The (March) Madness comes to an end. Louisville wins the National Championship, and I win my work bracket competition. I actually had it wrapped up prior to the finale, but I was still sorta rooting for Louisville because they were my highest ranked team, and because I thought they were better than Michigan. It seems, for the most part, that if people have no real rooting interest in a game then they pull for the underdog, but I tend to do the opposite. I like seeing excellence rewarded. There's a romanticism of the gritty, gutty underdog among sports fans -- of the people who aren't innately talented, but who persevere through heart and hard work to defeat a more talented, but less determined opponent. It's a nice story -- I mean, everybody loves Rocky and Rudy (well, maybe not Rudy) -- but I think it's mostly BS. Often, the athletes and teams who have the most heart and work the hardest are actually the favorites... because they have heart and work hard.
Anyway, winning my office pool, gives me a bit of cheddar ($120, straight cash, homie), but more importantly it gives me some swagger and bragging rights at the lunch table. This isn't a typical fill-out-a-bracket office pool. It's more serious. You don't pick the winners, you rank the teams 1 through 64. Each time your n-th ranked team wins you get n points added to your total (Louisville was my highest-ranked team*, so each time they won, I got 64 more points). The person with the most points at the end wins. The scoring is all handled on a master Excel spreadsheet that also keeps track of something called "potential points" and "difficulty measure" -- like I said, it's serious stuff. Each yearly winner gets a little trophy on display in the office. So soon each time I retrieve a piece of paper from the printer, I'll be able to see my name engraved among the greats.
In other sporting news, real sporting news, my past-grouppal** Barb Honchak is now the Invicta FC Flyweight Champion. She's big time now, getting write-ups in SI.com, and whatnot. I streamed her title fight, and it was really cool to see her win. The fight itself was a bit on the boring side -- as sometimes happens in MMA, the fighters' styles "canceled each other out" so there wasn't a ton of action (Barb won by unanimous decision) -- but still, like I said, it was cool. (By the way, the headlining fight on the card was crazy exciting: "The Karate Hottie" has got some moves.)
So... moving on to books, I started reading a newish Nick Hornby novel called Juliet, Naked. It's pretty good so far, a typical Hornby page-turner. It's nice to read an actual novel. Other than my brother's book (highly recommended, by the way), I haven't read fiction in... well, I literally can't remember. Reading fiction is one of the first things that gets cut from my activities list whenever things get busy for me, so now that I have a kid, I'm predicting a slow go for me with the fiction for the next 18-25 years.
One thing that doesn't get cut is TV. This isn't because I'm some sort of uncouth philistine who prefers TV to reading; it's because, unlike reading, TV is something S and I can do together. TV Time = Quality Couple Time.*** Right now we're between shows, though. We're caught up on Girls, and I didn't like the second season much at all, anyway. It went from being a halfway entertaining show to being a cheap knockoff of a Todd Solodnz work or something. Everything and everybody got weird and dark and the best character in the series by far (the tall dude with the big ears) was just a bit part until the last few episodes. I might be out on the show for good. If S really wants me to watch it with again her I will, but I'm certainly not pushing for it.
We threw in the towel on Game of Thrones, and I never got started on Mad Men, so what else is there? House of Cards? Maybe we'll try that one. It's gotta be better than Say Yes to the Dress, at least.
Until next time...
*I actually don't follow college basketball hardly at all, so I leaned heavily on Nate Silver's projections. If you listen to smart people, that kinda makes you smart too.
**For an explanation of this term, click here.
***I completely justify this by something Dr. Drew once said -- something to the effect of, "Intimacy is shared experience". So even if you aren't actively interacting with somebody (perhaps you're watching TV) you can still be building intimacy. At least that's what I tell myself and S.
[Louisville coach Rick Pitino is one of those guys like Robert Redford, where he looks young from a distance, and then during a close up you say to yourself, "Oh, that's right, he's actually an old man."]
Anyway, winning my office pool, gives me a bit of cheddar ($120, straight cash, homie), but more importantly it gives me some swagger and bragging rights at the lunch table. This isn't a typical fill-out-a-bracket office pool. It's more serious. You don't pick the winners, you rank the teams 1 through 64. Each time your n-th ranked team wins you get n points added to your total (Louisville was my highest-ranked team*, so each time they won, I got 64 more points). The person with the most points at the end wins. The scoring is all handled on a master Excel spreadsheet that also keeps track of something called "potential points" and "difficulty measure" -- like I said, it's serious stuff. Each yearly winner gets a little trophy on display in the office. So soon each time I retrieve a piece of paper from the printer, I'll be able to see my name engraved among the greats.
In other sporting news, real sporting news, my past-grouppal** Barb Honchak is now the Invicta FC Flyweight Champion. She's big time now, getting write-ups in SI.com, and whatnot. I streamed her title fight, and it was really cool to see her win. The fight itself was a bit on the boring side -- as sometimes happens in MMA, the fighters' styles "canceled each other out" so there wasn't a ton of action (Barb won by unanimous decision) -- but still, like I said, it was cool. (By the way, the headlining fight on the card was crazy exciting: "The Karate Hottie" has got some moves.)
So... moving on to books, I started reading a newish Nick Hornby novel called Juliet, Naked. It's pretty good so far, a typical Hornby page-turner. It's nice to read an actual novel. Other than my brother's book (highly recommended, by the way), I haven't read fiction in... well, I literally can't remember. Reading fiction is one of the first things that gets cut from my activities list whenever things get busy for me, so now that I have a kid, I'm predicting a slow go for me with the fiction for the next 18-25 years.
One thing that doesn't get cut is TV. This isn't because I'm some sort of uncouth philistine who prefers TV to reading; it's because, unlike reading, TV is something S and I can do together. TV Time = Quality Couple Time.*** Right now we're between shows, though. We're caught up on Girls, and I didn't like the second season much at all, anyway. It went from being a halfway entertaining show to being a cheap knockoff of a Todd Solodnz work or something. Everything and everybody got weird and dark and the best character in the series by far (the tall dude with the big ears) was just a bit part until the last few episodes. I might be out on the show for good. If S really wants me to watch it with again her I will, but I'm certainly not pushing for it.
We threw in the towel on Game of Thrones, and I never got started on Mad Men, so what else is there? House of Cards? Maybe we'll try that one. It's gotta be better than Say Yes to the Dress, at least.
Until next time...
*I actually don't follow college basketball hardly at all, so I leaned heavily on Nate Silver's projections. If you listen to smart people, that kinda makes you smart too.
**For an explanation of this term, click here.
***I completely justify this by something Dr. Drew once said -- something to the effect of, "Intimacy is shared experience". So even if you aren't actively interacting with somebody (perhaps you're watching TV) you can still be building intimacy. At least that's what I tell myself and S.
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