3:50 Giants touchdown, Victor Cruz salsa’d. I’m eating TJ’s Chunky Salsa, quite good.

3:51 Bud Light party, dunno. M&M’s commercial for the tan ones. v. Cute, made me laugh! Best so far. Celebrity Apprentice, dunno.

Short football break then coke! A polar bear has his paws stuck together? Drinks coke through straw… Cute-ish but not making sense. GM truck, disses Ford, by name! Is that like 1/2 point for Ford? Also, is a crossover ad for Twinkies (at the end of the world, only GM trucks and Twinkies I guess).

3:58 More football.

3:59 END OF 1st quarter? Already? Barely any football. Giants 9, Pats 0.
Bridgestone something about performance. Godaddy, annoying. Lexus, shiny. Battleship the movie, lots of robots, thought it was Transformers again.

4:04 Pats score, now more ads.
End of Prohibition, it’s the Clydesdales! Cute! I like it! Diorites, clever dog bribing human! Cute, I like it! Chevy Camaro, not a graduation present, but fun.

4:07 Another few seconds of football reminding us of the score. gE and Bud now having a crossover ad. GE makes the turbines that makes the beer… Well ok. John Carter movie. TaxAct, kid has to pee, bathroom full, jumps in the pool ah relief, not bad. Reminder that Madonna is in the halftime show, ok we know.

4:10 hey look, we’re watching football! Travis Beckham hurt? Ad time.
The Lorax! But wait, we don’t need jaw dropping blah blah… The Lorax awesome just the way it is. Cute Beetle ad with a fat dog exercising to get slim, cute! Something with Star Wars I dunno. Howard Stern joining America’s Got Talent, shrug.

4:15 I don’t get football, they play a teeny bit then show 5 replays of what they just did then there’s a penalty, then much standing around and then a bit more football then standing around, repeat, then ads! And that’s a long segment of football.

4:18 Ads! David Beckham in his own underwear for H&M, nice, I guess. Polar bears for Coke, sliding on the ice trying to save bottle of Coke, cute! Better than Beckham!

4:22 Jason Pierre-Paul’s dad is Jean… That’s a lot of apostles in 1 name.

4:23 Travis Beckham from before torn ACL.

4:29 We Are Young, like the song, Chevy Sonic intro. Star Wars like you’ve never seen it before… In 3D, but we all know every time he gets, George Lucas makes sure it’s Star Wars Like you never seen it before. Madonna! In the halftime show!

4:34 Avengers movie. Chick getting ready to go out, Valentines quid pro quo Teleflora. Dog wearing shoes, I didn’t even catch that it was Skechers. Cars.com, weird.

4:38 penalty then penalty. Hernandez! He was on my fantasy team (Thanks Al)!

4:41 Annoying kid taunting about having Doritos, clever grandmother wins by slingshot baby. ETrade creepy baby. Summer GI Joe movie…seems whatever, but wait, it’s The Rock!!!

4:46 Pats touchdown now tied. Kick good now NE 10 NY 9. Now Bridgestone Halftime Show feat. Madonna.

4:50 something about live like a millionaire. Citibank something about eggs and omelets… Didn’t they get bailed out? How do they spend 3.5 mil in 30s? Xfinity fastest house something, Round Table Pizza. More Citibank. Blech.

4:53 I always think Bob Costas looks like a camel. Cute sorta.

ANYWAY! First, the rest of the Round One games and scores:

Standings after Round One:
YB: 27 (alone at the top!)
mim: 26 (seemingly in contention)
CT, Yut, Chalk: 25
Kay, misa: 24 (note the presence of all of the previous winners in the top four spots)
Al: 23
Pol, Seth: 22
YuHK: 21
Lew (aka Random Coin Toss): 20 (Sorry Lew I didn’t mean to forget you last post, I’ve corrected it and now you have a line to yourself!)

