Unattractive NCAA Title Game: Ky vs Kan

The NCAA men's championship basketball game is set for Monday, with my least favorite team in the tournament, Kentucky, favored to beat Kansas.  Kentucky got there by beating "my" team, Louisville, 69-61.  And Kansas held off Ohio State 64-62.  I'm pulling for Kansas in the finale, in the same spirit that I rooted for the New York Giants to upset the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl five years ago.  But then again, we're talking about Kentucky in basketball, not New England in football.

Governor Etch-a-Sketch and President Open Mike

Just to illustrate how futile this presidential campaign season truly is, here are a couple of examples that should enlighten you, whatever your political perspective may be. Recently, one of GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney's campaign managers, in a television interview, dismissed his "guy's" shameless catering to the extreme right wing of his party by comparing his campaign to the toymaker Ohio Art Company's flawed product Etch-a-Sketch: once Romney is assured of nomination, he'll just, like the children's toy, conveniently erase the image he's been pushing for the past six years and create a brand new one that the centrist voters will supposedly buy.  And during a recent summit meeting with figurehead Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, President Obama leaned over to confidentially tell real power Vladimir Putin's dupe that once he (Obama) is reelected, then they (Obama and Putin) can deal with some of the more thorny missile defense issues between the two countries.  Unfortunately for the President, there was an open microphone that picked up his comments.

So both candidates, Romney and Obama, should be suffering heavily now for these gaffes, right?  Well, the last public opinion poll shows Obama picking back up the ten percent in job approval rating he had most recently lost due to spiking gasoline prices.  And Romney continues to chug on toward the Republican nomination with his arsenal of fatcat donors and a not-so-surprising endorsement from George H.W. Bush.

With the way that news is presented nowadays, one channel, FoxNews, made a lot of hay about Obama's open mike gaffe, while another, MSNBC, pushed the story about Romney's "Etch-a-Sketch" campaign. CNN covered both but dwelt on neither: both stories are apparently gone and forgotten, as far as they are concerned.  I suppose the upshot to all this is that neither story is strong enough to sway the problematic "undecided" voter, who will probably wait until just before the election and then make their decision based on completely irrelevant, emotional, and stupid reasons.

Being a kid once, I had myself yearned for an Etch-a-Sketch back in the early-to-mid 1960s.  I had seen the commercials showing how easy it was to draw pictures on the screen, which gave the appearance of something very high tech (at least from a child's perspective).  But one Christmas I got one as a gift and was very disappointed when I discovered that I could only draw straight vertical or horizontal lines on it.  Those TV ads were a fraud and I knew it, although I hadn't yet learned the word "fraud".  So when I first heard of the political reference to Etch-a-Sketch a few days ago, my fraud-sensitive ears automatically perked up...

Viral Attack Nixes March Running Goal

It doesn’t look as if I will be attaining my monthly running goal of 100 miles in March.  I had been keeping pace with that goal, but Tuesday afternoon a severe respiratory virus hit me hard and I have been sidelined.  Maybe I’ll be able to resume running by Saturday, but that won’t be enough to make up the difference.

I’ve had my share of seasonal allergies and sinus infections in recent years, but I have usually successfully avoided colds, the flu, and any nasty virus in between.  But not this week, unfortunately.  Usually, I can function through the sinus infections and allergies.  But a virus can completely shut me down, which by Wednesday was exactly what happened.  Today seems a little better, though, and I foresee further improvement tomorrow.   But when I was in the worst part of it yesterday, I couldn’t imagine ever recovering, it felt so bad…

The Neighborhood Terrorist

The recent tragedy of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an innocent teenager shot to death by overly zealous "citizen cop" George Zimmerman in a Sanford, Florida subdivision, has yet to be fully investigated. But this story has strongly galvanized public opinion, which seems to largely be going down the path of a narrative of racial persecution. Martin was black and his shooter wasn't. End of story, here comes Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and company to instantly whip up furor about how blacks can't even walk the streets without the danger of being persecuted, even to the point of death. Sadly, I think that they are correct. But there is a broader, even more ominous issue involved here, partially obscured by the racial framing of this tragedy.

I do my running primarily around my home neighborhood, in which I have lived since 1989. I run down the same streets and past the same houses over and over (and over) again. I'm not black nor do I wear a hoodie when running. In fact, I look like some pathetic white middle-age codger with a running shirt, shorts, cap, and running shoes. I hold (very visibly) a Gatorade bottle in my hand while running. Still, from time to time I have the unsettling experience of noticing vehicles slowing down around me and even stopping in the middle of the road as I run by, as if they are trying to determine whether I "belong" in "their" neighborhood. There seems to be this presumption that pedestrians are de facto suspicious and motorists are de facto legitimate, when in reality it is the person alone on the street who is more vulnerable to the motorist.

