MIA

No, I did not forget about my blog. And it's not that I don't have anything to blog about. The fact is, I have been asked not to blog about what I have been up to lately. I know, I know, I said I would not censor my blog. But that was concerning outrageous stories about people like the ladies of 3953 or NFL QB's girlfriends. This time, I have interests at stake and cannot risk them.

I hope that was cryptic enough. Now on to talk basketball...

I was so upset with what went down last Thursday night, that I refused to blog about it. I cannot believe they named Mick Cronin the head coach at UC less than an hour after they lost the game. I still wasn't over the loss yet. It was too early. But now I am a little excited, and I am happy that Andy Kennedy still has a job somewhere.

My bracket is screwed. And so is yours. Let's throw them all away and root for George Mason to win it all. It would be the most incredible Final Four in our recent memory. All I want is to see Jai Lewis and Big Baby throw down in the lane. I hope that we tune into the basketball game and a sumo wrestling match breaks out. That, or a lift off to see who can bench more. Winner gets the girl. Lets hope for and LSU-George Mason finals.

I got nothing else. I have been really busy at work and am using my short lunch break to write this. I am also trying to prepare for the bachelor party this weekend. Should be a good time. Get back to ya soon.

Bob Huggins

...is off to Manhattan, Kansas to coach Kansas St. Not much I can say now, but I wish him well...

My comment on Paul Daugherty's blog:
"I understand you're a Bob Huggins fan, and you've always wished him well. However, I take umbrage with your satanic analogy. Congratulations to the schools like XU that graduate good kids from high schools like Moeller and St. X. But those kids would graduate from college anyway. XU and the like should not be given extra credit for allowing fortunate kids to graduate. Bob Huggins gets underprivileged young men from less fortunate surroundings and manages to graduate an impressive number of them. Some of them don't make it, and that is reality. But at least he graduated some young boys, that if not for Bob Huggins, might not have even had a chance to attend college. I'm not saying Bob Huggins sets out to do this, but it is a worthy by-product, and more impressive than what XU does. In the very least, Bob Huggins should not be compared to the devil for doing it. Shame on you."

I really hope he responds.

Sweet 16

Wow it's been a while since I posted. It was a busy weekend of drinking and watching basketball. I think I managed to drink myself to sleep Thurs, Fri, and Sat. That happens around St. Patty's Day.

Penn almost beat Texas, which would have been awesome. I barely remember much of the game though. Too much Guinness.

My bracket sucks now that UNC lost to ole Georgey Mason. That led me to wonder, if George Mason got into a fight with George Washington, who would win? What if you throw Oral Roberts into the mix? How about Bradley? I don't know which Bradley that school is named after, but he must be a badass to have his first name on a Div 1 college. And did you catch their game against Pittsburgh. The scoreboard in the bottom right-hand corner read Brad-Pitt because of some convenient abbreviations. I wonder how he felt about that. I know I'd take George Washington over Brad Pitt. GW led a revolt against an entire country. Brad couldn't even hold on to Jennifer Aniston.

Anyway, I still have Duke vs Nova in the final and Nova winning. If that happens, I can still cash in. More importantly, UC plays Charlotte in the NIT tomorrow night. I really hope that ESPN carries that game. I am really looking forward to it.

Finalized some plans for Andrew's Bachelor Party. It involves, golf, watching the Final Four at Willie's, and that is all that I will say here.

March Madness On Demand

Not to jinx myself, but at 2:00 PM, all the games are going the way I said they would. The reason I know this, is thanks to the 4th gift of the Magi to Jesus at his birth, being March Madness On Demand. I can watch all the games on my computer, LIVE, while I am at work!! It's great. Everyone is doing it. We even put in different zip codes so that none of the games are blacked out. My prediction, is that they will charge us for this next year. There is no way that they can continue this for free.

We drank Sammy Light last night during the games. Pretty good. Nothing special. What I would expect from Sam Adams and a light beer.

I am drinking Pepsi One right now. 1 Calorie. Bottle looks badass. And most of what I do is all about looking badass.

