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I’m in a very weird mood right now. Let me paint a better picture. I’m supposed to be working on a project that is due today. Instead, I am sitting here facebook-stalking with a wine glass of champagne. Stacey and I were celebrating my recent raise and we dirtied the two champagne glasses we had, so I’m making due. I felt completely on top of my job until this week. My numbers for the year were really good, but nose-dived at the beginning of the week. Luckily, this didn’t affect my raise. It did kick me in the balls and bring me down a notch on the ego scale. This apathy is really going to hurt because I have a LOT to do this weekend. Taxes, cleaning the Grand Prix so I can drive it off a cliff, paying my car bill, etc. I think part of the reason why I’m in a weird mood is because I fell asleep on the couch last night and was awoken by some drunk asshole trying to open our door at 3am. Did I yell at him that this wasn’t his apartment and he should go away? No, I just watched him through the peephole like a scared little bitch and then stayed awake for 2 hours to watch Pros vs. Joes, Hogan Knows Best, Leno re-runs, the X-Effect (completely scripted piece of trash), and Girls Gone Wild infomercials. That lineup would lead you to go in for work on a sick day if it were on during the day, but is a masterpiece of entertainment at 3am.

I am crazy excited for the game tonight because I think MSU is going to win. Even though that probably means they won’t, it still is exciting. The hockey team starts their NCAA title defense at 10 as well, but you only get to see it if you are one of the 16 people in the country with ESPNU. Did I mention my mom is in the 99th percentile on ESPN right now? She has all of her Elite 8 teams alive.

Oh well… better force myself to get that project done…

Madness Eve

For the past 3 nights I have toiled with many decisions. I have moved teams back and forth, but finally my bracket is done. Not so much because I am happy with my selections, but more so because I want to go to bed. Sadly, I haven't been worried about any of my work in the past 6 months as much as I have worried about my picks. Now that I am done, here's how I know already I messed up.
-I overrated the Big East
-I underrated the Big 10
-I didn't pick a team ranked lower than 4th to lose in the first round
-I overrated the 2 seeds
-I overrated the Pac 10

I am proud to say I stuck to one bracket this year. Who knows which teams I picked.

Good luck to MSU. Let's hope I am wrong about my South bracket past the first round.

March 1st

Even though it has already half over, does anyone else feel like March is just beginning? Besides the Shamrock Shakes, what else is there to March? This afternoon I was taking a look at teams trying to decide which bubble teams I would put into the tournament. After removing the 28 automatic bids and the 28 locks, I was left with 9 teams. I chose: Akron, Texas A&M, VCU, Kansas St, Villanova, Arkansas, Arizona St, Ohio State, and random lower conference team. I was only half right (plus Southern Alabama ended up taking that 9th spot). I do not understand how Arizona gets the bid over Arizona St; they had one more conference loss and two more overall losses. Arizona St won both head-to-head matchups, destroyed Xavier, and split their matchup with Stanford (which Arizona failed to do). They have slightly more to complain about than Ohio State, who played the toughest schedule this year. They should have made it over Kentucky.

Let's move past that and look at the brackets. The most appealing first round matchup without a doubt is Kansas St/USC, which could feature the top 2 draft picks of this year. The Miami Heat already have their flight booked for the game that is, of course, on Friday at 7pm.

Most likely...
1-16 upset: Kansas/Portland St... ha!
2-15 upset: Texas/Austin Peay
3-14 upset: Stanford/Cornell
4-13 upset: Washington St/Winthrop (sorry for picking on all of the Pac 10 schools)
5-12 upset: Clemson/Villanova
6-11 upset: Oklahoma/St Joe's
7-10 upset: Gonzaga/Davidson
8-9 upset??: Arkansas/Indiana - they've lost everything

Biggest tournament slight - Conference: Big 10 - Wisconsin, Indiana, and Purdue were all seeded one spot lower than they should have been and OSU was left out. We were slotted one spot too high.

Biggest tournament slight - Team: Butler - How do they go 29-3, finish as the #10 team in the country and wind up with a #7 seed?

Best...
1st Round Game: Gonzaga/Davidson or Notre Dame/George Mason - I think they'll both be close and pretty exciting at the end.
Possible 2nd Round Game: Butler/Tennessee or MSU/Pitt
Possible 3rd Round Game: Wisconsin/Georgetown
Possible 4th Round Game: UNC/Tennesee

Favorite Sleeper: Georgia - you've gotta love the SEC Tournament story plus Xavier/Purdue/Baylor aren't the strongest first 2 round opponents.

The Weekend Nobody Was Supposed to Visit

We once discussed, if you remember, the possibility of everyone coming to Columbus for the MSU/OSU basketball game. More recently, Stacey's friend from Saginaw told us she was planning on visiting this weekend, but didn't because my parents were already scheduled to make their first trip down since we moved in. That, of course, didn't happen because we received a blizzard - the biggest snowfall Columbus has seen since the 1910s. The largest reported snowfall was at the airport, which received 20 inches of snow. This comes to the worst snow removal city in the U.S. (it's a fact). So here's my recap of the weekend nobody was supposed to visit.

The weekend starting with me having to cancel our classes from home. I didn't want any of my students to know my cellphone number, so I discovered a neat trick. Dial *67 and then the phone number you want to call and press send. You will show up on their caller ID as a restricted #. It's GREAT!

