Definitely not one of my better NCAA tournaments. All of my teams lost in the first round in heartbreaking fashion. Duke choked away the game against VCU, Illinois had Va. Tech beat and then somehow decided to not play for the last six months and, in all honesty, I dozed off while watching the Notre Dame game only to wake up to discover that ND was down twenty and I was now watching the Wisconsin game. ND came back and actually took the lead but ran out of steam and lost to Winthrop. My bracket is pretty much destroyed and my days of winning tournament pools seem to be far in the past. On the plus side, I’ve gained a lot more free time over the next few weeks.
(Oh well, at least Notre Dame picked up a number one seed in the hockey tournament. And, if I heard correctly, they are playing a team from Alabama in the first round, which is odd because I can’t imagine anyone in the entire state playing hockey.)
On the free time comment, I did realize something that might turn into the biggest conflict ever. I have tickets to see Guster in Lawrence on April 2nd. That just happens to be the night of the championship game, something that I didn’t notice when I bought the tickets. But depending on whose playing I could see myself catching a concert over watching the game. However, there is a measurable probability that KU will be in the title game. This would cause an interesting predicament. First off, I can’t imagine that there would be anyone at the concert. Lawrence has a bunch of art kids who don’t care about sports but given that this would be an excellent excuse to party I don’t think that they would miss it to watch Guster. Also, in this scenario I would be going to a show in the middle of the campus of a team in a title game, which is basically just asking to place yourself in the middle of a riot. It’ll be interesting to see how things turn out.
I did go out for St. Patrick’s Day and it was actually a rather uneventful night. I didn’t see a single arrest, though I did hear a bunch of sirens during the night so there probably were a couple. You didn’t get a violent vibe from the crowd, though. Everyone seemed to be calm and having a good time. I spent most of the afternoon at Harry’s where knowing all the staff made getting served much easier. The patio there is a great place to experience Westport on St. Pat’s as you can just sit back and watch everyone else be idiots. And cheer the guy who set up a stand that said “Magic” on it. Yes, a guy was doing card tricks for extremely drunk people. That has to be the easiest gig in the world. “Is this the card you chose?” “I chose a card? Woo hoo!”
Headed over to the Record Bar in the evening where I did get a compliment on my Backer t-shirt from a St. Mary’s alum. There is something that must be said about a bar that even when your hundreds of miles away people go, “Oh my god, did you drink there?” Having the t-shirt makes you a rock star in the drunkard world. Went there mainly to see a U2 cover band, which is interesting given that I probably wouldn’t go see U2 if they were playing a few blocks away. (At least not until Bono offers me a personal apology.)
They were a surprisingly good cover band. They learned quickly to make up for their lack of talent with volume. The lead singer wore sunglasses and looked like my buddy Fortino making him look almost, but not entirely, unlike Bono. The rest of the band looked like a bunch of guys from an IT department but sounded good even if they made no effort to resemble the band. Plus, they included a cover of “Electric Co.”, a song that even U2 doesn’t bother to play anymore. Some nights I’m not looking for music that will change my view of the world. Sometimes I just want to hear songs I know with large amounts of alcohol present.
All in all, not a bad St. Patrick’s Day. An improvement over past years in that I didn’t end the night with a girl crying in my arms, which did happen a few years ago. I might be the only one to remember this though it isn’t something you easily forget. There are very few moments when you are trying to simultaneously a) figure out what the hell is this girl’s problem, b) comfort her, c) explain to your buddies in pantomime what is going on and d) drink a beer. And definitely not in that order.
The five random CDs for the week (and man, what a good list):
1) R.E.M. “Dead Letter Office”
2) Uncle Tupelo “No Depression”
3) Martin Zellar “Born Under”
4) Kelly Willis “Kelly Willis”
5) Ryan Adams “Love is Hell, Part One”
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