The idea that people-at-large can pack guns on themselves and go about judging who "belongs" and who doesn't, frankly, scares me. As a matter of fact, it is a form of terrorism, as far as I am concerned. This dude Zimmerman was warned by the police not to follow Martin, but he kept on. He was the aggressor, but in his mind he was the "good guy" trying to protect the neighborhood. And that's the operating definition of a vigilante: someone who thinks they're the "good guy" and who presumes the personal right to enforce their judgements against the "bad guys", even with violence and killing. But the effect of this behavior is to terrorize people to the point where they are too afraid to walk the streets in their own neighborhood anymore. So we're talking about more than a vigilante: the term "terrorist" fits more to me.

I have to compare which type of terrorism threatens me the most, the "Al-Qaeda" brand that brings out the stereotypical image of an Islamic extremist, or the home-based type in which individuals run rampant imposing their (often prejudicial) black-and-white worldviews on others with the force of arms. And I sadly must conclude that it is the latter category that imposes the greatest threat to me. By far. How about you?

Early Evening Sky Spectacle Returns

Looking out upon the west early in the evening, I see once again a spectacle involving the moon, Jupiter, and Venus. Only this time it is Venus above Jupiter, still very beautiful to behold. And now, looking toward the east, I see Saturn as well.

I wonder how many people even look up in the evening sky, and then, of those who do, how many know or even care about what they see...

NCAA Hoops Down to Final Four

This year's edition of the NCAA men's basketball championship tournament has come down to the Final Four stage. The sixteen teams good enough to make it that far have gone through twelve games over the past four days. In my article written on the morning of 3/22, I ranked the teams in two ways: (1) by which ones I liked the most (or least), and (2) by how good I thought they were. As for the games just played, in the "Happiness" category" (1), I went 7-5. In the "I'm-a-Smart-Ass" category (2), I went 10-2, once again exemplifying what I have been told by others in my past: I'm too smart for my own happiness!

There are three games left and then a new champion will replace last year's, which was of course... (do you remember?)...oh yeah, Connecticut. The teams left are Kansas, Louisville, Ohio State, and favored Kentucky. If things go the way I WANT, Louisville will beat Kentucky, Ohio State will beat Kansas, and then Louisville will beat Ohio State for the national championship. The way I THINK it will go down, though, sadly looks to be completely different: Kentucky beats Louisville, Kansas beats Ohio State, and Kentucky beats Kansas for the title. Yuck!

"Sway" Voters Bother Me to No End

It should amaze me to note how quickly presidential approval rises or falls from week to week, or how much relative preferences in polls dramatically shift from one candidate to another in a campaign. After all, the president or a candidate may say something silly or even disagreeable from time to time, but that should not be enough to account for the sometimes drastic shifts in public opinion polls. If Obama's approval rating was recently at 50% and now it's suddenly down to 40%, something substantial must be causing this, right?

The only discernible reason I see for the 10% drop in our president's job approval rating is the sudden hike in gas prices, which brings up an interesting point. All I've heard from the right for the last four years is how Barack Obama is a socialist who wants the federal government to manage the economy. These voices fervently support the idea of a privately-based free market in which prices for goods and services are regulated, not by the state, but rather by the law of supply and demand. Well, I suppose that's all very good and fine if prices are cheap, but when the market for a necessary commodity (in this case it's oil) dictates a rapid spike in price, somehow it is the "socialist" president's fault for not directly intervening with the authority of the government to hold costs down.

As for the presidential candidates running on the Republican side, I can't for the life of me figure out the drastic changes in polls from even one day to the next. After all this time, you might rationally suppose that people, with all of the media access available to them these days, would have been able to form their own opinions and preferences regarding these candidates. Instead, a large swath of the voting population seems to be content with swaying with the political breeze. It's these "sway" voters who scare me more than the demagogues seeking power and who also have inspired the kind of almost insanely negative and largely dishonest campaign banter that has been inflicted upon this nation over the course of recent months...

C'mon, if you haven't been able to figure out whom you support or oppose by now, you might just as well stay home and forget about it, as far as I'm concerned. Because, quite frankly, that would mean you're just the kind of voter who would put a real problem into office (and into power) because of some vague, irrational, and emotional appeal ...

