March Madness

The coolest thing happened to me yesterday. A coworker of mine, AS for short, came up to my desk and asked quietly "what time do you get off?" I was immediately suspicious.

"Why?"
"I have two tickets to the afternoon session of the NCAA tournament."

That's right, AS gave me free tickets to round one of the Big Dance. It was sweet. I got off work and met a friend, and we went down to the Rose Garden. There were thousands of people milling around when we got there, around 4:15. It turns out, in between the morning and afternoon sessions, they boot everybody in the building out, then make those with all-day tickets come back in.

The first game was Gonzaga vs. Akron. The Zags were obviously the crowd favorite, as they're a northwest team. They were really impressive, despite a lackluster first half. They actually trailed at halftime, but made adjustments in the second half and overwhelmed the Zips. Gonzaga is full of really long, tall guys who can shoot, and when they started to press, it was over. At the half, my friend Mike and I ran into 3 of the Hoelter brothers, with whom I'm going to the Saturday session as well. They were all wearing Kansas t-shirts, even though Kansas is playing elsewhere. That's diehard.

The second game was the biggest upset of the tourney (so far). Western Kentucky, the 12th seed, knocked off 5th seed Illinois. The Hilltoppers are very athletic, and the Illini are a fundamentally sound team, and each lacked the other's strength. In the end, athleticism won out. But it was interesting, because once Illinois began pressing, it became clear that WKU doesn't have many good ballhandlers. Illinois cut a 17-point lead to 2 with about 10 seconds left, but came up short. If the game had been a minute longer, Illinois would have won.

My only two gripes with the experience would be the lack of alcohol at the venue, and the fact that they weren't showing highlights on the bigscreen. First, I guess it's sort of NCAA rule that fans not drink beer in the stands, which is a ludicrous rule. The NCAA wants to pretend it's a pure institution, but without getting too into it, that's a ridiculous conceit. Students can't afford tickets to the game, so who are they trying to protect, really?

Second, why on earth wouldn't they show highlights from other tournament games? We could see on the one scoreboard showing other scores that UCLA was barely holding on, but they wouldn't show us what was happening. Instead, we got "greatest moments" clips, which repeated over and over again. We were there for the second session only, and saw some clips at least twice. Ridiculous.

I give my first taste of March Madness action (in person anyway) an 8. I can't wait until Saturday!

The Mix Tape

Stanley and I are exchanging mix tapes via the internet right now. I've always been a huge fan of making mix tapes, which is part of the reason I got into dj-ing. It's fun to find songs that segue into one another, and it's even better when those songs serve a larger theme. The one I'm working on right now is a "Robots vs. Humans" theme, inspired by a couple of Daft Punk songs, and the Flight of the Conchords. I have 14 songs picked out, alternating between robot songs and human songs. For the first exchange, I picked out a good road trip mix, starting fast and ending slow. Stanley sent me a country-tinged mix.

When making your own, I firmly believe in what John Cusack's character in "High Fidelity" has to say about mix tapes.



You start out hot, then crank it up a little. You don't want to blow your load, so you take it back a notch. From there, you must vary the intensity. If you go with too much hard rockin', the listener will glaze over. If you whimper your way through, the listener will stop paying attention. Of course, there's always room for the hard rocker and the quiet song, but you must set them up with mid-tempo stuff. Don't be afraid to toss in the quirky song that you love, even if it's a bit inaccessible on the first couple of listens. But remember, if the tape's not just for you, you must remember your audience. Put something that will appeal to the person who's listening. It doesn't have to be a song they know, just one they'll likely enjoy. In fact, it's best if they don't know it. Who doesn't take joy in discovering a great new song or band?

Lastly, try to think about the long-term listenability of the mix tape. It may seem fun to toss that Weird Al song in there, but if by the third time you've gone through the CD you're already skipping past the song, it means you made a mistake, and your listener will be less likely to give your disc multiple listens.

I give the art of mix taping eleven pairs of headphones!

Could February End Already?

This has to be among the worst months ever. Let me count the reasons why:

-Midge's grandfather passed away yesterday.
-Midge's law school friend V died of brain cancer this month. She was only 30-something.
-I found out my position at work will be eliminated in September-ish. I'm not sure that I'll be let go, but there's no way this is good for me.
-Midge (and many other state employees) will be forced to take unpaid furlough days this year to compensate for the economic problems with state is having.
-Two of our friends, including our next door neighbors, had their boyfriends of several years break up with them.

I give February 0 stars.

Two Complaints

1. When did it become acceptable to run red lights?

I feel like this happens at every single intersection. I'm waiting at the light, ready to go straight. The turning lane gets the green, and people drive through. On the tail end, one person runs the yellow, then the next one runs the red. So we all end up waiting 3 seconds for Douchebag McGee to make his turn. It's not cool. I feel like it's gotten noticeably worse over the last couple of years. Sometimes I honk at those people, but of course, they don't know why. It's almost to the point that that's the standard. About a month ago, a guy in Clackamas got beaten up by another guy, because he wouldn't run the yellow. I'm not saying that's the norm, but it does make you wonder.