I watched America's Best Dance Crew on MTV (Mike, ask Grace - I am sure she's probably watched it before. Kevin, it's like American Idol for breakdancing, so you can just skip to the next paragraph, which I'm sure have already done). There's two groups I really like: one called Jabbawockeez, who wear white masks, and the other called Break Sk8. They breakdance on skates - real creative title, huh? Anyway, here's a sample (skip ahead to the 1:10 mark)


After getting cabin fever from being locked up all day, I made a break for it last night and walked to Kroeger. It kinda felt like a ghost town after the apocalypse. I bought only the most important things, since I had to carry everything back to the apartment. That included a new toothbrush, Gatorade, ice cream, and goldfish crackers.

As I write this, I am watching MSU throw the game away via ESPN's Gamecast. I still hate it when you live 3 miles away from the arena and can't watch the game or listen to it on your computer. I'm not going to go off on a super rant again, but I really think the Big 10 is the worst conference at exploiting their fans in favor of money. Now onto the MSU/OSU game...

After considering the last 3 games, MSU is the most ready they'll be for the tournament. Naymick was incredible against Illinois and Suton is playing well also. Raymar shook off his flu and put up 19 points today. Chris Allen made a lot of noise early in the game with his three 3's. I can forgive losing the game late to OSU, since they are at home and are playing for their tournament lives. The only piece about MSU that isn't ready is Neitzel. His season long regression will doom MSU in the Sweet 16. 2 for 10 today? You can't argue that teams have started to key on him or that they've now figured him out. He's been one of our best players since his Sophomore year. I hope he will excel against new teams; he averaged 14.5 against non-conference and 12.6 against Big 10 teams this season.

UPDATE:
Here's the photo of our balcony yesterday. It snowed for a few more hours after this.

The weird thing is today it was very sunny and all of the snow is melting quickly. They're worried about flooding possibilities.

Random Thoughts

I noticed today the Atlanta Falcons cut both Joey Harrington and Byron Leftwich leaving themselves with just Chris Redman, DJ Shockley, and the QB to be named that they will obviously draft with the #3 pick. These cuts are in addition to Warrick Dunn and Alge Crumpler. Seriously, who will be playing for this team next year??? I really feel bad for their owner, Arthur Blank. He loses the franchise with Michael Vick, then Petrino jumps ship in the most despicable manner that any coach has in the past year. I don't blame them for starting COMPLETELY over again. Interesting fact discovered from searching their website: Roddy White is a WR for the Falcons as well as their Director of Event Marketing and Client Services. I guarantee you that guy used to go by "Rod" or "Rodney" before the real Roddy showed up.

In the wake of Brett Madden-Favre's retirement, I am curious where Aaron Rogers ranks in fantasy football next year. For starters, you have to throw out the completely obvious ones - 1) Brady 2) Peyton 3) Roethlisberger 4) Romo 5) Palmer and 6) Brees. I am somewhat skeptical about 7) Derek Anderson's repeat performance, but Donte' Stallworth really improves his chances. I don't like 8) Hasselbeck, but I would take him over Rogers. I am always hesitant to get the same QB from one year to the next, but I wouldn't pass on 9) Rivers, 10) McNabb, or 12) Garrard. So that takes us well out of everyone's #1 QBs. I would probably take 11) Eli and 13) Cutler over him as well, but I'd be comfortable taking him over anyone else. Both Warner and Kitna are old and are in jeopardy for the whole season. I'm not a Jeff Garcia fan and Vince Young is a bad fantasy pick (sorry Kevin).

Now some Deep Random Thoughts...

I am still really happy with my new car. That's all I have to say in this paragraph - I love it.

Everyone else as happy as I am to get rid of Shaun Rogers?

I am actually more excited for Dontrell Willis than Miguel Cabrera.

I have noticed a lot of people who have never had an interest in politics become enthralled by the Barack Obama campaign. I'm all for civic engagement, but I really think it's just a fad. Don't get me wrong - he is a great speaker and I am really excited about the idea of him running for the presidency in the future. I just don't get the feeling he has any concrete plans or the ability to get much done at this point in his career. He needs another few years of experience.

My team to win the NCAA tournament since the beginning of the season is Tennessee, but I should've announced that before. I guess I'm announcing it now then.

I found a place to semi-replace the hole left in my heart for Jersey Giant. The place is called Jersey Mike's - they slice the meat when you order, put it on a really long sub, and wrap it in the same paper. I really felt like I was back at J.G. when I ate there.

I am making a bigger deal out of changing my license plate and driver's license over than I should. I kinda feel like it's the last thing that ties me to Michigan. It literally identifies me as being from Michigan. Oh well...

New Car - Round 2

The nice thing about the Ford dealership was they were willing to pick me up for a test drive. I drove the Focus back to the dealership where everything went downhill. The first thing I noticed was that the back seat is TINY. Now, I know 1) I will hardly ever have someone ride back there and B) Screw them as long as I have enough room. The problem was that I was looking for the Focus to come in around $30 less than the Sentra. It initially came in around $20 more. After some long negotiations, they finally matched the Sentra. The sales guy was really nice and laid back, which I appreciate. When he saw the deal wasn't going to happen, he used some very basic sales techniques to try and save it. He brought in some douche to tag team me - this is meant to have someone to play off of and put a little pressure on me. They proceeded to take the conversation away from the car by talking to Stacey about working in the zoo. Wrong move. Everyone knows I'm a little egotistical and that I like talking about myself. In the end, we differed on how valuable the Focus was.

Today I picked up my new Nissan Sentra. :)