March Madness (Final) Update

After starting out with a respectful 21-3, the wheels came off my braket Friday night (4-4). Two Sweet 16 go home early including one of my Final Four teams getting upset (thanks Bucknell whoever you are). Ironically the left side (Chicago, Albuquerque) is near perfect, Alabama being the only blemish. So unless UNC and UConn tank it this round, I'm done (go Iowa St. and NC State). Final first round total: 25-7 (four upsets). One final though - go Iowa St. and NC State!

March Madness Update Day 2

Started off the day going 3-1 to bring my total up to 17-3 (3 upsets). Nothing like seeing N.C. state losing by 10 at luchtime, then the next time I check the game they are winning big. Too bad my only los was my upset special, Ohio, lose a close one. Still the MAC was severely overlooked this year. 4 teams with RPI in the top 55 and only one makes the tournament. Only 3 of the top 50 miss the tournament, 2 were from the MAC.

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Another sweep of this set of games. Now 21-3 (3 upsets) overall. Northern Iowa is my lone upset in the next set of games.

(6:30)

March Madness Update

I'm currently 3-1 with all my all my sweet 16 teams still left. The one loss being Alabama, for some reason I thought I had UWM. The is nothing demoralizing than thinking you have an upset, look at your braket and realize you didn't. Luckily they is plenty of green beer to cry in.

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Now I'm at 6-2. Bob Huggins vs. the Big Ten is what hurt me this time. I knew who ever I would pick, I was going to lose. Speaking of losers, here's a quick update of the baseball hearing. McGuire can't speak on anything, oh, and by the way, he' retired. Sosa suddenly can't speak English. Cansaco apparently has a book out. And Congressmen (and women) like to hear themselves talk.

(6:32 PM)

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I was perfect through the last group of games to improve to 10-2 (one upset - granted it was Nevada). The next group is a big one for me with my upset special, UAB.

(9:40 PM)
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Another set of perfect set of games pushing me to 14-2 (two upsets) for day one. With lackluster games to start the toury, they are due for some classics today.

(6:43 AM)

Burn Hollywood Burn

Last night was the season premiere I've wanted to watch for a while, but too cheap to pay for, but lucky for me Bravo has picked up Project Greenlight. For those who are unaware of the series, basically it's Matt Damon & Ben Affleck produce a movie. First they select a screenplay and a director from a group of unknowns (which was the basis of last night's episode), then they document the movie making process. And in the end the movie bombs.

This year they have tried to go for a horror film and even brought in Wes Craven to help out. Although it has became pretty clear that this year's film will most likely tank also. First, against the suggestion of the producers, the studio pushed for the most profitable screenplay. Then for no apparent reason, they picked a director who could possibly be certifiably insane. The movie most likely again suck, but the show should at the very least be interesting.

Since the show got me interested, I had to look up some information on the upcoming shoot. Thanks to IMDB, I was able to spoil some casting news which includes Henry Rollins (whom might make the movie watch able), Krista Allen(who must be happy to be in a movie that doesn't show after midnight on Skinamax), Anthony Criss (or as I like to refer to as Mr. O.P.P.), Judah Friedlander (who is best know for as the hugging guy from the Dave Mathews Band's Everyday video), Jason Mewes (sorry, not Silent Bob), and Clu Gulager (whom I assume is related to before mentioned certifiably insane director). This should be interesting. Maybe they could make up for a poor movie with a soundtrack with Rollins and Naughty By Nature. Just a reminder, Project Greenlight is on Tuesday at 9:00. And since it's on cable, it will be repeated multiple times during the week.

I Got a Basketball Jones

The NCAA brackets have been out for a couple days and after 30-40 hours of deliberation a finally can give my two cents. First thing I noticed about this year's bracket is that the committee put seed is a why to contradict my previous rules for filling out your bracket.

Cincinnati (Rule #1 - Never bet on Bob Huggins) vs. Iowa (Rule #2 - Never bet on the Big Ten)
Illinois (Rule #2 - Never bet on the Big Ten) playing at Indianapolis; then Chicago if they win their first two games (Rule #5 - Home Court Matters)

So these have really put a wrench into my bracket this year. But I will persevere. Onto my pick. Here are my upset specials for each region:

(13) Ohio over (4) Florida (Rule # 4 - The MAC is always good for a win)
(12) Old Dominion over (5) Michigan St. (Rule #2 - Never bet on the Big Ten)
(8) Pacific over (1) Washington (This is a 2nd round match-up, just have a feeling Washington will be the first #1 seed to go down. Granted I have an east coast bias)
(11) UAB over (6) LSU (The Gonzaga Corollary of Rule # 4 - The MAC is always good for a win)

As for my Final Four:

Wake Forest over Illinois
Duke over Kansas

Duke is your 2005 National Champion

One rule I inadvertently left off my previous post is to find out who everyone else has winning and avoid picking them. This year the team to avoid is UNC. Favorites rarely win and if they do, and everyone else picks them, it's less like you will if you look at the odds. If your dark house (not that a #1 seed is that much of a dark horse), it makes it easier too win just from an odds standpoint.