Tebow to Jets

A couple of days ago it was announced that Denver had traded their previous year's starting quarterback Tim Tebow to the New York Jets. After all, they now have their "messiah" Peyton Manning who will supposedly lead them to Super Bowl glory, although he only won one Super Bowl in fourteen seasons with the Indianapolis Colts and the dude is, well, getting along in years and coming off four neck operations. So Tim will be packing up and joining an outfit rife with dissension and with a starting quarterback in Mark Sanchez who has been publicly criticized by his teammates, is very inconsistent with his play, and by all accounts is probably the touchiest quarterback in the league. Oh that's just great, the sports media pundits say soaking with sarcasm, that's all Sanchez needs. The minute he throws a pass off the mark, the Tebow maniacs in the stands will be screaming for their hero to take over! Yeah, what was the Jets management thinking anyway?

I did hear a couple of people on ESPN and sports talk radio mention that fact that the Jets offensive coordinator this year is Tony Sparano, who employed the wildcat offense when he was coaching Miami. A player like Tebow is perfect for this formation, which necessitates a run-proficient quarterback. In Miami, Sparano employed pass-savvy running back Ronnie Brown for this role.

The smart thing for the Jets to do regarding Tim Tebow is to throw him into the game on third (or fourth)-and-short situations, a scenario that he excelled at in his freshman year at Florida in 2006 when they won the first of two national championships in three years. Back then he never threatened to replace the Gator starting QB Chris Leak and still got into the game in crucial situations. Playing him this way would throw defenses into confusion while releasing the pressure, both from Tebow and from his fan base, to give him game appearances. And providing Tebow an assigned, specialized role like this would also give Sanchez a sense of security at his starting position.

Once it became clear that Peyton Manning was going to join Denver, the vicious attacks against Tim Tebow's abilities as a starting quarterback in the NFL resumed in the sports media. This in spite of the undeniable fact that he was the pivotal agent responsible for his team turning a dismal, cellar-dwelling season around and making the playoffs for the first time in years. And then going on to knock off heavily-favored Pittsburgh in their first playoff game.

I think that some teams are clueless about effectively using a player like Tebow with his special (and very useful) set of skills. Denver falls into the clueless category. They could have kept their starter Kyle Orton for the last two years while sending in Tebow for those aforementioned short-yardage situations. Instead they allowed an avoidable quarterback controversy to fester. A Sparano-led Dolphins team could have integrated this talented, positive, tough, and spirited asset into their offense in similar manner. I don't think the current Dolphin leadership understands this, though. They, like Denver's John Elway, are thoroughly immersed in the doctrine that the NFL is a PASSING league, by gum, and not even wins and a division title under a different strategy will sway them. But the Jets might be conducive to adapting their offense...and since they are in the same division as my Dolphins, the prospect of facing them twice a year with the Tebow "wild-card" element factored in scares me a little...

Oh, one more point. Can any franchise be more clueless than the pathetic Jacksonville Jaguars, who had a chance to obtain the one player who would fill their half-empty stadium every home game? Their new owner is on record as saying that had he owned the Jaguars back when Tebow was in the draft, he would have sought him. Where was this master of hindsight, though, when he actually had the chance to pick him up? I don't know, but wherever he was he was sitting on his hands. Then again, the college draft is coming up next month, along with the opportunity for further wheeling and dealing. Maybe Tim Tebow shouldn't get too comfortably settled in New York just yet...

NCAA Sweet Sixteen: My Preferences and Rankings

Seeing that this is the morning of another day of tournament competition, I think that if I want to make my preferences and predictions for the "Sweet Sixteen" colleges remaining in play for the NCAA basketball championship, I had better do it now, before the fact. Instead of filling out a bracket, though, I will list the teams I want to win the most, with my personal ranking of each team's real excellence level in parentheses. Here goes...

1 Florida (7)
2 North Carolina (6)
3 North Carolina State (12)
4 Louisville (4)
5 Indiana (14)
6 Baylor (9)
7 Xavier (15)
8 Ohio State (8)
9 Cincinnati (13)
10 Ohio (16)
11 Wisconsin (10)
12 Michigan State (5)
13 Marquette (11)
14 Kansas (3)
15 Syracuse (2)
16 Kentucky (1)

As you should be able to see, my prospects for a happy tournament ending are bleak, with my three least favorite teams also happening to the three BEST teams. Still, Florida is currently playing their best basketball of the year. And if ANYONE manages to beat Kentucky during the tournament, I'll regard that as a personal victory of sorts. But don't count on it: they are, in my opinion, head and shoulders above the rest of the field...

NFL QB Musical Chairs Continues

As I continue to dwell disproportionately on sports topics this month, I would like to comment on the quarterback musical chairs game currently being played out in the NFL. Most of the commentary I hear and read concerns Peyton Manning signing with Denver and the impending trade or release of their quarterback last year, Tim Tebow. But other things are happening as well, including miffed quarterbacks in Tennessee and San Francisco who feel betrayed by their team's management for having gone out to get Manning to essentially replace them. This is especially the case with 49er Alex Smith, who had a spectacular breakthrough season last year and who was speaking recently with the Dolphins. Miami, for their part, signed David Garrard, formerly of Jacksonville. This after Jacksonville signed Chad Henne, formerly of Miami. Are you keeping up with this?