And now, one night before the Championship game tomorrow:

Standings:
Seth: 71 (Catapulted to the TOP, all by himself, 10 points higher than the next closest person)
YB: 61 (The only other person to crack 60)
Chalk: 57
Al, Yut: 53
CT, mim: 51 (I can’t believe I am tied with CT. Which The Sims character did you create to punish this year?)
Kay: 46
YuHK: 45
Lew: 44
misa, Pol: 41

As you can tell from the points for each game, none of us but Seth even called UConn. And no one called Butler. Seth didn’t even pick UConn to win it all. So the results of tomorrow’s game are immaterial to us — no one can add any more points. Seth has won this year’s Know Nothing Bracket Thingie! His points steadily accumulated, while most of the rest of ours went down in flames. Congratulations, Seth! Pointless prize to come; sometime this year, hopefully! :)

I think I said this took an hour, but I was wrong: today it took four. But I have to admit, I started it while I was still “watching” the last few games and booking some travel and getting the laundry from the dryer and watching Glee and etc etc. So it wasn’t a solid four hours of efficiency or anything close.

Okay okay, enough chit chat, I know what y’all want to know!

Standings:
CT, K, mim, Seth, YB: 13
YuHK, Yut: 12
misa: 11
Al, Polaris: 10

We’re a bit top heavy right now, aren’t we? Well tomorrow! More games, and I think I made some excellent calls! (I have to lament picking Michigan State to the Elite 8 though. Aiyaiyai.)

Pittsburgh over Texas.

Btw, in case you thought I might’ve looked at other people’s before filling out mine, I didn’t! And you can tell ’cause I think K and I have the same Final Four! Noooooooooo. Gah.

Sigh. Well anyway, here are the rest, in order of receipt:

CT: Ohio St over Kansas

YuHK: San Diego St over Notre Dame

Al: Ohio St over Florida

Kaffryn: Purdue over North Carolina

Seth: Kansas over UConn

Polaris: Ohio St over Pittsburgh

misa: Kansas over Ohio St

Lew: Duke over Purdue
Lew reports that K didn’t send him a copy of the bracket until yesterday! To make sure he had no time to consider, I’m sure. Sheesh K, ESP-ing my Final Four and not giving Lew a chance to deeply consider his picks as this competition clearly deserves. Will you stop at nothing in order to repeat?! :)

Yut: Kansas over Ohio St
Actually come to think of it, I don’t think this is the first time there have been similarities between misa and Yut’s brackets either. I don’t know what’s going on!

Okay, that is all; please let me know if I’ve made any errors. Am soooo tired. Am completely stupid for staying up to do this. But I have a Responsibility! To the Know Nothing No Downside Not Too Much Upside Basketball Pool! (I’m not actually sure this is really a pool, come to think of it… more of a bracket contest. Thingie. Whatevs!) Also I almost forgot to do it until I was almost going to go to bed.

Edited to add one more!

YB: Ohio St vs Kansas
YB is back after taking a year off to bask in the glory!

Which is to say, if you see this, send it in now.

I will give you my usual hint: don’t pick 16 over 1! Someday it will probably happen, but … chances aren’t so good.

Also, here is Obama doing his picks: so chalky! I mean 4 #1′s in the Final Four? It’s happened, as you all know, but not too often.

I’ve sent out brackets to the ignoramuses that entered last year, but please, if you want to enter, send me a bracket. And also, I’m disorganized, so if you didn’t get one, please don’t take it personally, just email me (mim at this domain). Or leave me a comment and I’ll send you a fillable bracket. The Know-Nothing No Downside Not-Too-Much Upside March Madness Thingie welcomes everyone, except possibly if you actually watch every college basketball game you possibly can in which case, you might be *too* knowledgeable. So feel free to send it to your ignorant sports hating friends and significant others. :)

Rules and whatnot:
The scoring is: 1 pt for each first round game, 2 pts for each second round game, then 3, 4, 6, and finally 8 pts for the championship game. (Thanks to Todd cos the rules and the spreadsheet are his.)

