Don't let Christmas get your goat

I've been getting lots of interesting offers for the set of 500 poker chips from GoldenPalace.com. I'm talking to a few people to see if we can iron out any deals, but if you can use 500 unique poker chips, please keep the offers coming!

On a completely unrelated note, last week I heard about the coolest prop bet ever.

Apparently, the town of Gavle in Sweden has built a giant straw goat to celebrate Christmas for each of the last 40 years. And for 40 years, it has also been tradition for vandals to try and burn the goat down.

Now comes the fun part (as if that isn’t awesome enough) -- PinnacleSports.com is offering odds on whether the goat will make it to Christmas Day. Initially, the Internet sports book didn't think the goat had much of a chance, but the odds have dramatically shifted in less than a week, with current odds of almost 3-1 in favor of the goat.

Surely the drastic reversal in odds is due the flame-retardant material the town used to protect the goat this year. History, however, hasn't been on the town's side; the goat has been destroyed in seven of the last eight years.

Wikipedia's entry on the Gavle Goat is a classic … my favorite part is the "Timeline" … in 1976 "Local hillbillies ran the goat over with a car" … local hillbillies? The 2001 entry is also priceless.

For the visually inclined, check out this video from . No, I don't speak the language so I don't know what they're singing, but it is a catchy tune.

And you can see if the goat is still kicking on the.