Liveblog Madness 1

The first time I planned to take the day off to watch March Madness, we invaded Iraq. Our plan to watch the games on Jeff's TV had to be abandoned, since CBS news felt obligated to show pictures of Baghdad through night-vision cameras. So we went to a bar in St. Paul and spent our hard(?)-earned money there on beer and a cheese platter and god knows what else, as the bar had whatever cable channel the NCAA feed was switched over to. Every now and then during a break in a game, we'd look over to the war TV and were always disappointed. It was bad enough we were starting a war - we couldn't get some cool shots of tanks blowing up shit?

Since 2007, I've been taking the opening round's Thursday and Friday off to watch hoops all day. I couldn't take sitting in my cube during previous tournaments, refreshing a box score, angry. I've experienced it both ways, folks, and let me tell you - it is much more fun to take the days off and watch TV all day.

My friends and I have created our own March Madness fantasy league, where 8 of us draft 8 players. Your total score is calculated like this:

• Players from teams seeded 1-7 earn 1 point for each point, rebound, steal, assist, and block. 1 point is deducted for each turnover.
• Players from teams seeded 8-16 earn 1.5 points for each point, rebound, steal, assist, and block. 1 point is deducted for each turnover.

It's really fun and I obsess over it. Our draft is done through an internet chat room and that's always a blast. This happened this year:

Chris: Mike Scott, I guess
Dan: Dred Scott?
Gav: Mason Plumlee
shawn: he's 2/3 a player
Defending Champ Jim: bernard james
Dan: when you are picking players from higher seeds, please state their school
Defending Champ Jim: florida state
Gav: My bad.
Gav: I'll do better Dan.
Peter: Kim English
Chris: hahahahaha
Peter: Jeffrey Taylor, vandy
Dan: I just got shawn's joke
Defending Champ Jim: michael snaer, go seminoles!
Defending Champ Jim: putting my eggs in that basket
Gav: Doug McDermott, Creighton
shawn: fuck!
Dan: whitey!
Gav: I really don't even like the guy, but he carries that team and gets 1.5x
Peter: whithey?
Dan: i like it
Chris: withey
Chris: come on
Dan: no, just sayin' Doug is white
Dan: a cracker, if you will
Chris: ha
Dan: Chris is up
Dan: and obviously just picked Withey
Chris: Drew Gordon, New Mexico
Dan: so moving on
Dan: you know he's not drew gooden, right?
Peter: Did somebody pick withey, or not?
Chris: close enough
shawn: no
Chris: I though Dan picked Withey
Chris: thought
Dan: no one chose Jeff
Chris: oh come on
Chris: I thought you were choosing him
Chris: I'd rather have him than shitty Gordon
Dan: THEN TAKE HIM
Chris: Withey
Chris: I'm with Withey
Dan: everybody un-cross Drew Gordon from the bottom of your rankings


See? Fun!

The usual crew I watch with - who also like to take these days off - had other commitments this year, so I'll be solo on my couch, complaining about terrible zone offenses to the cat. The plasma will show the major game of interest, the laptop will stream a game of lesser interest, and I guess I'll use my phone or the other laptop in the house to liveblog. Fun?