The Sports Guy gets back into the writing fold after a summer of podcasting and nothing else. As promised, the column comes right before the start of the NFL regular season. As expected, the words “Vegas,” “Swingers” and “blackjack” are among the first to grace the page. (Hey, there isn’t a Sports Guy column generator for nothing). And he takes to task those automatic continuous shuffle machines that almost ruined Vegas.

And so we learned to despise the ugly black contraptions. Maybe we weren’t counting cards like the MIT guys from “Bringing Down The House,” but still, blackjack is all about runs, right? You have something like a 44 percent chance of winning each hand. If you’re ripping off a marathon blackjack session, you aren’t winning money unless you “up” your wagers during those few inevitable good waves … and how do you know when you’re hitting a hot streak when every hand is arbitrary?

Thank you. Agreed, those machines are evil.

So, a couple of things:

1) Love him, hate him, or like him but used to love him, it feels nice to have Simmons back in the mix.

2) Simmons, in the midst of his NFL predictions, writes that he doesn’t think the Vikings are going to make the playoffs. He has legitimate reasons. Discuss.

3) Automatic shuffling machines are among the joy-suckers in life. What are some others?

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