March 15, 2006

• Weird Thing I Saw Today: The bridge that I normally cross to get to MUO was closed today, so I had to use another one. On my way, I passed a house that had some strange stuff in the window. The first thing was a Carty Finkbeiner for Mayor sign, which actually wasn’t that weird (though the election was months ago and Carty looks to be just as crazy as he was the last time he was mayor). The second thing was a poster for Super Bowl XXXIII, which is kind of odd (and no, I don’t remember who was in Super Bowl XXXIII). The last (and weirdest) was a very large picture of Jodie Foster from the 70s.

  
  

   

  
  

  My mom got a call from her best friend Jeannie earlier tonight. Jeannie’s sister’s partner Kathleen has been suffering from terminal colon cancer for the last year or two, and apparently she’s now taken a turn for the worse and probably has only a few days left. She and Mary Jo (Jeannie’s sister) have a teenage daughter. I haven’t seen them in years, but they’re very nice people and I hope they can get through this time.

  
  

   

  
  

  The NCAA playoffs begin tomorrow. This is the only time when I actually watch basketball. Unlike the Oscars, where I just pick my choice of winner, I try to predict the winners of the playoffs. This is because the first time I did it (either junior or senior year of high school), I only got one match-up wrong in the first round of the men’s tournament and I got the first round of the women’s tournament exactly right. While I haven’t been nearly as accurate since, I have gotten a lot of upsets that no one else predicted, like Kent State advancing to the sweet sixteen a couple years back and Duke being upset in the Regionals. This is pretty good, considering I know nothing about these teams except for their rank and record, which is what gets put on the grid in the newspaper. So, at the risk of humiliating myself, I’ll post up my predictions by day (though I have a tendency to fill out the whole grid, and then revising the later brackets when I go wrong). Tomorrow is the start of the men’s tournament (the women’s doesn’t start until Saturday), and tomorrow’s games are listed below (my predictions, shaky as they are, appear in parentheses):

  
  

   

  
  

  #1 Duke vs. #16 Southern (Duke)

  
  

  #8 George Washington vs. #9 NC-Wilmington (George Washington)

  
  

  #5 Syracuse vs. #12 Texas A&M (Syracuse)

  
  

  #4 LSU vs. #13 Iona (LSU)

  
  

   

  
  

  #5 Pittsburgh vs. #12 Kent State (Kent State; hey, my dad went there)

  
  

  #4 Kansas vs. #13 Bradley (Kansas)

  
  

  #6 Indiana vs. #11 San Diego State (San Diego State)

  
  

  #3 Gonzaga vs. #14 Xavier (Gonzaga)

  
  

  #7 Marquette vs. #10 Alabama (Marquette)

  
  

  #2 UCLA vs. #15 Belmont (UCLA)

  
  

   

  
  

  #5 Washington vs. #12 Utah State (Washington)

  
  

  #4 Illinois vs. #13 Air Force (Air Force)

  
  

  #7 Wichita State vs. #10 Seton Hall (Seton Hall)

  
  

  #2 Tennessee vs. #15 Winthrop (Tennessee)

  
  

   

  
  

  #5 Nevada vs. #12 Montana (Nevada)

  
  

  #4 Boston College vs. #13 Pacific (Boston College)

  
  

  #6 Oklahoma vs. #11 Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Oklahoma)

  
  

  #3 Florida vs. #14 South Alabama (Florida)

  
  

   

  
  

  Just one more rant: My newspaper’s grid for the men’s tournament is huge (It takes up half a page), but the women’s grid is less than a quarter of a page in size and the bracket lines are so tiny I can barely write the teams in. Plus, it seems a lot of the women’s teams in the playoffs are colleges with really long names, so this is frustrating.

  • 9:31 pm
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