Though I don't like to give in to the Schrimpfs very often, I will give them credit for convincing me to read Dustin Dow's blog. He has good insight, humor, and a lot to say. That's what I want from a journalist/blogger. Seems like a cool guy.

For real, last comment on Bode: he won the last World Cup race of the year. And he still doesn't care. He's just glad that he was able to party and perform. Bode-haters lose.

NCAA Day 1 - Cincinnati Subway

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!! One of the greatest days of the year. Drink a Guinness for me. I will undoubtedly be drinking several for you. I'm wearing green underwear, wanna see?

I picked 12 of the first 16 games correctly. 3 of the 4 I missed were Big East teams. I picked all the Big East teams to win in the first round because I was angry that UC got left now. I shouldn't have let my emotions get the best of me. I am confident that UConn and Nova will win, but now I'm starting to think that I shouldn't have picked West Virginia, Georgetown, and Pittsburgh to win too. I did have Syracuse and Seton Hall in the Sweet 16, but my other 14 picks are all still in it.

I did manage to pick the Montana and UW-Milwaukee upsets correctly. Today, I have the better seed winning every matchup, except for Bucknell over Arkansas.

In other news, I read somewhere that the city of Cincinnati is exploring the possibility of re-initiating the subway project. This, or at least some sort of improved public transit, has always been a staple of my platform for transforming Cincinnati into the next big city (like Atlanta and then Austin). They say that they will examine possibility of continuing to dig the tunnels that have already been started in and around downtown. They don't have any set plans yet. Unfortunately, they are also considering just filling in all the tunnels and abandoning the subways forever. Hopefully, this will not be the case. I just want them to take their time and wait for me to get back. Until then, finish the Banks so I have somewhere to live!

Finally, the Eagles signed Matt Schobel. You know that your program is headed downhill when you are signing old Bengals, and ones that aren't very good. The Bengals met with Rocky Boiman yesterday (St. X grad). My dad and little bro are ecstatic. When they read the news, my dad called Mike Brown to ask how much they offered him and make a recommendation, and my bro called me to tell me his is already looking for a Rocky Boiman jersey. Personally, I am dreaming about the day that Odell "Big Play" Thurman lines up next to Rocky "yes that's my real first name" Boiman. Sweet.

True Post-season Predictions

All four #5 seeds will win this year.
The only first round upset will be UW-Milwaukee over Oklahoma.
Final 4 will be two 1s and two 3s.
UConn will NOT win it all.

The Final Four for the NIT will be just as exciting as the Final 4 for the NCAA.
Since the NCAA now owns the NIT, they are trying to keep them both interesting.
Imagine Louisville-UC and Michigan-Maryland. I'd rather watch those games than see UConn and Nova play for the 4th time this year.

My tourney picks...

...not that anyone cares. I took a generic approach this year. I was too scared to pick many upsets, and made most of my picks with very little confidence. I did pick against every MVC team. I hope they all lose and they all lose badly. The key there will be Seton Hall over Wichita St. I also have Seton Hall beating Tennessee.

Two second round games have given me nightmares. Kansas-Pittsburgh and UNC-Mich St. are HUGE games in my bracket. I want to have the winner of those games going to the Final Four. I wanted to pick Pitt, but they struggle come tourney time, so I picked Kansas. Plus, I really want to see the Kansas-Bucknell rematch from last year, which means I have Bucknell beating Memphis, yes. For the other game, I love Mich St. and I have been talking them up all year. I did the same thing with Georgia Tech last year, and they really let me down. I doubt my luck has changed, so I'm picking UNC.

That being said, my Final 4: Duke, UNC, Gonzaga, and Nova. Morrison will be outplayed by JJ Redick in an epic showdown for player of the year, but Redick will be out of gas when he faces Nova in the finals. Nova 88 Duke 82

Last post on Bode...

...until 2010.

You need to read this column from espn.com. It explains my thought process and presents it from a different, yet much clearer angle.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=klosterman/060314

Thanks to Alex Turner, my only fellow Bodeist in the fight against Bode-haters.

