Well, as stated before, having Duke in the title game against Butler means you have the good versus evil. The expensive private university versus..........well another expensive private university. Of course, only one team is the overachiever. Duke started the season ranked 9th in the country so they were expected to be a top team. But Butler started the season ranked way behind Duke...........at 11th. Hmmm. The David versus Goliath narrative is struggling. But a look at the past title games, Butler will be unique whether they win or lose. All because of football. If Butler does win, it will be the first time since UNLV in 1990 that a school from a non-BCS conference has won the basketball title. But if they don't, they'll be the first team from a non-BCS conference to lose the title game since.........well, since Memphis two years ago. And Utah in '98. And UNLV in 1991. While there have been some mid-major conference teams in the title game, they still played Division I-A football. You have to go back to 1989 when Seton Hall lost the title game to find a participant that didn't play division I-A football. And Villanova (1985) and Georgetown (1984) were the last winners not to play football at the top division. But all three of those were from the Big East as non-football members. You have to go all the way back to 1979 when Indiana State to find a non-Big East team playing Division I-AA or lower in the title game. You have to go back a couple of years before with Independent Marquette to actually find a one who did it.
A giant isopod. A two and a half foot long rolypoly found on the side of an oil rigs submarine. Rather disgusting looking creature. Wonder what it tastes like.
I don't have any real problem with Apple products. Granted I probably won't buy an iMac or MacBook. Pay too much for the brand. But I grew up on an Apple IIc. I like my iPod. I'm even considering an iPhone. So I don't really have anything against Apple. But the iPad is flat stupid. Spending $500 for an oversized iPod Touch. Outside of having a larger screen for watching clips, what can you do on it that you can't do on an iPhone? Except have to carry it under your arm instead of in belt clipped carrying case. It certainly can't replace a laptop for me because I need a real keyboard. Yet, here we go again with Apple nerds standing in line to get it. I'm not sure which is more pathetic. The nine year old kid who spent his $500 in savings (how does a nine year old save that kind of money) or the one who dressed in an iPad costume.
Oh, and I'm rooting for Duke over Butler. Not because I think they'll win although I do. Butler has been winning because of defense. Mainly, they've been causing boatloads of turnovers. That probably won't be the case with Duke who was top 20 in fewest turnovers. Of Butler's previous five tourney opponents, only UTEP (134th) and Michigan St (198th) even cracked the top 200. And I'm not rooting for Duke because it will piss off UK fans. That's just a fringe benefit. I'm just rooting for Duke because Nolan Smith's father Derek Smith was a key member of the 1980 Louisville championship team.
Oh wow. Dubai has put a British couple in jail for public kissing. As I mentioned before, it shouldn't be surprising. And shows one of the reasons that Dubai may have had a financial meltdown back in the fall. Yes, they had overbuilt their real estate and infrastructure (their version of economic stimulus), but Dubai's leaders were driven to be a financial and tourism hub. And they had some success with it, but in the long run, who would want to do business there if you could get arrested after having a business lunch? And tourism? Sounds like a party town to me.
Kim Kardashian was apparently dumped by Reggie Bush because his mother was "uncomfortable" about her sex tape with that crappy rapper. Has his mother actually seen the tape? It wasn't very good. In fact, Kardashian should be embarrassed by it. As noted before, she laid there like a cold fish.
Fuddy duddy time at the tournament. Usually you just have whiny reporters making a big deal about graduation rates of the NCAA teams. But this year we get an idiot bureaucrat. Actually, the top education bureaucrat who is also an idiot. Should there be some connection between college athletics and actual academics? Sure. Make them meet certain standards to get in. Make them maintain certain standards. But everyone knows the point of college isn't really for learning stuff as much as it is for getting a job. Basketball players have a limited window of earning opportunity. If they leave early to play pro basketball, then college has done its duty. Enhanced their earning potential. And many basketball players enhance their visibility to pro teams during the tournament so banning today's players (who may be on target to graduate) would actually hurt them. Does it make sense to punish today's players over something recruits from nine years ago did? Besides, basketball players are a minuscule part of the college population. Should the federal government be worrying about that small a sample? What's next? Demanding that the marching band maintain a certain level of graduation in order to perform at games? Why stop at extra-curricular activities? The federal government gives grants to universities all the time. Why not make those grants dependent on the school's graduation rate? Seems only fair to me.
Let's take a look at New Jersey. Some kid got on the speaker system at a Wal-mart and told all black people to leave. Tacky prank for sure. Except in this town where it is considered a criminal case of "harassment and bias intimidation." Want some better news? The local police department put all their detectives on the case. That's 13 police detectives trying to find a 16 year old kid playing a prank. Oh, and they're trying to get phone records to trace a phone call where someone else called and asked the store employees to tell blacks to get out. Even though the store didn't, the police are going to waste time going thru all that. Are you kidding me? This is New Jersey. Are they trying to tell me that there's not enough crime in that state? If I was a taxpayer in that town, I'd be demanding to know why a 13 member detective squad was so underutilized that they could all work on solving a teenager's prank.
Oh goody. Apparently the NCAA is strongly considering expanding the NCAA men's basketball tournament from 65 teams to 96. What a stupid idea. It's a joke that there is even that 65th team. I said last year that it was stupid to have a play-in game just to keep an extra big conference team. Now they want to stick another 31 teams in? More mediocre teams from major conferences? Just to have another round? And how is that going to affect the seeding? They want to seed each region 1-24 and give 1-8 a bye while 9-24 play each other. Which is a screw job for the 9-12 seeds. Because there isn't that much difference between them and the 7 and 8 or even down to the 5 seeds. In fact, the 9, 10, 11 and 12 seeds went 8-8 against the 8, 7, 6 and 5 seeds. Yet, 5-8 will get a bye. The biggest crap is the 8 seed versus a 9. Since seeding began, the 9 seed actually has a winning record over the 8. Yet, in the future, the historical winning spot will be forced to play an extra game. Brilliant.
Ah, Jesse James. I guess he decided that Tiger Woods' affair stories were too tame so he decided to cheat on Sandra Bullock. With multiple partners. Even worse, they're rather nasty looking. And the first may be a Nazi. But as we get up to 11 potential mistresses, a picture surfaces of him in a Nazi hat giving a Nazi salute. Woods has nothing on this guy. At least he can tell his wife, "Hey, don't be too hard on me. At least I never had unprotected sex with a tattoo worker named Skittles in an orgy." But really, who is surprised by this? The guy is a biker. His last wife was a porn star. Slumming in the gutter with skanks is not a shocker.
But I don't care that much about the whole story. Except for one thing, Gloria Allred is representing one of the mistresses. As I pointed out in a case where she represented one of Woods' conquests, Allred has lost a lot of credibility. Actually, she had none with me. I've always found her to be a dumb bitch. But at least at one point, she tried to pretend she was some kind of civil rights attorney. Although suing a store over gender specific toy sections tells me that she's a grandstander who is willing to waste the court's time and money while trivializing real discrimination just to get on the news. But now she's the attorney specializing in representing the "Other Woman" in celebrity adultery cases so everyone can see she's just a sanctimonious media hound with little or no principles.
What would the Vikings think? Iceland is banning all strip clubs.
4 years ago
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