I like Garrard a lot, and if he stays healthy, he could be the catalyst for success that Miami has been missing over the past few seasons. However, their other quarterback contending for the starting job, Matt Moore, did play well once he was giving the starting role last year. So I see a good situation down south. As for Henne, maybe playing in another city will help his career; after high initial hopes, he never seemed to click for Miami.

Tim Tebow, I'm sure, will be picked up one way or another by another team, but it may be a long time (if ever) before he gets his starting role back as quarterback. He wins games and generates fan enthusiasm and media interest. Sounds like a formula that an NFL owner would have to take very seriously before passing up on him. I just don't want him down in Miami with fans screaming for him every time Garrard or Moore goofs up on a play...

Peyton to Join Denver Broncos

Today it has been revealed that much-sought-after veteran NFL quarterback Peyton Manning, after a relatively short period of “shopping around” the league for a team of his preference, has decided to sign with the Denver Broncos. It is interesting, at least to me, that John Elway, the team’s executive vice-president and a celebrated Bronco Super Bowl-winning Hall of Fame quarterback in his own right, was the chief force bringing in Manning. After all, when Elway was first drafted into the league in 1983, it was by the (then Baltimore) Colts, the same franchise that cut Manning less than two weeks ago. Back then, though, Elway had warned the Colts that he simply would not play for them. But they drafted him nevertheless and ended up trading him to Denver. And now, another Colts-to Broncos history repeater…

Being a Miami Dolphins fan, I was disappointed that they failed to sign Peyton Manning. I thought he would have been a good fit for this talented team that needs an offensive leader. I was further disappointed when their other prospect, Green Bay’s backup quarterback Matt Flynn, decided to join the Seattle Seahawks instead of coming to the Dolphins. Now Miami is left wondering why they can’t seem to close the deal with their prospects.

Now that Peyton Manning is slated to become Denver’s starting quarterback next season, I would be very surprised were Tim Tebow to remain with the franchise. I think he’ll probably be traded, but to where? Please, oh please let it not be to the Miami Dolphins! I don't think that they have a clue about how to effectively use him...

The Rise and Fall of My Thrill Ride Hobby

It is interesting, looking back now on my thrill ride "hobby" in the previous decade, how my feelings toward riding roaster coasters and other rides that either flipped me upside-down or severely tested my bearings with sudden, steep drops and turns have evolved. At first, I was one of the adult family "heads" taking my kids out to the park, with little desire to get on any of the rides. Many of them seemed outright terrifying to me, but late in the summer of 2002, at Wild Adventures theme park in Valdosta, Georgia, I decided to try out some of the more sedate-looking ones. This included coasters designed for little children like Ant Farm, Gold Rush, and Tiger Terror. These I managed to survive by shutting my eyes tight and repeating to myself "Safe, safe, safe..." throughout the ride. Later, I took it as a personal challenge to "face the fear" (as my brave son Will put it) and tackle some of the more scary rides, and with my eyes wide open. By the spring of 2003 I had become a thrill ride addict, and wondered to myself how anyone could truly enjoy life without a regular diet of roller coasters and rides that tossed and turned every which way but (thankfully) loose. After all, we're all astronauts in the sense that we're on "spaceship" Earth, hurtling through space: why not take the role to its proper end and undergo astronaut training?

My theme park fascination continued through 2004, but it began to fade the following year. Our attendance began to dwindle until, in the past few years, we hardly ever visit one. Why the drop-off in interest?

Well, for one, "conquering" a ride by experiencing it enough times for any apprehension to be gone takes the "thrill" out of thrill rides to a great extent. Also, I am not too keen on having to drive the distance involved in getting to a theme park like Wild Adventures, Busch Gardens, Universal, or Walt Disney World and then driving the return trip home. I don't like to pay the entrance fee, either, although an annual pass can sometimes be a good deal if we visit the same park a number of times. Going through a park for hours on end can be grueling in itself, and especially during the hot Floridian summertime, which can span from spring through most of fall (and seems to have already begun in late winter this year). But what sets me the most against theme parks is the idea that I usually have to wait for long stretches in long lines just to enjoy a two-minute ride. That I have totally lost my patience to withstand.

To top all of these drawbacks, I have a medical condition that won't be helped any with the kind of gravity manipulations and stress that many thrill rides emphasize. So even if I lived right across the street from a good theme park and had a lifetime free pass for it, as well as an express pass that allowed me to bypass the long lines, I still wouldn't be going on most of the rides. So at least for the indefinite future, I'm afraid that I will be cutting even further back on my theme park visits. But that's already been happening anyway during the course of the last seven years...