Bring on the comments.

In other news, I had a Pepsi One yesterday (that's like a diet Pepsi but with only 1 calorie). It legitimately tasted like Pepsi and was a hell of a lot better than diet Pepsi. I would try Coke-Zero, but I'm a Pepsi man. Why? Because they make Dr. Pepper. That's it.

Still bitching...

Since a troubled few have been trying to debate why UC does not belong in the tourney for losing 10 of their last 16 games...

Of those 10 losses:

9 of the teams are in the tourney (only Louisville is not)
7 of the teams are seeded #7 or higher
2 of the teams are #1 seeds

Southern Illinois' last 10 losses:
4 teams are in the tourney
they are seeded 7, 10, 13 and 16(a)
2 teams with a sub-.500 record and Alaska-Anchorage (who might not be Div.1)

Utah State has 8 losses. Only one team they lost to is in the tourney. Utah State only beat two teams that did make the tourney: Nevada and Oral Roberts. UC beat 5 tourney teams, including a 4, 5, 6, and 7 seed.

Air Force beat one team that made the tourney (San Diego St, who won the conf. tourney). AF also lost to only one tourney team: SDSt. (ranked #11).

There are 3 teams that can be replaced by UC, Missouri St. and whoever else you want.

On another note...
The NIT includes UC, Maryland, Louisville, and Michigan. Could this be the year that the NIT is actually more exciting to watch than the NCAA tourney?! We'll check back in two weeks.

Weekend

Now that I have that last blog out of me, hopefully I can make some sense.

Debbie, ignore that last blog.

Friday night was the Caps-Devils hockey game with the team from work. Car-bombs before the opening face-off, pulling the goalie to score a game-tying goal, sudden-death overtime shootout, and a 42 year-old teammate that lives for this shit, all makes for a great night. That, and we followed it up with shots of Wild Turkey and SoCo & lime. The shot of SoCo & lime was a double-shot of SoCo with two wedges of lime. Unbelievable. Best SoCo & lime shot I can remember, which might not be saying much.

Saturday night, we rented Crash and took it easy. Well, some of us did. The movie is disturbing. Call it good, if you want. But I didn't walk out of that experience feeling any better about anything. I think I need to watch Walk the Line again soon. Too bad I let like 8 people borrow it since it is the best movie ever.

Other than that. I'm still waiting for Tim to call me back. I'm hoping that he asks me to be in his wedding. Gonna be fuckin awesome. I'll end on that and get to bed. Not like I need it. It's hot as balls in my room. Goodnight.

fUCked

This has everything/nothing to do with me being from Cincinnati. Everyone and their brother agrees that UC should have been selected for the tournament. No one has provided a just answer for this incredible indiscretion. I wish I had an email address for the NCAA Selection Committee. I wish I had their real address. Fuck them. Fuck 'em.

UC has gotten screwed before. And I've dealt with it much easier in the past. But this year is different. Almost all seniors. No recruits for next year. Andy Kennedy. And, of course, Eric Hicks.

There's nothing I can do to the Selection Committee to scare them into checking for me in their closet when they go to bed, so here's what I will do:

Air Force doesn't deserve to be there. They are one of a few teams that shouldn't have gotten in over UC. But AF is culprit #1. As a contractor for the AF, I am compelled to take action. If I go on strike and skip work, the AF doesn't have to pay, so they don't care. Thus, I will be in the office and billing 40 hours this week. But I will not work. I will send non-work emails, read Sports Illustrated, take long lunches, make long-distance phone calls, and watch every NCAA game on Thursday and Friday on my computer. At the rate I bill the AF, this will cost them over $5000. I realize that this is just a hit to taxpayers. But I can only assume that the NCAA Selection Committee pays their taxes, and this is my only way to hurt them.

At least they got a #1 seed in the NIT. Fuck that.

