Final Game

The Jayhawks will be taking on Memphis tonight at 7:21 PM for the finals of the NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament. Adam has offered up his place to watch the game so I will leave it ho him to set the time of when he wants people over. Also
do we want to order pizza or something or just eat on our own beforehand and bring drinks and snacks?
Also I need everyones 10 dollars so I can pay our winner Annie so if you havent already paid (or made a partial payment) please do that soon.

UPDATE: I forgot the game was in San Antonio so it is actually a 6:20 start time.

Basketball Update

Here are the latest and greatest in rankings:

Annie - 40
Ed - 38
McNally - 37
Kasey - 35
Katie - 33
Kendall - 33
Mike - 32
Nick - 31

Games continue today. And here are our winning picks per Eds request:

Nick: Kansas over Tennesse, Xavier over Kansas, Kansas over Xavier
Mike: UCLA over Memphis, Georgetown over UNC, UCLA over Georgetown
Kendall: UNC over Kansas, Stanford over UCLA, Stanford over UNC
Katie: UCLA over Stanford, UNC over Kansas, UCLA over UNC
Kasey: UNC over Kansas, UCLA over Texas, UCLA over Kansas
McNally: UNC over Kansas, UCLA over Texas, UCLA over Kansas
Ed: UCLA over Stanford, UNC over Kansas, UCLA over UNC
Annie: UNC over Georgetown, UCLA over Texas, UCLA over UNC

Bracket Update and Final Four Pics

Here are the current standings:

Annie 38
Ed 34
Brian 34
katie 32
Kasey 31
Kendall 31
Mike 30
Nick 29

Here are everyones Final Four picks that Ed requested:

Annie: North Carolina, Texas, UCLA, Georgetown
Ed: UCLA, Stanford, Kansas, North Carolina
Brian: North Carolina, Kansas, UCLA, Texas
Katie: UCLA, Stanford, Kansas North Carolina
Kasey: North Carolina, Kansas, UCLA, Texas
Kendall: Stanford, UCLA, Kansas, North Carolina
Mike: North Carolina, Georgetown, Memphis, UCLA
Nick: Tennesse, Stanford, Xavier, Kansas

We still need to decide on where we can watch the final game. The game is on Monday April 7th. I am more than willing to have people over, but I do have the small tv that everyone complains about and I am not planning any tv purchases anytime soon (particularly since I wont be winning that 80 bucks). Suggestions?

Underdogs & Updates

There were a lot of upsets in todays play that was great to see (I love me an underdog) unfortunately for most of us, it hurt our points. Points have spread out some but the money is still up for grabs. Here are the current standings:

Annie 26
Brian 24
Ed 23
Mike 23
Katie 22
Kasey 21
Kendall 20
Nick 18

Oh Upsets...Shesh

So far today has been a bit more exciting. Two games have gone into overtime, and both winning teams were the underdog. Western Kentucky took out Drake, Mike was the the only one to call that game right. San Diego came out strong and ended up beating UConn in an exciting OT ending. I wasn't able to watch it because I am at work but Nick gave me the play by play on the phone so I felt like I was there. Also Katie was the only one to call that game correctly.

Some more games to come shortly. I will be heading off to the gym soon so hopefully they will have basketball on the tv's in the weight room because yesterday they had on ice skating. Yeah, fucking ice skating. I quickly fixed that but was suprised that no one else had yet. The room had at least 15 jocks/guys in it and as soon as I changed it, they all beelined over to it and stood there mesmorized. They were either too dumb or too lazy, probably a little of both.

Current Standings

It was a good day of basketball and the competition is heating up. Highlights include Duke barely squeaking by Belmont, which would have been a exciting upset. Xavier also struggled but ended up pulling off the win. I think the only upsets were USC losing to Kansas (we all got that wrong) and Texas A&M beating BYU. A low light for one of the teams was Kent States lackluster performance that resulted in an embarassing score of 10 at half time.