2. Am I the only one at the gym who's playing basketball because it's fun?

I went to 24-Hour Fitness last night with O, and we were having fun. Then a full-court game starts up, which I'm always interested in, and we start to play. And it's the same story every other time I go to the gym. We start to play, and there's one guy on each team who doesn't believe anything is a foul, or that anyone but himself is capable of scoring, handling the ball, or doing anything else, for that matter. A guy last night loudly announced that the rest of us weren't cutting through the lane enough, so he decided to start shooting every time down the court. He went 1 for 20 from three-point range in two games, while the rest of us continued to cut through the lane and get open. And when we had the ball, did he cut through the lane? No. And by the way, gym guy... you're not my coach, so don't complain as I shoot the ball... then act like you didn't when I make it. Don't stand motionless, 6 feet from me, clapping your hands for the ball.

Not only is this jerk a player and coach, he's also a referee! Amazing! I fouled someone on a layup, blatantly. He called, and I called it. And my teammate, who was at half-court, comes roaring downcourt, screaming that no foul was committed. You could see the body glove I left on the dude's arm, and my teammate is telling me I didn't foul the guy. You may not be surprised to know that we didn't win the game.

I give you, the reader, six gold stars for reading this self-serving blog.

The Greatest Prank Ever? The Worst? You Decide!

Midge and I went to the Grand Lodge in Forest Grove this past weekend. It's a McMenamin's hotel, with 4 or 5 bars inside and a movie theater. It was fun. We saw "Role Models," which was really funny, and drank in each bar. There was a group of really obnoxious middle-aged Republicans who kept showing up every place we went, loudly talking about politics and annoying the living shit out of us. We kept stopping our conversation to eavesdrop and laugh at the ridiculous things they were saying.

At dinner, I pulled a prank on Midge. I've told a couple of people, and for the most part, people seem to think it wasn't nice. I thought it was funny. Here it goes:

Midge ordered a french dip sandwich for dinner, which came with a cup of au jus sauce. We also split a beer sampler, which included six small glasses of beer, from lighter beer to a porter. When Midge went to the restroom, I chugged the porter and replaced it with au jus. About 5 minutes after she sat back down, I got her to try the "porter." She was surprised to say the least. It also just so happened to be that the waitress came to our table to check in on us right as Midge was taking a sip. I laughed a lot, and Midge did too, after a couple of minutes.

What do you think? I'll let you rate this prank on a scale of awesome, to slightly mean.

Miscellaneous

I only have 2 things for you:

-I competed in a rib cookoff at Emily's house last weekend, and it was a lot of fun. I made my mustard-apricot-pineapple sauce, and finished tied for 4th out of 6. Not the finish I was hoping for. I will concede, however, that my ribs were not the best. They were tougher than they often are, and I put too much rub on them, overpowering the delicate nature of the sauce. I really, really, really liked Micahoe's coconut pineapple curry ribs, a lot. I didn't mind tying him for 4th. You can see all the ribs at Emily's blog. I ate so much, and was really tired anyway, so I ended up going all zombie-like on the couch while we watched the Vikings stink it up against the Eagles. I even broke out my Minnesota sweatshirt for the game. If I'm going to pretend to be a real fan, the least they can do is win at home.

-Have you ever seen It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia? It's fucking fantastic. I can't believe we caught on to it so late. It's the funniest thing on television right now, and that includes The Office and 30 Rock, which are hilarious. Do yourself a favor, though, start with the first episode. We started in season 4 and it took us several episodes to figure out what was going on. I can't wait to rewatch them now that I know who's who, and why Frank is sleeping in a Futon with Charlie.

My ribs, I give 4 out of six bones. The show gets my highest rating: 16.5 quadriceratop faces.

The Stuff I Got

So Christmas has come and gone, and I had to work again this year. I also got sick, but you can't call in sick when you're working the holiday because then some poor other person has to come in instead, which sucks even more than getting scheduled to work. We did the crazy, non-stop weather coverage for a week, because we got more snow here than we have since 1950. While much of the city more or less stopped going to work, that wasn't really an option for me. I took the bus to work a couple of times, but the closest it would really take me was about a mile away, so I walked through the snow to work from that stop. 3 times I walked home from work, which is about 3 1/2 miles.

My in-laws and my sisters came over for Christmas Eve for the family dealy. We had a honey-baked ham, courtesy of Midge's parents, which was deeeeeee-licious. The next day, after I got of work, we went to see the Blazers lose to the Mavericks. Dirk Nowitzki is a bigger bitch than I had previously thought. The buffet that came with our seats was good, and I had fun.

Now, here's what you all really want to know: what did I get for Christmas? Good question. I got Guitar Hero World Tour, so Midge and I have been rocking out. Our band name is "Nude Slumber Party." We used the money and gift card I got for Christmas to buy a 32" Vizio LCD TV and a new TV stand. I'm stoked. I got plenty of other good presents, too, including "The Dark Knight" on DVD, plenty of work shirts, and a record player that feeds directly into my computer using a USB, which will come in handy. I also traded in a couple of the 8 work shirts I got for a nice Brandon Roy jersey.

I give the whole week of Christmas 18 inches of white, fluffy disdain, but the time I spent with my family one sweet, salty ham (and that's a good thing).