Your Frightening Implications Quizo Update

Aaaaaaaaand... we're back.

Did anyone actually go to the Dark Horse (or any other bar, for that matter) on St. Patrick's Day? I certainly hope not. I like to think we're all smarter than that.

It's tournament time, and after two rounds of play Kansas has not successfully choked yet. Ordinarily you would think this a good thing. It is not. All this means is that Kansas can choke that much closer to the actual championship, which makes it more painful. In my bracket - which Yahoo inconveniently lost my final four picks on, curse their black souls - I had Kansas playing UCLA in the final and, in what can only be described as a mercy killing of whatever common sense I have left, winning 87-81. After my strategy last year of betting AGAINST Kansas to win managed to not backfire until the regional finals, I have this year gone with the novel plan of not betting any money whatsoever. My rationale: if I can't win money betting on Kansas, and I can't win money betting against Kansas, perhaps the only way for Kansas to win the tournament again is for me to have no opportunity to win money whatsoever.

Of course, this year's chance for heartbreak will come this weekend when Kansas plays Villanova. It's a good thing the Big East sent 8 teams to the tournament. I mean, of those 8, including the aforementioned Wildcats who didn't even deserve to be there in the first place - I should think losing to LaSalle would mean an automatic NIT invite - a whopping 2 teams from the Big East made it out of the first two rounds. Yeah, they deserved 7 at-large bids. Jerks.

Speaking of basketball tournaments, for championship weekend last week I was in New York City to see Chelsea beat Sunderland at Nevada Smith's and to hang out with some of my New York people. A good time was had by all, to be sure, but at one point we were at one of the four bars we ended up hitting over the course of the day and I said to my friends, "you know, if you had said to me five years ago that on St. Patrick's Day weekend in five years I would be in New York watching college basketball at a Welsh bar talking about starting engineering school, I probably would have said you were crazy."

My friend Matt said, "you complain all the time about us being crazy. You always have."

I said, "shut up, Matt."

The last bar of the night that Saturday was supposed to be one of the faux Irish pubs across the street from Penn Station - if you never knew this, on 33rd Street across from what used to be the Hotel Pennsylvania there are 4 "Irish Pubs" right in a row - to watch the US team in the CONCACAF Under-23s (aka Olympic soccer qualifiers) but as we got to the pub I got a text from one of my friends up there saying she wasn't going to be able to meet us. We're standing outside smoking and I look inside to find that, after the somewhat absurd results of the conference tournament, the entire pub is filled with angry Big East alumni working very hard at getting drunk, and the streets outside are thick with angry Big East alumni working very hard at trying to sell tickets to a championship game that no one now wants to go to.

I'm taking in this scene and thinking that it might be time to pack it in on home when the bouncers standing by the door start talking about sniper rifles.

I'm not talking like, "hey, sniper rifles are really neat," or, "wouldn't it be cool if I had a sniper rifle?" Oh no. I'm standing there and the one guy says, "well, you know, the M21 has great stopping power, but the Dragunov has loads better range and is way more accurate," and the other guy says, "fuck no, man, when it comes to sniper rifles it's Remington all the way, baby. One shot one kill, oh yeah!"

I turned to Tim and said, "I think it's time for us to leave."

Walking away Tim said, "they're probably talking about Call of Duty 4."

I said, "we HOPE they're talking about Call of Duty 4."

Quick tournament note: once again this week I'll be handing out update sheets at the beginning of the game. In terms of scheduling, tonight will be Week 8 of the tournament, and the finals will be next Monday. Please note that if you want someone to play on your team in the finals who has not done so already they must play tonight, else no dice.

I know that next Monday is Opening Day for the Phillies and that we had some problems last year, but this has been taken care of. I spoke to James the Bossman after the Chelsea game yesterday (2-1 MOTHERFUCKERS OH YEAH!) and we're all set to have the Tournament of Champions finale in the restaurant. So don't say I never did anything for you.

JLK