Gators NCAA Bracket Situation Flips from Negative to Positive

As I mentioned in yesterday's article, a formidable looking seeding in the NCAA basketball tournament can change pretty quickly to an auspicious situation if tough teams lined up in future games unexpectedly get knocked off by lower-seeded teams. This is exactly what happened to the University of Florida yesterday.

The 7th seeded Gators took care of their own business by dominating 10th seeded Virgina in their opening tournament game 71-46 and then waited to see who their Sunday opponent would be, almost certainly 2nd seeded Missouri (groan). Instead, Missouri fell in a major, major upset to 15th seeded Norfolk State 86-84, resulting in a pairing tomorrow that favors Florida for reaching the goal of making it to the Sweet Sixteen. But as a colleague reminded me last night, they still have to face a team in Norfolk State that beat Missouri, which had gone through the season with a blistering 32-2 record. But as I see it, I would rather face a team that upset a tough opponent than have to contend with that opponent myself...

Other teams I am following, which include North Carolina, Florida State, and upstart South Florida, all made it through yesterday's games and, like Florida, will play again tomorrow to also try to become one of the vaunted final sixteen teams left in the tournament. Should be very interesting...

Gators Begin NCAA Tourney Play Today

Later, at 2 this afternoon, the Florida Gators basketball team will be trying to survive the so-called "second round" of the inflated 68-team NCAA Tournament against Virginia, a team that matches up well with UF. It should be a good game, but I will have to work and won't be able to watch it. Should Florida manage to get by the Cavaliers, they will probably have to face a formidable Missouri squad in the next game (which I should be free to watch if that scenario unfolds). They didn't get any breaks this year in the seedings, which placed them on a bumpy road throughout the tournament. At least at first glance.

Sometimes in tournaments like this, the way to the Final Four looks well nigh impossible with very tough teams lined up ahead to play in upcoming rounds. Then, almost miraculously, some of those teams inexplicably fall to underdogs and clear the way in that bracket. I think this happened to an extent in 2005 when Florida stunned everyone by first sneaking into the Final Four against anyone's expectations and then easily walking away with the national championship trophy. I'd like to say that the same could happen this year, but unfortunately the Gators, although good enough to be in the tournament, are nowhere near the level of that earlier championship team. Still, it's fun to see how far they might go...

I am not only rooting for Florida in the tournament. I also traditionally support North Carolina, and Florida State has an unusually good team this year. Yes, this just might be the year that the Seminoles do what Florida pulled off a few years ago...and win it all!

Buy This Car...and Ignore Sirens

I was watching a TV commercial the other day, and I can't for the life of me remember the brand being promoted. That's often the way it goes with advertising for me: the message somehow becomes disassociated from the product. After all, what does a gecko or a caveman have to do with auto insurance, for example...

But at least with this commercial, I was able to retain an association with the general product, although that really wouldn't help out the company shelling out the big bucks, thinking that their fancy advertising was actually bringing in customers. The commercial was about a car that was so high-quality that it minimized...no, completely blotted out outside noise. Examples of noises being excluded from the happy driver's privileged ears were shown, with the last one being a loud jack-hammer being used right outside the car window, in a heavily urban traffic setting. The driver smiled (was it a smug smile? I can't remember) as he heard NOTHING but saw the worker jack-hammering away. A virtual sound-proof driving experience. And he blissfully drove off, with the last sound heard in the commercial being the wailing siren of an emergency vehicle. The implication here was clear: with this car, you can even ignore ambulances, fire engines, and the police! Well, let's add warning horn blasts from other drivers as well!

I didn't know that emergency vehicle sirens were sounded just to annoy drivers in "inferior" vehicles. Apparently, though, if you're the proud owner of the special automobile being advertised, you have entered a different class of humanity, one that is entitled to total insulation from unwelcome sounds...as well as unwelcome civic responsibilities...

Sh-sh-sh! You're in the Coffee Shop!

The new renovation results for my "favorite" local Starbucks are in: it looks like a freaking library to me! That's interesting because my local "favorite" library branch has recently undergone its own renovation to make it more resemble a coffee shop...

When I first walked in this morning, I noticed two things: the strange, collective seating instead of the many small tables for small parties that the old design featured (and which I liked very much), and the fact that during such a busy time no one was sitting there. Just look in the above picture at a table that I would expect to see in a library. Not pictured is a row of packed-together seats lined up at a very narrow counter facing the window around the corner, seats that even children might have trouble fitting into alongside each other. In the time I've spent here today (sitting in one of the few "for-two" tables left in the joint), nobody's felt fit to sit there. Small wonder...

