Ides of March (Madness)
It’s the Ides of March, and you know what that means. Yup, that’s right, tournament brackets due tomorrow!
I actually mistated, I need them before noon EST, 9am PST. Bad time sense coupled with bad math, lethal combination.
done for now!
I think I fixed it again:p
btw, if you are wondering, wordpress is soooo much easier than typo.
Also, (completely unrelated) it’s March Madness! :)
Know-Nothing March Madness Thing
Hey y’all, it’s March Madness! You know what that means; it’s bracket-filling time:) Y’all probably already know I lurve March Madness, with the one game win-or-lose deal and the excitement! So I have a little Know-Nothing contest I guess. It’s a no downside, not too much upside sort of thing. Anyone who wants to fill out a bracket, mail me (mim at nothingedifying dot com) and I’ll send you a fillable spreadsheet, or you can use any bracket really, tons around the web. Then mail it back to me via email or snail mail or anyway you like:) But I need it postmarked by Thursday 10am EST, ok?
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. (I copied that from Todd. Actually, the spreadsheet is Todd’s, too:p) Free to enter, whoever wins will get a sticker or a postcard or something or nothing (hence no downside, not too much upside either). But I’ll announce it, so at least there’s that:p
Last year’s winner was misa with 50 points, followed by Kitty with 49 points, third was Yut with 46. I won’t mention the rest of us:p
Last year’s posts for those of you who would like a recap:
- March Madness – introduction and my bracket
- More March Madness – everyone else’s brackets
- Madness Continues
- Anchovies
- Second Round Results
- Chutzpah
- Basketball Sucks
- misa wins! – self explanatory:p
Update: I just realized, I missed the last posts from last year. The scores are wrong. misa wins! was the point when there was no way for misa to lose, but there were two more posts (damn March Madness for going into April):
And the final scores were misa: 56, Kitty 49, and Yut 46. Basically misa was more dominating than previously stated:p
work to be done!
For now, try:
http://nothingedifying.com/typo/
Argh.
I’m a Monkey’s Uncle
Ever since we played Donkey Konga at misa and neb’s place, we been meaning to get our own, cos it was fun:) But we react slow to ideas:p Anyhows, this week we finally got a copy of Donkey Konga 2 with a set of DK Bongos.
We been playing some, around our tv watching:p I do think though that people with some sense of rhythm and also some coordination have an advantage at this game. People with a distinct lack of both (<cough> like me) have serious difficulty! Yut always clears his stages! The lowest rating he’s ever gotten is Super Simian! In contrast, my highest rating ever is Rising Star (one level above Super Simian), and I don’t hit that much. Gaaaaaaaaaaaah!!! But fun! :)
Alfajores
Our nice downstairs neighbors spent winter break in their native Argentina. Before they left, they asked to use one of our tandem parking spaces, which of course was totally ok, especially since we don’t have a car. (We did ask that they park in, so if Albie needed to park he would still have space:) Although I think they would’ve anyway since the first space is covered, but anyways, this is a terrible digression:p)
So! To continue my story, they brought back some little cookies for us from Argentina, called alfajores, I think, from the looks of the box.
This picture does not do them justice. These little cookie/cake/whatevers may be unprepossessing, but they are ever so delicious. I have been gobbling daintily eating one (or two) daily since we opened the box; they are lovely with tea. In a few days, they’ll be gone and I don’t know where to get more, and oh my god, what’ll I do then?! If our next vacation destination is Argentina, you will know why.
Although this brings to mind a question (note I did not say “begs the question” cos that would be WRONG): Why wasn’t I introduced to the joys of alfajores a long time ago, CT? You were in Argentina like 10 years ago. That’s 10 extra years I spent in ignorance of the alfajor! Hmmmph. I expect an explanation.
World Baseball Classic
I’m watching Korea vs Taiwan in the World Baseball Classic (think World Cup for soccer/football) right now. The game’s being played on ESPN2, delayed though. As usual, Taiwan is being called Chinese Taipei. Sheesh, I’m so sick and tired of that. Wikipedia has a page for World Baseball Classic that talks about the whole “Chinese Taipei” controversy a little at the bottom. Actually, there’s a whole page devoted to the Chinese Taipei thing.
Seriously, if nothing else, China should AT LEAST call it Chinese Taiwan. For goodness’ sake, Taipei is ONE city in Taiwan. I don’t think that’s all the territory China is claiming. Also, why does the Taiwanese Olympic flag have the Kuomingtang party symbol on it? (For the nerds who are thinking the KMT party flag has shorter points than the national flag, that difference is small; I don’t even see it.) Taiwan is no longer a one-party authoritarian dictatorship. Gawd, I can’t get started on this. This may be a post for another day:) (Maybe next month:p I’ve realized that I’ve been ranting a lot the past few days. I mentioned irritable, right?)