Grandpa's nuts

The men on the Nolan side of our family regularly enter their names into the lottery for tickets to watch the practice rounds at the Masters. It is impossible to get tickets to the real rounds unless you know someone who belongs to Augusta or you are a corporate sponsor. Anyway, my dad won tickets a few years back. He took his dad, his brother Kevin, and his friend Lloyd. Well Uncle Kevin won the tickets last year, put them up on eBay, and got $200 each for these $19 tickets. Grandpa won this year, had Cory put the tickets on eBay, and collected $300 each for the four tickets.

Grandpa, who is 86 years old and has trouble walking, decided to spend all the money on a new set of golf clubs. He's tired of buying knock-off driver and putter, one after another. So he's going all out, spending $1200 on golf clubs. Good for him.

UC lost today. Gerry Mac traveled. I don't know how you don't put UC in the tourney, so I am not going to worry about it. I am just going to watch the rest of the games this week and get ready to fill out my bracket. Early picks for Final Four: UConn, Nova, Gonzaga, Ohio State.

Dave Bunker wants me to follow up with Carson Palmer girl. I told him that I am not using anyone to meet anybody. He said he would, so he is going to use me to meet her. Then he will pick up Carson in his Bengals bus and take him to the bars in Cheviot. Sweet.

I've lost track of what's going on with the Banks. I do know that Mike Schrimpf's name appeared on the Politics Extra blog at cincinnati.com as a new county hire. Hopefully, he will get me any info that I really need to know.

One of Cory's best friends, P-Dozer, had to clean up his g/f's bed last weekend after she got drunk and took a dump in it. Apparently, it is possible to get too drunk. As much as I've had to drink, I can't imagine ever cleaning up a mess like that. Let's hope he got it done with a scoop and paper bag.

In case you didn't know, Julia is still broken up with Misha and recently quit her job at the cheese shop. She lives in NYC and just quit her only job. She may be coming back to DC to hang out with me sooner than she hoped.

Finally, Greg is still tooling around with Meredith. I hope they are both happy.

Ron Artest of blogging

After a self-imposed three-day suspension, I am back to blogging. In my time away, I came up with a couple good ideas for preventing future suspensions: 1) I will not use anyone's real name. Nicknames from here on out, unless you are getting paid over $9 million a year by the city of Cincinnati. In that case, Mr. Carson Palmer, I will talk about you as much as I want. 2) I'm going to stop caring what people think. Some of my blogs offend people. In retrospect, I realize that. But my entire blog is a joke, so everyone else needs to lighten up. If you don't like something, leave a comment about it and don't be anonymous. From here on out, I will censor NO MORE blogs.

Now for my weekend...
CT and I pub crawled after the St. Patty's Day parade. We learned that Dubya declared the month of March to be Irish-Heritage Month, so kinda like Black History Month but with better commercials and more drinking. Thanks to those people who met up with us to help bring it home. I also managed to watch Walk the Line 3 times this weekend in preparation for the Oscars. I'm glad Reese won, but sad that Joaquin didn't. Clooney won, so score another one for Cincinnati natives. Essentially, not a big weekend. But let me know if you want to watch Walk the Line.

I found out that Tim asked Rob to be best man. Thank God. Now we can stop listening to Rob playing it off like he doesn't care. Nice work by Scherpy to play himself out of the wedding. I hear he has an inside shot at being an usher. Thanks, Bave, for all the dirt. Speaking of which, the Bave would like me to remind everyone that she hooked up with Tony before Cristy ever did. Ha ha. Let's hope that Cristy doesn't read this.

After my 10k run tonight (in 40:40), I weighed in at 169 pounds. That's fun. Almost back down to my sprint football days of 163 lbs.

My #1 picks for the NCAA tourney going into the conference tournaments: Duke, UConn, Villanova, and Ohio State. We'll see if I'm right. I'm sure I won't be. I will be taking a long lunch tomorrow to watch UC play Syracuse. MacNamara's career has developed inversely to JJ Reddick's. Sad.

Sorry this blog sucks. It's late and I was just on the phone for a loooooong time with a good friend. You know who you are.

Alamo, Adios

Great trip.