I don't blame the people running this store for the new arrangement, which is one of those top-down outcomes of a VERY top-down, highly centralized corporation. Still, I managed to throw in a couple of diplomatically expressed barbs at the manager when I ordered my coffee this morning (like I'm sure they'll instantly change things back to before after hearing my objections). But after sitting here a little, I began to shift a bit in my thinking...

Sometimes I see myself (please don't laugh) as a little bit different from people at large, even to the point, at times, of being a different variety of human being. If I decide to use the new seating while others shun it, then maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to actually come in at formerly crowded times and be able to find a seat, albeit one that I don't particularly care for. Yeah, maybe that cramped, long window counter with its small, high chairs is just the ticket for someone like me who tends to go "counter" to the crowd. Then again, my common sense tells me that the "crowd" will eventually adapt to the new seating and once again "crowd" me out...

Later...as I left the place, sure enough, that thin counter with its cramped seating was starting to fill up. Oh, well...

NCAA Tourney Brackets Bring Usual Outcries

Yesterday at 6 PM the brackets for the 68-team NCAA basketball championship tournament were announced, and with much fanfare. So beginning in a couple of days, depending on how they stand in the seedings, teams will either have to win six or seven games in a row to attain this year’s title of National Champion. As is the case each year, some schools felt unfairly left out of the tournament. The TV announcers kept bringing up that Drexel, from some obscure conference, was left out while Iona, from another equally obscure conference, was included. This “controversial” decision was explained by a member of the selection committee who determined that Iona had gone through a more demanding regular season with higher quality opponents. But to me, this is all beside the point. One, they keep adding to the total number of teams allowed in the tournament: had they just stuck with 64, the controversy would have been moot with neither team getting in. Two, each of these dinky, forgettable conferences were still represented in the tournament, by their own conference tournament champions. And three, isn’t this supposed to be the tournament to determine the national championship? Why are people obsessing over the obviously more inferior teams at the bottom of the field?

There is a continual debate going on in many sports about how much the post-season should weigh in for determining championships, as opposed to the regular season. In Division I college football, a school from a minor conference can do everything right and go undefeated year after year, but never get a chance to play for the national championship. This is simply unfair. Then, on the other end of the scale in college basketball, while any school has a shot at the title, the heavy emphasis on the season-ending tournament tends to de-emphasize the regular season in terms of importance. In fact, in most conferences a school can lose every game until the conference championship tournament and then make the NCAA tourney if they suddenly come alive and win their conference championship. That just doesn’t sound right, either.

The fact remains, though, that a playoff system that gives all teams a shot at the title if they can win at the crucial time is superior to one that automatically consigns a large section of the teams to second-class status, never to get a chance to be champion no matter how well they do. How would you like it if you were a Seattle Mariner fan in baseball (or a Seattle Seahawk fan in football) and were told that, since Seattle isn’t considered to be “major” enough then they can’t play for the championship no matter how well they do in the regular season? But that’s how they run major college football. Still, as often as not, the eventual winner of the NCAA Basketball Tournament often leads to many wondering whether this is also an inadequate way to determine the best team…

Official's Blown Call in Tennessee-Mississippi Game

Yesterday I was watching a college basketball game. It was the end of one of the Southeastern Conference tournament contests, this one pitting Tennessee against Mississippi (Old Miss). The game was very close and exciting, with a long Tennessee three-point basket in the closing seconds sending the game into overtime. But as the overtime period progressed, Old Miss built up what appeared to be an insurmountable lead. Still, Tennessee kept plugging away until they had chipped their deficit to only two points with about a half minute left. Then Mississippi in-bounded and one of their players threw a pass that a Tennessee player deflected off the face of another Old Miss player. The ball then went out of bounds. The Tennessee sideline rose up in excitement, seeing that they were going to get the ball back with a chance to tie or even go ahead. But the official standing right there missed the call and gave the ball back to Mississippi. They managed to hold on to the lead after that and win the game. Since I was pulling for Tennessee to win the game (although I'm not a dyed-in-the-wool Volunteer fan), I felt cheated by the ending. I can imagine how the fans, students, players, and coaches felt. Still, because the college basketball establishment frowns upon dissension in the press, this wasn't a situation where the coaches and players railed about the unfair call that may have cost them the game. And truthfully, who knows what would have happened anyway had Tennessee been awarded the ball on that play: they may have flubbed up the basket they would be trying to score or even have turned the ball over...

It's always interesting how people can focus on ONE controversial moment in a close game to judge the validity of the eventual outcome. After all, Tennessee shot rather poorly throughout that game: had they made just a few more baskets, they would have won handily without even needing overtime to accomplish it.