Previous winners:
2010: K (Jewelry, earrings or a ring or something that I got at a local artisans/crafts fair)
2009: YB (Congratulatory text)
2008: ME! (Trip to Chicago, oh yes!)
2007: Yut (He got a kiss, hearty handshake, *and* “Congratulations” — that’s 3 prizes!)
2006: Yut (A kiss and a hearty handshake)
2005: misa (Two bunny candles from the local farmer’s market)

Yup, K won it all last year. She called it when she submitted her bracket and was unbeatable by the Final Four. Really people, shameful performance on the rest of our parts! And now that you are all suitably dispirited, let the trash talking begin. And please, don’t let K repeat.

Btw K, I gave your prize to CT to give you, you did get it right? :D

But also, as y’all know, we moved this year, right around the time of the tournament (I know, what were we thinking?!) and it was so busy. I am sure there are people out there who are organized and label their boxes and then unpack them and clean and blah blah, and even they don’t like moving. Well… I am NOT organized and there was no labeling, and at the end, we were throwing stuff in paper bags and moving those over and then the cleaning! There are floors that need mopping, and trees dropping branches and leaves, and laundry, and etcetc. It’s calmed down a lot since the beginning, but still. (Hrmmm, actually quite a number of you have had to deal with my litany of complaints every time you say “hey” so let this be a preview and warning to you. Although CT gets it the worst, I have been sending her whining unsolicited emails inviting her to visit me so I can show her the new place but we both know I just want someone to unpack stuff and put it away and organize and clean and get me a drink!)

But ANYWAY, enough of that, FOR NOW (more coming, that’s a threat, not a promise)! For doing so well (note how I am being gracious, although less so now that I am pointing out my graciousness), I thought K deserved an acknowledgment, late or not.

This year’s Know-Nothing Official Final Standings although we all knew how it was going to pan out a long time ago:
Special K (nice job, only one to break 60 points): 63
mim, Pol (beginner’s luck!): 59
Yut: 56
President of the US: 55
Lew, Chalk: 54
CT, misa, Seth (way outta the cellar): 48
shio: 46
YuHK (alone at the bottom!): 45

I have put CT in charge of your prize! Collect it when you see her. Congrats, aren’t you glad Air Force wasn’t in it this year:)

Rankings:
SpeK: 63 (and she has 14 available points still, if W. Va wins it all)
mim: 59 (6 more possible points)
Yut: 56
Pres: 55
Lew, Chalk: 54
Pol: 53 (6 more possible points)
CT, misa, Seth: 48
shio: 46
YuHK: 45

Everyone else has no more possible points. If Duke wins, Pol will get 6 points, but that won’t beat K’s 63. He could tie with me though, thanks to n00b luck. My 6 possible points are because of West Virginia, so no matter what, K will get those points too. Durn it. On the other end of the spectrum, YuHK LOSES! Soooo badly! Yes, you needed me to point that out, eh? :)

Rankings after the Sweet Sixteen:
mim, SpeK, POTUS: 55
Yut: 52
Lew, Chalk: 50
Pol: 49
CT, misa: 48
shio: 46
YuHK: 45
Seth: 44

So I’m still in the lead! Who knew that picking based on what I hoped would happen would be such a good strategy! Although I’m still lamenting MD’s loss. And the fact that Cal didn’t beat Duke! Okay okay, I’m not in the lead by myself — I’m tied with SpeK. I’m afraid that this year may be the year that I have to stop making fun of her for picking Air Force like four years ago. Well, there’s still time left: I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M TIED WITH THE GIRL WHO PICKED #13 AIR FORCE IN 2006!!! Ahem. Lew actually did the best in the Sweet Sixteen, he picked more correct teams than anyone else. The last few games are worth more points than ever, but we’re all quickly running out of teams still in the tournament. We’ll just have to see what happens. Today, Butler (no one called this) and West Virginia (me, Seth, and K) made it into the Final Four; I’ll update tomorrow after the Michigan State/Tennessee and Duke/Baylor games.