That's all I can say. That, and I finally got to see the Alamo. I didn't see Davey Crockett, but pictures of me and Debbie might come later.

As far as our work was concerned, I've come up with some great ideas for cutting bodies out of Financial Management in the Air Force. I apologize if you know anyone who is recently enlisted or a low-grade civilian. I'm briefing the rest of the team on Thursday. 900 bodies cut by end of '07. You're welcome.

Due to the hard work and the Riverwalk, I was unable to make it to mass on Ash Wednesday, which makes that the first one I've missed since I was four. I did remember not to eat meat on Friday though. I had double bean and rice chalupas at El Toro Taco House and a tuna sub on the plane. Made for quite the flight home.

I was able to acquire Walk the Line yesterday before getting on the plane. Great movie! I watched it last night and this morning. I can't believe it's not nominated for Best Picture, but I'm sure it will still bring home several Oscars tomorrow night.

In sports, UPenn has become the first team into the Big Dance by beating Yale at Yale (the Ivy League is the only conference that does NOT have a tourney at the end of the year). If the game is within a three hour drive, I will be there. I'm predicting a #13 seed.

UC is beating West Virginia right now. I'm predicting a big win here, a second-round loss in the Big East tourney, and a #12 seed in the Dance, CBS (Cinderella, Bearcat Style). As soon as this game is over, Chris and I are headed down to Murphy's to watch the Alexandria St. Patty's Day Parade, drink some Guinness, throw darts, and get a great start to a long night.

Eric Hicks just threw down big, gotta go...

Riverwalk - San Antonio

It was 86 degrees today. Work went well. I spent most of the day listening to Debbie answer all the questions and pretending to listen the people asking them. Then I did get to interview "the oldest lady in the Air Force," as she described herself. I honestly don't know how some people can claim to work 40 hours a week. I might be one of those people, but I'm meeting a lot of people that make me feel better about it.

What I really do... basically, if you've ever seen the movie Office Space and can remember Bob and Bob, the human resource consultants, then you know what I do. I visit Air Force bases and ask the finance people what they do. I try to find efficiencies so we can free up bodies and make those who are left a little bit busier. I'm a dick. I know it. I feel terrible. Especially since the people I interview are either old enough to be my grandparents or are freshly enlisted just out of high school. On a positive note, given the slow pace of the government, by the time any of my recommended changes are implemented, the people I interviewed will be dead, retired, deployed over seas, or well on their way to a better job, seriously.

I decided to go swimming after work. Bad idea. 86 degrees doesn't translate to warm water. The water was so cold, I had excrutiating pain in my tooth and I had to get out. Hot tub was nice.

We had dinner on the famous Riverwalk. Great place to hang out. A ton of good restaurants and bars. Not a whole lot of young people out on a Wed night, but we took it easy tonight so we can go out big tomorrow night. I'll let you know how that goes.

San Antone and Johnny Cash

"That train keeps a-rollin'.
On down to San Antone."

A line from one of my favorite all-time songs: "Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash

Quite symbolic that the movie Walk the Line, the biopic on Johnny Cash, comes out on DVD the day I leave for San Antonio. Very appropriate. Of course, this means that I can't buy it. I'll have to wait until this weekend. In case you're curious, I'll be buying the two-disc set for $40 instead of the single disc DVD for $30. The two-disc set includes several performances by Jouaquin Phoenix and Reece Witherspoon that were not in the movie.

If you haven't seen this movie yet, you should at least rent it, or come over to my house and watch it. One of my favorite movies ever. And I HATE Joauquin Phoenix. Ever since he played the emperor in Gladiator (and played it quite well, I might add), I have hated him and any movie he is in (Ladder 49). But now, I think he deserves an Oscar. Seriously, it is the biggest comeback since Penn was down 19 points to Princeton at the Palestra with 7 minutes to play before Tim Begley led the Quakers back in the greatest college basketball game I will ever watch in person.

PS - I am in San Antonio with Debbie. I'm not sure how much time I'll have to blog any more this week. Let's hope I don't.