I got through another Saint Patrick's Day at Alesci's. Gale and I got down there about 3:30 and it was still crowded. The main thing you notice immediately is the smell of beer downtown, it's everywhere. Or is that urine? The other thing you notice is the crowd is not getting any older. Man, are they young these days. Chaperone hat prominently displayed. And the overall crowd seemed smaller this year, as last year's Downtown-work-on-Friday crowd was not a factor.

Really without incident this year, as I stayed sober. Only a couple of indoor vomiters. Port-A-Pottys outside helped. 9-1-1 called only once as a friendly push resulted in a broken nose on some kid. Lots o'blood. Other than that, kinda normal. There was only one surreal scene that I witnesssed. I used the Port-A-Potty out back and as I was walking down the alley, it was a bit cloudy and the wind was blowing trash, mainly empty beer cups, around. There was an alarm going off in some building and there was a guy conducting a shell game for $50 a pop, near the Port-A-Potty. It reminded me of something straight out of your worst Y2K scenario.

Meal of Links

Not sure if you watched the Action 19 News report on the gas station that was reselling Girl Scout cookies. First of all, I missed last week's cookie sale at the local Giant Eagle. Anyhow, I buy gas at the Valero station that had the cookies. Cheap prices on Wednesday and Saturday and they will pump your gas all day on Wednesday. Today, was my first visit after the "scandal" broke. Each pump had a letter with a reasonable explanation on what was happening, saying they've done it for years by buying a bunch from the kiddies saving them from door-to-door sales, appropriate shots at Channel 19, and an explanation of any corrective measures, etc. I don't know why they were selling them for $4 last week, but hey, it saved me this year, and they did roll them back to $3 a box. I bought two, tee hee. Anyhow, every pump had a customer, so it hasn't hurt business at the gas station. BTW, eBay has several listings for Girl Scout cookies.

Bill Maher talks about "Sacrifice". I laughed.

While Roger Daltrey still has bronchitis, Columbus gets a rock festival. "Rock on the Range" is at Crew Stadium in May.

And, if you haven't seen Paul Robinson's goal for Tottenham against Watford, here it is. Why is it cool? He's a goalkeeper.



Exercise Yard

VaTech Coach Seth Greenberg reacting to my bracket:



















This is the time my brackets tend to fall apart because you have to take some risk, no? I love Tom Izzo and I thought Michigan State's halfcourt game would slow down North Carolina. That worked for 36 minutes. Unfortunately, the games last 40 minutes, but the Spartans gave it all they had. It appeared Washington State had the game against Vanderbilt. Uh, no. Butler surprised me, especially the way Maryland's offense looked on Thursday. And I didn't have a dog in the Pitt fight.

Pool Winners (Saturday): Georgetown, Ohio State, Texas A&M, UCLA (4 of 8).

I had to have some things fall my way in Sunday's games to keep within striking distance. I had three matches where I had no pick. Wisconsin going down helped. Oregon winning sort of hurt. I had no one in the Virginia Tech-Southern Illinois game, as well. I had five games that were a must win. Florida, my pick to win, seems to be taking it easy until necessary, and prevailed over Purdue. Tennessee hung on against Virginia. I needed Kansas, Texas and Memphis to also win. Got a big win from Kansas, and Memphis was tough down the stretch. Texas laid an egg against USC, of which we saw 1:36 of game action.

Pool Winners (Sunday): Tennessee, Florida, Kansas, Memphis (4 of 8).

Non-bracket talk:

Why are the microphones on the rims the loudest ever this year?

"Entourage" guys on DirecTV ad. No, no, no, a thousand times no.

Gus Johnson not broadcasting the Round of 16 games. WTF? We need more Gus like during the Xavier-Ohio State game: "HA HA! College basketball! HA HA! CBS Sports! HA HA! March Madness!"

Too many Katie Couric ads.

Blimp shots of indoor venues are so...um...so...er...stupid?

Bill Raftery, who I really like, actually had a Carmen Basilio reference in today's Florida game. Only newspaper readers older than me got that. Then he sang, "You Can Call Me Al" for Al Horford. That song is 20 years old easy. This while at halftime, one of the bands was playing "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes. Gee, Bill, get with it.

Never thought I would hear a song by The Jam pimping Cadillacs. The song is "Start!", a fave of mine from way back.

CBS experts continue to make wild-ass picks. Clark Kellogg's pick of Stanford over Louisville in Round 1, was a miss of mythical proportions. Both he and Seth Davis confidently chose Winthrop over Oregon today. Not sure why.

More news.

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None, watching hoops til my eyeballs fall out.