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As Productivity Approaches Zero...

Posted on 19th March, 2005 at 2:28pm by joel

On Thursday at approximately 11:15am CST, the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament tipped off with the first of 63 games (I refuse to acknowledge the play-in game as a real game. However, I have no reason for doing this). Shortly thereafter, I loaded up ESPN.com at work and watched the scores update in semi–real-time. Somehow, someway, I managed to stay productive at work. Home is a whole different matter, however.

Sports fans everywhere are familiar with the feeling: ass meets couch, remote meets hand, brain shuts off, productivity ceases. CBS struggles to keep viewers updated on all four concurrent games, announcers go batty, and players throw themselves all over the court. 64 (I know, I know, 65…) teams start with the dream of being the only one standing in April, but the harsh reality sets in all too quickly for most of these teams. Seasons end—some dramatically, some slowly and steadily, and some before the game even starts.

Now, I’m not a huge basketball fan—or even a small basketball fan. I played for 6 years from 7th grade through senior year of high school. However, once I arrived at SJU, I hardly ever picked up a basketball. I didn’t watch much on TV and save for the Timberwolves not sucking last spring, I rarely turn to a basketball game these days either. However, there is something about this tournament that grabs my attention and just will not let go. I always fill out a bracket or two, and while I was in high school, Dad, Andy and I would fill out several each, just to see if we could figure out the madness. We would put in hours of work researching, learning, reviewing schools and without fail, we sucked. Terribly. Every time.

This year, I tried something completely new and different; I didn’t watch a single college basketball game before Thursday. Not one. I caught the occasional SportsCenter highlight or ESPN.com column, but for the most part, I was completely clueless about college basketball as I loaded up my Yahoo! Fantasy Sports pick ‘em pool Thursday morning and made my picks. Four whole minutes later, I’d chosen the winners in 63 games.

I’m supposed to tell you that just two days into the tourney my bracket is in shambles, right? Wrong. Well, right, I am supposed to tell you that, but I am not going to. I managed to get 26 of the first 32 games right. That’s currently leading our little pool. Go figure. Unfortunately, one of those wrong picks has guaranteed me three more incorrect picks. I’ll wait for you to do the math… yes, one of my Final Four teams is out already. I hate you Kansas. I hate you. Roy Williams is gone. You’re supposed to choke less now, not more.

For what it is worth, here’s a current snapshot of my bracket. I’ll post bracket updates in the coming days after the finish of each subsequent round so I can be laughed at (by me and me only right now, of course. Dammit).

So what does this have to do with developing a web site? Nothing—and that’s the problem. I’m attempting to build this site with the games going on the TV behind me, but progress is predictably slow. I did finish the template files for the links pages today, though. That means that the journal posts and links are all done. Next up is the photo journal.

Maybe.

Filed under: ramblings , meta , sports

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