Juiceless

to the exhausted,

'Juice' has a variety of dirty meanings, none of which I will reference any further than this point. If the title had been related to those dirty meanings, then this post would have been more appropriately named 'Juiceless & Happy'. But as it is, it is more like 'Juiceless & Even-Keeled' or 'Juiceless & Eh..' or 'Juiceless & I-could-go-for-some-lunch,-but-I'm-not-all-that-hungry.'
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My first memory of 'juice' being anything other than fresh-squeezed* and pulpless** was when my older brother first described to me the intricacies of sports betting. In most sporting contests, there's a favorite and an underdog. If given even odds (1:1), most people would bet on the favorite and would therefore win more than 50% of the time. Bet enough money (or cycle your cash enough times), and you wouldn't have to work.

This would, however, bankrupt sportsbooks and bookies. So somewhere down the line, someone invented the idea of a spread, where you give points to the underdog to make it fair. In theory, the number of points or 'line' should match the final score. A line (or spread) might read 'New England vs Houston, Houston +5' which would mean that if you bet on Houston, you get 5 points toward the final score: NE 20 - Hou 21(26 with spread), win; NE 20 - Hou 14(19 with spread), loss; NE 20 - Hou 17(22 with spread), WIN. In the last case NE wins, but 'did not cover the spread'. A few years back in their nearly undefeated season, NE was crushing opponents, covering all kinds of ridiculous spreads like -14 (when you bet on the favorite, points are taken away, which is the same as giving points to the underdog). In football, anything over 6 points is likely a lopsided game.

In actuality, the sportsbooks don't care what the final score is or if the line even comes close to it. What they want is a line that will induce bettors to bet both sides equally, so that in the long run, they'll break even no matter the score. But how do they get their money then? One word: juice. The odds may seem close to 1:1, but it's usually 110:100 against. In order to win $100, you have to bet $110 and the $10 difference is the juice money which makes sportsbooks profitable in the long run.

In order to get even betting on both sides, the line or spread will move to entice future bettors. So if the line was initially Houston +5, and a lot of people like Houston, then the line might decrease to Houston +4.5 and so on until the bets balance out, but at whatever line you place your bet, that's the line you're stuck with.

There was a whole movie called 'Two for the Money' devoted to sportsbooks starring Matthew McConaughey (who shirtless for a good part of the show, which may qualify it as female porn) and Al Pacino. It's a horrible movie, except if you know about sports betting and want to impress a girl while she's mesmerized by a sweaty, ripped Matt. I've never tried, but in theory it should work.

So juice is that little extra bit at the end that might make a whole venture worthwhile when the initial work seemed arduous, awkward, mostly unpleasant***.
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In non-jargon use, 'juice' usually refers to energy or electricity and the like. And I am wholly drained of all juice at the moment. And I've been drained for the past two weeks. The R&R hasn't spiked my energy or motivation one bit. There was that one Black Friday morning where I waited about 15minutes for my gaming system, but since then it's been all Netflix and shifting around to different parts of the sofa so the ass print doesn't become permanent. All this is actually pretty great, but I am concerned that I haven't grown tired after 2 weeks which is normally the breaking point.

It is like when the non-replaceable battery in my iPod nano gets entirely drained, and I plug it into the USB port of my computer (because it doesn't come with a wall charger****) and for about 5 seconds, nothing happens. Then the white apple with the bite mark comes on (for how much it costs, can't we get a whole apple?), followed by the little flashing green battery icon to which I greet with a sigh of relief.. and shame that I'm an addict to Apple juice*****.

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*,**,***,***** - okay, I lied about the dirty meanings thing :)
****Seriously Steve Jobs-- $160 and you can't include the wall adapter which costs another $30?