Hello World
March 2, 2026
Related to: gaffer_ai
I became an Arsenal fan the way most people become fans of anything. I didn’t choose it so much as it chose me. I was a teenager when I visited my older brother in London for the first time. I don’t remember everything about that trip, but I came home a Gunner and I’ve never looked back.
Of course in America, football means something else entirely. Sundays belong to a different sport, and the PL (Premier League) exists somewhere on the margins. So when I found a handful who actually watched real football, it felt like discovering a secret society. We started an FPL (Fantasy Premier League) league together, the kind where bragging rights matter more than any prize. It was casual at first, something to talk about on Monday mornings. But anyone who plays FPL knows it doesn’t stay casual for long. You start checking your lineup at midnight before a gameweek deadline. You agonize over a transfer for three days and then watch the player you dropped score a hat-trick. It gets under your skin.
The pattern I’ve fallen into over the past couple of seasons is a familiar one. I come into each new campaign with a strong squad, a clear strategy, and genuine optimism. For the first few gameweeks it holds. Then the injuries start, the blank gameweeks throw me off, I chase points with a panic transfer or two, and somewhere around December I’ve stopped paying close attention. By the time spring rolls around I’m a spectator in my own mini-league.
It’s time to break the cycle and build something that helps me stay disciplined, make smarter decisions, and actually see a season through from start to finish. Whether it works, who knows? But for the first time in a while, I’m looking forward to finding out.
I’m not much of a writer, so for this project I’ll be using AI (Artificial Intelligence) for both prose and code. Claude Code is doing the heavy lifting in my terminal and I prefer Gemini for my browser chats. If the words read smoothly, credit the models. And if the FPL decisions don’t, that’s on me.