Now to the good stuff current standings are as follows:

Brian 14
Ed 14
Annie 13
Katie 13
Mike 12
Nick 12
Kendall 12
Kasey 12

As you can see everyone is very close at this point. Games continue tomorrow, I am all basketballed out for tonight.

More March Madness & The SPCA

Thanks to everyone for getting your brackets to me. Currently we have a total of 7 people playing and I should get an 8th this morning, so the pot should be 80 bucks. I will update wins and losses each day there are games so we always know where we stand (and we can taunt those who aren't doing well. Also, if you didn't keep a copy of your bracket and would like me to scan it and email it to you, let me know. This is my favorite day of the tournament because it's when all the upsets happen and it looks like the first game starts at 12:20 ET with Xavier taking on Georgia. Good luck everyone!

In unrelated news last night I went to volunteer orientation at the Central California SPCA. I want to run my next marathon as a fundraiser but I didn't want to do Team in Training which raises money for lukemia research because they already get a lot of people running and raising money for them. so I started to look at local organizations. I also wanted to start volunteering somewhere and helping animals sounded like a good idea.

The orientation was really long because the woman just wouldn't stop talking and consistently went off on tangents. Someone asked something about why ferrets were illeal in California and she went off for 10 minutes even though it had nothing to do with the SPCA. Anyway they have a lot of various jobs that they need done like cleaning the cages, walking the dogs, greeting and helping people who come looking to adopt or find their lost pets, education, special events, taking pictures of the dogs and so on and so forth. I am not sure yet what I will be doing but probably a little of everything. They are also really flexible with their volunteers, you basically just show up whenever you want to and do something. I plan on going in every weekend to help out.

They took us on a tour of the facility and it was definitely hard to see all of the cats and dogs in cages that were sometimes dirty and marred with feces and urine. Some of the dogs growled at you, some were very friendly, and some seemed sad and depressed. It will not be easy knowing that some of these animals will be euthanized but I figure if I can't stop that from happening, then maybe I can help either prevent it by educating the public or just make the dog a little bit happier and more comfortable for a short time. What is also is going to be hard is not being able to take one home with me! They had some beautiful big dogs there that I would have loved to take with me but alas, I have no yard, someday though. I even thought some of the cats were cute and I could take home with me and I generally don't care very much for them.

Anyway they need a lot of help and a lot of money at the SPCA so hopefully I will be able provide a little of both. Fresno is way behind in spaying and nuetering their anmials which is one reason for such an abundance of homeless animals and seeing as you can get that done for free there as well as get free obedience training, there is no reason for it.

Thats all folks.

Thaank You Jay! (Alcohol and March Madness)

So Jay sent a link on Ed's blog to Modern Drunkard magazine online. It's a fantastic time waster. My favorite article is The 86 Rules of Boozing. Some of the highlights include:

71. It's acceptable, traditional in fact, to disappear during a night of hard drinking. You will appear mysterious and your friends will understand. If they even notice. (For you Nick)
55. If you think you might be slurring a little, then you are slurring a lot. If you think you are slurring a lot, then you are not speaking English. (For you Ed)

You really need to read them all if you havent though, you will laugh outloud and since it is Wednesday, I figure a little reading on alcohol is appropriate.

Speaking of tonight, those of you who are going to be a part of the March Madness pool, i need your filled out brackets by tonight. I can collect the money whenever you have it. I know of at least 7 people who are definitely in and possibly an 8th and 9th so the winner gets at least 60 bucks. C'mon Adam, last chance...you were pretty good at picking winners last night, live a little!

March Madness, Colorado

Two quickies:

1) I booked my ticket to Colorado and I got on the same flights both coming and going so I will be tagging along with you all. Is there room for me to crash in someones hotel room for Wednesday and Thursday night? Also what about the rental car? Of course, I would be pitching in my share of both the hotel room and the rental car as long as you can make the room.

2) Its that time again,the Men's NCAA basketball tournament has been seeded and the first round starts on March 20th. Anyone interested in starting a pool? I think we put in 5 or 10 bucks last time so we could do that again or just make it friendly if no one has any balls err is willing to put a few bucks on the line. Here is a link to a bracket, let me know.