I have mixed feelings about the college establishment muffling the complaints of players and coaches about poor officiating. As an American, I think ideas and opinions should be freely expressed, especially those of a dissenting nature. There does need to be a sense of restraint and decorum about expressing such views, though, and it is here that the powers-that-be can and should exercise some influence over what is said.

Contrast this with a "reality" TV show I saw the other day about tattoo artists vying for some mythical reality TV tattooing title. Every time, it seemed, that a contestant was rated behind an opponent, they vociferously complained, often with anger and profanity, that the judges didn't know what they were doing. After seeing this, I can appreciate why the college sports authorities would want to quash open dissent: it can get pretty ugly sometimes...

Allergies Picking Up

I have this recurring problem every year of airborne allergies around this time. In 2012, with its almost nonexistent winter, this allergy season has started earlier than usual. And although I take medication to alleviate the effects, I still suffer. The last three days have been particularly difficult for me. Although this shouldn't interfere with my blogging, I let it anyway. I think part of the reason for this is that I have let myself get away from the habit of having a specific time and place in which to fully concentrate on writing, to the exclusion of everything else. It's about time to reach into my memories and conjure up an appropriate setting in which to do some effective writing...

Good Peyton, Bad Payton

I'm sure that New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton would be indignant, if not outright furious, were it revealed that another NFL team had offered to pay its players bonuses for injuring his star quarterback Drew Brees during games. As a matter of fact, the Saints have been recently enjoyed something of a "good guy" image in the league, engendering a nationwide following. But recently the revelations (and admissions) that Payton and his assistant were handing out bonuses for injurious hits to players on other teams has brought this franchise down to gutter level, even surpassing the New England Patriots videotaping scandal a few years back for its vileness. How would you like to be a team in New Orleans' division and have to play them twice a year? Well, Sean Payton's reputation is shot, as far as I'm concerned...

Another "pay-ton", this one whose reputation remains sky-high, has just been cut from his career-long team: this week the Indianapolis Colts, anticipating a star quarterback drafting of Stanford's Andrew Luck, cut Peyton Manning, possibly the greatest quarterback in the game's history, to avoid paying out a contractually-imposed $28 million bonus. Manning suffered through three neck operations and difficult, long recoveries last year and it's uncertain how much longer he will be able to play professional football. If the price tag isn't too high, it would be cool to see him wearing a Miami Dolphins uniform next year...

Neck injuries can build up over time, so I wonder whether some of Peyton's neck problems came about from opposing players putting unnecessarily rough hits on him in order to collect "bounties". I do remember the Colts playing in the Super Bowl against the Saints a couple of years back. In my opinion, everyone in New Orleans management aware of their disgusting program who even just gave it tacit approval should be fired. Immediately.

NCAA Hoops March Madness Upon Us

Now that March is here, I suppose it's time for me to pump up some enthusiasm for college basketball. After all, it is now conference playoff time and many teams across the country are vying for the dwindling spots open for the vaunted NCAA Tournament. The University of Florida is pretty much guaranteed a spot, regardless how they do in Friday's SEC tourney game. They haven't done too well lately, though, which had partially to do with the season-ending injury to their able sophomore guard Will Yeguete. Still, that doesn't explain the team's incredibly poor shooting performances in recent games. If they want to go far in either the SEC or NCAA tournaments, they had better get that part of their game together.

Last night there were a couple of games on ESPN in minor conferences: VCU vs Drexel and Gonzaga vs St. Mary's. Sorry, I haven't quite gotten my enthusiasm high enough to care in the slightest about these games, which by what I saw were pretty competitive. But maybe I just need to wait a week or so...

Venus and Jupiter on Display in Western Evening Sky

Just before the skies around my region clouded up for a succession of days, I noticed one twilight, when I happened to be off from work and therefore with the opportunity to sky gaze, that, looking west just after sunset, the moon (waxing crescent) was juxtaposed very close to a very bright Venus. And Jupiter was close by, a few degrees eastward (i.e., up). Then the overcast conditions ensued. I saw a reference to this astronomical event (at least from the perspective of Earth) later on a cable news show, but even they were realistic enough to point out that this was visible "from Los Angeles". I guess the rest of the country was under one big, bad-ass cloud!

Now the skies have cleared up again and, alas, our lunar companion has moved on with its phasing toward more eastern parts of the night sky. But the spectacle of seeing the two brightest planets so close to each other in the early evening sky is still something to behold. Try to catch this wonder if you have the chance...

