Tedious Drunks Try To Get A Pool Together

Big uprisings all over the Arab world have broken out here recently. I'm not following them too closely, but I wonder if any of the talking heads on the various cable "news" shows have given any credit for these events to old W. It's funny because most of the lefties, who seem to be reveling in these protests against autocratic rule (and I join them), were the ones who crucified W for his dalliance in Iraq. You could argue that the seeds of pro-democratic longings in the Middle East started with Iraq getting to hold open elections as a result of kicking Saddam Hussein out of power. No one on the left will make this connection. But I will.

The Match Play has started out in Arizona and I did get to see quite a bit of The Tiger's battle with Thomas Bjorn (as Golf Channel focused in on the match for some reason). And Bjorn wasn't especially sharp, as he made a mess of a number of holes - handing them to The Tiger. Yet, Bjorn still won. The Tiger was way off himself on most holes. He certainly did not look like the 3rd best player in the world. Maybe not even the 103rd. At this point I have no idea when The Tiger will get it back together. But he has to at some point, right??? Maybe???

Speaking of The Match Play, it's the 1st big event of the year where the top players from all over the world compete. And as much as I keep hyping Rory Mcilroy on this blog, there is an even younger European who looks like he might be better. Keep an eye out for 17 year old Matteo Manassero. What he's doing is unfathomable. Throw in my man Ishikawa and that trio could dominate for years. Of course, Kaymer might as well. He just happens to be in his mid 20's. As for who might win this week, you can't go wrong picking Paul Casey. I wait year after year for the guy to start winning big.

I got a comment recently about Anthony Randolph. The kid got traded to the T-Wolves the other day. I'm still high on him. Remember, he's not yet 22. Why Don Nelson didn't play him more in Golden State is a mystery. And he was getting very few minutes with the Knicks this season. Of course the T-Wolves stink. So no one will pay any attention to Randolph outside the Twin Cities and die hard hoops fans, not unlike myself. The problem is that Randolph technically plays the same position as Kevin Love. So I'm not sure how that might work out, at least in the short term.

I know I've gone off on this before, but it warrants mentioning once again. AMC has been running Taxi Driver and both Godfather and Godfather II here recently. And all 3 are unwatchable on AMC due to the editing out of much of the dialogue and violence. Why filmmakers, in this case Scorsese and Coppola, would allow their masterpieces to be butchered and shown in these edited forms is beyond me. And why anyone would watch the films when presented like this is also weird. Is there really a market for viewing great movies that have been heavily altered??? And if so, why??? Ion, that most shitty of all networks, has been showing Goodfellas quite a bit here lately, also in a heavily edited state. The whole thing is really distressing. And it depresses me beyond words.

I was out with Brandon last Friday at Sloppy Seconds for a few hours (and thank you Harvard for crushing Cornell). And that place is really lame. I only go in there on the occasional Friday because I find the bartender to be pleasant to look at from behind...and from the neck down for that matter. Anyway, there are these regulars who always populate Sloppy Seconds. They're nice enough folks, I guess. But tedious drunks. Tedious. Brandon and I were subjected to at least an hour of 5 or 6 of these regulars trying to figure out how to set up a NASCAR pool for the auto race in Daytona. They kept having trouble with the most simple math. One guy asked me how many laps it takes to travel 500 miles on a 2 & 1/2 mile track. Seriously. I told him it depended on the weather. Brandon laughed. No one else did. This one woman kept trying to break down how many drivers each pool participant could have if there were 6 pool people participating. I told her, "Well, that's tricky. Everyone should get exactly 7 and 1/6th drivers." She asked, "How do we each get a sixth of a driver?" I replied, "That's the tricky part." An old timer in there asked me, "Who you like in the 500?" I said, "When in doubt always take the 3 car." Again, Brandon laughed. From the old timer, silence. Then we got into a conversation with another barfly over that woman who is trying to break into NASCAR, Danica Patrick. I said, "I don't know anything about her, except that, did you realize if you take Dan Patrick and add an 'ica' to him, you've got Danica Patrick right there!!!" Alas, the guy had no clue what I was talking about. Brandon told me, "Would you please quit talking to these people? I can't take any more." And that was that for Sloppy Seconds. I've gotta be sure to stop in there for at least a beer during the March Madness, just to see how these people are handling the bracket situation. It should be hysterical.

Speaking of the bracket people, the additional 3 teams in this year's tourney is gonna play severe havoc with the proceedings. There will be 2 games on Tuesday and 2 more on Wednesday. 2 of those will be "play in" games to get to see who has to get crushed by a 1 seed later in the week. But the other 2 will be legit games. In the past I believe most pools ignored the Tuesday "play in" game and didn't count it at all in the pool scoring. I'm not sure how they can get around that this year. It means that bracket people will not have until noon on Thursday to turn in their picks. They'll have until like 7 on Tuesday night. And that will upset many bracket people. I'd hate to be running one of these pools myself. Folks are gonna be pissed if they turn in their brackets Thursday and don't get the points (potential points anyway) from the 1st 4 games. I can envision some nasty inter-office emails as a result.

It's a blue sky