Keep in mind, picks are subject to change up until noon on Thursday.

You Gotta Know When to Hold 'em

Last night was the season finale of ESPN's latest stab at original programming, Tilt. And if you didn't catch the promos where they contently mentioned it, Tilt is from the makers of Rounders. And if you didn't see the promos, you can tell just by watching the show with Eddie Cibrian doing his best Matt Damon impression. It almost seems that Eddie Towne could Mike McDermott before he gave up gambling. And they both were playing for revenge against the bad guy. I seemed to miss why Eddie, or Clark for that matter, held a grudge against the Matador, but that was one of many plot points I didn't pick up. But the big difference between the movie and show were the bad guys. Rounders had the cerebral villain in Teddy KGB where Tilt instead went for the mussel with Don 'The Matador' Everest. Both were perfectly cast. John Malkovich fit the intelligent poker player to a tee where Michael Madsen took being bad to an all new level pulling out all the stops to win short of cutting off some one's ear. In the token hot chick category, Rounders wins in a landslide. It was almost like they took the token hot chick from Rounders, gave her a couple whacks with the ugly stick, and then played her on Tilt. It was such a discrepancy, by the middle of the season they had to bring in a second token hot chick.

As a TV show, Tilt ran into some problems. As mentioned before, the show was had to follow at times and seemed to leave out some important information. They started off the show with an obvious swerve when the black guy attacks the white guy at the poker table. Looking back, the writer may have planned it to be obvious, as the Matador made reference to it after he turned on Eddie. Other burning question that were not answered or I just missed were what did the Iowa cop's brother do to get killed? Or why didn't Lowball threaten blackmail when he fired? Why did the Matador kill Skip himself while the tournament was going on? There were many holes that need to be filled. I even had to check out the website to see who killed themselves in the last episode.

Tilt did have many plot twists that I didn't see coming like killing Seymour off early. The big three being caught when the first tried to bring down the Matador. Clark's friend's secretary being FBI. And they save the best for last when it was revealed that the Matador threw the tournament. The final couple episodes was when the show as a whole pick up in the entertainment department with Norman Chad making he benign comments and the personal profile of the internet player who promptly got bounced in first round. Also, the last couple episode brought us an appearance of the Smoking Man playing a priest of all things.

Tilt 1.x get a on my Terror Alert Scale.

A Long Time Ago... Star Wars Rocked!

It's been a big week for nerds as the onslaught of the new Star Wars has begun. On Thursday, there was the world premiere of the trailer in The O.C. and no I didn't watch the show just to see the trailer. Seriously, I didn't. Survivor was on. (To get a little off subject, it was way too early to vote off the token hot chick.) But thanks to the wonder of the internet, I could check out the trailer that night. On it we get short glimpses of Chewbacca (or at least a Wookie), General Grievous (I think), and the massive forehead Jedi (who will forever remind me of Andy Dick) along with the newly hardcore Anakin. It's nice to see he trades the teen-angst, metro sexual looks for the heroin going through withdrawal look. Even with all the action in the trailer, we still need to watch Episode III to see how Coach Carter and the other Jedi, Natalie Portman (which would top the worst idea to kill off a hot chick since Mandy Moore died in A Walk to Remember. Umm, not that I saw it or anything), Jar-Jar, and the guy from NYPD Blue die. Assuming they all die in course of the movie, not the time in-between Episodes III and IV, which would be a let down. Or even worse, if the characters just disappear. What I'm most interested in seeing is how they turn Hayden Christensen into a black man.

On Sunday, George Lucas had an interview with 60 Minutes which showed about 15 more seconds of the movie that they didn't show in the trailer. The 15 extra seconds did include what looked to be an extended look at General Grievous, who could turn out to be the best part of the movie. But the big news for me was the small tidbit of my favorite Lucas trilogy. No not Episodes IV-VI or even I-III, I'm talking about Indiana Jones (which I guess will officially take it out of the category of trilogy). Unfortunately, there was no major information about my favorite archeologist or even a timeline of when it will happen.

Then next week is the release of the best part of the prequels (so far), Star Wars - Clone Wars, Vol. 1. For those who missed it, Clone Wars were mini episodes chronicling what happens between Episode II and Episode III that aired on the Cartoon Network last fall. A new season starts March 26th, so keep your eyes pealed out for that.