Liveblog Madness 6

KSU had an early lead with good defense, but have lost it due to bad passes, mostly on tries to force it inside to take advantage of their size.

Really poor shooting so far on both ends. Focus after the under 12 timeout seems to be finding shots for McGruder - he's hit a 3 and been found in the post twice.

I am really hungry on these steroids, folks.

Liveblog Madness 5

A rare look inside the KSU locker room before their tipoff against Southern Miss, where we see the unflattering gut of Coach Martin that is usually well hidden by his suit coat.

First possession predictably results in a foul. McGruder hits both, and then the color man calls him McGruber in what is hopefully the first of many such mistakes today.

Liveblog Madness 4

Four already? Seems like a good time to say that I took 30 mg of prednisone this morning.

Bill Raftery just made an observation about Colorado State's use of the pump fake, and I didn't yell at him and call him a racist, so I guess that's just a Bob Knight thing.

CO State's got a white forward that's already got 7 rebounds. He'll need to keep this up if they are going to win - I don't think the team will continue to shoot such a high percentage. They are 45% from the field and still only up 5.

Liveblog Madness 3

First commercial break. Colorado State looking good so far - up a few points. CBS has elected to put the giant scoreboard on top of the screen showing the scores of games that have not yet occurred - very cool.

Domino's commercial just ran about parmesan bread bites. "We have test kitchens at corporate headquarters, but some store owner in Ohio was the one who came up with this!" A true genius. Easy to see how cheese sticks cut into smaller pieces was beyond even the genius chefs in Domino's main kitchen.

Colorado State hits a 3 to go up 10-3.

Liveblog Madness 2

Murray State vs Colorado State about to tip off! CBS has a little montage they show as they're heading into game coverage that shows 3 plays from tournament past: Laettner's turnaround to win against Kentucky, Chalmers' three to force overtime against Memphis, and the 3/4 court heave by Butler's Heyward to... fail to win the national championship against Duke? One shining moment, indeed.

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?

Read What I Read

All that work for nothing. And if we happened to cast back, in search of edification, to days past and jobs completed --- oh, what a bad idea, for what had all that amounted to? And anticipating future work just made the present moment even more miserable. There was so much unpleasantness in the workaday world. The last thing you ever wanted to do at night was go home and do the dishes. And just the idea that part of the weekend had to be dedicated to getting the oil changed and doing the laundry was enough to make those of us still full from lunch want to lie down in the hallway and force anyone dumb enough to remain committed to walk around us.

Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End

I've read THREE books so far this year, which already makes me a better person than last year, when I read two. Right?