Sermon Hits the Mark on Several Points

At the local church that I regularly attend with my family, the pastor there gave a sermon today that resonated with me. He emphasized the need for people to stop being in such an impatient hurry throughout their day. Instead, they need to build margins within their lives in order to give themselves more time to get to where they want to go, and to do the things they want to do once they get there. He also decried the insidious multitasking that has permeated our society. And he was at least partially right when he said that trying to do more than one thing at once usually leads to all things attempted coming out substandard.

Naturally, this preacher followed the theology he subscribed to and cited Jesus as the perfect example of someone who, although clearly under a lot of time pressure to accomplish a great deal in a very short time, nevertheless calmly went about his tasks, concentrating on one at a time, while building in rest periods between activities.

Rest is important, and so is recreation. Naturally, we don't want to lose sight of our duties and goals in life, either. But better to pace oneself at things than to frantically burn oneself out under unrealistic deadlines and schedules while rushing through several activities at once.

Still, I beg to differ with the pastor's flat-out opposition to multitasking. In my opinion, being able to think on different levels about different things at the same time is actually part of our basic human nature and is necessary to effectively function as a mature adult in today's society. Naturally, some activities (like driving) demand more focused attention to the task at hand than do others (like tidying up the house). When I run, I usually listen to my MP3 player. Also, during that activity I mentally review foreign language vocabulary lists and engage in an inner dialogue about just any topic that interests me. In fact, some blog article topics of mine have come to me while running...

I suppose in the end that balance between work and rest is the main thing. And cultivating a sense of patience and perspective about what can be done in the time accorded us. Gee, that sounds an awful lot like Gandolf's advice to Frodo!

Winnie the Pooh's Got Nothing on This Blustery Day

Today has been one of those days when weather dominates. At this writing (about 5:30 pm), it hasn't yet rained. But the wind has been absolutely ferocious around Gainesville. I was due for a long run today, but I decided to forgo the blustery outdoors in favor of a "kindler, gentler" indoor setting: the treadmill at my local YMCA. While I was running my eight miles there, I looked out on the pool area, which faced the exercise room. There were lap swimmers on the right and a few families in the shallow end on the left. Around the pool was an assortment of plastic lounge chairs, upright chairs, and tables. Taking in the scenery while listening to my MP3 music helps to relieve the monotony traditionally associated with treadmill running. Today, though, I didn't anticipate anything remotely exciting. That suddenly changed, though, when I saw a lounge chair suddenly move by itself about ten feet to the left, resembling a scene from the movie Poltergeist. But that was just a forerunner of a different cinematic association. For a couple of minutes later, the poolside scene resembled the tornado segment of The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy frantically ran back to her farm as the sky darkened and objects flew up all around. Only here it was several lounge chairs being lifted into the air and crashing back down, with some of their backs torn off. And just on the other side of the glass window from me, a medium-size circular plastic table lifted into the air and crashed into the glass door to my left, miraculously avoiding breaking it, after which it was thrown into a bush about 15 feet away. As suddenly as this mini-windstorm came on, it ended just as quickly. A couple of minutes later, a lifeguard nonchalantly walked around the area, returning chairs and tables to their original places and reattaching the backs to the lounge chairs. I was just relieved that no one was hit by flying chairs during the gale burst, because there was a strong potential for injury there. The winds continued to come and go with occasional strong gusts, and the situation continues to remain the same.

I understand that there are two storm systems at play here, including the one that swept through the Midwest and South, killing at last count 32 people from tornadoes. There is a tornado watch for my area through the night, which is expected to see an intensification of the storminess...

...With a Nod to Sufjan Stevens

Happy Casimir Pulaski Day...other than that, there's not a lot for me to report on for this March 1. Things are generally going well with me, how about you? I'll be getting a week's vacation in a couple of days, although I don't have anything special planned. But sometimes just having some time off from work is just the right prescription, giving opportunities for rest and some catch-up work around the home...

Let's see, what am I reading nowadays? I just finished mystery writer Susan Grafton's J is for Justice novel; it has a pretty nifty ending, I must say. Now I'm starting on the late Michael Crichton's Sphere, having deliberately avoided the movie. I hardly ever read the book version of a movie after I've watched it, although I am always watching movies based on books I have previously read. The only exception I know to this was with Arthur C. Clarke/Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, when I read the book after seeing the movie. But then again, this was a unusual case of a book written based on the movie! I am also gradually getting through what is shaping up to be an excellent novel by Stephen King: 11/22/63. I haven't yet reached the halfway point, though...

I am planning to continue my running until someone with medical authority in the matter flat-out prohibits it. Today I did a short run of 3.24 miles. I'll be running a short distance tomorrow since I'm driving to Jacksonville and back in the morning. I plan to keep up my distance running as I instinctively feel that it definitely contributes to my overall good health. I also want to go back to swimming like I did last year...