs on telly. I do have a small forlorn hope that I may get back for the Arsenal match at tea time, but doubtless that will be missed as well and that will be the whole day written-off. Not only will I have a huge assault on my poor little old wallet, but there will be no chance to replenish it with some decent trading.

Sunday should be hopefully be clear for some trading. Monday there's nothing on but that also happens to be my birthday. New Year's day I tend not to trade as I have to scrape my tongue off the carpet and get my head out of the toilet bowl - but if I'm not too bad, then there's lots of action to be had that day. In an ideal world I will trade on New Year's day as it would be good to start the year on a decent winning day. Assuming of course that it will be a winning day.

So do I have any New Year's resolutions with regards to betting and trading, I hear you ask? I suppose only a fool would answer yes to that question... and my answer is "yes".

It's only natural to cast one's eye back over the last year and to see how we might improve and refine things if possible. As a large amount of my trading is carried-out in-play, I've been looking at the amount of time I've spent trading and working-out whether it's been worthwhile. For me I would say it has been worth it because I really enjoy my trading. It's a hobby. Nothing more and nothing less and it feels good when a trade goes well and I beat the market. That's undoubtedly satisfying and so, based on that alone, I have to say the time is well spent.

However (and you knew there was going to be a "however", didn't you?), I do also have to look at other factors. Most importantly my wife and children. They have largely got used to me staring at my stats spreadsheets or a betting API throughout the weekends, but increasingly I've been noticing my guilt at this has been gnawing away at me while doing so. It's that shitty American phrase "quality time" that has been making me feel uncomfortable. I don't need the money that I make from my betting, it's largely incidental for me. I bet because it's fun to bet. But the sighs from my youngest daughter when she sees a football match on the TV are getting a bit hard to take.

I would therefore like to make a small, if not dramatic shift in my betting activities to allow me to reduce the time I spend betting and give some of it back to my family. I will therefore be spending a bit more time on my bots than I have done this last year, and I will also be increasing slightly the amount of time I give over to my straight betting. Hopefully these activities will still allow me the satisfaction of beating the market, also give me something to blog about and yet free-up a bit of my weekend time.

Anway, this is all just hot air at the moment (something which I am superbly skilled at producing). I need to sit down and plan this all out properly, and until I have actually done that then nothing will change. I'm not bright enough to just change the slant of my betting on a whim. I need a properly focused and thought-out plan of action. When I've done it, I'll try and let you know.

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I do also have (if not a resolution) a mental resolve to complete some missing posts in the New Year. I have repeatedly been asked for the missing posts on weighting Poisson and also for the post on MLE. With my hand on my heart, I do solemnly swear to get off my fat and lazy arse and knock these posts up. Presently I don't have a great deal of enthusiasm to do them as they are rather dry subjects, but they are not that hard to produce so I'll make a start in early January and keep pecking away at them until they are complete.

Hope you all have a good New Year. I'll try and post on Sunday if I get some trades in.