I’ve strayed a bit off topic:p Anyhows, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China make up group A. I think Japan must be considered the favorite out of the group, since they have a lot of players in MLB and a big league of their own and home field advantage, then Korea (also with the multiple MLB players), then Taiwan with 1 MLB player (Hong-Chih Kuo), and last China. Oh Korea won, 2-0. I think this was considered a must-win for both teams, so that’s good for Korea. China vs Japan next, but bedtime.
Crazy Ads
I dunno why, but today, I had hunting ads. HUNTING! I’ve never talking about hunting ever! So I banned the domain from having ads on my site, hopefully that takes effect in the next few days.
If you see any other weird ads, let me know please. Seriously the closest I’ve ever come to this is when I mentioned bleeding:p The spa and hot tub ads were great! And insurance, fine! But hunting, no thanks. I take back what I said about how Yahoo! improved relevancy:p Oh wait, I think it was South Dakota. Geeeeesh.
Am I being crazy? Over-reacting?
Btw, this is not to say that I think that people shouldn’t be allowed to hunt. I dunno, I guess they get to make up their own minds about it. But I don’t think it’s something I want anything to do with, that’s all.
Disheartening
Alito managed to get into the Supreme Court. The Dems are so out of it that they can’t manage to keep either Alito or Roberts (the new CHIEF Justice) off the Court. Roberts is already being compared with Scalia and Thomas, the most conservative members of the Supreme Court. Right away, the South Dakota senate passes legislation (not yet signed by their governor) that would basically make abortion impossible in South Dakota. It’s already pretty tough since no doctor in South Dakota will perform abortions, so Planned Parenthood has 1 clinic in Sioux Falls that flies in doctors from Minnesota, one random day a week (source: SD Makes Abortion Rare Through Laws and Stigma by Evelyn Nieves in the Washington Post). But I guess not tough enough, they want it to be impossible. The craziest part is, South Dakota rates 44th out of 50 states and DC in contraception and family planning support! Even though reducing unintended pregnancies is one of the major ways to reduce abortion (from Unintended Pregnancy Linked to State Funding Cuts by Ceci Connelly, Wash Post). The United States has one of the highest rates of abortion and unintended pregnancy in the industrialized world. Do they not see the disconnect??? It’s hypocritical. This isn’t just a blue state/red state thing, the four states that do the best in terms of contraception are California, New York, South Carolina and Alabama, so obviously, enough people in some places get it.
Does no one think it’s weird that we trust women to bear our children, yet we can’t seem to trust them to make contraceptive and reproductive decisions??? Please someone explain this to me. It’s so damned patronizing. I feel like this overall issue (family planning) is an indicator of the equality and respect of women in our society, and that’s frightening.
Update Monday 6 March 2006: S.D. Governor Signs Abortion Ban into Law
This week is going to suck. It’s that time of month and I guess I’m suffering early, gaaaaah. I was all irritable yesterday. Yut asked me if I remembered about my quiz on Thursday cos I haven’t studied and I got all defensive and snapped something to the effect of I don’t feel like studying. Then after dinner I proceeded to fall asleep, uncontrollably, even though it was only just past 8pm. Seriously unable to keep my eyes open, even for tv! I never even managed to turn on my computer!(!!) Then I woke up at 2:30am with a headache. For which I took Excedrin (yes I know, I am walking talking Excedrin advert but doooooood, it’s good stuff:) Excedrin should soooo pay me; I’ll even take payment in Excedrin.) I tried to sleep again, but well, it’s like 5 in the morning and I can’t sleep, and I’m giving up. I spent 2 hours in bed trying to fall asleep, but my mind won’t shut up. Plus remember the part about irritable? Well it’s being mean to me. All this and I haven’t even started bleeding yet. (I tried to type menstruating, but I think that’s spelled wrong, but I don’t feel like looking it up in the dictionary. I know! It’s nuts, I love the dictionary! And I love sleeping, but I can’t sleep! I am clearly going crazy. At least I still care about spelling things right.)
Next up is going to be cramps, unless I get lucky. I can’t take much more of this. Actually that makes me wonder if melodramatic is one of my symptoms. I told you my mind wouldn’t shut up. I think I’m going to make an appointment with my doctor/nurse practitioner/anyone and ask for a new birth control pill, one that does better alleviating PMS symptoms. (SUGGESTIONS WELCOME!) I don’t know if I will follow through on this this week, I am feeling too… I don’t know what, incapable? unmotivated? lazy?… to deal with it right now, but I will, sometime.
